FAIR Topical Guide

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Additional Topics

The following are additional topic areas related to First Vision. If there is a bracket number after the topic, that number indicates how many actual articles there are related to that subject. If the link for the topic is not live, it simply means the topic is a 'planned area' for future growth.

FAIR Resources

These links are either to Web pages hosted on the FAIR Website, or to FAIR Papers. FAIR Papers are short articles about specific topics or questions, written by members of FAIR. These articles can be downloaded and read in PDF format and are intended to be distributed by e-mail or print for the general use of our patrons. (To read FAIR Papers you will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader. It can be downloaded free from the Adobe Web site.) Click on a title below to visit a FAIR Web page or to read the latest version of a FAIR Paper.

"FAIR Wiki on the First Vision," (City Unknown: FAIR) Dozens of FAIRWiki links to every issue regarding the First Vision

Michael R. Ash, "The First Vision," (Mesa, Arizona: FAIR, March 2003) FAIR Brochure. Critics often complain that the First Vision couldn't be true because there were multiple versions of it. An examination of this popular chestnut.

Matthew B. Brown, "Historical or Hysterical. Anti-Mormons and Documentary Sources," (Mesa, Arizona: FAIR, April 2005) At the 2004 FAIR Conference, Matthew Brown presented a presentation that examined many of the claims made by anti-Mormons about Joseph Smith's character and his account of the events of the Restoration. Anti-Mormon literature is filled with many accusations against Joseph Smith: he was of low moral character, he was not spiritually-minded as a youth, the "true" accounts of his behavior and personality have been nefariously suppresed by the Church, and that historical records show that Joseph Smith's accounting of the Restoration evolved into the story that is told today. Brown brings up evidence showing that these anti-Mormon claims are unsupported and contradicted by the evidence. This article includes the slide presentation used by Brown, and shows point by point how anti-Mormon accusations really are more hysteria than history.

Matthew B. Brown, "Revised or Unaltered? Joseph Smith's Foundational Stories," (Mesa, Arizona: FAIR, 2006 FAIR Conference) Matthew Brown responds to criticism of Joseph Smith's First Vision and Book of Mormon accounts.

D. Charles Pyle and Cooper Johnson, "Did Earlier LDS Leaders Understand the First Vision?," (Mesa, Arizona: FAIR, December 2002) Examining charges, originating with the Tanners, that early LDS leaders didn't feel Joseph Smith was visited by the Father and Son in the First Vision.

Craig Ray, "Joseph Smith's History Confirmed," (Mesa, Arizona: FAIR, August 2002) This FAIR Paper discusses evidence that supports various of Joseph Smith's claims concerning the First Vision.

Encyclopedia of Mormonism

The resources listed below are articles available in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. These links are to information not located on the FAIR Web site.

Milton V. Backman, "First Vision," Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Edited by Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 515-516

Ensign Articles

These articles cited below provide information on the topic of this page. The Ensign is one of the official publications of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When you click on one of the article links below, you are whisked to the article found in the archives of the Church's Web site.

"Joseph Smith's Testimony," Ensign, January 1972, 79.

Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Joseph Smith's Testimony of the First Vision," Ensign, April 1996, 10. The Prophet's accounts of his first vision offer us a picture that is rich in testimony and supported by history. Discusses the revivals in the Palmyra area in 1820.

Milton V. Backman Jr., "Confirming Witnesses of the First Vision," Ensign, January 1986, 32.

Milton V. Backman Jr., "Did Brigham Young confirm or expound on Joseph Smith's first vision?," Ensign, April 1992, 59.

Milton V. Backman Jr., "Joseph Smith's Recitals of the First Vision," Ensign, January 1985, 8.

Hoyt W. Brewster, Jr., "What was there in the creeds of men that the Lord found abominable, as he stated in the First Vision?," Ensign, July 1987, 65.

Other Resources

The resources listed below are related items available on the Web that should be of interest. These links are to information not located on the FAIR Web site.

James B. Allen, "The Signifcance of Joseph Smith's "First Vision" in Mormon Thought," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon of Mormon Thought (Autumn 1966), 29-45 Historian James B. Allen looks as the development of the First Vision as a personal experience to a major event in LDS history.

Richard L. Anderson, "Circumstantial Confirmation of the First Vision through Reminiscences," BYU Studies, Vol. 9:3 (1969), 1-27 The bread and butter work of the historian is less the divining of bias than a careful reading of his documents to determine just what is said, whether his source is in a position to know the information related, and to what extent each one tells a partial or complete story. Because it is claimed that Joseph Smith’s account of the events surrounding his First Vision are not factual, the foregoing procedures must be applied to his own statements and to all other accounts that claim to relate first-hand information about his earliest activities.

Richard L. Anderson, "Parallel Prophets: Paul and Joseph Smith," BYU Speeches (9 August 1983) Dr. Anderson looks at the similarities between Joseph Smith and Paul and points out that some of the arguments against Joseph Smith (by non-LDS Chrisitan critics) are unfair because they can be applied to Paul as well.

Michael R. Ash, The First Vision.

Milton V. Backman, Jr., "Awakenings in the Burned-over District: New Light on the Historical Settings of the First Vision," BYU Studies (1969), 1-15 The six decades preceding the Civil War were years of intense religious activity in many sections of the United States. During this second great awakening, sporadic spiritual quickenings erupted throughout the new nation; and many Americans living in the rugged frontier communities, in the rapidly growing urban areas, and in the villages and towns of northern and southern United States turned their attention to organized religion. One of the regions in the new nation that was in an almost constant state of revivalism was western New York. During the first half of the nineteenth century, revivals were so habitual and powerful in the area west of the Catskill and Adirondack Mountains that historians have labeled this ecclesiastical storm center the “Burned-over District.”

Milton V. Backman, Jr., Joseph Smith and the Differing Accounts of His First Vision.

Richard L. Bushman, "The First Vision Story Revived," Dialogue (Spring 1969), 82-93 Professor Bushman examines some of the arguments which attempt to cast doubt on Joseph Smith's "first vision."

Dean C. Jesse, "Early Accounts of Joseph Smith (8131 -39)," BYU Studies, Vol. 9:3 (1969) By October 29 of that year, when Joseph left Nauvoo for Washington, D.C., to present the Missouri grievances of his people before the federal government, only fifty-nine pages of his history had been written; and six days after his departure, his scribe James Mulholland died. When Joseph returned to Nauvoo in March 1840, he lamented the passing of his "faithful scribe," and expressed disappointment that an adequate record of his Washington trip had not been kept: "I depended on Dr. Foster to keep my daily journal during this journey, but he has failed me." Robert B. Thompson, who was appointed General Church Clerk on October 3, 1840, continued writing the history where Mulholland left off; however, his untimely death on August 27, 1841, saw only sixteen pages added to the manuscript. By the time Willard Richards was appointed private secretary to the Prophet and General Church Clerk in December 1841, a mere 157 pages of a history that eventually numbered more than two thousand, had been written.

Hugh W. Nibley, "Censoring the Joseph Smith Story," Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1991), 55-101 An examination of the differing versions of the first vision.

Elden Watson, "Joseph Smith's First Vision - A Harmony," (1983)

Elden Watson and D. Charles Pyle, "The Nephi/Moroni Problem," (June 2002) A look at an anti-Mormon claim that it wasn't Moroni that visited Joseph Smith, but Nephi.

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