1832 1st Vision Account

[_1 Iron]

Themis,

I appreciate your thoughts. I struggle now finding a way to continue this discussion in a manner that would be more productive than repeating the same things I've already said. If I include in my evidence the Book of Mormon, the restored Gospel, and the effect that the gospel has had on me I know you might not see it as valid. But I do. I also see the first vision accounts to be a minor issue as you suggest, but one that has served to increase my appreciating of Joseph Smith rather than diminish it. Perhaps there is nothing more to say than that?

[_Themis]

Themis,

I appreciate your thoughts. I struggle now finding a way to continue this discussion in a manner that would be more productive than repeating the same things I've already said. If I include in my evidence the Book of Mormon, the restored Gospel, and the effect that the gospel has had on me I know you might not see it as valid. But I do. I also see the first vision accounts to be a minor issue as you suggest, but one that has served to increase my appreciating of Joseph Smith rather than diminish it. Perhaps there is nothing more to say than that?

I know people view certain things as evidence of the truthfullness of the church, but my expereince tells me they tend to misinterpret those expereinces how they and the church usually want them to.


This is from your OP

I've seen many critical arguments against the first vision based on the mere existance of these multiple, slightly varied accounts. Yet it seems the critics are reinventing history when you do so. Before this account surfaced, the critcism seems to have been that there were no early accounts before the mid- to late 1830's.

I notice memebers who want to believe will usually call it slightly varied accounts. I think I have provided the evidence that they are not slightly varied, but have some large differences that are not accounted for by saying Joseph was focusing on difference elemants on dofferent occasions. it also does not deal with the most important problem that the main difference matches changing views of Joseph and the church about the First Vision. This is strong evidence that Joserph did not see two supreme beings or we would have had the churches current view of the Godhead at the beggining of the church and not later on.

[_jon]

When apologists approach the issue of the Kinderhook plates and the prophet seeing Adam and Michael seperately in a vision it is claimed as 'scribal error'.

On the Kinderhook plates:
Some claim the statement found in History of the Church was only an altered version of William Clayton's statement, placing Smith in the first person.Diane Wirth, writing in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon (4: 210), states: "A first-person narrative was apparently a common practice of this time period when a biographical work was being compiled. Since such words were never penned by the Prophet, they cannot be uncritically accepted as his words or his opinion."

Okay, so if we adopt the position that we should only take seriously that which Joseph wrote himself then the canonised version of the 1st vision simply has to be removed and replaced with the version (available on the Joseph Smith papers website) that he wrote himself. Sadly in that version he 'forgets' to mention that he saw God...