My Banned Question from Cougarboard.

[Taq Man]

While reading the "testimonials" Eber Howe collected (in 1833?) from the folks Joseph Smith grew up around (including Emma's father) I read many statements that were questionable, full of hatred, and many that were obvious lies. None of these testimonials could be considered as credible considering the bias of collector and giver. However, I did not read a single testimonial that even mentioned Joseph's first vision.

This got me thinking. "Why does the PofGP say that Joseph was persecuted by the people in Palmyra for telling them about his vision when the people who hated him most and went on the record with it never thought to mention it?"

Seems like something that needs clearing up. Some say it is because he didn't think about changing the first vision until later when he needed to solidify his standing as top dog in the church. I have never heard an apologetic response to this question.

Any thoughts?

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by Taq Man

While reading the "testimonials" Eber Howe collected (in 1833?) from the folks Joseph Smith grew up around (including Emma's father) I read many statements that were questionable, full of hatred, and many that were obvious lies. None of these testimonials could be considered as credible considering the bias of collector and giver. However, I did not read a single testimonial that even mentioned Joseph's first vision.

This got me thinking. "Why does the PofGP say that Joseph was persecuted by the people in Palmyra for telling them about his vision when the people who hated him most and went on the record with it never thought to mention it?"

Seems like something that needs clearing up. Some say it is because he didn't think about changing the first vision until later when he needed to solidify his standing as top dog in the church. I have never heard an apologetic response to this question.

Any thoughts?

My first offhand suggestion would to remember that the 1838 account (and really any account) is likely to have a presentist bias. That Joseph Smith's narration was fairly accurate but suffered from a presentist bias seems likely. Although, it doesn't deal directly with your concerns I think Quinn's recent article on the first vision is important background literature for questions like this:

D. Michael Quinn: Joseph Smith’s Experience of a Methodist “Camp-Meeting” in 1820, 2006, Dialogue .

Available online here: http://www.dialoguejournal.com/content/index.php?cat=4

[Archaea]

An interesting article and interesting that Quinn continues to research this subject matter.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by pelagius

My first offhand suggestion would to remember that the 1838 account (and really any account) is likely to have a presentist bias. That Joseph Smith's narration was fairly accurate but suffered from a presentist bias seems likely. Although, it doesn't deal directly with your concerns I think Quinn's recent article on the first vision is important background literature for questions like this:
D. Michael Quinn: Joseph Smith’s Experience of a Methodist “Camp-Meeting” in 1820, 2006, Dialogue .

Available online here: http://www.dialoguejournal.com/content/index.php?cat=4

In fact, I was rereading the article after posting and the following quote from Quinn stuck out to me as relevant and the quote addresses an analogous situation. The interesting thing about this quote is that here it is modern readers that exhibit a presentist bias when they read the first vision account (this is probably a much better way than my first suggestion that assumed Joseph was presentist in his approach). We are holding Joseph Smith to standard of accuracy that just didn't exist at the time:

Even more relevant to the conflation in Joseph's 1838 history, New York's Methodist Magazine--as indicated by the previous example--conflated into a single event various instances of revivalism that actually occurred during a year or more. The magazine's report of one "REVIVAL OF RELIGION" in four towns skipped from camp-meetings in July 1818 to campmeeting in June of 1819. Another article referred to "the memorable revival of religion in Chillicothe in 1818-19." In an 1819 article, its minister-author concluded: "It is now fourteen months since this revival began, during which time it has spread an extent of more than twelve miles." An 1825 article about the "Revival in Bridgetown, N.J." referred to intermittent revivals "in this place during the two last conference years." Even in the official magazine of New York's Methodists, it was standard practice to conflate time and space by regarding multiple camp-meetings and revivals as a single "revival."

This is consistent with Joseph's using the phrase "an unusual excitement on the subject of religion" for local revivals that were actually separated by intervals of three or four years. Then, as now, the word "excitement" has no plural, and can refer to multiple events. Whether the Mormon prophet, or a Methodist minister, or magazine editors--early nineteenth-century narrators saw no problem of accuracy when they conflated multiple revivals into one revival while giving retrospective narratives. It reflects the "presentist bias"--used polemically in this case--to hold the unschooled Mormon prophet to a standard of literal accuracy not manifested by the well-educated editors of New York's Methodist Magazine in their reports about the religious "excitement" of revivalism.

Thus, when LDS apologists insist on the technical accuracy of every detail in Smith's official account of the First Vision, they misread nineteenth-century narrative style and unnecessarily adopt the assumptions of disbelievers.

[Taq Man]

I especially liked this quote in the footnotes

"In a tradition as old as debate, polemics is an extreme version of apologetics. Defending a
point of view becomes less important than attacking one's opponents. Aside from their verbal
viciousness, polemicists often resort to any method to promote their argument. Polemics
intentionally destroys the give-and-take of sincerely respectful disagreement. In the resulting
polarization, `all are punish'd.' Moving beyond apologist persuasion, LDS polemicists furiously
(and often fraudulently) attack any non-traditional view of Mormonism. They don't mince
words--they mince the truth."

I have seen too much polemics and not enough apologetics. At any rate the article does not address my main point. Why does the PofGP describe something that never happened (persecution for telling the folks in Palmyra about his vision).

Blurring the times of events (Quinn's explanation for the revival date issue) seems unlikely as Jospeh did not start telling the version of seeing 2 distinct beings, and being called to be God's prophet until he got to Kirtland.

[Solon]

Originally Posted by Taq Man

While reading the "testimonials" Eber Howe collected (in 1833?) from the folks Joseph Smith grew up around (including Emma's father) I read many statements that were questionable, full of hatred, and many that were obvious lies. None of these testimonials could be considered as credible considering the bias of collector and giver. However, I did not read a single testimonial that even mentioned Joseph's first vision.

This got me thinking. "Why does the PofGP say that Joseph was persecuted by the people in Palmyra for telling them about his vision when the people who hated him most and went on the record with it never thought to mention it?"

Seems like something that needs clearing up. Some say it is because he didn't think about changing the first vision until later when he needed to solidify his standing as top dog in the church. I have never heard an apologetic response to this question.

Any thoughts?

Why would they ban this question? I have never been to CB.

FWIW, James B. Allen, "The Significance of Joseph Smith's 'First Vision' in Mormon Thought" in The New Mormon History, ed. Quinn (Salt Lake: 1992), pp. 37-52 outlines the historiography of the First Vision pretty well.

Allen brings up the same point you do: why don't the published accounts coincide with Smith's claim of persecution? Apparently, Smith didn't begin the "Joseph Smith History" until 1838 and it wasn't published until 1842. The first non-Mormon source that included a reference to the first vision story didn't appear until 1843. "Variations and amplifications" (pg. 50) show up in the different accounts, making it difficult to determine a precise narrative of the events.

Allen proposes a possible explanation in "Joseph Smith's conviction that experiences such as these should be kept from the general public because of their sacred nature." (pg. 41)

[Archaea]

It is undeniable that he was persecuted but perhaps 19th century narrative allowed for more liberality than modern historicity demands. I'm at a loss to find a meaningful explanation. Perhaps he was persecuted once he added that to his narrative.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by Archaea

It is undeniable that he was persecuted but perhaps 19th century narrative allowed for more liberality than modern historicity demands. I'm at a loss to find a meaningful explanation. Perhaps he was persecuted once he added that to his narrative.

That was really my suggestion: It think it is clear that 19th century narrative standards were more liberal. It doesn't strike me as unlikely that he would reflect on that time as one of persecution even if it was just one minister that did it or because he felt is was okay to connect later persecution with this event.