The First Vision accounts

Whether Joseph's founding theophany is a stable memory of an 1820 event or a story that grew between 1832 and 1838.

What the Church claims

In the spring of 1820, during a local revival, 14-year-old Joseph saw God the Father and Jesus Christ as two separate beings, was told to join no church, and was persecuted for saying so (Joseph Smith-History, written 1838-39).

Once the evidence is in, this claim: Contested. The account as canonized in 1838 is not what Joseph first wrote in 1832, and the revival that frames it fits 1824-25 better than 1820, both of which faithful historians concede in part. Variant retellings do not by themselves show a vision was invented, and the strong version of that charge is false. Contested: the claim is damaged in its details and not overturned.

The record

• There are four firsthand accounts (1832, 1835, 1838/39, 1842) and five contemporary secondhand ones (Orson Pratt 1840, Orson Hyde 1842, Levi Richards 1843, David Nye White 1843, Alexander Neibaur 1844).
• The earliest, written in the second half of 1832 partly in Joseph's own hand, says his concern began 'about the age of twelve', names only 'the Lord' as appearing, centers on 'thy sins are forgiven thee', and mentions no revival; Joseph says he had already concluded from scripture that the churches had apostatized.
• The 1835 journal account (to Robert Matthews) has Joseph 'perplexed in mind' about 'who was right or who was wrong'; per the Church's own summary it describes one personage followed shortly by another, plus angels.
• The 1838/39 account (scribe James Mulholland) places Joseph 'in my fifteenth year', ties the vision to a revival in which 'multitudes' joined the churches and his mother, Hyrum, Samuel and Sophronia became Presbyterians, and makes the question which church to join.
• The 1842 Wentworth letter gives 'about fourteen years of age'; the JSP editors say its narrative echoes wording from Orson Pratt's 1840 pamphlet, the first published account.
• Neibaur's 1844 diary has a revival, a 'fire towards heaven', one personage and then 'a other person' coming to the side of the first.
• Wesley Walters showed from denominational records that the revival matching Joseph's description (Rev. George Lane, Rev. Benjamin Stockton, large accessions, the family's Presbyterian conversions) occurred in 1824-25: Stockton was elsewhere until February 1824 and Lane was appointed to the district in July 1824; local Methodist numbers fell in 1819-21.
• D. Michael Quinn found a Methodist camp-meeting near Palmyra in June 1820 (Palmyra Register, 1820-06-28) but concluded Joseph 'merged the two revivals' and dated the blend to 1820; he also reports that Milton Backman said in 1994 he 'found no evidence of a great revival in Palmyra in 1819 or 1820' and that Bushman dropped the 1820 revival from Rough Stone Rolling.
• Oliver Cowdery's 1834-35 Messenger and Advocate history, written with Joseph's help, put the revival in 1823 when Joseph was 17 and led straight to the angel's visit, with no 1820 theophany.
• The three leaves bearing the 1832 account were cut out of Joseph's letterbook in the twentieth century (cellophane tape dates the act after 1930), were described as cut out by 1965, and were reattached in the 1990s. Stan Larson documents that they sat in Joseph Fielding Smith's office safe, that Levi Edgar Young described the 'strange account' to LaMar Petersen in 1952 after being told not to copy it, and that the text first reached print in 1965 via Paul Cheesman's thesis and the Tanners.

The moving target

• 1838/1842: The 1838/39 account became the single official narrative.
• 1935-1965: The 1832 account was physically removed from the letterbook, kept in the Historian's safe and not published.
• 2002-10: 'It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud.'
• 2013-11: Acknowledges all accounts and the differences; attributes them to memory, audience and emphasis; says the accounts were 'rediscovered and published' by Church historians in the 1960s, without mentioning the excision.

The exchange

Both cases at full strength

The skeptics' case

The earliest account (1832) is a Christ-only forgiveness vision with no revival, reached after Joseph had already decided from the Bible that all churches were wrong; the canonical account (1838/39) is a Father-and-Son vision prompted by a revival, in which Joseph had not previously concluded that all were wrong, and its revival details fit 1824-25, not 1820. The official 1834-35 history that Joseph helped Cowdery write has no 1820 vision at all. The Church then sat on the 1832 text: the leaves were cut from the letterbook and held in the Church Historian's safe until 1965. President Hinckley set the stakes himself.

The apologetic case

Joseph left more independent tellings of his vision than almost any visionary of his era, and they agree on the core: a troubled youth, prayer in the woods, a heavenly appearance, forgiveness, and a message that the churches were astray. The 1832 account proves the claim existed within two years of the Church's founding. Differences track audience and purpose, and an unlettered man writing his first autobiography may simply not have narrated everything. A real 1820 camp-meeting is documented near Palmyra.

What would change this

A pre-1832 document referring to a two-personage vision or to persecution for an 1820 vision claim; or firm evidence that Lane and Stockton preached a multi-denominational Palmyra revival in 1819-20.

Closely related

• From one God to three: the 1830-1844 shift
• Priesthood restoration: when the angels entered the story

Sources

• History, circa Summer 1832 (source note, historical introduction, transcript)
• First Vision Accounts (Gospel Topics essay)
• Primary Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision of Deity
• Alexander Neibaur, Journal, 24 May 1844, extract
• 'Church History,' 1 March 1842 (Wentworth letter)
• History, circa June 1839-circa 1841 [Draft 2]
• New Light on Mormon Origins from the Palmyra Revival
• Joseph Smith's Experience of a Methodist 'Camp-Meeting' in 1820
• The Marvelous Foundation of Our Faith
• Another Look at Joseph Smith's First Vision
• First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins - A Review
• Memory and Millennials: A Review of First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins
• Journal, 1835-1836 (entry of 9-11 November 1835)
• Joseph Smith's Accuracy on the First Vision Setting: The Pivotal 1818 Palmyra Camp Meeting
• Review of John G. Turner, Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet
• Review: Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet

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