- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
This is sort of a poll to help me understand what others believe so I can better understand how to interact. It would probably be better on a more orthodox site, but they might not tolerate the question. You may choose from an option below or give your own interpretation. 1. The First Vision was a real, actual physical and literal event where Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ were present in the sacred grove and it happened as Joseph described.
2. The First Vision was a spiritual or visionary event (although nonetheless real) where Joseph saw Heavenly Father and Jesus with is spiritual eyes but they were not physically present and it happened as Joseph described.
3. Joseph experienced some sort of hallucination and while he believed the events actually occurred, Heavenly Father, Jesus, or angels did not actually appear to him physically or spiritually.
4. None of it happened and Joseph (with his family as co-conspirators) made it up.
We can delve into subsequent visions and revelations another time, for now please stick to just the First Vision.
I will reply first. I believe option 2 – but I can comprehend that such a scenario can also be quite “real.” Somewhere between 2 and 4. I don’t think it was a literal vision, that’s for sure. To tell the truth, as stupid as it sounds I feel like I get more insights by believing all available options to be true. That way I can receive insights from multiple angles if you will. I really don’t like settling on any one choice but if I had to… maybe a 2.5. I find your choice of wording for #4 odd. The parenthetical note seems to create a perhaps unintended bias. That’s to say that if you opt with JS making everything up you’re also signing up with a more elaborate, and therefore more unlikely conspiracy that involves more and more people. Why would his family have to be co-conspirators if he made up the FV? His family could have truly believed a fabricated account.
Probably a 2.5 – 3.5 (somewhere in there), so I guess average it at 3 🙂 nibbler wrote:To tell the truth, as stupid as it sounds I feel like I get more insights by believing all available options to be true. That way I can receive insights from multiple angles if you will. I really don’t like settling on any one choice but if I had to… maybe a 2.5.
I find your choice of wording for #4 odd. The parenthetical note seems to create a perhaps unintended bias. That’s to say that if you opt with JS making everything up you’re also signing up with a more elaborate, and therefore more unlikely conspiracy that involves more and more people. Why would his family have to be co-conspirators if he made up the FV? His family could have truly believed a fabricated account.
If it was made up it would have been pretty difficult for a boy to have perpetuated it without the assistance of his family. There is also some evidence, sometimes cited by antis, that originally it was purported that Alvin had the vision – but Alvin suffered an untimely early death. I don’t disagree with you, Nibbler, his family could have very well believed him and if it did actually happen, literally or figuratively, that certainly must have been the case.
As for bias, as stated before I believe it did happen and that, so I don’t know that his family were co-conspirators in any way. I have often wondered about the other members of the family we don’t hear so much about, like Sophronia and Ephraim. Other than the parents, Hyrum, and perhaps Samuel we’re not taught what (or if) they believed. But I suppose that’s another topic.
If I have to select a integer response, then #2 is the closest. I guess I think it is somewhere between 2 and 3. His life was pretty hard so I do think he probably really believed something happened to him. Whether it really was god or not, I have no way of knowing. I am going with number 5. I know, I know, there is no number 5, but my take is that his 1832 recording is the most accurate of the experience. In it he says it was a vision – not visitation – he only spoke with Jesus and it was only about his standing before God and his sins, which were forgiven him.
Everything else jumbles after that.
LookingHard wrote:If I have to select a integer response, then #2 is the closest.
If you’re only entertaining integers I guess you’d probably be even less likely to go with √-4
DarkJedi wrote:If it was made up it would have been pretty difficult for a boy to have perpetuated it without the assistance of his family.
I agree with Richard Bushman that there is little evidence that Joseph ever told his family. Lucy’s personal account is easy to interpret as Joseph became (more) troubled about religion and his personal salvation, then he went to pray one night for forgiveness and the angel Moroni appeared to him. Other early personal accounts by those closest to Joseph (Oliver, …) sound similar. Going purely off my memory here I don’t think there is any kind of contemporary reference to a first vision before Joseph’s own 1832 account. …unless the minister that he spoke to made any kind of comment.
In my opinion Joseph’s later reference to having been persecuted for seeing a vision (and no I don’t think HF and Jesus were physically in the grove — he came to as if he was passed out during the vision) is a recollection of the reactions for being “visionary” in general. The gift that his mother talked about, the reason that Mr. Stowell wanted his help, would be what people knew most about.
I would fall somewhere off #2. To be able to talk about if Joseph actually saw beings you first have to define your belief in a form(/s) that can be authentic for god. I am a little fuzzy on that subject so it’s hard to talk about what he actually may have seen.
nibbler wrote:LookingHard wrote:If I have to select a integer response, then #2 is the closest.
If you’re only entertaining integers I guess you’d probably be even less likely to go with √-4
Come on -be rational or at least real!
Orson wrote:DarkJedi wrote:If it was made up it would have been pretty difficult for a boy to have perpetuated it without the assistance of his family.
I agree with Richard Bushman that there is little evidence that Joseph ever told his family. Lucy’s personal account is easy to interpret as Joseph became (more) troubled about religion and his personal salvation, then he went to pray one night for forgiveness and the angel Moroni appeared to him. Other early personal accounts by those closest to Joseph (Oliver, …) sound similar. Going purely off my memory here I don’t think there is any kind of contemporary reference to a first vision before Joseph’s own 1832 account. …unless the minister that he spoke to made any kind of comment.
In my opinion Joseph’s later reference to having been persecuted for seeing a vision (and no I don’t think HF and Jesus were physically in the grove — he came to as if he was passed out during the vision) is a recollection of the reactions for being “visionary” in general. The gift that his mother talked about, the reason that Mr. Stowell wanted his help, would be what people knew most about.
I would fall somewhere off #2. To be able to talk about if Joseph actually saw beings you first have to define your belief in a form(/s) that can be authentic for god. I am a little fuzzy on that subject so it’s hard to talk about what he actually may have seen.
I haven’t read RSR yet – it’s on my Christmas list. You make a good point, though, in what Joseph may or may not have told his family. In the most popular version he doesn’t say he told his family anything about the First Vision, only that he had discovered that Presbyterianism wasn’t right.
I’m remain fuzzy of the existence and nature of God as well, and I will point out that he does not explicitly say they were heavenly Father and Christ, either – he refers to them as two personages and says they spoke to him (but one didn’t say much). It is left up to us to assume it was the father and the Son, but he doesn’t spell that out – perhaps purposely? And I agree – from what I know of Joseph Smith he was “visionary” (less unusual then than now) and the “gift” referred to is very likely just that – he was visionary and used things like divining rods, etc.
mom3 wrote:I am going with number 5.
I know, I know, there is no number 5, but my take is that his 1832 recording is the most accurate of the experience. In it he says it was a vision – not visitation – he only spoke with Jesus and it was only about his standing before God and his sins, which were forgiven him.
Everything else jumbles after that.
Me, too.
I have no idea if what he saw was what the thought he saw, but I do believe he was “a visionary man” and believed he experienced what he said he experienced – so I’m agnostic about it being either #2 or #3.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.