Joseph Smith didn't believe that the members of the Godhead were three separate beings before 1835.
Correct.
Official® Lectures on Faith were first published in the 1835 Edition of the Doctrine and Covenants in Kirtland Ohio and provide the necessary clarity in describing the official beliefs of the First Presidency with Joseph Smith at the head. That was the standard given to the Church and the whole world at large. What the modern Mormon church today thinks of those lectures makes no difference at all. What matters is what Smith believed and the doctrines he taught! Mormonism today is irrelevant and just because the Church removed the lectures in 1921 changes nothing because all that really matters is what Joseph Smith believed, not apostate Mormonism that followed. The heading of the First Lecture states categorically that doctrines therein are “On the doctrine of the church of the Latter Day Saints.”
But was Smith also familiar with Matthew Henry's commentary of that verse about the "everlasting Father"???
Perhaps.
But we know he was familiar with Adam Clarke and used him without ever crediting him and stole from others as often as he would.
2 Nephi 19:6 wrote:For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Adam Clarke wrote:This is an illustrious prophecy of the incarnation of Christ, with an enumeration of those characters in which he stands most nearly related to mankind as their Saviour; and of others by which his infinite majesty and Godhead are shown. He shall appear as a child, born of a woman, born as a Jew, under the law, but not in the way of ordinary generation. He is a Son given-the human nature, in which the fulness of the Godhead was to dwell, being produced by the creative energy of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin.
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He is the Father of eternity; the Origin of all being, and the Cause of the existence, and particularly the Father, of the spirits of all flesh.
There you have it. The Book of Mormon and Adam Clarke extoll Jesus *as* the Father of spirits (Heb 12:9) which is Heavenly Father’s job.
The first full-length 290 page anti-Mormon book entitled “Mormonism Unvailed” written by Eber D. Howe in 1834 provides an exhaustive attack on the spiritual claims of Mormonism. Interestingly enough or more curiously, there is nothing in the account about Joseph Smith’s so-called First Vision in which he was said to have seen God as a young boy. Here we are to understand that the greatest spiritual event to have occurred since Christ’s resurrection is not taken into consideration, let alone mentioned, because nobody knew anything about it! The only thing of note concerning young Joseph was his treasure seeking and money digging expeditions. Nothing was ever said about the so-called First Vision or how Joseph saw two Persons during a divine vision.
Today, Bill Reel of Mormon Discussions Inc. released a short 7 minute video that briefly addresses the differences between the First Vision accounts and notes particularly how the 1832 account mentions Joseph seeing God manifested in a vision as one Person rather than two Persons as described in the official 1838 account.
It was a fine video and well presented but it failed to expose the confession (Freudian slip) Joseph gave when inventing a new and improved version to supersede the one recorded in his personal history.
