Approaching the First Vision Saga

12-22_taysom_Vision:a_chandler_kafka 5/31/2011 10:19 Pm Page 12 SUNSTONE Mapping Mormon Issues APPROACHING THE FIRST VISION SAGA By Stephen C. Taysom OSEPH SMITH’S FIRST VISION STORIES CONSTITUTE ries are not only all that we have access to but all that people a key element of contemporary Mormon self-concep- at the time, and later, had access to, and hence all that drove Jtion. Anyone seeking to understand Mormonism will the events that followed. Real events and sentiments pro- have to grapple with the complexities surrounding this duce symbols, symbols produce real events and sentiments, event and the stories told about it. This essay introduces the and real and symbolic levels may be simultaneously present reader to the narratives that represent the event and to their in a single text.” So it is with the stories narrating the First variations, particularly as they have played out from the late- Vision.1 twentieth century to the present. The existence of multiple accounts of the First Vision has THEOPHANY, MYTH, AND THE FIRST VISION SAGA proved a stumbling block for some Latter-day Saints. Smith’s first recounting describes a single heavenly being’s appear- ULTURAL ARTIFACTS THAT Westerners recognize ance while in later accounts, two appear. In yet another, the as “religions” often trace their origins to events in two beings are accompanied by concourses of angels. These C which divinity communicates with a mortal. are just a few of the differences. Critics of the Church use Mormonism follows in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic mode by these differences to argue that Joseph Smith fabricated the beginning with a theophany—an encounter between a First Vision. Many other sticky corners exist in the First prophet and the divine. As one might easily imagine, reports Vision narratives as well. of such events have generated strong reactions. People kill, This essay is not meant to be a comprehensive historio- willingly suffer death, sacrifice family and fortune, and en- graphical survey of First Vision accounts. Rather, it focuses gage in many other less dramatic activities on the strength of on the following questions: How did the multiple accounts such stories. Though Joseph Smith’s First Vision story is at originate? Where do their narratives match, and where don’t home in the wider context of theophanic accounts, it origi- they? How have apologists and critics responded to these nated during the era of the printing press, making the First differences? How does recent scholarship in anthropology, Vision story especially vulnerable to contestation: a narra- philosophy, literary studies, and myth studies affect these tive that has tended to attract polarized reactions. For its debates? most devoted promoters, the narrative carries the weight of This essay also does not attempt to determine what “re- transcendent truth; for its fiercest detractors, the story is a ally happened” to Joseph Smith in the grove. On some level, product of a frontier charlatan’s cynical chicanery. the stories are more important anyway. As historian of reli- At this point, it is important to define a term I will be gion Wendy Doniger observes, “More often than not we do using in this essay to describe the First Vision story, a term not know precisely what happened in history, but we often that could set some teeth on edge: “myth.” My use of this know the stories people tell about it. In some ways, the sto- term follows scholarly, rather than popular, usage to refer to a story that conveys important moral or symbolic truths. On STEPHEN C. TAYSOM earned a BA in history one level, myths are the stories a culture tells about itself and from BYU and MA and PhD degrees from Indiana “Others.” More profoundly, myths are the stories that make a University. He is the author of Shakers, Mormons, culture by constructing, elaborating, validating, and incul- and Religious Worlds: Conflicting Visions, cating ideas of self and Other. Bruce Lincoln sums up this Contested Boundaries and the editor of definition of myth as “ideology in narrative form.”2 Since Dimensions of Faith: A Mormon Studies Reader. He teaches historians and scholars have no objective way to revisit or history of religion at Cleveland State University and lives in reconstruct the event itself, it is helpful to think of the myth Shaker Heights, Ohio, with his wife and four children. of the First Vision as being separate from the event of the PAGE 12 JUNE 2011 12-22_taysom_Vision:a_chandler_kafka 5/31/2011 10:19 Pm Page 13 SUNSTONE First Vision. We have access getic/critic schema has domi- only to the mythology—to the nated the literature, it is not the various constructions and re- only way writers have treated the constructions of the narrative First Vision. Some writers—aca- that emerged, as all myth does, demics primarily—have tried to in response to particular events set aside the question of the First and contexts. This constellation Vision’s historicity and have in- of accounts purporting to nar- stead focused on the cultural sig- rate the First Vision, I label nificance of the First Vision’s “saga myths” in order to convey mythology. not only the mythological char- The remainder of this essay acter of the stories, but also to contains two related segments. suggest that each account is best The first segment I’ll call “What understood as part of a larger Happened?” where we survey collective body, or saga, of sim- the attempts that apologists and ilar stories. This essay explores critics have made to prove or how the saga myths of the First disprove the event of the First Vision and the ongoing debates Vision. The second is titled about their meaning continue to “What Does It Mean?” where shape various expressions of we focus on how the mythology Mormonism. of the First Vision has been de- Because myths function as bated. Nearly all debates sur- the foundation and legitimator rounding the First Vision have of a culture, people invested in “More often than not focused on at least one—but that culture will naturally want usually both—of these interre- to somehow place their myths lated questions. outside the reach of critique. we do not know Many ancient cultures accom- WHAT HAPPENED? plished this act by setting their precisely what myths in what the religious phe- LMOST ANY LDS nomenologist Mircea Eliade re- happened in history, Church member in any ferred to as “in illo tempore,” A branch or ward in the Latin for “before history began” world today could tell an in- or “the dawn of the universe.”3 but we often know quirer a strikingly similar ac- However, the First Vision myth count of the First Vision. Their has its roots in 1820—well after the stories people tell narratives would be based on the dawn of the universe—and what has become the “official” therefore requires a variant of version of the story set in the this method of protection. about it.” spring of 1820. On that day, the Gordon B. Hinckley implicitly story goes, Smith went to a grove set the mythology of the First Vision in the in illo tempore of trees on his family’s farm in western New York to pray category when writing that “in all of recorded religious his- about an issue that had been troubling him for some time. He tory there is nothing to compare with it.” Essentially, his wanted to know which church was “right.” Most recitations words are a taboo against subjecting the First Vision to of the vision would probably mention Smith’s struggle with a analysis by comparative disciplines such as history, soci- demonic force that was dispelled only by the appearance of a ology, anthropology, and literary analysis. Hinckley is in- “pillar of light.” Eventually, the light resolved itself into two sisting that the story be treated as “myth”—that is, he is in- separate beings, which the teller of the story would identify sisting that the story transcends any scholarly attempts to as God the Father and Jesus Christ. In the official version, investigate it. Jesus does most of the talking, telling Smith that all the Despite this taboo, apologists and critics seem to share a churches on earth have become corrupted and are devoid of basic assumption that the most important thing about the authority and that Smith should join none of them. First Vision is whether or not it actually occurred. Most of As with most myths, this one did not spring forth fully their rhetorical volleys are launched from the cannon of his- formed; rather it coalesced from separate stories with impor- toricity, and, accordingly, most published treatments of the tant differences into what we now recognize as the official, subject have attempted to defend or debunk the First Vision canonical version. BYU professor Milton V. Backman’s 1971 Al limAg esby asg Al ens mit h a purported event in history. However, while the apolo- book Joseph Smith’s First Vision lays out the various recitals JUNE 2011 PAGE 13 12-22_taysom_Vision:a_chandler_kafka 5/31/2011 10:19 Pm Page 14 SUNSTONE of the event. And today, readers can access a wide variety of cions about the corruption of Christianity. The vision internet resources that catalogue, debate, or harmonize the abruptly closes, and Smith notes that “none would believe various versions.4 my heavenly vision.” 1832 1835 The earliest known written record of the First Vision story In November 1835, three years after the first version had was penned by Smith’s own hand in 1832.5 This version tells been written, a man claiming to be “Joshua the Jewish the story of a troubled young man who despairs of “the Minister” arrived in Kirtland, Ohio, seeking an audience wickedness and abominations and the darkness which per- with the Mormon prophet.

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