Ordered new from Amazon.com. About one third way through but something has struck me and I am curious what others think, especially RMs who might have had similar question posed.

During 9/11 and Kennedy assassination (I am that old)I can recall exactly where I was, was wearing, weather, time of day I heard the news-many specific details.

Joseph Smith just had the greatest experience since Paul on the road to Damascus and could not consistently tell the same story, didn't declare the exact spot, never recorded the month or day or day of the week.

Not exactly testimony building

Gatorman
Things just don't add up

This is something that's always bothered me. To me, it looks like a big red flag. It's the mark of someone who's lying.

I can tell you where I was, the time of day, my teachers name, and what we were watching on TV when I heard about the Kennedy assassination. Same with 9/11. Same with the moment I realized mormonism was all a lie.

If God and Jesus showed up and had a chat with me, I'd most certainly recall every detail for the rest of my life. I would have no choice in the matter. Your mind recalls dramatic events in great detail if you like it or not.

People remember events particularly well when they have a strong emotional component to them. The only way Joe could keep his story straight was if the First Vision was boring as hell or if he made it up.

This is a poison pill for Mormons. This "I met God in the approximate year..."

Jesus, I can remember the year I had my tonsils removed at five years old.

An RM's justification might be, adolescent boys aren't usually good about writing anything down, many of them are practically illiterate.

But your right, the lack of writing anything down for such an important event makes the story less believable.

It became embellished with his retelling, and as the narrative was rewritten by Mormon scribes. Anyone who rewrote, revised the first vision (since they weren't all Joseph,) had to be participating in one of the biggest coverups of all time.

I remember where I was and what I was doing when JFK was shot. I was four years old. On 9/11 I was off work that day, doing some early Christmas shopping for my kids. When I first heard the news was driving home from the department store as it was coming through my radio dial. I honest to god at first thought it a perverse remake of Orson Welles War of the Worlds. As the reality sunk in it was really happening I went into shock with the rest of America.

I used to work less than two city blocks from the WTC for most of a decade, and was there when the first bombing attempt occurred in 1993.

Smith had a bad memory of his made up lies.

+1000

You don't have to have a good memory if you tell the truth. How could poor Joe keep track all of his lies?

As always, Gatorman, you make a very astute observation. Amyjo's comment about embellishment occurring with each retelling is also spot on. (As REO Speedwagon tells us: "...and the tales grow taller on down the line.")

Keeping up with the narrative must have been a little too much to expect from young Joey Smith. I think anybody in their right mind, had they experienced (insert supernatural occurrence details here), they would have remembered it in EXCRUCIATING detail, written it down, narrated it to friends and family immediately, etc.

Joe built a house of cards that cannot withstand even the smallest scintilla of honest examination.

I was on the second floor of a men's store in Ogden when I heard about Kennedy. I was twelve. It has been so many years that I don't remember the name of the now non existent store, but I could still go to that block and that side of the street if I were there. I was standing by my mother at the cashier and a blonde middle aged woman was ringing us up. The counter was a reddish wood and piled with shirts. The world stopped for a moment and you could swallow the shock in the air. I can still see it in my mind.

If God and Jesus had unfurled themselves to me in a ray of light I would be able to tell you how short their fingernails were trimmed, whether their teeth were straight, if the veins stood out on their arms, as well as tell you if their wives had gotten the their robes white enough or needed to use more bleach. Various versions of the first vision? Can't remember if it was one angel? Two Angels? God? Jesus? Perhaps Mel Brooks? Give me a break. Creating apologetics for that is spineless.

Love NMKMH. Love Brodie. I left the church way before I knew any "anti" stuff. Read NMKMH decades later and having all the blanks finally filled in was a great gift. Thank you Fawn from the bottom of my heart for the biography with footnotes, reference, court records, and on and on. That was what I needed.

Fred M. Nye. Just remembered the name of the store. I can't believe it after all these decades. If I could do that why couldn't Joseph? Yeah. Right. "Oh what a tangled web we weave . . "

Mel Brooks made a great Moses in the History of the World, Part I.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I48hr8HhDv0

I have a copy of No Man Knows My History and IMO, it's a well-written book. The moment 911 happened I remember exactly what I was doing. I was getting ready for work and to drop my son off to grade school. It was 12 minutes past 7am. My son had turned on the tv and said:"mom! Look what's on tv! Something bad's happened!" I remember when the Beatles came to the U.S. and them on the Ed Sullivan Show. As others have said, I would definitely remember the exact date, time, and place of one of the most incredible events to ever happen in history, and then I would be out telling everyone possible about it.

It's not just the "first vision" that Joe couldn't give exact date. What about the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood? Mormon historians can't even agree on when that was, even though Peter, James and John appeared.

Oh, no no no!

We all know that Joseph Smith was simply "emphasizing different parts of the story to different audiences".

Like that time when I told my dad I was gone all night at a buddy's house hanging out with him playing Risk, but I told my best friend that I was actually making out with the buddy's sister all night, and told my girlfriend that my buddy's sister wasn't that good-looking (so why would I want to make out with her) and then years later told my kids that I would *never* do a thing like that...

Love the different audience story C-n-B

I think there's far more compelling evidence of the lies than Smiths lack of consistency. Looking at stuff in a hat using magic stones?

Um... deciphering Egyptian papyrus that are then REALLY deciphered and say something completely different?

The whole damn church is based on lies and bullshit designed to make the higher ups rich and able to bang whichever (multiple) women suits them.

Joe made it up, no argument there. However, everybody who remembers exactly where they were when some past event happened - you'd be surprised how inaccurate those memories are.

In fact, autobiographic memories are only conceptually stored in our brains and rewritten on retrieval under the influence of current life events, Unless you have supporting evidence (like a diary or something), it's probaby not how you remembered it, maybe not even close.

I think I have told some of my lies over the years more accurately than some of my true stories.

The original record/history as recorded by church historians is in books in the church libraries in their Reference Section.
See my post today on some of that original history!

What we find, reading all of the subsequent accounts that there is a lot of different information that varies depending on when the account was told.
Mark Twain quote "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
Conclusion: NO one thing Joseph Smith Jr claimed about his visions, and experiences with the Golden Plates, etc. was true. None of it. Not a thing. Not the visions, the metaphysical, visionary accounts either. It is all, every single bit of it: FICTION. Even the BOM is about imaginary people places and things and plagiarized other works. Most of what he wrote he plagiarized from another source.

It is possible that he told the same whopper so many times he even began to believe it and convinced himself he was a prophet as it was expected of him and people believed him.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive” is a quotation by Sir Walter Scott.

That whole story or stories has always been vague and shady

I was sitting in the front seat of our 1962 Mercury Monterrey, my mom was dropping me off at the traffic gate of our school for afternoon Kindergarten, we heard it on the radio. I went inside and Mrs Lewis and Mrs Barnett were crying, the most feared women in the world were crying and i was only 5 years old and I still remember pretty clearly.

I even remember every movie I've seen and exactly where in the theater I sat and what I thought. As for the death of JFK I not only remember within twenty feet of where I was but exactly what we said and did and thought. As for religious experiences, I can remember them completely down to the hymns sung, etc. etc.

I think that bone-marrow-deep things in our history (like JFK's assassination and 9/11) are so engraved into our national psyches that we will never forget. And the memories of what we were doing at the time are closely associated with them - so they, too, stay with us.

The fact that Joe Junior couldn't keep his facts straight about some of the most incredible experiences of all time (if true) shows that they most likely weren't.

This never occurred to me, and I'm amazed that it didn't.

Most members have never heard any of the other versions of the first vision other than the official one. Church leaders do a pretty good job of keeping the official history tidy and clean.

...and out of sight.