The First Vision (also called the grove experience) refers to a vision that Joseph Smith, Jr. said he received as a youth in a wooded area in Manchester, New York, which his followers call the Sacred Grove. Smith described it as a personal theophany in which he received a forgiveness of sins. Smith's followers believe the vision reinforces his authority as the founder and prophet of the Latter Day Saint movement. According to an account Smith told in the 1840s, he went to the woods to pray about which church to join but fell into the grip of an evil power that nearly overtook him. At the last moment, he was rescued by two shining "personages" (presumably Jesus and God the Father) who hovered above him. One of the beings told Smith not to join any existing churches because all taught incorrect doctrines.
Smith wrote several accounts of the vision beginning in 1832, but none of the accounts was published until the 1840s. Though Smith had described other visions, the First Vision was essentially unknown to early Latter Day Saints; Smith's experience did not become important in the Latter Day Saint movement until the early-20th century, when it became the embodiment of the Latter Day Saint restoration. The vision also replaced polygamy as one of the defining elements of Mormonism[1] and corroborated distinctive Mormon doctrines such as the bodily nature of God the Father and the uniqueness of Mormonism as the only true path to salvation.[2]
Critics hold varying opinions about the true nature of the First Vision, believing it to be a dream, a hallucination, a self-deception, an intentional fabrication, or some combination of these.[3]
Joseph Smith wrote or dictated several versions of his vision story, and told the story to others who later published what they remember hearing. Taken together, these accounts set forth the following details:
Smith said that when he was about twelve (c. 1817-18), he became interested in religion and distressed about his sins.[4] He studied the Bible and attended church, but the accounts differ as to whether he determined on his own that there was no existing religion built upon the true teachings of Jesus[5] or whether the idea that all churches were false had not "entered his heart" until he experienced the vision.[6] During this period of religious concern, he determined to turn to God in prayer. An early account says the purpose of this prayer was to ask God for mercy for his sins[5] while later accounts emphasize his desire to know which church he should join.[7] Therefore, as his mother had done years before when concerned about an important religious question,[8] Smith said he went one spring morning to a secluded grove near his home to pray.[9] He said he went to a stump in a clearing where he had left his axe the day before[10] and began to offer his first audible prayer.[11]
He said his prayer was interrupted by a "being from the unseen world" more powerful than any he had previously encountered.[12] Smith said the spirit caused his tongue to swell in his mouth so that he could not speak,[13] One account said he heard a noise behind him like someone walking towards him[14] and then, when he tried to pray again, the noise grew louder, causing him to spring to his feet and look around, but he saw no one.[14] In some of the accounts, he described being covered with a thick darkness and thinking that he would be destroyed.[15] At his darkest moment, he knelt a third time to pray [14] and, as he summoned all his power to pray, he felt ready to sink into oblivion.[16] At that moment, he said his tongue was loosed and he saw a vision.[17]
Smith said he saw a pillar of light brighter than the noonday sun that slowly descended on him,[18] growing in brightness as it descended and lighting the entire area for some distance.[19] As the light reached the tree tops, Smith feared the trees might catch fire.[20] But when it reached the ground and enveloped him, it produced a "peculiar sensation."[21] "[H]is mind was caught away from the natural objects with which he was surrounded; and he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision."[22]
While experiencing the vision, he said he saw one or more "personages," described differently in Smith's accounts. In one, Smith said he "saw the Lord."[23] In diary entries, he said he saw a "visitation of Angels"[24] or a "vision of angels" that included "a personage," and then "another personage" who testified that "Jesus Christ is the Son of God," as well as "many angels".[25] In later accounts, Smith consistently said that he had seen two personages who appeared one after the other.[26] These personages "exactly resembled each other in their features or likeness."[27] The first personage had "light complexion, blue eyes, a piece of white cloth drawn over his shoulders, his right arm bare."[28] In later accounts, one of the personages called Smith by name "and said, (pointing to the other), 'This is my beloved Son, hear him.'"[15] Although Smith left their identity unexplicit, most Latter Day Saints infer that these personages were God the Father and Jesus.[29]
In two accounts, Smith said that the Lord told him his sins were forgiven, that he should obey the commandments, that the world was corrupt, and that the Second Coming was approaching.[30] Later accounts say that when the personages appeared, Smith asked them "O Lord, what church shall I join?"[10] or "Must I join the Methodist Church?"[28] In answer, he was told that "all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines, and that none of them was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom."[31] All churches and their professors were "corrupt",[32] and "all their creeds were an abomination in his sight."[15] Smith was told not to join any of the churches, but that the "fulness of the gospel" would be known to him at a later time.[33] After the vision withdrew, Smith said he "came to myself" and found himself sprawled on his back.[34]
Joseph Smith, Jr. was born on December 23, 1805 in Vermont, and c. 1816-17, his family moved to a farm just outside the town of Palmyra.[35] Like many other Americans living on the frontier at the beginning of the 19th century, Joseph Smith, Jr. and his family believed in visions, dreams, and other mystical communications with God.[36] For example, in 1811, Joseph Smith, Jr.'s maternal grandfather, Solomon Mack, described a series of visions and voices from God that resulted in his conversion to Christianity at the age of seventy-six.[37]
Before Joseph Smith, Jr. was born, his mother Lucy Mack Smith went to a grove near her home in Vermont and prayed about her husband Joseph Smith, Sr.'s repudiation of evangelical religion.[8] That night she said she had a dream which she interpreted as a prophecy that Joseph, Sr., would later accept the "pure and undefiled Gospel of the Son of God."[38] She also stated that Smith, Sr. had a number of dreams or visions between 1811 and 1819,[39] the first vision occurring when his mind was "much excited upon the subject of religion."[40] Joseph Sr.'s first vision confirmed to him the correctness of his refusal to join any organized religious group.[41]
The Smith family was also exposed to the intense revivalism of this era. During the Second Great Awakening, numerous revivals occurred in many communities in the northeastern United States and were often reported in the Palmyra Register, a local paper read by the Smith family.[42] In the Palmyra area itself, the only large multi-denominational revivals occurred in 1816-1817 and 1824-1825.[43] In the intervening years, there were Methodist revivals, at least within twenty road miles of Palmyra; and more than sixty years later a newspaper editor in Lyons, New York, recalled "various religious awakenings in the neighborhood." [44]
The family also practiced a form of folk magic,[45] which, although not uncommon in this time and place, was criticized by many contemporary Protestants "as either fraudulent illusion or the workings of the Devil."[46] Both Joseph Smith, Sr. and at least two of his sons worked at "money digging," using seer stones in (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure.[47] In a draft of her memoirs, Lucy Mack Smith referred to folk magic:
I shall change my theme for the present, but let not my reader suppose that because I shall pursue another topic for a season that we stopt our labor and went at trying to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles or soothsaying, to the neglect of all kinds of business. We never during our lives suffered one important interest to swallow up every other obligation. But whilst we worked with our hands, we endeavored to remember the service of and the welfare of our souls.[48]
D. Michael Quinn has written that Lucy Mack Smith viewed these magical practices as "part of her family's religious quest" while denying that they prevented "family members from accomplishing other, equally important work."[49] Quinn also notes that the Smith family "participated in a wide range of magic practices, and Smith's first vision occurred within the context of his family's treasure quest."[50] Jan Shipps notes that while Joseph Smith's "religious claims were rejected by many of the persons who had known him in the 1820s because they remembered him as a practitioner of the magic arts," others of his earliest followers were attracted to his claims "for precisely the same reason."[51]
Richard Bushman has called the spiritual tradition of the Smith family "a religious melee." Joseph Smith, Sr., insisted on morning and evening prayers, but he was spiritually adrift. "If there was a personal motive for Joseph Smith Jr.'s revelations, it was to satisfy his family's religious want and, above all, to meet the need of his oft-defeated, unmoored father."[52] No members of the Smith family were church members before 1820, the reported date of the First Vision.[53]
Smith said that his First Vision occurred in the early 1820s, when he was in his early teens[54] but his accounts mention different dates within that period. In 1832, Smith wrote that the vision had occurred "in the 16th year of [his] age" (about 1821), after he became concerned about religious matters beginning in his "twelfth year" (about 1817).[55] In a later account Smith said the vision took place "early in the spring of 1820" after an "unusual excitement on the subject of religion" ending during his 15th year (1820).[56]
LDS member and Columbia University Professor Richard Bushman wrote that Smith 'began to be concerned about religion in late 1817 or early 1818, when the aftereffects of the revival of 1816 and 1817 were still being felt." [57] LDS apologist Milton Backman wrote that religious outbreaks occurred in 1819-1820 within a fifty-mile radius of Smith's home. "Church records, newspapers, religious journals, and other contemporary sources clearly reveal that great awakenings occurred in more than fifty western New York towns or villages during the revival of 1819–1820....Primary sources also specify that great multitudes joined the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Calvinist Baptist societies in the region of country where Joseph Smith lived." [58]
According to non-Mormon critics, H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters, there is no evidence that large multi-denominational revivals took place in the immediate Palmyra area between 1819 and 1820, the period specified by Smith in the canonized account of the First Vision. Smith's statement that "great multitudes" joined the various religious denominations "in the neighborhood where I lived," is not borne out by the surviving documents. Neither the Presbyterian, Baptist, nor Methodist churches in Palmyra experienced any remarkable religious outpouring. The Methodist circuit in the area even showed net losses from 1819 to 1821. "Denominational magazines of that day were full of reports of revivals, some even devoting separate sections to them." While these magazines covered the 1816-17 and the 1824-25 revivals in the Palmyra area, there is "not a single mention of any revival taking place in the Palmyra area" in 1819-20.[59] In the opinion of non-Mormon author Wesley Walters, apologists for the Mormon position treat Smith's reference to the "whole district of country" as if they referred to "some kind of statewide revival, without notice of the fact that he is talking about a revival that commenced with the Methodists 'in the place where we lived' and then 'became general among all the sects in that region of country.'"[60] D. Michael Quinn notes a Methodist camp meeting in Palmyra in June 1818.[61] In 1819, a large Methodist conference was held in the town of Vienna (now Phelps), about fifteen miles from Palmyra, but there are no extant records of any revival meetings held in conjunction with it.[62]
In the canonized version of the First Vision (first published in 1842), his family's decision to join the Presbyterian Church occurs prior to his First Vision.[63] But Lucy Mack Smith said that she and some of her children sought comfort in the church after the death of her oldest son, Alvin, in November 1823, which if her memory was correct, would place the date of the first vision no earlier than 1824.[64] In 1845, Lucy recalled that she tried to persuade her "husband to join with them as I wished to do so myself." [65] Her three oldest children Hyrum, Samuel, and Sophronia also joined the Presbyterian church, but "the two Josephs resisted her enthusiasm."[66] Wesley Walters argues that "Smith's family could not have joined the Presbyterian Church in 1820 as a result of revival in the area, and then joined the same church again in 1823 as a result of another revival." [67] D. Michael Quinn says that Smith's account is a conflation of events over several years, a typical biographical device for streamlining the narrative.[68]
Local moves of the Smith family have also been used in attempts to identify the date of the vision. In the canonized version, Joseph Smith wrote that the First Vision occurred in "the second year after our removal to Manchester."[69] The evidence for the date of this move has been interpreted by believers as supporting 1820 and by non-believers as supporting 1824.[70]
The LDS Church has canonized the 1842 account in which Joseph Smith said that this vision occurred "early in the spring of 1820." [54] Two LDS scholars, researching weather reports and maple sugar production records, argue that the most likely exact date for the First Vision was Sunday, March 26, 1820.[71]
The importance of the First Vision within the Latter Day Saint movement evolved over time. There is little evidence that Smith discussed the First Vision publicly prior to 1830.[72] Mormon historian James B. Allen notes that:
The fact that none of the available contemporary writings about Joseph Smith in the 1830s, none of the publications of the Church in that decade, and no contemporary journal or correspondence yet discovered mentions the story of the first vision is convincing evidence that at best it received only limited circulation in those early days.[73]
Smith said that he made an oblique reference to the vision in 1820 to his mother, telling her the day it happened that he had "learned for [him]self that Presbyterianism is not true."[74] Lucy did not mention this conversation in her memoirs.[75]
In the oldest known full account of the First Vision, Joseph Smith, Jr., said he "could find none that would believe" his experience.[76] He said that shortly after the experience, he told the story of his revelation to a Methodist minister[77] who responded "with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil, that there was no such thing as visions or revelations in these days; that all such things had ceased with the apostles, and that there never would be any more of them."[78] He also said that the telling of his vision story "excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase."[79] There is no extant evidence from the 1830s for this persecution beyond Smith's own testimony.[80] None of the earliest anti-Mormon literature mentioned the First Vision.[81] Smith also said he told others about the vision during the 1820s, and some family members said that they had heard him mention it, but none prior to 1823, when Smith said he had his second vision.[82]
The reminiscences of Smith's family and Palmyra neighbors offer another perspective. In the early 1820s, Smith was enrolled in a Methodist probationary class. An associate called him a "very passable exhorter,"[83] although some people considered his interpretations of scripture "persistent blasphemies."[84] Smith reportedly withdrew from the probationary class, announcing a belief that "all sectarianism was fallacious, and the churches on a false foundation."[84] According to one recollection, Smith "arose and announced that his mission was to restore the true priesthood. He appointed a number of meetings, but no one seemed inclined to follow him as the leader of a new religion."[85] Eventually, he refused to attend any religious services, telling his Mother, "I can take my Bible, and go into the woods, and learn more in two hours, than you can learn at meeting in two years, if you should go all the time."[86] During this time, Smith was also hired to use seer stones in attempts to divine hidden treasure. Although Smith encountered local opposition as a result of this "glass looking" and was brought to trial for it in 1826,[87] no one but Smith recorded opposition to his putative announcement of the First Vision.
In June 1830, Smith provided the first clear record of a significant personal religious experience prior to the visit of the angel Moroni.[88] At that time, Smith and his associate Oliver Cowdery were establishing the Church of Christ, the first Latter Day Saint church. In the Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ, Smith recounted his early history, noting
For, after that it truly was manifested unto [Smith] that he had received remission of his sins, he was entangled again in the vanities of the world, but after truly repenting, God visited him by an holy angel...and gave unto him power, by the means which was before prepared that he should translate a book." [89]
No further explanation of this "manifestation" is provided. Although the reference was later linked to the First Vision,[90] its original hearers could have understood the manifestation as simply another of many revival experiences in which the subject testified that his sins had been forgiven.[91] However, when in October 1830 the author Peter Bauder interviewed Smith for a religious book he was writing, he said Smith was unable to recount a "Christian experience."[92]
The earliest extant account of the First Vision was handwritten by Joseph Smith in 1832, but it was not published until 1965.[93]
[T]he Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in <the> attitude of calling upon the Lord <in the 16th year of my age> a pillar of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the <Lord> opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph <my son> thy sins are forgiven thee. go thy <way> walk in my statutes and keep my commandments behold I am the Lord of glory I was crucifyed for the world that all those who believe on my name may have Eternal life <behold> the world lieth in sin and at this time and none doeth good no not one they have turned aside from the gospel and keep not <my> commandments they draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth to visit them according to th[e]ir ungodliness and to bring to pass that which <hath> been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and Ap[o]stles behold and lo I come quickly as it [is] written of me in the cloud <clothed> in the glory of my Father . . . ."[94]
Unlike Smith's later accounts of the vision, the 1832 account emphasizes personal forgiveness and mentions neither an appearance of God the Father nor the phrase "This is my beloved Son, hear him." In the 1832 account, Smith also stated that before he experienced the First Vision, his own searching of the Scriptures had led him to the conclusion that mankind had "apostatized from the true and living faith and there was no society or denomination that built upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the new testament."[95]
In several issues of the LDS periodical Messenger and Advocate (1834–35),[96] Oliver Cowdery wrote an early biography of Joseph Smith, Jr. In one issue, Cowdery explained that Smith was confused by the different religions and local revivals during his "15th year" (1820), leading him to wonder which church was true. In the next issue of the biography, Cowdery explained that reference to Smith's "15th year" was a typographical error, and that actually the revivals and religious confusion took place in Smith's "17th year."
Therefore, according to Cowdery, the religious confusion led Smith to pray in his bedroom, late on the night of September 23, 1823, after the others had gone to sleep, to know which of the competing denominations was correct and whether "a Supreme being did exist." In response, an angel appeared and granted him forgiveness of his sins. The remainder of the story roughly parallels Smith's later description of a visit by an angel in 1823 who told him about the Golden Plates. Thus, Cowdery's account, containing a single vision, differs from Smith's 1832 account, which contains two separate visions, one in 1821 prompted by religious confusion (the First Vision) and a separate one regarding the plates on September 22, 1822. Cowdery's account also differs from Smith's 1842 account, which includes a First Vision in 1820 and a second vision on September 22, 1823.
On November 9, 1835, Smith dictated an account of the First Vision in his diary after telling it to a stranger[97] who had visited his home earlier that day.[98] Smith said that when perplexed about religions matters, he had gone to a grove to pray[99] but that his tongue seemed swollen in his mouth and that he had been interrupted twice by the sound of someone walking behind him.[100] Finally, as he prayed, he said his tongue was loosed, and he saw a pillar of fire in which an unidentified "personage" appeared.[101] Then another unidentified personage told Smith his sins were forgiven and "testified unto [Smith] that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."[101] An interlineation in the text notes, "and I saw many angels in this vision."[101] Smith said this vision occurred when he was 14 years old and that when he was 17, he "saw another vision of angels in the night season after I had retired to bed" (referring to the later visit of the angel Moroni who showed him the location of the golden plates).[101] Smith identified none of these personages or angels with "the Lord" as he had in 1832.[102]
A few days later, on 14 November 1835, Smith told the story to another visitor, Erastus Holmes.[103] In his journal, Smith said that he had recited his life story "up to the time I received the first visitation of angels, which was when I was about fourteen years old."[104]
In 1838, Joseph Smith began dictating the early history of what later became known as the Latter Day Saint movement.[105] This history included a new account of the First Vision, later published in three issues of the Times and Seasons journal.[106] This version was later incorporated into the Pearl of Great Price, which was canonized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1880. Thus, it is often called the "canonized version" of the first vision story.
This canonized version differs from the 1840 version because the canonized version includes the proclamation "This is my beloved son, hear him" from one of the personages, whereas the 1840 version does not. The canonized version says that in the spring of 1820, during a period of "confusion and strife among the different denominations" following an "unusual excitement on the subject of religion", he had debated which of the various Christian groups he should join. While in turmoil, he read from the Bible: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."[107]
One morning, deeply impressed by this scripture, the fourteen-year-old Smith went to a grove of trees behind the family farm, knelt, and began his first vocal prayer. Almost immediately he was confronted by an evil power that prevented speech. A darkness gathered around him, and Smith believed that he would be destroyed. He continued the prayer silently, asking for God's assistance though still resigned to destruction. At this moment a light brighter than the sun descended towards him, and he was delivered from the evil power.
In the light, Smith "saw two personages standing in the air", identified as God the Father and Jesus Christ. One pointed to the other and said "This is My Beloved Son, hear Him." Smith asked which religious sect he should join and was told to join none of them because all existing religions had corrupted the teachings of Jesus Christ.[108]
In September 1840, Orson Pratt published a version of the First Vision in England.[109] This version states that after Smith saw the light, "his mind was caught away, from the natural objects with which he was surrounded; and he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision."[110] Pratt's account referred to "two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in their features or likeness",[110] but this account does not include the proclamation by one of the personages "This is my beloved son, hear him", which is found in the canonized version.
In 1842, two years before his assassination, Joseph Smith, Jr. wrote to John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat, outlining the basic beliefs of the Latter Day Saint movement and including an account of the First Vision.[111] Smith said that he had been "about fourteen years of age" when he had received the First Vision[112] Like the Orson Pratt account, Smith's Wentworth letter said that his "mind was taken away from the objects with which I was surrounded, and I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision."[112] and had seen "two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in features, and likeness, surrounded with a brilliant light which eclipsed the sun at noon-day."[113] Smith said he was told that no religious denomination "was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom" and that he was "expressly commanded to 'go not after them.'"[113]
Late in his life, Smith's brother, William, gave two accounts of the First Vision, dating it to 1823,[114] when William was twelve years old. William said the religious excitement in Palmyra had occurred in 1822-23 (rather than the actual date of 1824-25),[115] that it was stimulated by the preaching of a Methodist, the Rev. George Lane, a "great revival preacher," and that his mother and some of his siblings had then joined the Presbyterian church.[116]
William Smith said he based his account on what Joseph had told William and the rest of his family the day after the First Vision:[117]
[A] light appeared in the heavens, and descended until it rested upon the trees where he was. It appeared like fire. But to his great astonishment, did not burn the trees. An angel then appeared to him and conversed with him upon many things. He told him that none of the sects were right; but that if he was faithful in keeping the commandments he should receive, the true way should be made known to him; that his sins were forgiven, etc.[117]
In an 1884 account, William also stated that when Joseph first saw the light above the trees in the grove, he fell unconscious for an undetermined amount of time, after which he awoke and heard "the personage whom he saw" speak to him.[118]
Among contemporary denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement, the First Vision is typically viewed as a significant (often the most significant) event in the latter day restoration of the Church of Christ. However, the faiths differ in their teachings about the vision's precise meaning and details. Secular scholars and non-Mormons view the vision as a lie, false memory, delusion, or hallucination, or some combination of these.
The importance of the First Vision within the Latter Day Saint movement evolved over time. Early adherents were unaware of the details of the vision until 1840, when the earliest accounts were published in Great Britain. An account of the First Vision was not published in the United States until 1842, shortly before Joseph Smith's death. Jan Shipps has written that the vision was "practically unknown" until an account of it was published in 1842.[119]
The canonical First Vision story was not emphasized in the sermons of Smith's immediate successors Brigham Young and John Taylor within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hugh Nibley noted that although a "favorite theme of Brigham Young's was the tangible, personal nature of God," he "never illustrates [the theme] by any mention of the first vision."[120] John Taylor gave a complete account of the First Vision story in an 1850 letter written as he began missionary work in France,[121] and he may have alluded to it in a discourse given in 1859.[122] However, when Taylor discussed the origins of Mormonism in 1863, he did so without alluding to the canonical First Vision story,[123] and in 1879, he referred to Joseph Smith having asked "the angel" which of the sects was correct.[124]
Three non-Mormon students of Mormonism, Douglas Davies, Kurt Widmer, and Jan Shipps agree that the LDS emphasis on the First Vision was a "'late development', only gaining an influential status in LDS self-reflection late in the nineteenth century." [125] Mormon historian James B. Allen also argues that the First Vision "did not figure prominently in any evangelistic endeavors by the Church until the 1880s."[126] The first important visual representation of the First Vision was painted by the Danish convert C. C. A. Christensen sometime between 1869 and 1878, and George Manwaring, inspired by the artist, wrote a hymn about the First Vision (later renamed "Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning") first published in 1884.[127]
Kurt Widner states that it was primarily through "the post 1883 sermons of LDS Apostle George Q. Cannon that the modern interpretation and significance of the First Vision in Mormonism began to take shape."[128] As the sympathetic but non-Mormon historian Jan Shipps has written, "When the first generation of leadership died off, leaving the community to be guided mainly by men who had not known Joseph, the First Vision emerged as a symbol that could keep the slain Mormon leader at center stage."[129] The centennial anniversary of the vision in 1920 "was a far cry from the almost total lack of reference to it just fifty years before."[130] By 1939, even George D. Pyper, an LDS Sunday School superintendent and manager of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, found it "surprising that none of the first song writers wrote intimately of the first vision."[131]
LDS Church president Joseph F. Smith is credited with having fully raised the First Vision to its modern status as a pillar of Mormon theology. Largely through Joseph F. Smith's influence, Smith's 1838 account of the First Vision became part of the canon of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1880 when the faith canonized Smith's early history as part of the Pearl of Great Price.[132] After plural marriage ended at the turn of the 20th century, the First Vision was promoted heavily by Joseph F. Smith, and it soon replaced polygamy in the minds of adherents as the main defining element of Mormonism and the source of the faith's perception of persecution by outsiders.[133] As a result, belief in the First Vision is now considered fundamental to the faith, second in importance only to belief in the divinity of Jesus.[134] An official website of the Church calls the First Vision "the greatest event in world history since the birth, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus Christ."[135]
In 1998, Gordon B. Hinckley, then Church President and Prophet, declared,
Our entire case as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rests on the validity of this glorious First Vision. It was the parting of the curtain to open this, the dispensation of the fullness of times. Nothing on which we base our doctrine, nothing we teach, nothing we live by is of greater importance than this initial declaration. I submit that if Joseph Smith talked with God the Father and His Beloved Son, then all else of which he spoke is true. This is the hinge on which turns the gate that leads to the path of salvation and eternal life.[136]
In 1961 Hinckley went even further, "Either Joseph Smith talked with the Father and the Son or he did not. If he did not, we are engaged in a blasphemy."[137] Likewise, in a January 2007 interview conducted for the PBS documentary "The Mormons," Hinckley said of the First Vision, "[I]t's either true or false. If it's false, we're engaged in a great fraud. If it's true, it's the most important thing in the world....That's our claim. That's where we stand, and that's where we fall, if we fall. But we don't. We just stand secure in that faith."[138]
According to the LDS church the vision teaches that God the Father and Jesus Christ are separate beings with glorified bodies of flesh and bone; that mankind was literally created in the image of God; that Satan is real but God infinitely greater; that God hears and answers prayer; that no other contemporary church had the fullness of Christ's gospel; and that revelation has not ceased. In the 21st century, the Vision features prominently in the Church's program of proselytism.[139]
William B. Smith, a younger brother of Joseph Smith, Jr., and a key figure in the early Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS, renamed Community of Christ in 2001) gave several accounts of the First Vision, although in 1883 he stated that a "more elaborate and accurate description of his vision" was to be found in Joseph Smith's own history[140]
The RLDS Church did not emphasize the First Vision during the 19th century.[141] In the early 20th century, there was a revival of interest, and during most of the century, the First Vision was viewed as an essential element of the Restoration. In many cases, it was taught as the foundation and even the embodiment of the Restoration.[142] The Vision was also interpreted as a justification for the exclusive authority of the RLDS Church as the Church of Christ.[143]
In the mid- to late-20th century, writers within the RLDS church emphasized the First Vision as an illustration of the centrality of Jesus.[144] The church began taking a broader view of the Vision, and used it as an example of how God evolves the church over time through revelation and restoration.[145] There was less emphasis on the Great Apostasy and a growing belief that the First Vision itself was not necessarily identical with Joseph Smith's later reconstructions and interpretations of the vision, what one RLDS Church Historian has called "genuine historical sophistication."[146] In 1980, this Church Historian noted that he had "systematically brought to the attention" of hundreds of church members "the substantive differences in half a dozen accounts of the First Vision" and expressed his satisfaction that RLDS scholars, "deeply moved and augmented by the presence of the wondrously diverse and conflicting accounts of the First Vision," could "begin the exciting work of developing a mythology of Latter Day Saint beginnings."[147]
Today, the Community of Christ generally refers to the First Vision as the "grove experience" and takes a flexible view about its historicity,[148] emphasizing the healing presence of God and the forgiving mercy of Jesus Christ felt by Joseph Smith.[149]
The Church of Jesus Christ, a Rigdonite branch with 15,000 members headquartered in Pennsylvania, has had an independent history from the Brighamite branches since the 1844 succession crisis. The church refers to the vision obliquely in a lengthy excerpt from Smith's 1842 account included in its official literature, in which the date "1820" and "a personage" (singular, not plural) are mentioned in paraphrases.[150]
The Church of Christ (Temple Lot), a non-Brighamite branch with 5000 adherents, follows the David Whitmer tradition in rejecting many of Smith's post-1832 revelations.[151] Nevertheless, the church uses several elements of the 1842 account of the First Vision including Smith's desire to know which church he should join, his reading of James 1:5, his prayer in the grove, the appearance of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, the statement by Jesus Christ that all existing churches were corrupt, and the instruction that he should join none of them.[152]
Writing of the "unusual excitement on the subject of religion" described in the First Vision story canonized by the LDS Church, Milton V. Backman, Jr., associate professor of history and religion at Brigham Young University, said that although "the tools of the historian" could neither verify nor challenge the First Vision, "records of the past can be examined to determine the reliability of Joseph's description regarding the historical setting."[153] Grant Palmer and others claim that there are serious discrepancies between the various accounts, as well as anachronisms revealed by lack of contemporary corroboration.[154]
For instance, in the canonized account, Smith said that when he shared his vision with a Methodist minister, the latter treated his "communication not only lightly, but with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil, that there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days." Smith said that he became the "subject of great persecution, which continued to increase."[155] But according to emeritus Brigham Young University history professor James B. Allen, there is no known evidence beyond Smith's word that he ever mentioned his vision to a minister—or in fact, to anyone else—for years after the event is supposed to have occurred. Nor is there any known evidence that the young Smith was persecuted for telling the First Vision story during the 1820s.[156]
Critics of the First Vision cite the multiple versions of the First Vision as evidence that it may have been fabricated by Smith.[157] Critics specifically identify the following discrepancies between the various versions:[158]
Joseph Smith's Accounts:
| Source of First Vision | Supernatural beings | Messages from beings | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1832 Joseph Smith's own handwriting from his Letterbook The Papers of Joseph Smith, v1, p5-7, Dean Jessee (ed.), Deseret Book Company 1989.[159] And Early Mormon Documents, v 1, p27-29, Dan Vogel, Signature Books, 1996. | "The Lord" | "Thy sins are fogiven thee". | Smith decides for himself that all churches are corrupt. Vision in Smith's "16th year" (i.e. when he is 15 years old). All other accounts state his age as 14. |
| 1835, Nov. 9 - Joseph Smith diary (Ohio Journal, handwritten, Warren Parrish scribe) The Papers of Joseph Smith, Dean Jessee (ed.), v2, p68-69. Deseret Book Company 1989.[159] | Two unidentified personages, and "many angels" | "Thy sins are fogiven thee" and Jesus is the "son of God" | No message of revivals or corrupt churches. |
| 1835, Nov. 14 - Joseph Smith diary (Ohio Journal, handwritten, Warren Parrish scribe) The Papers of Joseph Smith, Dean Jessee (ed.), v2, p79. Deseret Book Company 1989.[159] | "visitation of angels" | None. | No mention of revival, or sins forgiven, or corrupt churches. |
| 1838/1839 - History of the Church, Early Draft (James Mulholland Scribe) | Two personages appear, and one says "This is my beloved Son, hear him". | The personages tell Smith that all churches are corrupt. | No mention of "sins forgiven". A revival is mentioned. |
| 1842, March - Times and Seasons March 1, 1842, v3 no 9, p706-707. | Two personages appear, and one says "This is my beloved Son, hear him". | The personages tell Smith that all churches are corrupt. | No mention of "sins forgiven". A revival is mentioned. |
| 1842, March - Times and Seasons March 15, 1842, v3 no 11, p727-728, April 1, 1842, v3, no 11, p748-749. This version was later incorporated into The History of the Church, and later into the Pearl of Great Price and thus is sometimes referred to as the "canonized version". | Two personages appear, and one says "This is my beloved Son, hear him". | The personages tell Smith that all churches are corrupt. | No mention of "sins forgiven". A revival is mentioned. When this version was incorporated into the History of the Church, it was put into a context that suggests it was composed in 1838, but 1842 is the first known publication of this version. |
| 1843, July - Letter from JS to D. Rupp An Original History of the Religious Denominations at Present Existing in the United States, Daniel Rupp, Philadelpha, 1844. p404-410. | Two personages appear. No mention of "this is my son". | The personages tell Smith that all churches are corrupt. | No mention of "sins forgiven". No revival mentioned. Available online here. See also the Wentworth letter. |
| 1843, Aug 29 - Interview with journalist David White Reprinted in Jessee v1 p443-444.[159] | Two personages appear. "Behold my beloved son, hear him". | The personages tell Smith that all churches are corrupt. | Revival is mentioned. No mention of "sins forgiven". |
Accounts of Others:
| Source of First Vision | Supernatural beings | Messages from beings | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1840, September - Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions , Orson Pratt, Ballantyne and Huges publ, 1840 (reprinted in Jessee, v1 p 149-160).[159] | Two unidentified "glorious personages, who exactly resembed each other in their features". | "his sins were forgiven". The personages tell Smith that all churches are corrupt. | This is the first published version. No mention of revival. Online here. |
| 1841, June - A Cry from the Wilderness , Orson Hyde, published in German, Frankfurt, 1842 (reprinted in Jessee, v1 p405-409).[159] | Two unidentified "glorious personages" who resembed "each other in their features". | No specific message. | No mention of "sins forgiven" or revival. Smith determines for himself that all churches are corrupt. |
| 1844, May 24 - as told to Alexander Neibaur Alexander Neibaur Journal, reprinted in Jessee, v1, p 459-461.[159] | Two personages appear. One has a "light complexion" and "blue eyes". "This is my beloved son harken ye him". | Methodist churches are wrong. All churches are corrupt. | Revival is mentioned. No mention of "sins forgiven". |
Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have acknowledged that the First Vision as well as the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith himself constitute "stumbling blocks for many." Apostle Neal A. Maxwell wrote:
In our own time, Joseph Smith, the First Vision, and the Book of Mormon constitute stumbling blocks for many—around which they cannot get—unless they are meek enough to examine all the evidence at hand, not being exclusionary as a result of accumulated attitudes in a secular society. Humbleness of mind is the initiator of expansiveness of mind.[160]
Some believers view differences in the accounts as overstated. Richard L. Anderson, a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University wrote, "What are the main problems of interpreting so many accounts? The first problem is the interpreter. One person perceives harmony and interconnections while another overstates differences."[161]
Other believers view the differences in the accounts as reflective of Smith's increase in maturity and knowledge over time. In a recent PBS interview, Marlin K. Jensen, General authority and Church Historian said:
I've actually studied the various accounts of Joseph's First Vision, and I'm struck by the difference in his recountings. But as I look back at my missionary journals, for instance, which I've kept and other journals which I've kept throughout my life, I'm struck now in my older years by the evolution and hopefully the progression that's taken place in my own life and how differently now from this perspective I view some things that happened in my younger years.[162]
In another interview on the same PBS documentary, Richard Mouw, an evangelical theologian and student of Mormonism summarized his feelings about the First Vision in this way:
My instinct is to attribute a sincerity to Joseph Smith. And yet at the same time, as an evangelical Christian, I do not believe that the members of the godhead really appeared to him and told him that he should start on a mission of, among other things, denouncing the kinds of things that I believe as a Presbyterian. I can't believe that. And yet at the same time, I really don't believe that he was simply making up a story that he knew to be false in order to manipulate people and to gain power over a religious movement. And so I live with the mystery.[163]
| Wikisource has several original texts related to: First Vision |
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