Evidently the Church discovered some short-hand transcriptions
of some early sermons by church leaders. Many of them are up
on The Church's website.

I came across this gem in one of them. It's by Milo Andrus
(you can learn about him here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Andrus )
and was given in 1853. Here's the interesting part:

https://history.lds.org/article/lost-sermons-milo-andrus-first-vision?lang=eng

"I was a boy, first nineteen years of age, when I heard the
testimony of that man, Joseph Smith, that [an] angel came and
that glory [shone] and [the] trees seemed to be consumed in [a]
blaze and he was there entrusted with this information: that
darkness covered the earth, that the great mass of [the]
Christian world [was] universally wrong [and] their creeds
[were] all upon [an] uncertain foundation. “Now as young as
you are,” [he was told], “I call upon you from this obscurity:
go forth and build up my kingdom on the earth."


Now Milo Andrus was born on March 6, 1814. He turned nineteen
years of age on March 6, 1833. That means that sometime
between March 6, 1833 and March 6, 1834, Joseph Smith was
teaching that it was an ANGEL that appeared to him in the grove
of trees and told him all other churches were wrong, not Jesus
Christ and God the Father.

He's not talking about the Moroni visit here, because he
mentions how the TREES seemed to be consumed in a blaze, not a
light in the bedroom.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2014 08:47PM by baura.

I'm sure you meant 1814,1833,1834 not 19__.

Duh . . . yes. I'll correct it. Thanks.

Having a discussion with a TBM today about the contradictions between D&C 130:22 God has a body and Lectures on Faith #5 God is a spirit. He fails to see the point that if JS saw God he should know which it is.

They just don't care! None of it holds water and they really don't care. Its amazing!

Can you provide more details on this debate? I have never heard this one before. I am interested to know the contradiction. Thank you!

It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt (!) that it does absolutely no good to provide facts to a person who is bound to a faith/tradition via emotion.

If a person likes being Mormon, or likes who they think they are when they attend Mormon Church, nothing you say can make a difference.

It is only when someone goes, "Wait a minute..." that a sliver of openness appears where the person for the first time (recalling myself here) thinks the thought "This doesn't seem right."

I knew immediately when I thought that thought --it was mindblowing--I actually felt a little sick to my stomach because it was "unfaithful" and I saw myself as uber-faithful. Yet once that thought crawls out of your subconscious, there is no stuffing it back in.

Fortunately.


I am so grateful to be out I want to bear my testimony....HAH HAH! That I know reality is real, that living your life as an individual responsible for herself is inspired.....that Jesus meant for us to have free choice without compulsion. And that I no longer buy the invisible friend idea-- especially one who exacts tribute and takes away my freedom to use my time as I see fit.


Kathleen Waters

Makes you wonder if JS ever told the same story twice. It's all make believe, but keep your story straight for God's sake. Especially if God is a character in one of your versions of the story.

just what the Morg needs!

...accounts related by Lucy Mack Smith and William Smith, which mingled elements of the alleged "first vision" with the visit of the angel Moroni. The fact that multiple people who were close to Joseph Smith told varying versions of the story renders the whole thing unbelievable.

How many different versions of this are there now??

I'm just too lazy to figure this out.

Anyone know why the church site that posted this supposed sermon by a Milo Somebody had to litter it with a hundred square brackets?

Maybe the turd was unable to spell and this turns out an embarrassment. Dunno.

Supposedly this is reconstructed from short-hand records. The
bracketed words would be understood and inserted when
transcribed into full English notation.

Many of the bracketed words are unnecessary. I think some are merely added to discourage the reader.

Hilarious!

There is an old saying: "If you tell the truth you don't have to have a good memory."

Joseph Smith Jr seemed to have a lot of trouble keeping his accounts of visions, translations, etc., straight: what happened, who the characters were, when they happened, etc. And so did those that heard the verbal story then wrote it down.

It appears that Joseph Smith Jr's First Vision account was a verbal account that then was written down, then was told over and over and others wrote it down as they recall it. And here is where the differences come in. People recall what someone said differently. Did Joseph Smith Jr say God, Jesus, an Angel, what was the angel's name??

This is the old game of Telephone: one person whispers a story and it goes from person to person to person to the end of the line when the story is changed in a bunch of ways.

To the believer, however, it doesn't really matter, how the story is told. Most stories of this sort are usually verbal and no written record is kept. They are handed down from generation to generation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2014 11:16AM by SusieQ#1.

Right. The game of phones starts with ONE person telling the next person ONE short story. However, with Smith we have him telling many people his religious fantasy, and tweaking his tale over the years to suit his ever expanding grandiose vision of his importance to the world.

In the beginning, we see the role of God the Father and Jesus Christ expand in his effort to get past the common perception of his close association with dark magic in an effort to mainstream his image.

For Smith, doctrine was like the air inside an accordion. In when needed, out when no longer useful. Such was his view of the angels, God, Jesus and various Biblical and extra-Biblical BOM characters.

Towards the end of his life we see the role of a deity with authority to govern Smith's life continued ti diminish over time to the point we find him devaluing the atonement of Christ to the point of meaningless with doctrines such as blood atonement, and women needing their husband's consent and invitation to enter celestial glory.

Of course, even that quickly devolved into all men of this dispensation needing Smith's consent to enter paradise, rendering the role of Mormon Jesus essentially irrelevant, which is why one hears so little of him, even on Smithmas, errr, Christmas.

In the end, we see Smith's God playing a minor role as the "higher authority" sales tool in Smith's ever evolving, one and only, first vision.

Wrong. First, Smith wrote differing accounts. Second, the accounts were NOT second hand but written by people who listened to JS. Third, to the problem of people playig the phone game is that they do not come from a time when people had to rely on rote memory. Experts have found that where people - such as in Africa or the natives in Australia - had to maintain an oral tradition, it was carried down for centuries with almost no changes. Again, in the case of the differing first vision accounts the writers of the accounts heard first hand from JS who enlarged and changed the stories to fit his latest theological whims.

Juicy! Thank you Baura. You always have the best stuff.

I am not surprised at the varying accounts. I would expect that to happen when people recount verbal recollections, the story details get changed.
They were not reading a story at the time, Right?

I think they have found half a dozen different accounts .. how many were written by Joseph Smith Jr and how many were accounts recorded by others? I don't know. Does anyone?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2014 11:23AM by SusieQ#1.

The recollections of JS himself were not of what someone told him and he retold. Rather they are first hand and are so different as to force one to conclude that none of his stories are true. As for what others relate that JS told them, it is something of such importance that recollection is more than just an ordinary minor thing, such as what you ate for breakfast three days ago, but something the person held important and may well have recorded in a journal immediately afterwards. Since we know from numerous accounts that JS referred to the visitor as an angel rather than God and Christ, it merely confirms and adds the simple idea of something blazing. We know that JS liked to add things such as the fiery sword in his speech and this newest find is similar to accounts of how JS spoke to make something a really neat story like Paul Dunn.

SusieQ#1, Joseph and Sidney claimed a great vision in the
Kirtland temple. Personally I don't think it was real, but
they CLAIMED they had it, and the historical record doesn't
contradict that CLAIM.

The "First Vision" is different. The point is that Joseph
Smith didn't CLAIM that he had seen God the Father and Jesus
Christ until MUCH later. The record totally contradicts the
idea that Joseph Smith was CLAIMING to have seen the First
Vision, as currently understood, before 1835.

If someone changed their telling of the First Vision, it was
Joseph Smith. This comes from versions he dictated as well as
the 1832 version in Joseph Smith's own handwriting.

Add to that the fact that the final version (in the POGP)
contradicts the historical record, the statements of Joseph's
own family, the doctrines that Joseph taught etc. and you have
real problems with the First Vision. The "people don't
remember perfectly" excuse does not work in this case; the
evidence is too clear and overwhelming.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2014 12:55PM by baura.

It would be interesting to write a play/movie script about the different versions JS gave with JS being cross-examined about them in a trial. I can see what lies he would think up as he squirmed and squirmed. Maybe I'll try it some day if no-one beat me to it.

Church problem, dial 1-800-Apologetics and select from the options:

Dial 1 for: He was speaking as a man.

Dial 2 for: I'm not sure we believe that, we don't teach that, I don't know a lot about that.

Dial 3 for: The church is unchanging but how we understand things changes.

Dial 4 for: Some things are too sacred to discuss.

Dial 5 for: It's not Doctrine, it's policy.

If all else fails and you can't retrieve the successful answer, please dial 6 for: I know with every fibre of my being.

And dial 911 if you find yourself doubting the doubts about having doubts about not doubting your doubtfulness. It's just that simple!

I went back and read some early church newsletters written by Smith and/or Cowdery from the early 1830s. He starts his tale with a story of a visit from angel Moroni. Seems pretty clear the currently popular story was invented later to include the meeting in the woods with a pillar of light. And became god and Jesus in the flesh when he changed from being a trinitarian.

I was hoping this account would include his ingestion of the mushrooms.

If JS even had a hallucination it would have been retold in a consistent way. No, it was not mushrooms. JS was a con artist. He knew the whole thing was bogus. Just read a O Henry story about Black Eagle. JS was a con man and not only made up stories, he knew how he could add to them and amaze people into believing.

You're absolutely right. And I have more respect for mushrooms than to slander them in a crappy joke like that. I don't know what came over me.

To try to get to the bottom of the FV situation, Stan Larsen in Dialogue ,summer 2013 i think, writes that the 1832 version in JS hand writing clearly identifies JC as the only deity he encountered. Larsen points out that this version of 6 hw pages was excised from the JS journal from about 1930-1960s with no one able to explain the excision to include the 4 editors of that section of the JS papers that include the handwritten fV account. Larsen contacted each editor separately and got a "no comment" response on why there was nothing noted in the JS papers on this excision and disappearance.
Further Larsen wrote to Richard Turley a request to view the JS journal containing that FV account but was denied. He did find out a graduate sudent Paul Cheesman? was granted access to do his thesis by president of the church ,one of the Smiths. his thesis manuscript was never published but Cheesman ? di wrote a book about what he had been given access to.

finally larsen points out that only dan vogel and not the believing historians like bushman try to explain the Jesus only,
deity in that FV account. larsen believes it is the most reliable of all accounts since it is by JS himself, in his own handwriting and first in chronical order of written accounts.

thus a 2 deity vision is toast as far as truthfulness is concerned and Js is a fraud.

just sayin
k