S6E16 In Preparation of the First Vision (premium JSR)

Summary

Standard of Truth Podcast

Episode: S6E16 – In Preparation of the First Vision (premium JSR)
Date: April 16, 2026
Hosts: Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat & Professor Richard L. Leduc

---

Episode Overview

This episode serves as the first in-depth examination of Joseph Smith’s mindset leading up to the First Vision, particularly as depicted in his historical accounts. Dr. Dirkmaat and Professor Leduc compare multiple sources—including the 1832 autobiography, Joseph Smith’s 1835 journal, and the later 1838–39 official history—to help listeners understand not only the sequence of events but also the spiritual and societal context that contributed to Joseph Smith’s experience. The episode seeks to demystify the differences in these accounts, showing how they were influenced by purpose and audience, and ultimately aims to give missionaries and interested listeners a nuanced, faith-affirming understanding of early Latter-day Saint history.

---

Key Discussion Points

1. Multiple First Vision Accounts and Historical Context

• Multiple Narratives:
  Dr. Dirkmaat opens by discussing the existence of several firsthand accounts of the First Vision (03:12). Rather than reading each in full, the hosts plan to analyze how each account introduces Joseph’s mindset and the circumstances that led to his prayer.

• Methodology:
  Instead of strictly chronological analysis, the hosts introduce context for each account, focusing on how Joseph frames his need for guidance and the spiritual crisis he faced (04:00–05:20).

---

2. Setting: Joseph’s 1835 Journal Account

• Robert Matthews/Joshua the Jewish Minister:
  Much of the discussion centers on an encounter Joseph recorded in his November 1835 journal—where a mysterious man known variously as “Joshua,” “the Jewish minister,” and Robert Matthews visits Joseph (06:00–11:20).
  Dirkmaat vividly describes Matthews's eccentric appearance:

  “His appearance was something singular, having a beard about 3 inches in length, which was quite gray... sea green frock coat and pantaloons of the same, black fur hat with narrow brim.” — (08:35, Dr. Dirkmaat reading from the journal)

• Joseph’s Personality and Hospitality:
  Despite considerable threats to his life, Joseph was remarkably open, inviting a stranger who refused to give his real name into his home. The hosts note how unusual this is, given Joseph’s past experiences with violence and threats (12:19–15:00).

  “I can't even quite comprehend this aspect of Joseph’s personality. He is surrounded by nefarious people that want to do him harm, and this character shows up out of nowhere, won’t tell Joseph who he is, and Joseph just invites him in for a meal.” — (15:00, Dr. Dirkmaat)

• Contextual Importance:
  This sets the stage for why the 1835 journal account reads differently: It was a private conversation, not intended for public dissemination, unlike later, more refined accounts (18:50–20:15).

---

3. Comparing the Accounts: How Joseph Describes His Search

a. 1832 History (referenced, details from previous episode):

• Emphasis on Joseph’s lifelong spiritual quest, starting at age 12.
• Provides rich background on family and societal unrest.

b. 1835 Journal Account:

• Brevity and Focus:
  “Being wrought up in my mind respecting the subject of religion… I knew not who was right or who was wrong… I retired to a silent grove and bowed down before the Lord under a realizing sense that… if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” — (20:30, Dirkmaat quoting Joseph)

• Analysis:
  Compared to the 1832 account, the 1835 version skips much personal and familial detail, going straight to Joseph’s confusion and prompting to pray (20:00–22:00). This reflects the immediacy and context of a conversation rather than a crafted narrative.

c. 1838–39 Official Church History:

• Intended for Publication:
  The 1838–39 account, later canonized (Joseph Smith—History), was written with a global audience in mind (25:00–28:30).

• Rich Detail and Emotional Language:
  Joseph describes a “unusual excitement on the subject of religion,” a region-wide revival, intense sectarian competition, and his own confusion:

  "…my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect… but so great was the confusion and strife among the different denominations that it was impossible for a person, young as I was… to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong." — (57:00, Dr. Dirkmaat quoting Joseph Smith—History)

• Hosts' Commentary:
  The contrast in tone and detail is attributed to knowing the audience. The later, published history aims to explain his internal crisis to the world, while the journal and 1832 histories are more private or experimentary in nature (28:55–30:25).

---

4. Setting the Societal Scene: The Second Great Awakening

• Religious Turmoil and Democratization:
  Dr. Dirkmaat launches into a detailed explanation of the spiritual landscape: the Second Great Awakening, massive growth in church membership, and heated debates over Calvinism (predestination) vs. Arminianism (free will) (31:30–47:30).

  “Today, the biggest issue confronting mainline Protestant churches is they’re shrinking so quickly… In Joseph Smith’s world, people aren’t just quickly joining Christian churches—they’re joining so rapidly, so quickly… they don’t have enough pastors.” — (38:24, Dr. Dirkmaat)

• Impact on Joseph’s Questions:
  The hosts underscore that Joseph’s angst and confusion were not unusual—many faced overwhelming religious messages and divisions during this era.

• Notable Analogy:
  Richard compares doctrinal squabbles and sectarian arguments in Joseph’s day (“priest contended against priest, convert against convert”) to “vitriol on X and formerly Twitter,” making the era’s religious strife relatable to modern listeners (55:20).

---

5. Audience, Intent, and Historical Criticism

• Audience Shapes Narrative:
  The hosts warn against applying modern expectations of uniformity to Joseph’s histories, explaining that the context and intended audience affected what details were included (28:55–30:25).

  “The audience that you are addressing plays a significant role in what it is you actually say. And that’s something that everyone who’s ever had a conversation with anyone ever knows. And yet antagonists… don’t seem to understand that.” — (29:00, Dr. Dirkmaat)

• Critics’ Approaches:
  They poke fun at conspiracy theories and critiques claiming sinister cover-ups in the edits of Joseph’s histories; instead, they show edits were for readability or organization, not to hide “dark secrets” (23:20–24:00).

---

6. Setting Up Future Episodes

• Pacing and Depth:
  The hosts acknowledge the depth and slow pace of their analysis and joke about not making it to subsequent accounts in a single episode:

  “Look, the whole point of this is actually to go through this in more detail, right? … You’re trying to provide a more detailed explanation of what’s going on.” — (65:08–65:30, Leduc)

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Joseph’s openness:
  “I don’t know how well Joseph is at picking up on red flags, but for me, there’s always a red flag when you say, ‘Hey, what’s your name?’ and the person doesn’t give you an answer…” — (11:19, Dirkmaat)

• On context and criticism:
  “…criticizing it for what’s in it or what’s not in it is criticizing someone for something that they never knew that you were going to see.” — (28:55, Dirkmaat)

• On religious rivalry in Joseph’s era:
  “So all of their good feelings, one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions.” — (54:00, Dirkmaat quoting Joseph Smith—History)

• Modern analogy:
  “I feel bad for Joseph because in today’s world, we wouldn’t be able to envision a world where people hate one another just on the basis of what they believe. But back in Joseph’s day, apparently people treated each other like garbage just on the basis of what they believed…” — (55:20, Dirkmaat, sarcastic)

• On Theological Rap Battles:
  “I imagine that the way that this would go down is like in the movie 8 Mile, in some sort of a rap battle between, you know, the Calvinist and the Armenian…” — (54:52, Leduc)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:12 – Introduction to multiple First Vision accounts and narrative plan
• 06:00 – The arrival of Robert Matthews/Joshua and context for the 1835 journal account
• 15:00 – Joseph’s openness to strangers and perilous past
• 20:00–22:00 – The 1835 journal account and comparison with the 1832 history
• 25:00–28:30 – How the 1838–39 official history changes with audience and intent
• 31:30–47:30 – Societal context: Second Great Awakening and religious ferment
• 54:00–57:00 – Reading and commentary on the 1838–39 First Vision narrative
• 65:08–65:41 – Hosts’ meta-commentary on the episode’s depth and continued approach

---

Conclusion

This episode guides listeners through Joseph Smith’s evolving accounts of his spiritual quest leading to the First Vision, highlighting how social, historical, and personal factors combined to influence his narratives. The hosts’ expertise, humor, and willingness to pause for context offer listeners not only facts and comparisons but also a model of thoughtful, faithful historical inquiry. The stage is set for the next episode, which will further analyze the primary sources and their theological implications.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. A Standard of Truth Podcast production. In this podcast, hosts Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat and Professor Richard Leduc will discuss the events of the Restoration in the order they occurred. Listeners will follow Joseph Smith as he rises from the obscurity of a poor farm boy to the prophet of the Restoration. They will learn of the trials and triumphs, the miracles and misery of Joseph Smith and members of the church. Hi. Welcome to another episode of Joseph Smith and the Restoration, a Standard of Truth podcast production. I am your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmont. I am joined by my friend, ever increasingly closer to becoming Dr. Richard Leduc.

[B]

Hello, Garrett. I'm very excited to be back on Joseph Smith and the Restoration. Thanks for having me back. I have a tentative date for the dissertation defense, and I am very excited. It looks like it'll be in November. I have not yet told my wife what year.

[A]

But our premium listeners may not know, because I assume that our premium listeners, who are all missionaries and. Or people who've stolen this from the dark web, they may not know that. That I. I spoke at Education Week this last week, and there were dozens of people there that were all there to see Richard and not me. And, well, where's Richard? I thought he did everything with you. I'm like, well, I mean, that's very funny. And I told them, I said, well, I'm not allowing him to speak with me at Education Week until He has his PhD in hand. He has to have it, and otherwise he'll bring down the whole, you know, I can't just have some ABD up there speaking with me.

[B]

No, no, you certainly. You certainly can't. But we are. We're so, so very close. And I'm. I'm very excited about it. And we will soon. This will soon all be over. And I feel that the dissertation defense is much like the second coming. No man knows the time, not even the angels in heaven.

[A]

Yeah. And in fact, eventually not even the Son, but only the Father knows. I mean, this may be something to which not even, you know, not even the Holy Spirit has the knowledge. They're not privy. Yeah. So we were speaking of all of this. We ended off our last episode talking about Joseph Smith's mindset going into the prayer that will lead to the first vision. And we talked about it in terms of Joseph Smith's earliest recorded history of that event, the 1832 history. Now, there are multiple histories that are a part of our records where Joseph talks about the first vision. And so what I would try, thought I would try to do. And I said try because this is kind of thrown together in the sense of this is not usually how people talk about it. Usually what happens when you talk about the first vision is you share what one of the accounts of the first vision says, then you share what the next one says, and you just do the complete document, which is a good way of doing it to show people what each document says. I'm going to try as much as I can to introduce the different narratives that are a part of each of these different documents as we go through these different parts. So if you didn't listen to the last episode, if you're a brand new, you know, missionary who just hit the ground in, you know, in Guam, and, and, and do we have any missionaries in Guam?

[B]

Huge. We're huge in Guam. We're huge in the Philippines. Andrew's doing the good work in Spain. Rigden isn't mentioning it to anyone in Peru.

[A]

That makes sense. That, that, yeah, but, but that's because we don't have the best Spanish transcription service.

[B]

We do not. And I will say. So this is, this is actually, I'm excited for this episode. And this, this might, this might be a multi parter. Maybe we'll get it all done here. But the, it's 27 episodes, by the way, Garrett, 27 episodes kind of leading up to where this, this is. And you, you have done a great job, I think, going through from the apostasy into many of the, of the councils that come into the Reformation, the doctrines that are that are there, trying to say, okay, Joseph Smith and the Restoration. Restoration of what? What are all the things that are there? And this is kind of the first episode now with all of the context to be able to get to. Okay, now we're coming into the things that are fairly dramatic and have a significant impact on theology.

[A]

Right? And so if you didn't listen to the last episode, I urge you to go listen to it, especially the last 20 minutes or so of Joseph Smith and the Restoration, because that's where we introduced the 1832 history and we talked about how much detail Joseph Smith provides for why he wants to ask this question in the first place, starting with the fact that he was 12 years old when he starts to have these questions about religion. So I want to move now, before we actually talk about the vision itself, I want to move to the next source, the next account of Joseph Smith's first vision. See here how he describes the beginning of that. His, his thought process leading to the prayer that leads to the vision in that document. Now this document is Joseph Smith's journal. So the first one is called the 1832 history. This one is from Joseph Smith's journal. Now, it's not written in Joseph Smith's handwriting. At this point, Joseph Smith is employing scribes to write in his journal for him. And it's actually one of the more unique interactions in Joseph Smith's in his life. It's funny because Joseph has interactions with some fairly prominent individuals, even though he's a lowly farm boy guy. This is from November of 1835 in his journal. What his scribe writes is, this morning a man came in. Sorry, between the, between the hours of 10 and 11 this morning, a man came in and introduced himself to me, calling himself by the name of Joshua, the Jewish minister. Now, this man's actual name was Robert Matthews. And Robert Matthews had created a religious spiritualist movement that in some ways, at least early on, he claimed that he was actually the reincarnated apostle Matthias. Now that's not something you hear every day. He doesn't immediately go into Joseph, you know, telling him all the things that he knows, but he just shows up at Joseph's house and Joseph describes him. His appearance was something singular, having a beard about 3 inches in length, which was quite gray. Also, his hair is long and considerably silvered with age. I should think that he's about 50 or 55 years old. Okay, you're hitting a little, you're hitting a little close to the belt there. Joseph with the. Yeah, he's super old and he's 50. I mean, I need Joseph to just dial it on back a little bit.

[B]

Well, in fairness, 50 then, right? You know.

[A]

Yeah, it's like, oh, you haven't died of the smallpox seven times already. I mean. Yeah, I mean, how old's Joseph at this point? Joseph's. I mean, he's, he's a good, what, 30?

[B]

Yeah, when I was 30, I thought 50 was old too.

[A]

It is funny when you're 30 years old, you see somebody who's 45, you're like, dude, how's that guy? Like, still walking, let's go play another pickup game of basketball. And then, and then you get to that age and, yeah, you're no longer playing pickup basketball, so it makes sense. Actually, I should think that he's about 50 or 55 years old. Tall and straight, slender, built of a thin visage, blue eyes and fair complexion. He wore a sea green frock coat and pantaloons of the same black fur, of the same black fur hat with narrow brim. And while speaking frequently shuts his eyes with a scowl on his countenance. So I don't know how that is supposed to look. This is actually something that biographers of Robert Matthews, there's a book called the Kingdom of Matthias where they talk about him. He actually becomes kind of a. He becomes, you know, notorious basically because he is alleged of committing multiple crimes in New York. And then he know moves out to Ohio and, and even has some very prominent followers. In fact, Sojourner Truth is one of his followers for a time. So at any rate, you know, he's, he dresses quite odd. He's wearing a sea green frock coat. Now that, Now Richard, is that different than a digging frock? The frock frock coat? Well, that twister. Yeah, it is.

[B]

And we've, we've done several deep dives, but we have concluded that any frock is a digging frock. If you're wearing a frock and you start digging a sea green, though I would likely go and change into a darker frock, perhaps a brown frock or a, a black frock before I would do any type of digging. But that seems like if I see green, that's the kind of frock I would wear on formal night on a cruise.

[A]

Well, you know, it's interesting, a sea green. He's wearing a sea green frock coat and pants that are the same color and a black fur hat. So what we need is we need Leprechaun. Yeah. We need artists in the audience. We need artists to create for us a sketch based upon Joseph Smith's description of this man and then send it into us. That's what we're looking for.

[B]

Yes, that sounds, that sounds great. We do get tremendous audience participation. We put it on our, on our, the Facebook page by friend of the show Damien, and put a lot of the memes in there. So that would be great, Garrett, if we were able to get that, that'd be fantastic.

[A]

We're looking forward to it. I can't wait to see what Robert Matthews, AKA Matthias, AKA Joshua, the Jewish minister. You know, he has as many aliases as he does, you know, frocks of sea green color, I guess. But. So Joseph says, I made some inquiry after his name, but I received no definite answer. Now that's already. I mean, I don't know how well Joseph is at picking up on red flags, but for me there's always a red flag. When you say, hey, what's your name? And the person doesn't give you an answer, that's number one red flag for me. If I'm like, hi, my name's Garrett. What's your name? That's not a thing of your concern. Okay. And I'll go get my gun and I don't know what, what would you. You're in his house again. As a historian, this is one of those things that make you say, what is Joseph doing? Okay, this is Joseph smith, who by 1835 is thoroughly hated. There's an anti Mormon committee of Kirtland that is deliberately trying to destroy him. In 1834, a year earlier, Dr. Philastus Hurlbut has been convicted of threatening to wound, beat or kill Joseph Smith. And he is saying in open air meetings that he is going to wash his hands in the blood of Joseph Smith. Two years before that, Joseph is brutally mobbed in Hiram, Ohio. Sorry, this is a bit of a spoiler alert for those of you missionaries listening. Like sometime after your home married in the temple and have put your first son through college will get to the mobbing in Hiram, Ohio. But that's in 1832. Isn't it a remarkable thing just to stop and think about? Joseph has suffered all kinds of threats of violence against him. He has actually suffered all kinds of horrific violence against him. Death threats against his family, you know, people assaulting him, losing a child as a result of one of those assaults. And some guy wearing a sea green frock coat and a fur hat knocks on his door, doesn't tell Joseph who he is. Joseph Smith's personality is, hey, you want to like come inside and get some breakfast? But I, I don't even, I can't even quite comprehend this aspect of Joseph's personality. You know, we were just, we were just pulling some apple fritters out of the, out of the, the brick oven there. I want to, want to come in. Hey, what's your, what's your name, stranger? I'm not going to tell you. Okay. All right, sounds good. You want to, you want to sit for a spell? I mean it. I don't really understand Joseph at this point. He is surrounded by nefarious people that want to do him harm. And this character shows up out of nowhere, won't tell Joseph who he is, and Joseph just invites him in for a meal. You know what, come on in. Let's, let's sit and chat for a while. Now you might be wondering, why am I spending any time on this? Well, I'm spending time on this because it sets up this second account of the first vision we talked about in the last episode, that the first account of the first vision, the 1832 account. We don't actually know the context of its creation. I mean, we know some general context. You know, it's in 1832, but we don't know why it was created. We don't know if the plan was to publish it and they just didn't publish it. We don't know, you know, if it was the result of someone saying, oh, hey, we need to send this off to a newspaper. We just don't know why it was created here. We know very well the context of this discussion. And so that's why I'm presenting the context. You have someone who shows up at Joseph's house, doesn't, won't even tell Joseph who he is. And, you know, this is what Joseph says. I made some inquiry after his name, but received no definite answer. We soon commenced talking about the subject of religion. After I had made some remarks concerning the Bible, I commenced giving him a relation of the circumstances connected with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon as follows. Okay, so clearly this Matthias, this Joshua, the Jewish minister, had made some kind of a statement about, you know, what he thought about religion in the Bible. And Joseph, in response, is going to explain to him where the Book of Mormon came from. Interestingly, the way that Joseph described the coming forth of the Book of Mormon was not starting with the angel Moroni. Often this is the way that the Book of Mormon's description of coming forth is going to be that, that Joseph will start in 1823 and say, look, an angel appeared to me and said, there's gold plates buried in my, you know, in my neighborhood. Instead, Joseph here, much like he does in the official history, that that's part of your scriptures now, Joseph Smith history, where he starts at the first vision. So one way that the 1835 account and the 1832 account and the 1838, the church history account are similar is that when Joseph is telling the story of how things started, he does seem to place that vision at the beginning, even though many of his followers really start the story more with the Book of Mormon itself with rather than the first vision. And we'll talk about that more. Or maybe we won't. I mean, that's kind of the fun part about these podcasts is you really don't know where we're going to go. People right now are screaming at their, their, their Android phone saying why, why did I buy, buy an Android phone? And then secondly, those with an iPhone are saying, why aren't you talking about X Or whatever. But so Joseph gives this account Being wrought up in my mind respecting the subject of religion and looking at the different systems taught the children of men, I knew not who was right or who was wrong, and considering it of the first importance that I should be right in matters that involved eternal consequences. Being thus perplexed in mind, I retired to a silent grove and bowed down before the Lord under a realizing sense that he had said, if the Bible be true, ask and you shall receive. Knock and it shall be opened. Seek and you shall find. And again, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not so. One thing that's very different between the journal account and Joseph's 1832 history is in the 1832 history, you get a lot of backstory from Joseph. He talks a lot about his family growing up, how at the age of 12 he starts to feel this. You don't even get a description of Joseph's kind of pursuit of the truth here. He kind of cuts directly to the experience. Now we are a little bit at the mercy of the scribe who's writing all of this down. So maybe, I mean, it's, it's at least possible that Joseph did give more details, but that those weren't recorded and that this is all the scribe recorded. But this really does seem like it's pretty close to being dictated. At any rate, to me, it's not that surprising because when Joseph's writing his 1832 history, he appears to be writing it for an audience. He appears to be trying to say, let me tell you how all of this began. Here you have some stranger with his sea, his sea green frock coat and pants who shows up at his breakfast nook, by the way, that same, you know, home, you know, there in, in Kirtland that you can now go to, right? That he shows up in his frock coat and pantaloons with his black fur hat and starts talking to Joseph about religion. And it's clear that the question becomes, well, somewhere, I mean, this isn't listed, but how did you become a prophet? Obviously this guy Matthias is claiming why he has religious authority. And so Joseph's response is to explain where his religious authority comes from. And so even if I didn't know what was in this account, knowing the context of it, this is what I would expect. I would expect that there would be much less on the lead up to the event and much more focus on, you know, per capita anyway, much more focus on the actual event. Because the 1832 history gives us all the insights into Joseph's mind and what was perplexing him and why he struggled so much. This 1835 account from his journal doesn't really talk a whole lot about that, just that that he was wrought up in his mind respecting the subject of religion. Now clearly, if Joseph were to expound upon that, I'm sure he could say, well, you know, from the time I was 12, I started to feel really serious. But at least in this, in this document, what you have is, look, I had a lot of religious questions and I felt like I needed to be right in matters of religion and so I did. Now, just as a refresher, let's go to what Joseph says about what leads him to ask the question in the history of the Church. I'm going to go to the manuscript portion of it. So this is not what's published in Joseph Smith history, although it'll be very similar because it's almost exactly the same. In fact, I should just go to the history. It sounds like I'm just big timing at this point. Right. So this is how Joseph describes it in what will become a version of this, an edited version of this will become the published history of Joseph Smith and then that will later be edited history of Joseph Smith will be edited down to what you now have. It was originally in the, the Pearl of Great Price Joseph Smith history. And so the Joseph Smith history is, is, is the same thing. It's the same document essentially is the history of the church. It's just an edited version where you have, you know, cut out different things and don't worry, not, you know, if you're a missionary thing, what would they cut out? Like was there some things like and this is where Joseph started to worship the devil. No, I mean cut out things like, you know, all over Oliver Cowdery going on a, on a journey and, and Martin Harris losing the pages. I mean there are things cut out that were in order in the story but that weren't central to Joseph receiving and translating the plates. And so there, there were edits that were made by Franklin Richards because he was, he was creating an easily digestible, easily readable story. Not editing things like, oh no, we better cut out the part where he sacrificed the goat. That, that isn't what's being cut out.

[B]

So, so you think missionaries, they've heard a lot of things and they're, they're afraid that, that Joseph Smith was writing down all of the, the occult that he was performing and in the journal and he's like, hey guys, you know what? On second thought, yeah, let's. Let's cut that out.

[A]

He started out with a draft of like, here's where we put the goat in the pentagram to make our obedience to Satan well known. Well, you know what? Let's keep that in my special book that we'll keep somewhere in the holy of holies, and we won't let anyone see it. You know, it's funny that I'm making a complete mockery of those kinds of conspiracy theorists, and yet those people literally exist.

[B]

No, that. That's. We. We did an episode about this. Like, absolutely. People believe that that's the case 100%.

[A]

Yeah. People who don't have degrees in history, and I mean real degrees.

[B]

Like people who don't have degrees in business either, like myself, you know.

[A]

Oh, well, you look. You have an mba, your abd. You are basically a doctor of business.

[B]

You know what? That's what I'll tell my wife.

[A]

You know what? I want you to create a Twitter handle called Dr. Business. It's probably taken, but I think that's

[B]

who you should be.

[A]

You should be Dr. Business. So this is what Joseph says in that. He said, and this is going to sound again, very familiar to you, but I will read it just so you can juxtapose it against what Joseph said in his 1832 history and what he just said in that 1835 account in his journal, which wasn't a whole lot of what led up to it. Remember this account, the 1838, 39 account, which they're going to refine over the course of several years. It'll eventually be published in 1842. This account was the one that was designed by Joseph to be published to the world. Joseph doesn't expect his journal to. To be published to the world now because we're a bunch of, you know, evil and designing historians, we come along after the fact and go, hey, this is Joseph's journal. And we publish it to the world. But. But there was no intention of publishing it to the world. And this is where all of the missionaries who are listening totally understand what I'm talking about, because every one of them knows that the way they talk about something that they're struggling with on their mission to their best friend who's currently also on another mission in a. In a different mission is totally different than the way they talk about something they're struggling with to their mom.

[B]

100%.

[A]

It couldn't. And, and it's not because we're just trying to lie to our moms.

[B]

Well, that's what I was doing, but

[A]

I don't know, actually, I mean, in fairness, yes, I was, because look, what every missionary learns when they're on their mission is a mission is so unique of an experience. And now. Now, now, Richard and I went on missions back in the day where we had to write actual letters with our hands and pen, put them in envelopes and then mail them. And we only got to talk to our parents twice a year. And, and, and then only for a limited amount of time. Right. So we didn't have any face timing. There was no email. I mean, technically email existed, but almost no missions allowed you to email. Did yours allow you to email?

[B]

No, no. The, the Tom Hanks Meg Ryan movie, you've Got Mail hadn't really exploded. And, and, and I assume that that's what created the popularity around email.

[A]

You think people falling in romantic love via email would have spurred a mission president to say, yeah, we better let my missionaries do that?

[B]

Yeah, I assume that that's probably what happened. By the way, my son, the second time he was robbed and, and he lost his cell phone, he had to, he had to write down notes and appointments and whatever on it on a notepad. And he, he was lamenting to me how ridiculous this was.

[A]

I have to like, pull out a physical piece of paper and write, on Monday, we're going to the Santos's house.

[B]

Yes. For the, for the rest of the time he was in that area. Area was a little more dangerous than, than. But, but speaking of people that lie, he didn't tell us about any of this until he had been transferred, by the way.

[A]

It's true now. So why now? This is going to, this is going to be a pretty personal question. Why is Rigdon a liar?

[B]

Well, so in this particular case, he's trying to. You know, first of all, I'll be honest. Every time he gets robbed, I think it's funny, but my wife thinks it's less funny. And in. She would get worried when he got robbed at gunpoint. You know, that's something to be worried about.

[A]

Which is so, I mean.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How much of a nervous mother hen could you possibly be?

[B]

You're from Idaho. Let's cowboy up.

[A]

What are you doing?

[B]

Anyway, so he didn't share those things with us, him being robbed at knife point or gunpoint or whatever until he had been transferred and he was no longer in that area because he didn't want to make my wife. He didn't want to make his mom worry.

[A]

Right. So the audience. This is my Whole point of going on the missionary tangent, the audience that you are addressing plays a significant role in what it is you actually say. And that's something that everyone who's ever had a conversation with anyone ever knows. And yet antagonists who will criticize the fact that Joseph says one thing in one account and something else in another don't seem to understand that. Right. Even though they themselves say different things in what they put in their blog online and what they then put in their interview on a YouTube channel, they don't say all of the exact same things. I mean, the reality is Joseph Smith's journal account of the first vision, Joseph may have never intended any of that to become public. Now, of course, it is eventually copied into Joseph's history, but that doesn't happen until years later. So that journal account, criticizing it for what's in it or what's not in it is criticizing someone for something that they never knew that you were going to see. It would be very similar to, to me listening to Richard give a talk in church that he didn't know I was listening to and then becoming very angry that Richard didn't reference me in his talk, but Richard didn't know I was going to be there. I mean, that's actually not the best example. But really a missionary writing is the best example. Who you're writing to determines what it is you say, and that doesn't make you a liar. You, you have to say certain things in one instance when you don't in another. If you meet someone and they are a Hindu and they ask you what it is you believe, you start with, well, we believe that God has a son whose name was Jesus. If you meet a Southern Baptist preacher and he asks you what you believe and that's how you start out, you're probably going to offend him. Right. So we believe that God had a son. Yeah. I mean, at that point, the, the, the, the, the Baptist preacher would be coming at you because it would be, it would come across as incredibly condescending. You don't think, I know who Jesus is kind of thing. And so your audience determines the detail you present, so does the form of your writing. The journal account was never intended to be public. I don't know what the point of the 1832 account was. I know that this account was specifically intended to be published to the world. So that's a good way of looking at this. When Joseph knew this is going out to the whole world, there were details that he thought were important to be included that weren't part of his passing conversation with sea green frock coat guy. Sometime in the second year after our removal to Manchester, there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion. It commenced with the Methodists, but soon became general among all of the sects. Now this is one of the points by which antagonists have often attacked the history of the first vision, saying, well, there weren't any great revivals in the, in the Nauvoo area at that time. You know. Why is Joseph talking about that? Well, there were documented Methodist camp revival meetings in Palmyra in June of 1818. And also six miles away from Palmyra, there was another huge one in July of 1819. So you'll notice that when people are attacking the first vision history, they don't ever mention those. It's a very interesting thing that surprisingly, someone who's trying to destroy faith is not willing to put all of the sources on the table. But when someone claims, oh yeah, well, there weren't even any great religious revivals going on at the time, if you read newspapers, which I know is going to be difficult for critics of Joseph Smith to do, not because they can't get a hold of the newspapers because they're in archives and that would require them to do research, but because I'm assuming they don't know how to read, they are filled with religious excitement that Joseph talks about the Second Great Awakening, which we'll eventually get to in our. Condemned to repeat it. We'll get to that sometime. I don't know. After Richards retired from being a professor after he got his Ph.D. the second great awakening is in full force across the New England and upper, you know, Mid Atlantic and Western states. And between 1820 and 1830, membership in Christian churches in the United States is going to double. It is a time that we cannot comprehend today. Today, the biggest issue confronting mainline Protestant churches is there are two problems. One, they are shrinking so quickly in membership that they no longer can support the buildings they already have built on the basis of donations to their churches. Second, they are dwindling so quickly that there's no place for pastors to be able to make enough money to support themselves based upon the congregation sizes that exist. So you have people being forced out of the ministry because there's not enough people attending their worship service in order to donate enough money for the pastor to be able to live in general. That's the case of Protestant churches in America Today, there are 2 and 3 and 4 and 5% year over year reductions in Protestant churches in America today. And, and it seems to be increasing at an ever increasing pace. We went to the Congregationalist church in Topsfield, Massachusetts. This church is a church that has been in existence since before the American Revolution. Okay. That's how old this is. That's why when you're doing history in America, you always have to get to the Eastern Coast. Otherwise you're doing like, you know, like Idaho history. And it's like, well, in 1920, they settled this. You know, I mean, 1920, that church would have already been there for 250 years, that kind of thing. Yeah, so we went to that Congregationalist church, and because there were a lot of Latter Day Saints in town because of this dedication of the monument, and this Congregationalist church was incredibly kind about it. They've. They've chosen to honor their heritage as being the spiritual, you know, roots of Joseph Smith's senior's family in America. And so they're very kind. But the most telling thing that that happened was when we went to church that Sunday, there were probably a hundred people in the church, and it was a very large, huge building. And at least 70 of those hundred people were Latter Day Saints that I knew because they had come with me to the festivities. There was almost no one there. And, and it's this giant church. It's, it's, it's. It dominates the town. It's been there for hundreds of years and nobody attends. There is no better contrast. I mean, you couldn't be more diametrically opposite than the world Joseph Smith lives in. He lives in a world where people aren't just quickly joining Christian churches, and they're joining Christian churches so rapidly, so quickly that the problems that Protestant churches have in 1820 are literally the exact opposite one. People are joining the churches so quickly that they don't have enough pastors. This is if you read religious manuals and writings and the meeting minutes of conferences in the 1810s and the 1820s and the 1830s, it is the overwhelming theme of those conferences over and over and over again. We don't have any pastors. How are we supposed to get more pastors? Why aren't there more pastors and why do they need more pastors? Because there are so many people joining that they can't, they can't train people and ordain them fast enough. This is part of the reason why Baptists and Methodists try to alleviate this by creating itinerant preachers that would ride the circuit. Circuit riders so that you would, instead of having a Methodist, you know, pastor a Methodist preacher in. In five different towns. You'd have one Methodist preacher cover all five towns. And, you know, maybe he'd be able to get to three of them all on one Sunday, if they're close enough, and preach one sermon in the morning, one in the noon, and one in the afternoon. And he'd cover all the towns, even though each one could easily have their own congregation. So their problem is just this incredible expansion. With the Second Great Awakening, people turned to religion in the 18 teens and the 1820s. There were a lot of reasons for that, but one of the reasons why they turned to it was society seemed to be falling out of whack. Society seemed to be changing, and it seemed to be changing very, very, very rapidly. And when there's rapid shifts in society, people do one of two things. They either abandon religion or they embrace religion because they need something that helps them understand this world that they're in. In the aftermath of the War of 1812, American population is exploding. The American economy is exploding. But part of the problem is the traditional farmer. Everybody's going to be a farmer. My kids are all going to be farmers. The traditional model was beginning to break down. There wasn't enough farmland in New England for farmers to perpetually support their kids, becoming farmers after them. The rise of steam power was already transforming the seacoast into places that had industry. And you had people that were going to work in factories like cotton mills. And that was very, very different than owning your own piece of property and being a farmer. And. And then on top of all that, you have the panic of 1819, which is this huge economic depression. Well, when you're suffering economically and you're suffering socially, it. It's a place you can turn for some kind of comfort to God. Similarly, the ideals of the American Revolution and the Constitution writ large now had been fully embraced by an entire generation of new Americans. There were all kinds of Americans that had been born and had been raised up at this point. By 1820, you had people like Joseph Smith, who's 14, meaning he was born more than a decade after the Constitution was ratified. He didn't know an America that was the colonies. He knew an America that was always the United States of America. So Joseph didn't grow up with the idea that maybe someday there might be a chance that us poor bumpkin colonials may be able to prove that all people are equal in the sight of God. Joseph was born into a country where the Declaration of Independence was the spiritual law of the land and the Constitution was the literal law. Of the land. So that generation, that generation of people that were born in the late 1780s to the early 1800s, they didn't know anything that wasn't America. And one thing that, that historian Gordon Wood has demonstrated is that the founders were actually surprised and stunned at the aftermath of the American Revolution. You know, the problem with revolutions is you never quite know when they're going to stop turning to, you know, to coin the phrase of a revolution. Or as one person said, all revolutions eat their young. You know, the people who started the French Revolution were. Were the same people who were meeting Madame Guillotine a few years later. Because what's super radical in one year is five years later considered ridiculously conservative and almost treasonous that it wasn't more radical in the first place. And so this. One of the things that stuns the founders who continue to live on into the 1800s is just how far revolutionary rhetoric has gone. By the early 1800s, nearly every state has eliminated its requirement that you own a certain amount of property to have the right to vote. That had been the point of voting for hundreds of years in the American colonies. And in the space of a few decades, the leveling, the democratizing effect of the American Revolution had been carried so far that people had no tolerance for something that even smacked of nobility. The Founders, they all assumed that in a republic, the people would continue to elect their betters to be the leaders of them. And what they found by the early 1800s is, sure, look, hey, look, the people are still going to be rich people that are elected by and large, but they're not old money. They're not the people that have been there for years. They're not the. They're not the. The Anon regime, as you would say. They are a merchant who's up and coming, who was born without a father and raised up, and he's suddenly this new class of nobility. And so the demands for democratization leveling the playing field, they were steadily increasing. Now, they weren't. It certainly was not completely level. And any African American listening to us right now is like, yeah, I'm pretty sure it wasn't completely level. No, it literally wasn't. In fact, in New York in 1819, you couldn't serve on a jury unless you owned a certain amount of acres of property. Well, what does that mean? It means that every jury was not a jury of your peers. It was a jury of your betters. You weren't. If you were caught, you know, stealing horseshoes from the blacksmith shop, it wasn't going to be a bunch of fellow, you know, landless, you know, day laborers that were going to be a part of that jury, it was going to be the very men that you were stealing from. And that is slowly going to go away. By the mid-1800s, property requirements for most things, you know, serving in public office, serving on juries and voting are going to be eliminated in most states. And that is the feeling, this feeling that every single person has the same value in the eyes of God. Now the second Great awakening is going to really spur the anti slavery movement for that very reason. How can I claim that every single person is equal in the eyes of God? Except there's some people that you get to own for the remainder of their life and even if they have kids, you get to own their kids and their kids kids. And slavery is the antithesis of freedom. In fact, many of the founders, when they were talking about the oppression that Britain was heaping upon them, what did they compare it to? They said we are being treated like slaves. Now of course they weren't actual slaves, they weren't being sold and forced to work on a plantation. But their hyperbole was you are taking away our natural rights and the only people who don't have natural rights are slaves. So if you're going to take away our natural rights, we're the same thing as slaves. So in that world, if you, if you were hearken back, hearken back to the, the, the days of yesteryear when I talked about Armenian Christian theology. In that world, Arminianism has found itself something far more powerful as a motivator than its previous arguments ever found. Remember, almost all Americans at this point are Calvinists. Almost all the Baptists are almost all Calvinists, meaning they believe that God has already chosen who is going to be saved. The Presbyterians are hardcore Calvinists. God's already chosen who's going to be saved. The Congregationalist Church, the Church of England. The Congregationalist church is the, is the Puritans church. All of those churches are Calvinist. The lone exception is the Methodist Church. And it's considered like the backwater of Protestant churches in the early 1800s. But Arminian theology suddenly greatly appeals to this up and coming class of American citizens. These people who were born in America because their ideology, their entire lives has been America is great because individuals have God given rights. But then they turn to their religion and their religion didn't provide the same level of democratization. I don't have the ability to choose salvation. But the Methodist argument was that not only did you have the ability to choose salvation you desperately needed to or you were going to burn in hell and you don't want to go there. So even Calvinist churches start employing camp meetings, even though technically, technically you can't, you know, go to a camp meeting, feel the Holy Spirit, confess Jesus and then be saved. Because if you're saved, God already chose to save you. And that camp meeting is just a manifestation of the fact that you already had saving faith. And there are a lot of people who kind of, you know, they bridge the gap, so to speak. They use Arminian theology principles, even though they're still claiming to be. They're still claiming to be Calvinists. So a great example of this is one of the great preachers of the Second Great Awakening is a man by the name of Charles Grandison Finney. He is a. You know, he is. I mean, I don't want to say this, I don't want to offend him in any way, but he really is like the original. I mean, Joel Osteen. I mean, he's the original Jimmy Swagger. He's the. He has camp meetings down to a. He has them down to almost a science. Now, he technically is a Calvinist, right? He's technically someone who believes Calvinist theology, but he's going to preach in a way that makes it seem like you do need to accept Jesus at these camp meetings. So he's a Presbyterian minister and yet is acting as if people accepting Jesus at his revival meetings is how they are getting saved. So Arminian theology, at least the principles of being able to choose the principles that God desperately wants to save everybody, that everyone's equal in the eyes of God. Those are powerfully present in the 1820s, but they of course are butting up against traditional Christian theology that are saying things like, hey, I know that Charles Finney gets you all kinds of excited and makes you do a dance and go up and sit up on the anxious bench at the front of the. Of the auditorium. But that's not how salvation comes, because salvation is nothing of yourself. Salvation is only between God and you, and it's nothing of you. It is God choosing to save you. And by the way, God already chose to save you. In fact, it's funny if you listen to later, if you listen to a Calvinist today, Calvinist pastor today, they will inveigh against the theology of, of Charles Grandison, Vinny that he is, he's essentially a. What they'll call him is a semi Pelagian, which is a very. If you run in Calvinist circles, it's like the dirty word. It's. It's not quite calling someone a Mormon, but it is. It's a dirty word that you hurl at someone. Because Pelagius was someone who argued that theoretically you could go to heaven without the atonement because if you only did righteous works, then you didn't need to be forgiven of sins that you, of course, never committed. So he kind of rejected original sin and he argued that you had to do righteous works to go to heaven. And so whenever Calvinists are trying to be very mean to Arminians, to Methodists, they'll call them Semi Pelagians, which of course Methodist gets very angry about. It's a very. Because the method is like, no, we believe we're saved by the grace of Jesus. You say that, but you had to choose to accept him, didn't you?

[B]

I imagine that the way that this would go down is, is like in the movie 8 Mile in some sort of a rap battle between, you know, the, the Calvinist and the, the Armenian in some sort of way. I assume that's what it is. Like.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know whether or not Eminem would be a Calvinist or an Armenian.

[B]

Well, Eminem isn't in this situation. I just assumed that it would be like, crowd and that the Calvinist, like, he's, he's really nervous.

[A]

You know, the real problem with 19th century rap battles is you don't have a mic to drop because you could be like, you know, I. And I'm telling you that God predestined all of us to burn in hell and you would drop the mic, but there's no mic to drop. I mean, I don't know what you. Did you just drop a scythe or something at that point, there's no. What are you going to drop? But anyway, I mentioned that to say Joseph Smith is experiencing these religious questions in a world where there is an explosion of religious rhetoric, of religious seeking. And Joseph's generation is very different than the generation of his grandfather. His grandfather grew up in the colonies and had to fight for the idea of independence. Joseph grows up in a world where the most singular facet of every single American's life is in America, we are free. And in everywhere else in the world, people are in chains. Or as the philosopher said, men are born free, but are everywhere in chains. Right. So that's how Americans see themselves. And so this question of how is it that I am exactly going to be saved? You see this all throughout. One of the things that's consistent in Joseph Smith's histories, in all of his discussions about the first vision is, I need to figure out which religion is right. Why does he need to figure out which religion's right? Because he wants salvation. You know, this. This excitement became general among all the sects in the region of that country. Indeed, the whole district of the country seemed affected by it. So he's talking about, I don't know how general this, this sense of religious excitement is. And great multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties, which created no small stir and division among the people. Some crying low here and lo there. Some were contending for the Methodist faith, some for the Presbyterian and some for the Baptists. For notwithstanding the great love which the converts of these different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion and the great zeal manifested by the respective clergy who were acting in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of religious feeling in order to have everybody converted, as they were pleased to call it, let them join what sect they pleased. Yet when the converts began to file off, some to one party and some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good feelings of both priests and converts were more pretended than real. For a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensued. Priest contended against priests, convert against convert. So all of their good feelings, one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions. Yeah, I feel bad for Joseph because in today's world, we wouldn't be able to envision a world where people hate one another just on the basis of what they believe. But back in Joseph's day, apparently people treated each other like garbage just on the basis of what they believed. So it's a stunning thing to think about that. Obviously I'm being facetious because in fact, Joseph might recognize some of the vitriol of X and formerly Twitter, much more so than we would think he would because he's describing that very thing. Sure, when a bunch of Protestants are together, they're all saying things like, well, at least I'm not Catholic. But the moment they separate from one another, the arguments about how salvation is actually to come, about what books should actually be in the Bible, about how churches are supposed to be managed and organized, about what constitutes an actual minister of a congregation, about when and where salvation comes, what the afterlife is like, there is a myriad of separating ideas as soon as you get past the, hey, we're all united and we don't like the Catholic Church. And so I think Joseph actually captures this angst very well, in this 1838 account, these people all say it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're a Protestant. And then the moment you become a Protestant that they don't like, they tell you how wrong you are and how everything you're believing is wrong and that that's not what God wants you to believe. So as Joseph said, he believed he wanted to be right in matters of faith. I was at this time in my 15th year, my father's family was proselyted to the Presbyterian faith, and four of them joined that church, namely my mother Lucy, my brothers Hyrum, Samuel Harrison and my sister Sophronia. So remember how close a relationship Joseph has with Hyrum. Hyrum is. Remember it was Hyrum that was holding Joseph's leg day and night in order to. To keep the pain away. He, of course, loves his mother as well. And so Joseph is going to see them get this religion. You know, they weren't hit with enough copies of Age of Reason, obviously, but Joseph himself still wants to know which is right. During this time of great excitement, my mind was called up to serious reflection and great uneasiness. But though my feelings were deep and often pungent, still I kept myself aloof from all these parties, though I attended their several meetings as occasion would permit. But in the process of time, my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect and I felt some desire to be united with them. But so great was the confusion and strife among the different denominations that it was impossible for a person, young as I was and so unacquainted with men and things to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong. Joseph is doing, frankly, a great deal more investigative work than many people who have religious questions today. He is going to different church meetings, he's talking to different people about religion. He's clearly at some point going to start reading the Bible to try to find the answer. Because remember, the one thing that all Protestants agree on is all truth is in the Bible. So you just got to go to the Bible and figure it out. Well, okay, but they're all. The Methodists and Presbyterians who hate each other are both using the same Bible, and they're both telling each other that the other one's wrong. So it's in this state of confusion that Joseph talks a great deal about in his 1832 history focuses much more on the fact that it seems like they're all wrong because of what they're saying. In the 1835 account, he simply says, I needed to know what was right because there was a great division of belief. And in this account, he spends a little bit more time as he's going to talk about how. How divided they are now.

[B]

He.

[A]

He also knows this is going to be published. So maybe that tempers a little bit the way he talks about the vitriol that these groups are lobbing at one another. And it probably tempers a little bit, him stating exactly what he thought in his 1832 history. He's a little bit more direct about how he's kind of disgusted by all of this here. He's tempering it a little bit. You know, I don't want the Methodist reading this for the first time to hate me because I'm speaking ill, but I do want. I want them to recognize why I was so confused. So in our next episode, we're going to pick up from there and we're going to talk about the other accounts that place Joseph Smith, that talk about Joseph Smith's mindset going into his actual miraculous vision. And we'll talk about the different accounts of those visions and what was in that vision in each of these accounts. We'll at least get to some of that, hopefully in our next episode. Although Richard's shaking his head, knowing as he does that we're not going to get to any of it. He's going to be like, Garrett, you spent five minutes talking about Charles Grandison Finney. We're not going to get to it. So you can think we're going to get to it, but we're not going to get to it. He's muted right now. He's laughing. You would hear him laughing, but he's muted. But he muted himself. I think that's. People say one of their favorite things is hearing you fall out of the chair when you're laughing.

[B]

Well, I mean, the Finney comment was very funny. And there is no chance.

[A]

There's no chance. We're not going to get to it at all. We'll be lucky if we get to the next two documents.

[B]

But look, the whole point of this is actually to go through this in more detail, right? Like this is the people cry out, Garrett, anybody can go and just read the Joseph Smith history and get a.

[A]

Whatever.

[B]

You're trying to provide kind of a more detailed explanation of what's going on.

[A]

And our hope is that a missionary who leaves on their mission in 2027 will eventually have all the first vision accounts laid out before them.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

I think that's fair.

[B]

I do, too.

[A]

All right. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for listening to Joseph S.M. smith and the Restoration, a Standard of Truth podcast production. Please join us for our next episode. For our other productions, please visit standardoftruth.com.