Joseph the CopyCat (First Vision)

[_beastie]

Does this sound familiar?

I then penetrated into the woods, I should think, a quarter of a mile, went over on the other side of the hill, and found a place where some large trees had fallen across each other, leaving an open place between. There I saw I could make a kind of closet. I crept into this place and knelt down for prayer. As I turned to go up into the woods, I recollect to have said, "I will give my heart to God, or I never will come down from there." I recollect repeating this as I went up: ;"I will give my heart to God before I ever come down again." But when I attempted to pray I found that my heart would not pray. I had supposed that if I could only be where I could speak aloud, without being overheard, I could pray freely. But lo! when I came to try, I was dumb; that is, I had nothing to say to God; or at least I could say but a few words, and those without heart. In attempting to pray I would hear a rustling in the leaves, as I thought, and would stop and look up to see if somebody were not coming. This I did several times.

This portion sounds like Joseph Smith read it and decided to "one up" him:

There was no fire, and no light, in the room; nevertheless it appeared to me as if it were perfectly light. As I went in and shut the door after me, it seemed as if I met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. It did not occur to me then, nor did it for some time afterward, that it was wholly a mental state. On the contrary it seemed to me that I saw Him as I would see any other man. He said nothing, but looked at me in such a manner as to break me right down at his feet. I have always since regarded this as a most remarkable state of mind; for it seemed to me a reality, that He stood before me, and I fell down at his feet and poured out my soul to Him. I wept aloud like a child, and made such confessions as I could with my choked utterance. It seemed to me that I bathed His feet with my tears; and yet I had no distinct impression that I touched Him, that I recollect.

http://www.matthew548.com/Finney3.html

[_CaliforniaKid]

I thought you were going to compare it to Joseph Smith praying in the woods. That seems the more natural comparison, in my opinion.

[_beastie]

Both excerpts are from Finney. I did mean the first one to be compared to this:

14 So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray dvocally.
15 After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.
16 But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the dsun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.

The woods scene and the initial inability to pray sound exactly like Finney.

In the movie version of the First Vision, they actually include the rustling detail.

But the actual visitation is a one-up, because Joseph Smith made it sound like there was no question it was an actual visitation, not perhaps a "mental state".

[_CaliforniaKid]

ah, gotcha. I was thinking the second quote was Moroni visitng Joseph Smith in his bedroom.

[_beastie]

ah, gotcha. I was thinking the second quote was Moroni visitng Joseph Smith in his bedroom.

Heh heh. I guess that demonstrates just how similar they are.

[_Nevo]

Finney's memoirs weren't published until 1876 so your "copycat" accusation is rather wide of the mark.

[_beastie]

Finney was a well known revivalist. Do you actually believe he didn't repeatedly share his conversion experience prior to actually publishing it in print?

[_Scottie]

I don't know. Those concepts really aren't all that unique that 2 different people couldn't think of them.

Going into the woods to pray certainly isn't a new concept. People have been doing that forever.
Rustling leaves is often confused for "whisperings of the spirit"

[_Blixa]

Actually you're both right (scottie and beastie)! The event and its description are not only commonplace in a general sense, I would imagine they were very commonplace in the context of upstate New York revivalism: the sentiment and the physical surroundings are a complete match. Its hard to believe the "young" joseph smith didn't come across several similar accounts, probably vocally as beastie notes, but also quite possibly in written form, too.

[_The Nehor]

They both match Biblical and Apocryphal accounts adjusted for location.