The First Vision

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Shulem
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Re: Vision of the Three Degrees

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bill4long wrote:
Fri Sep 16, 2022 8:58 am
Shulem wrote:
Thu Sep 15, 2022 8:25 pm
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon
Sydney Rigdon was the cause of almost all the errors which were introduced while he was in the church ... Rigdon would expound the Old Testament scriptures of the Bible and Book of Mormon (in his way) to Joseph, concerning the priesthood, high priests, etc., and would persuade Brother Joseph to inquire of the Lord about this doctrine and that doctrine, and of course a revelation would always come just as they desired it. --David Whitner, And Address to All Believers in Christ

bill4long,

As you probably know, Rigdon was a source of a lot of grief for Joseph Smith only months prior to having the grand and glorious vision of the three degrees. Smith admonished Rigdon for exalting himself and by revelation stated how the Lord was displeased with him and the Spirit was grieved. Do you know of any of Rigdon’s writings or teachings wherein he testified that the Father was a separate Personage having a body prior to Smith’s formal introduction of the plurality of the gods beginning in 1835? You’d think that if Rigdon had really seen the Father & Son together according to Smith’s later claims of seeing them in the grove then that knowledge would have been properly expressed somewhere in the historical annals of church history during that time.
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Lectures on Faith

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I suppose the best source in which to tap into Sidney Rigdon’s mind regarding his personal beliefs of the Personages of God (prior to 1835) is to turn to the “Lectures on Faith.” Rigdon is attributed as the main author and largely responsible for the theological content which was approved by the First Presidency and published in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.

Here are some bulleted points from the infamous 5th Lecture expressed in the order they were given:
  • We shall, in this lecture speak of the Godhead: we mean the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
  • There are two personages who constitute the great matchless, governing and supreme power over all things
  • They are the Father and the Son: The Father being a personage of spirit
  • The Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, a personage of tabernacle
  • possessing the same mind with the Father, which mind is the Holy Spirit
  • Q. How many personages are there in the Godhead?
    A. Two: the Father and the Son.
  • Q. What is the Father?
    A. He is a personage of glory and power.
  • Q. What is the Son?
    A. First, he is a personage of tabernacle. Secondly, and being a personage of tabernacle, was made or fashioned like unto man, or being in the form and likeness of man. Thirdly, he is also in the likeness of the personage of the Father.

Notice how the theology in the discourse is in keeping with traditional Christian views that the Father & Son are one in the same but are two manifested Personages in expressing the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is NOT a Personage but is considered the mind of the Father & Son who are one God.

It’s important to note that the Father does NOT have or manifest himself with a body of flesh but is a “personage of spirit.” The Son who is in the image of the Father manifests the Godhead having a body.

All of this is pretty much standard Christian theology of the day. There is nothing about the Father being a separate Person having a body of flesh and bones. That particular Christian heresy came much later. Rigdon did not embrace that when he delivered the lecture in 1835. And bear in mind that Rigdon claimed to see the Father & Son in the grand and glorious vision of the three degrees. The same goes for Joseph Smith who never expressed the idea that the Father was a separate Person having a body of flesh until after he developed his theology of the plurality of gods.
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Re: The First Vision

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Shulem, do you see the plurality of Gods as being an adjunct to the deification of Joseph and polygamy theology?
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Re: The First Vision

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Moksha wrote:
Sat Sep 17, 2022 7:24 am
Shulem, do you see the plurality of Gods as being an adjunct to the deification of Joseph and polygamy theology?

Polygamy was a doctrine that Smith entertained early on in his ministry when translating the Bible. I’m of the understanding that Smith viewed polygamy as a practice that would continue through him as part of the restoration of all things. His interest and involvement with polygamy precedes his shift into viewing God as a plurality in which glorified physical bodies are used to procreate. Polygamy and plurality of gods grew together and became entirely dependent on each other for the works, designs, and purposes of Mormon Man-God.

Smith’s First Vision account written by his own hand in 1832 makes no mention of the Father because he believed the Savior was a manifestation of the one God. He believed the Father & Son were literally one God and the Spirit was his mind and power. The 1832 account makes no mention of the Father verbally introducing the Son like in the New Testament or the appearing of Christ in the Book of Mormon when the voice of the Father is repeated three times (3 Nephi 11:3-7). Why is that? Why would Joseph ignore the Father while writing his choice experience of the most important event of his life? No mention of the Father! The answer is rather simple and I expressed earlier in this thread how the Father sent the Son to visit Joseph in the grove. And since the Father sent the Son it must be that an appearance or voice of the Father stayed behind and was elsewhere, kept back from Joseph’s senses. The absence of the Father in the 1832 account is all the proof we need in knowing that he was not part of that appearance as expressed in later accounts. Smith changed the story. He embellished his spiritual experience and lied.
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Re: The First Vision

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BUMPED in order to honor the upcoming research from the Backyard Professor with regard to Joseph Smith’s most important truth claim which is the very foundation of Mormonism.

I hope that RFM will take notice of just how important this thread is in challenging Smith’s original claims. The entire Church is built upon the foundation of the First Vision.

Philo Sofee wrote:
Sat Nov 12, 2022 10:06 pm
Yes, as I get done with the infinity aspects of God in the next few podcasts, I am getting right into the First Vision, and YOU......YOU young man are taking center stage in your research which I will go through with a fine toothed comb! Oh man it's gonna rock!
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If, if & buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry First Vision!

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In 1832, Joseph Smith personally set his hand to pen and paper and recorded his sacred experience concerning his First Vision. That account was the ULTIMATE telling and testimony of that experience in the year 1832 and there was nothing else other than *that* personal handwritten testimony written in the prophet’s own journal. If Joseph Smith had elected to publish his testimony as officially recorded in that record then it would have become the standard by which all members of the Church would have come to understand the First Vision experience.

Every member of the Church and every nonmember who read the account would come to know that Joseph Smith claimed to see the Lord Jesus Christ as he appeared to him in a pillar of light while praying in the wilderness and seeking answers to his questions. And if that record as recorded in the 1832 account had been published then nobody, NOT EVEN JOSEPH SMITH, would have ever thought that he saw Two Personages while in the grove and that they were separate beings both having their own bodies of flesh and bones. That kind of understanding did not exist in the year 1832!

I say this in the name of Joseph Smith, Amen.

What say ye, Philo?

RFM, do you need your ear pinched? :lol:
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They saw a man descending out of Heaven

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The 1832 First Vision account was given a couple years after Smith published the story about Jesus appearing to the Nephites in the Book of Mormon. We are familiar with this story that is recorded in Third Nephi in which Jesus HIMSELF was seen descending out of heaven. Smith’s own visionary experience recorded in 1832 is a repeat experience of the same type of experience had by the Nephites! Or in other words, just as Jesus came down out of heaven and appeared to the Nephites, so also did Jesus come down out of heaven and appear to Joseph Smith. It’s the exact same thing happening all over again but in a different time and place! Note how the description of Christ’s appearance to the Nephites is pretty much what Smith describes in his 1832 account of the First Vision in which Jesus Christ descends out of heaven all by himself and appears to the Nephites as a single personage:

Third Nephi CHAPTER V., 1830 Version wrote:Jesus Christ sheweth himself unto the people of Nephi, as the multitude were gathered together in the land Bountiful, and did minister unto them; and on this wise did he shew himself unto them.
Third Nephi CHAPTER V., 1830 Version wrote:And it came to pass as they understood, they cast their eyes up again towards Heaven, and behold, they saw a man descending out of Heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe, and he came down and stood in the midst of them, and the eyes of the whole multitude was turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, and wist not what it meant: for they thought it was an angel that had appeared unto them.

And it came to pass that he stretched forth his hand, and spake unto the people, saying: Behold I am Jesus Christ, of which the prophets testified that should come into the world; and behold I am the light and the life of the world, and I have drank out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things, from the beginning.

The appearance of Jesus to the Nephites is the same kind of experience Smith claimed to have while in the grove as told in the 1832 First Vision account. In both instances and in both appearances, there was only ONE Person who comes down out of heaven and manifests himself personally as the Lord of glory. And in both accounts, the Father is spoken of as one who exists but is not personally present as a separate Being or Personage having a body of flesh and bone.
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President Hinckley

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President Gordon B. Hinkley wrote:We declare without equivocation that God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, appeared in person to the boy Joseph Smith.

Sir, the Mormons in 1832 declared no such thing. Furthermore, the first First Vision account written by the very pen of Joseph Smith in 1832 declared no such thing. There is not a shred of evidence to support the idea or assertion that Joseph Smith ever claimed to see TWO persons in a vision prior to 1835 whereby emendations and further embellishments describing the experience are at odds with the original personal confession that was kept secret.

President Gordon B. Hinkley wrote:Our whole strength rests on the validity of that vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud.

Sir, I’m not going to dispute the idea that Joseph Smith had visionary experiences of a spiritual nature. I grant that! That is something that happens with people all over the world in every culture and religion. But I will dispute the fact that not a single Latter-day Saint ever expressed knowledge in Joseph Smith seeing TWO Persons in the sacred grove prior to 1835.
Do you understand what I’m saying, President Hinckley? I believe you are continuing to support a fraud and a coverup. It would be well if you were to appear and participate on the Backyard Professor’s podcast and answer questions put to you in a straightforward manner. Will you do that?
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Shulem on 60 Minutes

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Shulem wrote:President Hinkley, sir, may I ask you a straightforward question please? How many Latter-day Saints, including Joseph Smith, were on record for having said or known anything about the prophet having a vision of seeing both the Father and Son prior to 1835?
President Gordon B. Hinckley wrote: No comment.

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Daniel C. Peterson is cast out of the Church

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Joseph Smith wrote:Brother Daniel C. Peterson is mad. Whatever is he talking about? I saw the Lord of glory appear to me. He is according to scripture both the Father and Son. To see the Son is to see the Father because they are one. This business of the Father having a body of flesh and bone with a penis in order to make spirit babies is the doctrine of the devil. I have no part of that.

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