The First Vision

[Shulem]

During two different occasions, Smith explained how he learned two specific things:

1) God is the same forever (1832)
2) Plurality of Gods (1844)

The first of which is given in the 1832 First Vision Account by which Smith said a knowledge of God’s nature is contained in the scriptures and that is exactly how he originally learned it. Never mind the alleged First Vision because that’s not how he learned it! He learned it by reading the scriptures, not by seeing God in a vision as a young boy in 1820! Think about it, if Smith had seen both the Father and Son (Two Persons) he would have represented this understanding in his visionary account as his primary learning source rather than what’s metaphorically written in the pages of the Bible.

I learned in the scriptures that God was the same yesterday to day and forever that he was no respecter to persons...

The second was given much later in 1844 when he tells how he came to know about the Plurality of Gods:

I want to reason a little on this subject; I learned it by translating the papyrus which is now in my house.

Smith said he learned about the Plurality of Gods by translating (reading) the papyrus sometime after 1835, not because he saw the Father and Son in vision as a boy in 1820! There is no way on earth that Smith believed he saw Two Persons during his 1832 account because that is *not* the testimony. His testimony was that he saw the Lord of Glory and believed in the Trinitarian God as expressed in Book of Mormon doctrine.

[I Have Questions]

During two different occasions, Smith explained how he learned two specific things:

1) God is the same forever (1832)
2) Plurality of Gods (1844)

The first of which is given in the 1832 First Vision Account by which Smith said a knowledge of God’s nature is contained in the scriptures and that is exactly how he originally learned it. Never mind the alleged First Vision because that’s not how he learned it! He learned it by reading the scriptures, not by seeing God in a vision as a young boy in 1820! Think about it, if Smith had seen both the Father and Son (Two Persons) he would have represented this understanding in his visionary account as his primary learning source rather than what’s metaphorically written in the pages of the Bible.

I learned in the scriptures that God was the same yesterday to day and forever that he was no respecter to persons...

The second was given much later in 1844 when he tells how he came to know about the Plurality of Gods:

I want to reason a little on this subject; I learned it by translating the papyrus which is now in my house.

Smith said he learned about the Plurality of Gods by translating (reading) the papyrus sometime after 1835, not because he saw the Father and Son in vision as a boy in 1820! There is no way on earth that Smith believed he saw Two Persons during his 1832 account because that is *not* the testimony. His testimony was that he saw the Lord of Glory and believed in the Trinitarian God as expressed in Book of Mormon doctrine.

It would be interesting to see an argument against your carefully laid out evidence. I can't think of a legitimate argument against it, but maybe MG will give it go...

[Shulem]

It would be interesting to see an argument against your carefully laid out evidence. I can't think of a legitimate argument against it, but maybe MG will give it go...

I’m so glad you’re here in this thread and thank you for your comment. I was thinking earlier about how I might expand this thread with another knockout punch in taking down Smith’s false embellishments of spiritual experiences he had as a youth. He did have them. As a boy, he was thoughtful and mindful about the concept and existence of God. But he never saw Two Persons in a vision or dream as later described in his 1838 account. The church was lied to and the members were fed a story that never happened. The First Vision as presently constituted in LDS canon is a lie. I know this to be so. Absolutely.

You know, Joseph Smith made the Two Personages up out of thin air just as he did when he declared how King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head was written in the dead Egyptian language which he believed nobody would ever decipher. The revelation in LDS canon about Prince of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, as written above the hand is false as is Shulem, one of the king’s principal waiters, as represented by the characters above his hand is additional proof that he was making everything up on the fly.

I testify that Joseph Smith did not see the Father & Son as Two Persons and neither is there a pharaonic name given in the characters of Facsimile No. 3. And yet Mormon apologists wiggle about in coming up with flimsy excuses to suggest that Smith was interpreting the Facsimile by the power of God but in reality he was using his own mortal mind -- and he was 100% wrong on all points!

Amen.

[I Have Questions]

Joseph didn’t see anyone. He made it up. Which is why the story changes in significant ways over time. It’s also why it’s contradicted with other things he said, as you have pointed out.

[Marcus]

Joseph didn’t see anyone. He made it up. Which is why the story changes in significant ways over time. It’s also why it’s contradicted with other things he said, as you have pointed out.

To me, it seemed that the first vision began as yet another imitation of other's experiences, such as John Wesley's:

May 24, 1738, during a meeting at Aldersgate, Wesley experienced God's saving grace and wrote:

"I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins."

https://www.fosterhistory.com/en/john-w ... awakening/

[I Have Questions]

Joseph didn’t see anyone. He made it up. Which is why the story changes in significant ways over time. It’s also why it’s contradicted with other things he said, as you have pointed out.

To me, it seemed that the first vision began as yet another imitation of other's experiences, such as John Wesley's:

May 24, 1738, during a meeting at Aldersgate, Wesley experienced God's saving grace and wrote:

"I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins."

https://www.fosterhistory.com/en/john-w ... awakening/

That's a good example. Joseph “borrowed” from many contemporary sources. He was not shy of copying others. There are plenty of times why you can trace Joseph’s “revelations” to something in his milieu, or books, etc. he had access to.

[Shulem]

To me, it seemed that the first vision began as yet another imitation of other's experiences, such as John Wesley's:

That's a good example. Joseph “borrowed” from many contemporary sources. He was not shy of copying others. There are plenty of times why you can trace Joseph’s “revelations” to something in his milieu, or books, etc. he had access to.

And we have Lucy Mack Smith’s accounting of her husband’s dream featuring the tree of life and other dreams that symbolically referenced faith in the true gospel.

Perhaps more telling is that young Joseph had his mind on religious concerns and formulated his own ideas about what religion meant to him.

During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined: he would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent; their dress, mode of travelling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, and their buildings, with every particular; he would describe their mode of warfare, as also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them.

So, what could Joseph possibly know about the religious worship of the native American Indians from long ago? I think those ideas were formulated in his mind while contemplating a book that he would one day write and his family fully supported him in doing so. The story contained in that book would feature a unique landmass known as Delmarva having a narrow neck leading northward to Cumorah as well as a river near the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward. -- the only landmass on the North American continent that matches the size and proportion given in the story. And lest we forget, everyone, the whole Smith family believed in the traditional Trinitarian God of the Bible which reflects perfectly the teachings and stories found in the Book of Mormon! It all fits like a hand in the glove.

To the apologists, I say, “Checkmate, you lose!”

[Shulem]

In 1832, both Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon (First Counselor in the Presidency of the High Priesthood) believed in a Trinitarian God when they claimed to experience the vision of the three degrees of glory. The idea of the Father having a physical body of flesh was not doctrine taught by Mormonism at that time and was not expressed or implied in the vision. Elder Rigdon would have referenced the express teachings of the Lecture on Faith: “the Father being a personage of spirit” and John 4:24, “God is a Spirit.” Smith and Rigdon were certainly aware of Adam Clarke’s Commentary: “God is a Spirit — This is one of the first, the greatest, the most sublime, and necessary truths in the compass of nature! There is a God, the cause of all things - the fountain of all perfection - without parts or dimensions, for he is ETERNAL - filling the heavens and the earth - pervading, governing, and upholding all things: for he is an infinite SPIRIT!”

Of whom we bear record; and the record which we bear is the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the Son, whom we saw and with whom we conversed in the heavenly vision.

Note how they claimed to see “the Son” and conversed with him.

And while we meditated upon these things, the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about.

Smith claimed they saw the “glory of the Lord” which is the same Person referenced in the 1832 First Vision account: “Lord of glory.”

And we beheld the glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of his fulness;

The visionary claim is practically a carbon copy of the statement given by Stephen in Acts 7:55, “But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.” Trinitarian Christianity views this as symbolic expression of God’s divine nature. It’s also reminiscent of the symbolic expression of John seeing God and the Lamb in Revelation 5:7, “And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.”

And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!

Or in other words, Jesus (he) lives. The vision was about seeing him and bearing testimony of him just as we receive from the original account of the First Vision. Jesus only!

[Shulem]

Joseph “borrowed” from many contemporary sources. He was not shy of copying others. There are plenty of times why you can trace Joseph’s “revelations” to something in his milieu, or books, etc. he had access to.

Yes, he was quite familiar with Adam Clarke who affirmed Jesus’s universal statement about God being a Spirit:

God is a Spirit— This is one of the first, the greatest, the most sublime, and necessary truths in the compass of nature! There is a God, the cause of all things - the fountain of all perfection - without parts or dimensions, for he is ETERNAL - filling the heavens and the earth - pervading, governing, and upholding all things: for he is an infinite SPIRIT!”

The above statement made by Clarke could just as well been included in the Lecture on Faith or in the Doctrine and Covenants. It sounds very much like Joseph Smith! Likewise, Smith was also very aware of John Wesley (Methodist leader) and the established doctrines of the incorporeality of God the Father who manifested physically through the Son. Those doctrines were firmly established in Smith’s religious frontier and Smith never opposed the dogma until late, in Nauvoo, when he was heavily involved in polygamy and god-making. Thus, the very idea of the Father having a body of flesh and bone came late in his ministry which is proof that Smith by his own standards as a professed prophet was ignorant in his original claim to understand the true nature of God beginning in the sacred grove and during his ministry in Kirtland.

I know beyond any doubt that Smith was a liar and made his doctrine up as he went along. He was creative and attentive but he also made serious mistakes.

Amen.

[Shulem]

Imagine being with Joseph Smith when he first established the Church. He claimed he was a prophet and therefore knew for certainty the character of God! But there is no reference to Smith ever saying anything about his alleged First Vision prior to organizing the church in 1830. Traditional Christian belief of the God of the Bible is what Joseph preached. The Trinitarian teachings of the Book of Mormon were capped with this revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants:

17 By these things we know that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which are in them;

28 Which Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end. Amen.

The unchangeable nature of God is said to be eternally infinite being immutable and not subject to variation by which God has always been God from everlasting. However, this flies in the face of Smith’s teachings in Nauvoo that “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!” But a finite being can never change into the infinite God! Joseph Smith lost touch with the true concept of divinity and perverted scripture to suit his own polygamous fancy:

• Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting. (Ps 93:2)
• For I am the LORD, I change not (Mal 3:6)
• For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is  unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity. (Mor 8:18)

Imagine meeting the prophet in 1830 and informing him that God and Christ are two separate Persons each having bodies of flesh and bone and how the Father was once a mortal man before he became God. Smith would have rebuked it as false doctrine inspired by the devil. Or in other words, Smith would have rebuked his future lying self!

Think about that!