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Joseph Smith's First Vision
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Joseph Smith's First Vision
Summary: Joseph Smith's announcement that he saw the Father and the Son in 1820 has produced a broad response, from faithful to critical. This set of articles addresses why there are multiple accounts of the First Vision, the events leading to and occurring after the vision, and a review of the doctrinal developments from the vision. Original accounts of the vision are also included.
Video published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Jump to Subtopic:
- Multiple accounts of the First Vision
- Events leading to the First Vision
- Events occurring after the First Vision
- The First Vision and doctrine
- Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision
Multiple accounts of the First Vision
Summary: Historians have published and discussed the various accounts of Joseph Smith's first vision for decades.
First video published by the Church History Department.
Jump to Subtopic:
- Joseph Smith's various accounts of the First Vision
- Joseph Smith's 1832 account of the First Vision
- Joseph Smith's 1835 accounts of the First Vision
- Joseph Smith's 1838 account of the First Vision
- Joseph Smith's first and second visitation of angels
- Joseph Smith's 1832 First Vision account states he was 15 years old
- Discrepancies in Paul's account of his vision
FAIR Answers—back to home page
Accounts |
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Historical context |
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Doctrinal impact |
Joseph Smith's First Vision
Video published by Doctrine and Covenants Central.
Joseph Smith and the Methodists
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- Question: What critical claims are related to Joseph Smith becoming "partial to the Methodist sect" near the time of the First Vision?
- Question: When did Joseph Smith become "partial to the Methodist sect?"
- Question: When did the Methodists acquire property near Palmyra to hold their camp meetings?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith join the Methodists as an "exhorter" years after being told not to join another church during the First Vision?
Lucy Mack Smith and the Presbyterians
Jump to Subtopic:
- Question: When was Lucy Mack Smith baptized?
- Question: Did Lucy Mack Smith join the Presbyterian Church after her son Alvin died in 1823?
- Question: Did Lucy Mack Smith state when she joined the Presbyterians?
Religious activity in the Palmyra area in 1820
Summary: It is claimed that there were no religious revivals in the Palmyra, New York area in 1820, contrary to Joseph Smith's claims that during that year there was "an unusual excitement on the subject of religion...indeed, the whole district of country seemed affected by it"
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- Christofferson (2013): "Critics have also claimed that there were no religious revivals in the Palmyra, New York, area in 1820"
- Question: What religious excitement was occurring in Palmyra in 1820?
- Question: Was there no mention of revival activity in 1820 in the newspaper?
- Question: At what age did Joseph Smith become concerned about religion?
- Question: What evidence of religious excitement is there from non-Mormon sources?
- Question: Were revivals and religious excitement too common to be noticed in the newspapers?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith simply conflate elements of the 1818 and 1824-25 revivals in his story of the First Vision?
- Palmyra Register (1820): "It was far from our intention to charge the Methodists with retailing ardent spirits while professedly met for the worship of their God"
- Benajah Williams (1820): "Had a two Days meeting at Sq Bakers in Richmond. Br. Wright being gone to campmeeting on Ridgeway circuit I expected to find Br. J. Hayes at the Meeting"
- Question: Did Gordon B. Hinckley cite false information regarding an 1820 Palmyra revival in a book called Truth Restored?
The Smith family place of residence in 1820
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FAIR Answers—back to home page
Accounts |
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Historical context |
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Doctrinal impact |
Joseph Smith's First Vision
Joseph Smith's early knowledge of the nature of God
Jump to Subtopic:
- Question: Did Joseph begin his prophetic career with a "trinitarian" idea of God?
- Question: Did Oliver Cowdery state that Joseph did not know if a "supreme being" existed in 1823?
- Question: Is the fact that Latter-day Saint missionaries were teaching around 1 November 1830 that Joseph Smith had seen “God” personally a reference to having seen Jesus Christ, but not the Father?
Published references to Joseph Smith's First Vision
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- Question: How early was the story of the First Vision known among the members of the Church?
- The Joseph Smith Papers: "The historical preamble to the 1830 'articles and covenants,' for example, appears to reference JS’s vision in speaking of a moment when 'it truly was manifested unto this first elder, that he had received a remission of his sins'"
- Question: Why didn't the newspapers in Palmyra take notice of Joseph Smith's First Vision?
- Question: What references to the First Vision exist in published documents from the 1830s?
- Question: Was the general membership of the LDS Church not familiar with the First Vision story until late in the nineteenth century?
- Question: What LDS publications between 1840 and 1877 include references to Joseph Smith's First Vision?
- Question: Is there any mention of the First Vision in non-Mormon literature before 1843?
- Question: If the First Vision story was known by the public before 1840, then would anti-Mormons “surely” have seized upon it as an evidence of Joseph Smith’s imposture?
Brigham Young and Joseph Smith's First Vision
Summary: It is claimed either that Brigham never taught about the First Vision, or that he taught that the Lord did not appear to Joseph. Both claims are false.
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- Question: What is Brigham Young claimed to have said that leads one to doubt that he denied the First Vision?
- Juncker (1994): "Unknown to many, the early church fathers often referred to Jesus as an Angel....in antiquity the word 'angel' meant 'messenger.'"
- Question:Is there anything wrong with early Church leaders using the term "angel" to refer to Jesus Christ?
- Question: Did Brigham Young confirm or expound on Joseph Smith’s first vision?
- Question: When and how often did Brigham Young refer to elements of Joseph Smith's First Vision in his discourses?
- Brigham Young (1861): "The Lord chose Joseph Smith, called upon him at fourteen years of age, gave him visions"
- Brigham Young (1855): "The Lord did not come with the armies of heaven...But He did send His angel to this same obscure person, Joseph Smith jun"
- Brigham Young (1867): "the Lord called upon Joseph he was but a boy—a child, only about fourteen years of age"
John Taylor's understanding of the First Vision
Jump to Subtopic:
- Question: What do critics of the Church say about John Taylor and the First Vision?
- Question: What did John Taylor have to say about Joseph Smith's First Vision?
- Question:Is there anything wrong with early Church leaders using the term "angel" to refer to Jesus Christ?
- John Taylor (2 March 1879): "the Father and the Son...came to Joseph Smith" and "the Prophet Joseph asked the angel"
- Juncker (1994): "Unknown to many, the early church fathers often referred to Jesus as an Angel....in antiquity the word 'angel' meant 'messenger'"
Did Joseph Smith join other churches contrary to commandment in the First Vision?
Jump to Subtopic:
- Question: Did Joseph Smith join the Methodist, Presbyterian, or Baptist churches between 1820 and 1830 despite the claim made in his 1838 history that he was forbidden by Deity from joining any denomination?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith become a baptized member of the Baptist Church in 1822?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith become a member of the Methodist Church while he was translating the Book of Mormon?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith join the Presbyterian Church after the First Vision?
- Questions: Are there contemporary witnesses that confirm that Joseph Smith didn't join any church after the First Vision?
Persecution of Joseph Smith after the First Vision
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- Question: Do contemporary documents shed any light on the possible persecution of the Smith family after Joseph Smith's First Vision?
- Question: What did Joseph Smith's mother Lucy Smith say regarding the persecution of the Smith family after the First Vision?
- Question: What did Joseph Smith's brother William Smith say regarding the persecution of the Smith family after the First Vision?
- Question: What did Joseph Smith's contemporaries say regarding the persecution of the Smith family after the First Vision?
- Question: Does Joseph Smith's 1832 account of the First Vision not mention that he was persecuted for telling others about the vision?
Claims that the First Vision was fabricated by Joseph Smith to give him a line of "Godly authority"
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- Question: Was the First Vision fabricated to give Joseph Smith "Godly authority?"
- Question: Did Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision grow more detailed and more colorful after he first recorded it in 1832?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith revise his account of the First Vision in 1838 to respond to a leadership crisis?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith lose control of the Church during the 1838 Kirtland apostasy?
- Don Bradley, "The Original Context of the First Vision Narrative: 1820s or 1830s"
Some Church leaders referred to the personages that appeared in the First Vision as "angels"
Jump to Subtopic:
- Question: Is it possible that as late as the end of the nineteenth century that there was uncertainty among Mormon Church officials about the identity of the personages that appeared to Joseph Smith during his First Vision?
- Question: Who was the "angel" in the First Vision that Andrew Jenson was referring to?
- Juncker (1994): "Unknown to many, the early church fathers often referred to Jesus as an Angel....in antiquity the word 'angel' meant 'messenger.'"
- Question:Is there anything wrong with early Church leaders using the term "angel" to refer to Jesus Christ?
First Vision accounts in Church publications
Summary: The claim is sometimes made by critics that the Church hides the various accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision that are not in its official canon. The following chronological database (compiled by FAIR volunteer Edward Jones) demonstrates conclusively that this is simply not the case. The various accounts of the First Vision have been widely acknowledged in LDS-authored sources throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
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- LDS-Authored Publications (1910-1968)
- LDS-Authored Publications (1969-1978)
- LDS-Authored Publications (1979-1983)
- LDS-Authored Publications (1984-1989)
- LDS-Authored Publications (1990-1997)
- LDS-Authored Publications (1998-2003)
- LDS-Authored Publications (2004-Present)
- REDIRECT The First Vision and doctrine