Did Joseph Smith Change His First Vision Story?

Chapter 01, Episode 01 | First Vision

Podcast Episode Summary

Joseph Smith left four principal firsthand accounts of his First Vision, and they contain different details. Does that prove he invented or embellished the experience? This episode compares the original documents, separates omissions from actual tensions, and tests the argument that his story grew more elaborate over time.

In 1832, Joseph Smith began recording his life in a short, unfinished history. He described a personal struggle over sin and salvation, a prayer, a brilliant light, and an appearance of the Lord. The account never explicitly names God the Father as a second personage. Twelve years after the reported event, this is the earliest surviving account in Joseph’s own handwriting. ^[1]

Three years later, Joseph spoke with a visitor in Kirtland. His journal records two heavenly personages and also mentions angels. In a history begun in 1838, the two personages are described in a more familiar way: one points to the other and identifies him as his beloved Son. The account includes Joseph’s struggle against an unseen power and a warning not to join the existing churches. ^[2] ^[3]

For a reader encountering these documents for the first time, the accusation sounds serious. Joseph supposedly began with an ordinary conversion experience and gradually turned it into the appearance of God the Father and Jesus Christ. If the First Vision was real, why do the accounts differ? That is one of Thomas Faulk’s central questions in Letter For My Wife. ^[4]

The historical documents are genuine, and the differences should not be dismissed. But the next step in Faulk’s reasoning is not automatic. The fact that two accounts include different information does not establish that Joseph knowingly invented either one. We first need to distinguish what each account actually states, what it omits, and what genuinely creates a historical tension.

What Are the Four Firsthand First Vision Accounts?

The Joseph Smith Papers identifies four main firsthand accounts, meaning records Joseph wrote or that were created under his direction. They are not four independent witnesses to the grove. Each represents Joseph relating his own experience in a different setting. ^[5]

Year	Historical record	Primary emphasis
1832	Unfinished autobiographical history, partly in Joseph’s handwriting	Religious searching, conviction of sin, forgiveness
1835	November conversation recorded in Joseph’s journal	Prayer, two personages, forgiveness, angels
1838	History begun in 1838, preserved in a later manuscript copy	Religious confusion, opposition, two personages, instruction
1842	Short account in the Times and Seasons, associated with the Wentworth Letter	A concise account of the vision and the Restoration

The original documents are available for direct comparison through the Joseph Smith Papers. That is where a serious examination should begin, rather than with a chart that reduces each account to whichever phrase makes it look most inconsistent. ^[5]

The 1832 history is six pages long and ends without becoming a complete autobiography. Joseph and Frederick G. Williams wrote different portions. The 1835 entry came from a conversation with a man who introduced himself as a Jewish minister; Warren Parrish later copied the account into Joseph’s journal. The history commonly called the 1838 account became the basis for the Pearl of Great Price version. The 1842 account was a brief public history prepared in connection with a request from newspaper editor John Wentworth. ^[1] ^[5]

We should also recognize a complication in the conventional labels. The history was begun in 1838, but the familiar surviving manuscript was copied in 1839–1841. Likewise, the extent of Joseph’s personal involvement in drafting the Wentworth text is not fully known, although it appeared under his signature. These qualifications are part of the published documentary record, not reasons to dismiss it. ^[5]

Did Joseph Change His Reason for Praying?

One argument compares forgiveness of sins in 1832 with the search for the true church in 1838. In the earliest account, Joseph describes his soul becoming distressed by sin, and the Lord assures him that his sins are forgiven. In the later account, he describes disagreement among denominations and his desire to know which one to join. ^[1] ^[3]

But that comparison leaves out an important part of the 1832 history. Joseph also discusses the divisions and conduct of the denominations he knew. He says his search of the scriptures led him to believe that no contemporary society was built upon the New Testament gospel as he understood it. Concerns about his own salvation and about the churches were present in the same early narrative. ^[1]

I don’t see a contradiction in a young man asking how to receive forgiveness while also trying to decide where true Christianity could be found. Those questions naturally overlap. A person distressed about salvation may also care intensely about which church teaches the right path to salvation.

There is, however, a harder difference that shouldn’t be passed over. The 1832 history says Joseph found that existing denominations did not conform to the gospel. The later history says it had not entered his heart, before praying, that all the churches were wrong. ^[1] ^[3]

One reasonable interpretation is that he recognized serious problems but had not settled the much larger question of whether every denomination was wrong and that he should join none. Another possibility is that the accounts compress stages of his thinking differently. Neither explanation can be proven from the surviving manuscripts. The fair conclusion is that the wording creates a genuine tension about the development of his religious understanding, not a demonstrated confession that he fabricated the vision.

Was Joseph Fourteen or Fifteen?

The familiar account places Joseph’s vision when he was about fourteen. The 1832 manuscript includes the phrase “in the 16th year of my age,” ordinarily meaning that he was fifteen. That difference is real. ^[1] ^[3]

There is a useful manuscript detail: the age phrase is an insertion written in Frederick G. Williams’s hand, even though the surrounding passage is in Joseph’s writing. Historian Dean C. Jessee documented that feature when examining the original manuscript. The insertion might reflect a scribal misunderstanding, or Williams might have recorded an age Joseph supplied. The handwriting alone cannot decide which happened. ^[6]

This is a chronological inconsistency of approximately one year, and I think it should be acknowledged plainly. But there is a large difference between an error or uncertain recollection about an age and proof that the event itself never took place. The argument that Joseph deliberately invented the vision requires much more than identifying this discrepancy.

Did the Encounter With Darkness Appear Only Later?

The 1838 account includes the dramatic description of Joseph being unable to speak and feeling as though an unseen power threatened to destroy him before the light appeared. Critics sometimes cite this as another detail added to make the story more impressive. ^[3]

The 1835 account already describes difficulty speaking during his prayer and a sound like someone approaching. It does not provide exactly the same interpretation or language as the later history, but an episode of opposition before the light is present before 1838. ^[2]

The 1832 and 1842 narratives do not tell this portion of the experience. That omission raises a fair question about which details Joseph chose to include, but it does not mean the account of difficulty praying first originated in the familiar history. The earlier journal record prevents that simple claim.

Did the Number of Heavenly Visitors Change?

The 1832 history describes seeing the Lord without explicitly enumerating two personages. The 1835 account describes a first personage followed by another, as well as angels. The 1838 and 1842 accounts clearly describe two glorious personages. ^[1] ^[2] ^[3] ^[7]

This is probably the most important theological criticism. It deserves more than a paragraph in an overall comparison, which is why it has its own article: Did Joseph Smith See One or Two Personages?.

For this article, the essential distinction is that the 1832 text does not explicitly exclude a second visitor. It also does not explicitly confirm one. The later descriptions contain information absent from the earliest surviving account. Those are the facts the reader needs to evaluate, without putting the word “only” into Joseph’s 1832 statement.

Did the Accounts Become More Elaborate Every Time?

The proposed theory is that Joseph gradually expanded a modest conversion story until it became a detailed two-personage encounter. For that theory to explain the documents cleanly, we would expect the later versions consistently to be fuller and more impressive than the earlier ones.

But the actual order doesn’t work that neatly. The 1835 account contains angels, a detail the familiar 1838 history doesn’t describe in the same way. The Wentworth account of 1842 is shorter and omits much of the 1838 history’s dramatic description. It contains two personages, but gives only a brief summary of what they said. ^[2] ^[3] ^[7]

The Joseph Smith Papers also notes that the Wentworth account borrowed language from Orson Pratt’s published 1840 narration. Joseph was not composing four wholly independent literary productions in isolation. They belong to a developing body of testimony and historical writing in which different authors and scribes sometimes used earlier material. ^[5]

None of this proves Joseph was truthful. The point is narrower and more important: the documents do not show a simple progression from a short, one-being story to an ever-longer, increasingly ornate version. The accusation needs to explain all four records, including details that appear earlier and disappear from later summaries.

Why Are the Accounts Different?

The documents had different purposes. The 1832 autobiography emphasizes Joseph’s internal religious struggle. The 1835 journal records what he told a visitor during a conversation. The longer history was designed to explain the origins and development of the Church to readers who had heard conflicting reports. The Wentworth text offered a concise overview of Latter-day Saint history and belief to an outside audience. ^[5] ^[8]

Think about how a missionary recounts a spiritual experience. In a sacrament meeting talk, he may emphasize the message. In a personal journal, he may focus on his feelings. In a letter to family, he may discuss the circumstances. When I served my mission, I did not quote every line of Joseph Smith’s history each time I explained the First Vision. I selected the portions most relevant to the person I was teaching.

That observation helps explain why accounts can differ, but it is not a universal excuse for every inconsistency. The proper historical test is to evaluate each difference rather than assume every variation is harmless. The age discrepancy is different from the omission of an angel, and the statements about the denominations deserve a more serious comparison than the mere absence of a detail.

Multiple accounts can strengthen our understanding by providing details absent elsewhere. They can also expose uncertainties. A careful evaluation should be willing to recognize both.

Origins of the Accusation

The claim that Joseph invented the First Vision long after 1820 did not originate with Thomas Faulk. Fawn Brodie made a prominent version of that argument in her 1945 biography, No Man Knows My History, decades before Faulk assembled his letter. Later scholars debated the issue after the 1832 and 1835 accounts became widely available in the 1960s. ^[9]

Faulk’s treatment also overlaps arguments in the CES Letter, including comparing the four accounts and treating differences as signs of an evolving story. Sharing an argument does not prove which document he used in every instance, but this was an established historical controversy long before his purported independent investigation. ^[4] ^[10]

What Do the First Vision Accounts Actually Establish?

We have multiple records in which Joseph Smith described a claimed heavenly experience. They differ in emphasis, detail, and some wording. The earliest manuscript contains at least one genuine chronological discrepancy and an apparent tension about Joseph’s understanding of the churches before praying. Those should not be erased in an attempt to defend the First Vision.

What they do not establish is the much larger accusation that Joseph knowingly invented the event. A short account is not a denial of everything omitted from it. An additional detail is not necessarily a contradiction. A difference in age does not reveal the author’s intention. And the sequence of the records does not support the simplistic argument that Joseph made the experience more elaborate with every retelling.

I believe Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. That conviction is grounded in my faith and spiritual experiences as well as my understanding of the historical record. Historical documents alone cannot demonstrate that God appeared in a grove. But the documents should be read accurately before they are used to declare the entire event a fraud.

The related investigations examine why the first detailed account wasn’t recorded until 1832, whether Joseph originally claimed to see just one personage, and whether he copied other visionary accounts. Each addresses a different part of Faulk’s First Vision criticism.