first vision accounts Archives

Do you know how old Joseph was when he saw his first vision?

Why is this even a question? Doesn’t everyone know that Joseph Smith was 14 when he saw God and Jesus Christ in a grove? The answer is no. Some people think they know. That’s not the same as knowing.

So was Joseph 14 or not?

He probably was. Why the qualifier? Because the evidence shows that the answer isn’t so simple. The evidence says that Joseph began worrying about his soul when he was about 12. He continued to do so through his early teens. His memory of his age at the time of his vision was vague. Joseph usually remembered his age at the time as an afterthought.

Joseph’s 1832 autobiography says

“At about the age of twelve years my mind become seriously imprest with regard to the all importent concerns for the well fare of my immortal soul.” That led Joseph to search the scriptures and observe churches and Christians. He concluded that the scriptures and the versions of Christianity didn’t match. Joseph felt grief as a result. In 1832, he remembered that this process lasted “from the age of twelve to fifteen.”

Joseph did not specify his age in the 1832 account

He said simply that “while in the attitude of calling upon the Lord a piller of light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee.” Frederick Williams later inserted the words “in the 16th year of my age” into the clause quoted above. No one knows whether Joseph told Frederick to do so or why he wrote “16th year.” Some people may think they know. That’s not the same as knowing.

Joseph’s scribe recorded

an 1835 telling of the vision in Joseph’s journal. In that telling, the last thing Joseph says about the vision is, “I was about 14 years old when I received this first communication.” On that day at least, his age at the time of the vision was an afterthought, and he approximated it. That line contrasts with the intense and emotional lines before it. The foreground in this memory is of discovering the truth, overcoming the unseen power that startled him, praying, seeing divine beings, and being filled with joy. His age at the time is background. It was important enough to him to try to recall at the end but not more important than that.

In his manuscript history

Joseph remembered that unusual religious excitement started “in my fifteenth year.” He was, in other words, fourteen. Of all the accounts, this one does the best job of establishing a date and situating Joseph in time: early spring, 1820. Compared to the others, this memory is uncharacteristically sharp about Joseph’s age and the date of the vision. Joseph remembered later in this account, “I was an obscure boy only between fourteen and fifteen years of age,” after which his scribe added “or thereabouts.” A later revision of this document is more typical. In it Joseph says he was “about 15 years old” during the “unusual religious excitement.” Estimating like that is typical of the way Joseph dated things in his vision memories. Certainty about dates and his age is uncharacteristic in his vision accounts. In his letter to John Wentworth, Joseph said, “When about fourteen years of age I began to reflect upon the importance of being prepared for a future state.”

The secondary accounts follow this pattern

Orson Pratt says, “When somewhere about fourteen or fifteen years old, he began seriously to reflect upon the necessity of being prepared for a future state.” Orson Hyde’s version is less wordy but no more precise: “When he had reached his fifteenth year, he began to think seriously . . . ” The journal of Levi Richards just says “when he was a youth he began to think about these things.” David Nye White quoted Joseph saying God “revealed himself to me first when I was about fourteen years old, a mere boy.” Alexander Neibaur’s journal entry doesn’t say anything about Joseph’s age at the time.

Those are the facts of the historical record

That’s the evidence we have on which to base an answer to the question with which we began: How old was Joseph Smith at his first vision? He typically said he was about fourteen, and usually as an afterthought. Once he said clearly that he was fourteen. His scribe added, “or thereabouts.” Another scribe said he was fifteen. Some people interpret the vagueness and variety as evidence that Joseph didn’t see the Father and the Son. Some people think they know that he could not possibly mis-remember his age if he actually saw a vision. That’s not the same as knowing.

Joseph didn’t remember exactly how old he was

He didn’t claim to. He claimed to see the Father and the Son. He knew that God knew it. He couldn’t deny it. “Some said he was dishonest, others said he was mad, and he was ridiculed and reviled, but . . . he had seen a vision. He knew he had, and all the persecution under heaven could not make it otherwise.”

What dilemma led to Joseph Smith’s first vision?

There is a dilemma at the heart of Joseph Smith’s first vision accounts. It is hidden in plain sight. Once you see it you wonder how you missed it before.

There is a new book out from an esteemed university press.*

One of its chapters illustrates how easy it is to miss the dilemma Joseph emphasized. The author compares Joseph’s experience to some early American conversion narratives and concludes that Joseph’s accounts lack the angst and the typical “transformations of the heart.”

“Nowhere in Smith’s first vision is there a description of the agonies and ecstasies of conversion,” this author claims. Joseph “presents himself not as one whose heart needs changing but one whose mind needs persuading.”

Notice the either/or: “not as one whose heart needs changing but one whose mind needs persuading.” This author thinks Joseph’s accounts are about resolving “cognitive dissonance” or intellectual incongruity “rather than ravishing a sinful heart with infinite love.” These phrases sound fancy but they are uninformed. This is a false dilemma posing as analysis.

This author has not heard what Joseph is saying

“Nowhere in Smith’s first vision is there a description of the agonies and ecstasies of conversion.” Really? Joseph’s accounts describe both his agony and his ecstasy. (More on that in later posts.)

I remember the day I finally saw the dilemma Joseph describes

It was lunch time. I was sitting outside. I had copies of all the first vision accounts and was reviewing them again, trying to look at them in new ways, asking different questions. I had read each of them many times before. But that day I started paying attention to the number of times Joseph described what was going on in his mind. Then I noticed that he distinguished between his mind and his heart. Then I saw it: Joseph’s was trying to tell me that his mind and his heart were at odds.

Every story has a problem

When Joseph told his story, the crux of the problem was that his soul depended on knowing how to act relative to Christ’s atonement–and how to act he did not know.

The Presbyterian option made sense in his head

He knew he was sinful. He also knew he hadn’t been able to do anything about it. That’s what the Presbyterian option taught him to expect. It made sense.

The Methodist option appealed to his heart

He attended Methodist meetings and witnessed sinful souls like his feel God’s redeeming love, and “he wanted to get Religion too wanted to feel & shout like the Rest but could feel nothing.” Methodism taught him to expect to feel God’s love if he gave himself to Christ. That didn’t happen, however. No matter how much his heart wanted Methodism, it seemed to his head like the Presbyterian explanation fit best.

One of the options appealed to his heart and the other to his head

No matter how much brain power he put into it, he did not know if his conclusions were right, and no matter how much he tried to follow his heart, he did not know if it was leading him right. That was the problem. His head was telling him one thing, his heart another. How could he know which was right? The welfare of his immortal soul was at stake. It was a terrible problem. These slices of Joseph’s Manuscript History Book A1, excerpted in the Pearl of Great Price as Joseph Smith-History, verses 10 and 18, highlight Joseph’s dilemma:

10 In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it? . . . .

18 My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.

Verse 10 is about Joseph’s thought process, about what’s gone on in his head. He has often wondered whether all the options are wrong and how he will be able to decide. The parenthetical clause in verse 18 is about Joseph’s emotional vulnerability. He tells us he has kept the awful, recurring thought that all the options for forgiveness are wrong from entering “into my heart.”

In 1902, church leaders tasked BH Roberts

with turning Joseph Smith’s history, originally serialized in 1842 in the Times and Seasons, into published volumes. While in that role, he had gathered the serialized “History of Joseph Smith” from back issues of the Millennial Star, the Saints’ British periodical, and bound it into three volumes that he kept and annotated.

His notes show that he thought Joseph contradicted himself in the passages quoted above

Joseph said he “asked the personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right, (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong,) and which I should join.” Earlier, however, Joseph said that prior to his vision he had “often said to myself, what is to be done? Who of all these parties are right? Or are they all wrong together?”

The two lines seemed contradictory to Roberts

He knew that Joseph’s 1842 letter to John Wentworth said that at about age 14 he began to notice “a great clash” between churches and considered “that all could not be right, and that God could not be the author of so much confusion.” So Roberts silently elided the line for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong. That’s why those words are not in the published version of Joseph’s manuscript history (see top of page 6).

If BH Roberts couldn’t see

the dilemma Joseph tried to highlight, it seems wise to be humble and cautious about assuming that we have understood Joseph well. Working hard to listen to Joseph, using both brain and spirit, leads to seeing and hearing things in Joseph’s first vision accounts to which we may have been blind and deaf.

In my next post I’ll write about Joseph’s other dilemma

the one that kept him from telling his story, and that shaped the way he told it when he finally decided to do so. Stay tuned.

*Grant Shreve, “Nephite Secularization; or, Picking and Choosing in the Book of Mormon,” chapter 8 in Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman, editors, Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 207-229. Quoted passages are from page 208.

Joseph Sought the God of Love . . . and Found Him

There is so much more to the story of Joseph Smith’s first vision than is commonly known

Besides the familiar account included in the Pearl of Great Price, there are three other known accounts by Joseph and five known reports of people who heard him tell his experience. As a historian and as a believer, I’m thrilled that Joseph Smith’s first vision is probably the best documented vision of God in history. But some Latter-day Saints are troubled when they learn that there are several accounts of the story.

Like accounts of the Savior on the Mount of Transfiguration

or instituting the sacrament, or suffering in Gethsemane, or appearing after his resurrection, the accounts of Joseph’s vision are not identical, and that fact is unsettling to some. It wasn’t unsettling to me because I learned it from Professor Backman, who wrote the book on the accounts and was thrilled, as a historian and a believer, to have such a richly documented vision of God to study. His motive was to teach me the vision in a way that was true to the historical facts and sustaining of my faith. But there are other motives out there. Other people present the same facts as Professor Backman taught me, but their motive is to undermine faith.

On its face, the fact of multiple and varied accounts is not a problem

The fact of multiple and varied accounts only upsets faith if the person assumes that multiple or varied accounts of the vision is incompatible with the first vision. In other words, there is nothing inherent in the facts of the matter that ruins faith. Faith in the first vision, or loss of it, depends entirely on what a person decides to do with the facts. Faith in the first vision, or loss of it, is not a matter of knowledge or sincerity. Some people on all sides of this issue are both informed and sincere. Others on all sides are neither. And some on all sides are informed but insincere while others are sincere but not well versed in the facts of the matter. None of those things seem to be the determinant of whether a person has faith in Joseph Smith’s first vision.

The determinant is each individual’s agency

We are not acted upon by knowledge. We act upon knowledge. We exercise our God-given ability to decide for ourselves whether to exercise faith in Him, His Son, and in Joseph Smith as their choice to restore the gospel. I am well-informed about the facts. I have studied the accounts of Joseph’s vision for several years and I find them harmonious and complimentary on the core elements of the story, namely: Joseph craved more light and truth about God and couldn’t find it in the existing churches. He studied the Bible and that inspired him to pray in the woods, where God answered his prayer directly.

Critics counter this claim

by highlighting ways the accounts are inconsistent with each other or with other known facts, and some critics claim that Joseph embellished his experience over time. It comes down to deciding whether to trust Joseph or not, and if you want to make that decision based on a consensus view of Joseph’s reputation, you’ll find that Moroni accurately predicted that Joseph’s name would be known for good and evil in every place on the planet. You’ll have to choose whether you can trust him. No one else can make that choice for you.

By predisposition, prayer, and lots of study

I have decided to trust Joseph Smith. I have studied all the accounts of his vision carefully and in context. I have published books about the vision with both academic and devotional publishers. My testimony is that Joseph Smith told the truth, and that those who knew him best believed him most.

In celebration of the 2020 bicentennial of Joseph’s vision

President Russell M. Nelson invited Latter-day Saints to study it seriously. I expect there will be many lessons and discussions about it. Some of these will focus on why it matters. I invite you to reconsider the way you might answer that question—why does Joseph Smith’s first vision matter? Many talks and lessons over the years have answered that question by saying that the vision showed that God and Christ were separate beings. That is true, but it’s not what mattered most to Joseph. It’s not what he wrote in his accounts. What was it about his vision that was most important to him?

First, Joseph testified that the Lord forgave his sins.

“at about the age of twelve years my mind became seriously imprest [p. 1] with regard to the all importent concerns for the wellfare of my immortal Soul which led me to searching the scriptures . . . thus from the age of twelve years to fifteen I pondered many things in my heart concerning the sittuation of the world of mankind the contentions and divi[si]ons the wicke[d]ness and abominations and the darkness which pervaded the of the minds of mankind my mind become excedingly distressed for I become convicted of my sins and . . . . I felt to mourn for my own sins and for the sins of the world . . . . therefore I cried unto the Lord for mercy for there was none else to whom I could go and to obtain mercy and the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and . . . . a piller 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. . . . I am the Lord of glory I was crucifyed for the world that all those who believe on my name may have Eternal life.”

Second, Joseph testified that the vision brought him joy and love

“I called on the Lord in mighty prayer,” he said, “a pillar of fire appeared above my head, it presently rested down up me head, and filled me with Joy unspeakable.” In another account he testified, “my soul was filled with love and for many days I could rejoice with great Joy.”

Third, God is more powerful than the adversary that opposes Him and us

Fourth, we can choose to call upon God in faith in order to be delivered from the enemy of our souls, who is an actual though unseen being. Fifth, when we are perplexed, distressed, and anxious in a confusing world, God invites us to seek and receive the love, wisdom, forgiveness, and healing we need from Him.

God loves us

That’s what Joseph learned in the grove. “I had found the testimony of James to be true,” he said, “that a[nyone] who lacked wisdom might ask of God, and obtain, and not be upbraided.”

What difference does it make if God and Christ are separate

embodied beings if they no longer reveal themselves, if they don’t hear and answer the prayers of anxious teenagers who ask in faith, if they don’t forgive sins or fill us with love and joy? Presbyterians of Joseph’s day believed that God was without body, parts, or passions. Latter-day Saints respond by emphasizing how the vision proves that God and Christ have bodies. But what does it matter if they have bodies unless they also have passions, including redeeming love for us?

Joseph’s accounts testify of a loving, responsive God

and show how we can reach him. They show how an anxious soul can make the courageous choice to exercise faith. Sarah Edwards lived a century before Joseph. She was married to the great Presbyterian preacher Jonathan Edwards, whose most famous sermon explained God’s mercy by emphasizing how abhorrent we are to God, so the fact that he is temporarily sparing us from the pains of the well-deserved hell we will most likely inhabit real soon is evidence of his mercy.

Sarah secretly preferred a different God

She had a deep desire to “call God my Father” and wondered whether she really could. She sought him in private prayer and felt

“the presence of God was so near, and so real, that I seemed scarcely conscious of any thing else. God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, seemed as distinct persons, both manifesting their inconceivable loveliness, and mildness, and gentleness, and their great . . .love to me.”

Sarah struggled to communicate, as Joseph would a century later, “the peace and happiness, which I hereupon felt.” It “was altogether inexpressible.”

Sarah Edwards was typical of many people then and now

Terryl Givens explained, “Long before Joseph Smith offered his first prayer, thousands and millions of people must have yearned, as Sarah did, for the assurance that God was not the severe, distant, impersonal deity of Jonathan Edwards, but the kind, loving, and very personal God that Joseph found in the Sacred Grove.”

That is why Joseph’s first vision is so vitally important

It is the answer to all our prayers, our hopes for God’s acceptance, love, and forgiveness. It is the archetype for seekers everywhere. It reveals the antidote to our fears and anxieties and dilemmas. When Joseph entered the grove, it seemed to his teenage soul as if he were one of very few who could not feel God’s love and forgiveness. Then God filled him with love. Experiencing that love is the reason to choose to exercise faith in the God who revealed himself to Joseph Smith. The Father and the Son who appeared to Joseph are so loving and lovable. They respond to anxious teenagers, forgive their sins, and fill them with love that helps them cope with their fears and frustrations and causes them to rejoice with great joy.

In answer to his simple, faithful prayer

Joseph Smith saw our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ in the woods. After anxiety, perplexity, distress, and guilt, he felt their love, received their forgiveness, and experienced unspeakable joy, and so can you.