LDS history problems

[SoCalCoug]

Back before the internet, before information was easily available, it was easy to reconcile the snippets of things we'd hear that didn't come through the Church's filters with the stuff we had been taught in church. But I'm finding there's a whole lot more out there that causes questions, even to the point of cognitive dissonance. J. Reuben Clark once said, "If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed." There is no reason these things should not be examined to see if there are satisfactory explanations. Sure, there may items here or there for which information or background is lacking, and a satisfactory answer is not practical, but most should be explainable.

By the way, if you have no interest in rationally discussing these things, but feel an urge to call people to repentance and question the faith of people who are discussing these things, please do me and everyone else interested in this thread a favor and just stay away from it. I'm hoping for a thread where the snarkiness is kept to a minimum - to many of us, these are significant, serious questions. Please respect that.

Here's the first one I want to address: Why is it that Joseph Smith's first written account of the First Vision wasn't made for around 12 years, and why does it differ so much from the one we taught on our missions? As a lawyer, if I'm examining someone about contradictory accounts of an event, and they were claiming that an account prepared much later in time was actually the more accurate, I would be all over them about why they think their memory of the event was better at a time much more distant than the earlier account. In Joseph Smith's case, I would seriously question significant omissions in the earlier account, such as the fact he only related seeing one person ("the Lord"), and he said nothing about being told not to join other churches. He also said he was in his 16th year, not his 14th. This account was included in a personal history he prepared (Frederick G. Williams apparently wrote some of it, too).

Then in his personal diary in 1835, he recorded the vision with two unidentified personages appearing to him, not identifying them as God and Jesus Christ; one of them "testified [to him] that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." He then said he saw many angels as part of the vision.

It appears that the first time (at least in surviving writings) that Joseph specifically identifies the personages as God and Christ was in 1842, more than 20 years after the First Vision occurred. To my knowledge, prior to 1832, there is no clear record of the First Vision. It appears there are some references to it as early as 1827, and some indication that Joseph was teaching that he had seen God and/or Jesus Christ, but it's not clear whether that was in the context of the First Vision.

FAIR's explanation is unsatisfying, and inconsistent with my understanding of how witness recall and memory works. If someone has a vision where God and Jesus identify themselves to him, why not record it in your history or your diary? That's a monumental thing that I don't really understand how you can keep out of your personal record - if you're going to record a vision in which you see God and Christ, are you really going to leave out the identity of the two personages?

[Mormon Red Death]

I am not saying this happened but if the two personages told you not to say or write it down you wouldnt do it. Wasn't he told not to say anything about it until he got the plates?

[Solon]

Back before the internet, before information was easily available, it was easy to reconcile the snippets of things we'd hear that didn't come through the Church's filters with the stuff we had been taught in church. But I'm finding there's a whole lot more out there that causes questions, even to the point of cognitive dissonance. J. Reuben Clark once said, "If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed." There is no reason these things should not be examined to see if there are satisfactory explanations. Sure, there may items here or there for which information or background is lacking, and a satisfactory answer is not practical, but most should be explainable.

By the way, if you have no interest in rationally discussing these things, but feel an urge to call people to repentance and question the faith of people who are discussing these things, please do me and everyone else interested in this thread a favor and just stay away from it. I'm hoping for a thread where the snarkiness is kept to a minimum - to many of us, these are significant, serious questions. Please respect that.

Here's the first one I want to address: Why is it that Joseph Smith's first written account of the First Vision wasn't made for around 12 years, and why does it differ so much from the one we taught on our missions? As a lawyer, if I'm examining someone about contradictory accounts of an event, and they were claiming that an account prepared much later in time was actually the more accurate, I would be all over them about why they think their memory of the event was better at a time much more distant than the earlier account. In Joseph Smith's case, I would seriously question significant omissions in the earlier account, such as the fact he only related seeing one person ("the Lord"), and he said nothing about being told not to join other churches. He also said he was in his 16th year, not his 14th. This account was included in a personal history he prepared (Frederick G. Williams apparently wrote some of it, too).

Then in his personal diary in 1835, he recorded the vision with two unidentified personages appearing to him, not identifying them as God and Jesus Christ; one of them "testified [to him] that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." He then said he saw many angels as part of the vision.

It appears that the first time (at least in surviving writings) that Joseph specifically identifies the personages as God and Christ was in 1842, more than 20 years after the First Vision occurred. To my knowledge, prior to 1832, there is no clear record of the First Vision. It appears there are some references to it as early as 1827, and some indication that Joseph was teaching that he had seen God and/or Jesus Christ, but it's not clear whether that was in the context of the First Vision.

FAIR's explanation is unsatisfying, and inconsistent with my understanding of how witness recall and memory works. If someone has a vision where God and Jesus identify themselves to him, why not record it in your history or your diary? That's a monumental thing that I don't really understand how you can keep out of your personal record - if you're going to record a vision in which you see God and Christ, are you really going to leave out the identity of the two personages?

There's a pretty good Dialogue article by James Allen (BYU prof) on this topic that suggests some reasons for the differences. It also appeared in The New Mormon History edited by Quinn. The article is almost 50 years old now; might be time for an update.

http://www.mormonismi.net/pdf/signif...sion_allen.pdf

A couple of years ago, the Integrated Studies Department at UVU in Orem did a seminar on notions of memory and religious experience. It was run by Scott Abbott, a guy with a bit of his own history concerning run-ins with byu authorities & LDS scholarship. Some of the (LDS) students were nervous that Scott would use the seminar to put the beatdown on their belief, but instead the seminar collectively seemed to conclude that something as mind-blowing as a conversation with God would be very difficult to put into rational language, hence the understandable variations in the records.

[SoCalCoug]

I am not saying this happened but if the two personages told you not to say or write it down you wouldnt do it. Wasn't he told not to say anything about it until he got the plates?

I think that's a logical possibility. But there is indication that he had shared the idea verbally that it was God and Jesus before he wrote his 1832 account.

[Indy Coug]

Based on my recall of Rough Stone Rolling, Joseph sucked at keeping a personal journal. If he had been better I think some of the troubling early historical issues would have been less troublesome since we would not have to rely so much on nth hand accounts, sometimes written well after the fact.

[Moliere]

I am not saying this happened but if the two personages told you not to say or write it down you wouldnt do it. Wasn't he told not to say anything about it until he got the plates?

When did he say that? If was in 1838 or 1842 then it seems like a good way to cover your tracks as to why you didn't record it previously. It all then comes down to trust in the person telling the tale.

Personally I think JS had a very spiritual experience, probably one that blew his mind and certainly more spiritual then any experience I've had. Then, like we've seen with the PH restoration, the story developed into a nice narrative or expanded myth that was useful for teaching certain principles.

[byu71]

Back before the internet, before information was easily available, it was easy to reconcile the snippets of things we'd hear that didn't come through the Church's filters with the stuff we had been taught in church. But I'm finding there's a whole lot more out there that causes questions, even to the point of cognitive dissonance. J. Reuben Clark once said, "If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed." There is no reason these things should not be examined to see if there are satisfactory explanations. Sure, there may items here or there for which information or background is lacking, and a satisfactory answer is not practical, but most should be explainable.

By the way, if you have no interest in rationally discussing these things, but feel an urge to call people to repentance and question the faith of people who are discussing these things, please do me and everyone else interested in this thread a favor and just stay away from it. I'm hoping for a thread where the snarkiness is kept to a minimum - to many of us, these are significant, serious questions. Please respect that.

Here's the first one I want to address: Why is it that Joseph Smith's first written account of the First Vision wasn't made for around 12 years, and why does it differ so much from the one we taught on our missions? As a lawyer, if I'm examining someone about contradictory accounts of an event, and they were claiming that an account prepared much later in time was actually the more accurate, I would be all over them about why they think their memory of the event was better at a time much more distant than the earlier account. In Joseph Smith's case, I would seriously question significant omissions in the earlier account, such as the fact he only related seeing one person ("the Lord"), and he said nothing about being told not to join other churches. He also said he was in his 16th year, not his 14th. This account was included in a personal history he prepared (Frederick G. Williams apparently wrote some of it, too).

Then in his personal diary in 1835, he recorded the vision with two unidentified personages appearing to him, not identifying them as God and Jesus Christ; one of them "testified [to him] that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." He then said he saw many angels as part of the vision.

It appears that the first time (at least in surviving writings) that Joseph specifically identifies the personages as God and Christ was in 1842, more than 20 years after the First Vision occurred. To my knowledge, prior to 1832, there is no clear record of the First Vision. It appears there are some references to it as early as 1827, and some indication that Joseph was teaching that he had seen God and/or Jesus Christ, but it's not clear whether that was in the context of the First Vision.

FAIR's explanation is unsatisfying, and inconsistent with my understanding of how witness recall and memory works. If someone has a vision where God and Jesus identify themselves to him, why not record it in your history or your diary? That's a monumental thing that I don't really understand how you can keep out of your personal record - if you're going to record a vision in which you see God and Christ, are you really going to leave out the identity of the two personages?

I think these things have come to not matter to me much. Elephants not being in the America's like the BOM says, Joseph not being totally virtuos in all his dealings, polygamy, the WOW being such a big overblown deal, all of that does't seem to matter much to me.

What I keep battling with is how can so many of God's children not cut it? Think of the billions and billions of people are who come, are here now and are yet to come. Think of few of those are going to get an A. I mean if you smoke or drink, you won't get an A. That's what I am dealing with. How can so many of God's children be C or below students. I refuse to believe it is the genes.

[Moliere]

Based on my recall of Rough Stone Rolling, Joseph sucked at keeping a personal journal. If he had been better I think some of the troubling early historical issues would have been less troublesome since we would not have to rely so much on nth hand accounts, sometimes written well after the fact.

The problem isn't so much that he didn't keep a good journal, but that when he wrote in it he left out what some would consider to be items that should never be left out of any account. It's like writing about a shopping trip to the grocery store and you talk about driving there and back but you fail to mention the large sasquatch that crossed the street in front of you at a stop sign.

[Katy Lied]

He also left out important non-spiritual events too, like the date that the BOM was published. You would think he'd at least pen something like, "Man, I cannot believe it! After so much suffering and sacrifice and working toward this goal, the first Book of Mormon was produced today!"

But, nada.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Bushman does a pretty good job in RSR of laying out a narrative for the changing accounts in terms of JS highlighting different parts of a complex experience based on an evolving appreciation for the significance of the different components of the event. I highly recommend it if you have not read it yet.

Of course, a skeptic would point out that the changing accounts tended to mirror the evolving doctrines during the early years of the church. For example, one person vs two personages mirrors the evolution of the doctrine regarding the Godhead, which originally had one God (as evidenced by language in the BOM). And the part about "No churches are true, I need you to restore my church..." (paraphrasing) was added after the doctrine of restoration came to be. Etc.

And btw, up until 1840 or so, there is not a single account of missionaries using the First Vision as a conversion tool, and very few written references to the First Vision, period.

[SoCalCoug]

When did he say that? If was in 1838 or 1842 then it seems like a good way to cover your tracks as to why you didn't record it previously. It all then comes down to trust in the person telling the tale.

Personally I think JS had a very spiritual experience, probably one that blew his mind and certainly more spiritual then any experience I've had. Then, like we've seen with the PH restoration, the story developed into a nice narrative or expanded myth that was useful for teaching certain principles.

The thing is, it has all the hallmarks of an expanded narrative which was used for teaching certain principles, rather than an accurate record of what actually happened. That's kind of the main problem I'm (and apparently quite a few others) having right now with this.

[BigFatMeanie]

EDIT: This was meant as a reply to Indy's post but I forgot to quote him.

Having handled Joseph's first journal with my own hands, I can confirm that he sucked at keeping it. His writing is awkward, his grammar is awful, his penmanship is horrible. Comparing Joseph's journal to, say, Wilford Woodruff's, or even Brigham Young's, is like comparing a kindergartner's drawing to something by Michelangelo.

[wally]

Here are some explanations:

At a 14-16 YO I didn't write down jack shit of anything that happened to me. In my mid-20's I posessed fuzzy memories of stuff that happened to me as a teenager, even when that stuff was "super-important." Cross-examination of specifics of a mans memories from teenage boyhood strikes me as not being a fruitful endeavor. There are bigger historical fish to fry.

Joseph may have been a "scatter-brain." (technical term)

Another explanation might be the "veil". The veil was parted for young Joseph to see God, and when it closed again after God departed, the clarity faded. Probably an interdimensional physicist could explain this phenomenon better than me.

PTSD. If God appeared to you, placed the fate of the world on your shoulders, might you not be traumatized?

Conspiracy: The gadianton robbers are lead by satan. satan hates god and truth. the brotherhood of the gadianton robbers is organized and secretive (not unlike the illuminati) and has deliberately altered the historical record just enough so as to create significant doubt, but not so much as to be detected. This is why they never included the snuffleupagus as a north american indigenous animal in the BOM.

I suspect that my ideas are probably unsatisfying, but you never know what satisfies a person until you try.

[Indy Coug]

EDIT: This was meant as a reply to Indy's post but I forgot to quote him.

Having handled Joseph's first journal with my own hands, I can confirm that he sucked at keeping it. His writing is awkward, his grammar is awful, his penmanship is horrible. Comparing Joseph's journal to, say, Wilford Woodruff's, or even Brigham Young's, is like comparing a kindergartner's drawing to something by Michelangelo.

Is any of that viewable online?

[Mrs. Funk]

Back before the internet, before information was easily available, it was easy to reconcile the snippets of things we'd hear that didn't come through the Church's filters with the stuff we had been taught in church. But I'm finding there's a whole lot more out there that causes questions, even to the point of cognitive dissonance. J. Reuben Clark once said, "If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed." There is no reason these things should not be examined to see if there are satisfactory explanations. Sure, there may items here or there for which information or background is lacking, and a satisfactory answer is not practical, but most should be explainable.

By the way, if you have no interest in rationally discussing these things, but feel an urge to call people to repentance and question the faith of people who are discussing these things, please do me and everyone else interested in this thread a favor and just stay away from it. I'm hoping for a thread where the snarkiness is kept to a minimum - to many of us, these are significant, serious questions. Please respect that.

Here's the first one I want to address: Why is it that Joseph Smith's first written account of the First Vision wasn't made for around 12 years, and why does it differ so much from the one we taught on our missions? As a lawyer, if I'm examining someone about contradictory accounts of an event, and they were claiming that an account prepared much later in time was actually the more accurate, I would be all over them about why they think their memory of the event was better at a time much more distant than the earlier account. In Joseph Smith's case, I would seriously question significant omissions in the earlier account, such as the fact he only related seeing one person ("the Lord"), and he said nothing about being told not to join other churches. He also said he was in his 16th year, not his 14th. This account was included in a personal history he prepared (Frederick G. Williams apparently wrote some of it, too).

Then in his personal diary in 1835, he recorded the vision with two unidentified personages appearing to him, not identifying them as God and Jesus Christ; one of them "testified [to him] that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." He then said he saw many angels as part of the vision.

It appears that the first time (at least in surviving writings) that Joseph specifically identifies the personages as God and Christ was in 1842, more than 20 years after the First Vision occurred. To my knowledge, prior to 1832, there is no clear record of the First Vision. It appears there are some references to it as early as 1827, and some indication that Joseph was teaching that he had seen God and/or Jesus Christ, but it's not clear whether that was in the context of the First Vision.

FAIR's explanation is unsatisfying, and inconsistent with my understanding of how witness recall and memory works. If someone has a vision where God and Jesus identify themselves to him, why not record it in your history or your diary? That's a monumental thing that I don't really understand how you can keep out of your personal record - if you're going to record a vision in which you see God and Christ, are you really going to leave out the identity of the two personages?

I've struggled with this very issues recently, brought to the surface when my calling as a YW advisor required me to teach the Joseph Smith story. I understand that there's always a possible alternative explanation, but I find it *really* bewildering that it seems Joseph Smith was incapable of remembering significant details about y'know, God and Jesus appearing to him. Or if only one of them did. Or, wait. It was an angel. Ahhh! Btw, I'm absolutely not being snarky. I feel disturbed that we currently present one version of the First Vision as if it's absolutely certain that's what happened, and teaching it to the YW felt a bit like a like because I'm just not sure what really happened.

I want to believe.