The First Vision

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Shulem
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Re: The First Vision

Post by Shulem »

The Book of Mormon and the 1832 secreted testimonial of the First Vision witness that Joseph Smith was in line with the basic understanding of the Godhead as taught by Catholicism and Protestant theology. Both accounts are agreeable to Christian understanding of God and the manifestation of the Godhead to mankind. The Book of Mormon teaches that there is a God who manifests himself through the expression of the Trinity and that beyond this earth there is a heaven and a hell.

The doctrine of the Godhead and the various manifestations of Jesus Christ through his visitations in the Book of Mormon are agreeable to the same kind of representations given in the Bible. There is one Lord or one Person manifested in every instance in which God appears or makes himself known. Hence, the Book of Mormon and the 1832 First Vision account are Smith’s personal extension of the Bible in demonstrating that God in Heaven is ONE PERSON who is manifested in different ways for one purpose which is to save mankind from certain doom.

Not until long after 1832 did it occur to Smith that the Father and Son are two separate Persons each having a body of flesh and bones. This doctrine is completely absent from the Book of Mormon and Smith’s revelations prior to the time when his doctrine evolved in separating God into physical Persons and the new claim that the Father has a body of flesh and bone. Therefore, let it be understood that never at any time while Joseph Smith was a young lad did Two Divine Persons appear to him while in a grove of trees and announce themselves as separate Beings of One Godhead. This concept was entirely a new construct in which Smith formulated after he received the Egyptian papyrus and contemplated the plurality of gods as understood by the Egyptians. It was the representations of the Egyptian gods on the papyrus that gave Smith his grand idea to separate the God of the Bible into physical bodies and make them separate Persons having bodies of flesh and bones. Smith learned this new concept by translating the papyrus that was in his house.

I so testify of this. I know that Joseph Smith did NOT see Two Persons. I know it with all my heart and mind and I testify to that fact as I understand it.

Amen
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Re: The First Vision

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The many testimonies that have been given by Latter-day Saints over the course of the past 180 years, most memorably for me, the one given by the late President Gordon B. Hinckley, are based on late dictations released by Smith. The First Vision account published by the Church today which announces the belief of TWO God’s having bodies of flesh and bone came from the imagination of Smith while he was peeping and contemplating illustrations contained within the Egyptian papyrus. It was Joseph’s own imagination that first came up with the idea that God is TWO Persons and that the Godhead was a literal family-based organization wherein The Father was the literal parent of the Son. Mormon theology and doctrine of how God and mankind relate was changed when Smith separated God into Persons and developed the concept of the preexistence of spirits who come to the earth to get bodies in order to progress and further advance in intelligence. The Egyptian papyrus was the catalyst that gave Smith the idea the Father was a separate Person having a body and that there was a cast system or tiered levels of intelligence that exists in heaven.
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1832

Post by Shulem »

Joseph Smith set his own pen to paper in 1832 to fabricate his story of the so-called First Vision. Personal spiritual recollections mingled with creative thought produced Smith’s understanding of who and what he believed God was at that time: ONE PERSON represented and manifested as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One Person and One Person Only! That was Smith’s first testimony when he set his pen to paper in order to tell his story. But his story later changed when he contemplated the plurality of gods represented on Egyptian papyri in his house.

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Re: The First Vision

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We naturally conclude that the 1832 testimonial written by Joseph Smith’s own hand was closer to the time the vision supposedly happened than in the accounts given several years later. Critics have stressed this point and apologists have a hard time explaining it away and justifying the omission. The fact of the matter is that if in 1832 Joseph believed he saw Two Persons then he would have revealed that because that single point is the most important point about God that Latter-day Saints have come to embrace.

But the point is, Smith did NOT testify of Two Persons in his first account and in doing so he failed to testify that the Father and Son are separate Persons each having their own bodies and image. This tells me all I need to know in knowing that Joseph Smith did not visualize such a thing or believe in such a thing prior to 1835.

I so testify.
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Re: The First Vision

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DETECTIVE: Tell me what you saw when the woman on the street was robbed.

EYEWITNESS: I saw a man approach the woman and robbed her at gunpoint.

DETECTIVE: Can you describe the man?

EYEWITNESS: The man was white, about 6 feet tall, and wearing jeans and a red cap.

DETECTIVE: Was there anyone else present during the robbery?

EYEWITNESS: I saw a man rob a woman. There was nobody else to speak of.
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Re: The First Vision

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WITNESS: I’m so sorry to hear that the woman in whom those robbers hurt has passed away.

DETECTIVE: Robbers? What robbers do you speak of? Your original testimony was she was robbed by a man and nobody else was present.

WITNESS: She was robbed by a man but he had an accomplice. I thought to explain it but didn’t figure it was important.

DETECTIVE: Your testimonial was used to finger the man in whom the court convicted but now we learn there is another man on the run?

WITNESS: I didn’t think it mattered since the man holding the gun was caught.

DETECTIVE: I need you to come down to the station and make a statement, please.

WITNESS: Am I in some kind of trouble?

DETECTIVE: That has yet to be determined but you’ve lied and omitted important evidence to the case.
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Father Awol

Post by Shulem »

The First Vision is at the heart of Mormonism and the beginning of Joseph Smith’s testimony. Interestingly enough, this testimony was not formerly made public until many years after it allegedly occurred. The 1832 account tendered in Smith’s own handwriting offers an original and intimate accounting of what Smith thought of his First Vision experience. The very moment Smith’s pen contacted the paper and ink flowed into the fibers of that paper is when Smith revealed what was first and foremost on his mind. It was a confession of sorts. It was a declaration. It was a testimonial in a caliber of the highest spiritual experience any Christian could possibly hope to achieve. In Mormonism it is considered the greatest event on earth since the resurrection!

And yet, in light of all the grandeur and representation of God appearing to Joseph Smith, there is nothing about the Father appearing in the 1832 account that Smith kept hidden presumably under lock and key throughout his entire ministry. The account does not testify that Joseph Smith saw the Father. It only testifies that he saw Jesus who recalls the future prophecy of the second coming and spoke of the Father’s glory but not in the sense of him being present:

“Behold and lo, I come quickly, as it is written of me, in the cloud, clothed in the glory of my Father.”

We conclude that Joseph Smith did not mention that the Father appeared to him because he did not consider the Father to be a separate Person but was manifested strictly through the appearance of the Son. To see the Son was to see the Father! One Person only!
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Re: Father Awol

Post by Hagoth »

Shulem wrote:
Wed Jan 05, 2022 4:03 pm
The 1832 account tendered in Smith’s own handwriting offers an original and intimate accounting of what Smith thought of his First Vision experience.
Sorry if this is a bit of a derailment, but I would also like to point out that the 1832 version, written in Joseph's own hand, is also a powerful argument against the much-beloved notion that he was an ignoramus who, as Emma said much later, couldn't even dictate a coherent letter.

Some people who read this testimony without much cultural context can't get past the frontier spelling and punctuation. Here's an excerpt with cleaned-up spelling and punctuation:
“...I learned in the scriptures that God was the same yesterday, today and forever, that he was no respecter to persons, for he was God; for I looked upon the sun, the glorious luminary of the earth, and also the moon rolling in their majesty through the heavens, and also the stars shining in their courses, and the earth also upon which I stood, and the beast of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and the fish of the waters, and also man walking forth upon the face of the earth in majesty and in the strength of beauty, whose power and intelligence in governing the things which are so exceeding great and marvelous, even in the likeness of him who created them. And when I considered upon these things my heart exclaimed, “Well hath the wise man said it is a fool that saith in his heart "there is no God!” My heart exclaimed, “All, all these bear testimony and bespeak an omnipotent and omnipresent power; a being who maketh laws and decrees, and bindeth all things in their bounds, who filleth eternity, who was and is and will be, from all Eternity to Eternity!” (Joseph Smith Papers, History-October-1829).
Maybe it's just me, but that is some pretty powerful prose for an ignorant, near-illiterate plow boy. I would think that someone who could write like that just might be capable of creating a 500-page novel. Not to mention that his handwriting makes mine look like chicken scratches.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program...
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Re: The First Vision

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Supposedly the Quran is such spellbinding Arabic poetry that it might be understandable to wonder whether a human being really could have composed it. Whether or not the Quran is really that amazing in Arabic, the Book of Mormon is definitely not in hat league.

Sure, the Book of Mormon would be an impressive thing for an average farm kid to write up over the course of a summer up in their room after chores. But prodigies who can do that kind of thing aren't so incredibly rare. I'm pretty sure there's at least a few kids in every ten thousand who can do something like that.

So okay, if you pick a random person then the odds that they'd be a precocious writer like that are still pretty low. Even people who believe in divinely inspired prophets, however, don't reckon their incidence in all human history at much more than one in a billion.

The Mormon argument for Smith's prophethood, from the unlikelihood that he could have written the Book of Mormon himself, is an argument that it's too unlikely for him to have been one in ten thousand, so he must have been one in a billion.
I was a teenager before it was cool.
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Re: The First Vision

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I feel it’s safe to say that no where in Church history prior to 1835 is Smith quoted for saying anything about the Father being a separate and distinct individual having a body of flesh and bone. Therefore, if it can be shown or not shown that Smith never said any such thing, then it can also be attested that Smith never testified of his later beliefs of God prior to 1835! I don’t care what Smith said after 1835! It’s irrelevant because he changed the story during his mid-ministry!

When it comes to the Father being a separate Person having a body there is no testimony to this doctrine prior to Smith obtaining the Egyptian papyrus. The doctrines had in the current scriptures of that day were all that mattered and even the Lectures on Faith taught that God was a Spirit. That *IS* what the Latter-Day Saints in Kirtland believed and that is what Smith taught.

I bear you my testimony that I know this is true. Amen.
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