Scott Woodward:
 The first time the story of Joseph Smith’s First Vision was ever printed was in a pamphlet written by Apostle Orson Pratt and published in Scotland while Pratt was on a mission there in 1840. Two years later, in 1842, a non-Latter-day Saint newspaper editor named John Wentworth solicited Joseph Smith to write his own story about the rise and progress of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joseph’s response became known as the Wentworth Letter and contained his fourth and final firsthand telling of his First Vision experience. What’s especially intriguing about this 1842 account is how much Joseph drew upon the language of Orson Pratt’s original 1840 pamphlet to tell about his own experience, which includes personal details not found in his previous tellings of the vision. And, in addition to influencing the language of Joseph’s 1842 account, Pratt’s pamphlet also heavily influenced another insightful telling of Joseph’s vision, written by his fellow apostle Orson Hyde, which was published in Germany in 1842. Today on Church History Matters, we explore each of these three accounts and their unique contributions to our understanding of Joseph’s first visionary experience. I’m Scott Woodward, a Managing Director at Scripture Central, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, also a Managing Director at Scripture Central. Thanks for joining us today. Let’s get into it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hello and welcome to Church History Matters. I’m Casey Paul Griffiths. With me, as always, is the intrepid Scott Woodward. Scott, say hi.

Scott Woodward:
 Hello, hello.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This is the third in a series we’ve been doing on the First Vision. Today we’re going to be talking about Joseph Smith’s last account of the First Vision that he writes himself and a couple others that may have influenced it by Orson Pratt and Orson Hyde. But first, let’s do a quick recap on what we’ve already covered. So Scott, take it away.

Scott Woodward:
 All right. Yes. Well, if you’ve made it with us this far in the series, then you know that we have been talking about Joseph Smith’s First Vision as a foundational narrative of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We’ve talked about how it’s grown in institutional significance over time, right, meaning that its significance for members of the church and for how we tell the narrative of church history has continued to gain importance and central significance. We’ve been talking about Joseph’s own efforts to record his First Vision experience. There’s essentially four firsthand accounts, right? 1832, 1835, 1838, and 1842. And what we’ve been trying to do is, first, explain the context in which each account was written, and then, second, to look at the unique elements of each account, right, and then, third, to highlight how the context helps illuminate the content. And so in our first episode of this series we talked about the context of the 1832 account as being written as a result, or at least in part a result, of some reflective, soul-searching time that Joseph spent in a grove in Greenville, Indiana that year, and we highlighted how this highly personal context explains perfectly why this account includes so many personal details about Joseph’s inner world, his feelings, his thoughts, his reflections, at the time of the First Vision. It’s definitely our most personal account. And then in our second episode, last time, we discussed both the 1835 and 1838 accounts. We talked about how the context of the 1835 account is that it was written as a journal entry by one of Joseph’s scribes, recounting a conversation he had in Kirtland, Ohio with an eccentric visitor who called himself Joshua and styled himself as a Jewish prophet. Before Joseph learned more about the man and eventually made the connection that he was actually a guy who’d been tried for murder and manslaughter and child abuse, Joseph had actually shared with him an account of his First Vision, and the contextual fact that Joseph was explaining his experience to a stranger explains very well why this account focuses on objective details with little personal feelings, right? A big contrast to the 1832 account. Also, the contextual fact that Joseph initially believed the man was a Jew explains very well why Joseph de-emphasized some things, like the more Christian cultural aspects of his experience, like the revivals and his search for the true Christian church. In fact, he says in that account that he had been looking into, “different systems of religion.” It also explains why he would emphasize the more Jewish-friendly aspects of the vision, such as his ordeal—we talked about his ordeal, the wrestle with dark power; the pillar of fire with those shekhinah overtones, cloud by day, pillar of fire by night that Jews would have been familiar with; and the many angels that he mentioned, the only account that mentions angels is this, where he’s talking to a Jew, a nod to the divine counsel that Jews would be familiar with. And then, as for the 1838 account, we discussed how this account was written as part of Joseph’s official history, a project that he had just started that year, shortly after he and his family had arrived in Far West, Missouri. And the reason, the reason they had just moved to Far West was to escape serious persecution that they had been experiencing in Kirtland. Influential apostates from the church and others, other Christian folk, had been threatening Joseph. Some death threats had come to him that January. Now, persecution’s not particularly new to Joseph or the church at this time, but it had recently become quite intense. It had been ratcheted up several notches, and the rumors and the slander from their foes were not helping with public relations, right? This is only going to lead to additional persecution. And so it’s in that context, in 1838, that this account was written, intentionally written, with the help of some of Joseph’s right hand men, to set the record straight, right? To—his language was to, “put all inquirers after truth into possession of the facts in relation both to myself and the church,” right? We want you to get the facts, and we want you to get it from us. And I think that context explains extraordinarily well why this account is so factually detailed in terms of time and weather and exact quotations, and why Joseph goes to such extents here to go deeply into the Christian elements of his experience.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Those who’d been persecuting him were all Christian at this time, right? And so Joseph wants Christians everywhere to know how biblically based this experience was that he had, and he would like them to therefore stop persecuting us, thank you very much. He also provides—and I think you emphasized this very well last time, Casey—that he’s also providing a pattern for how he came to know the truth of these things for himself, perhaps as kind of a tacit model for those of his readers to go and do likewise if they have questions about this church. Look, this is how I came to an understanding of the truth, and so, instead of fighting against us, how about you do as James directs as well and ask the Lord about this? So anyway, that’s kind of a recap, I think, of where we’ve been so far. Anything you’d add to that?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. The only thing I would add is that of the four accounts that come directly from Joseph Smith, 1838 is the canon account. Now—

Scott Woodward:
 Ah, yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—Joseph Smith isn’t the one that puts it into the scriptural canon. It’s canonized as part of the Pearl of Great Price. But that seems to indicate that the generation that knew Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, Orson Hyde, John Taylor, would say 1838 is the first one they’d want you to read. That’s why it’s in your scriptures right now.

Scott Woodward:
 Sure. Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But if there’s a second most official one of the four that come from Joseph Smith, it’s probably 1842.

Scott Woodward:
 Sure.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
1842 we know the most, probably, about the context of what was going on and why Joseph Smith wrote it. Part of this is canon as well. This is where the Articles of Faith are written, and we snip those off and put those in the Pearl of Great Price, too. And so I’d go out on a limb and say this is probably the second most official account of the First Vision.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Let’s dive into the context. This is sometimes known in church history as the Wentworth Letter, and the whole thing’s great. Like, if they came to me and said, “Hey, we want to canonize the entire Wentworth letter,” I’d say go for it. I think it’s great.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
John Wentworth is the editor of a newspaper called the Chicago Democrat, who apparently solicited Joseph Smith for a sketch of the rise, progress, persecution, and faith of the Latter-day Saints. Now, this history itself was never published by Wentworth, and we don’t actually have the original letter that is the Wentworth Letter, and the Joseph Smith Papers Project did a little bit of sleuthing and found out that Wentworth may not have intended to publish it to begin with. He was asking on behalf of a friend from Boston named George Barstow, who was preparing a history of the state of New Hampshire. And Joseph Smith has ties to New Hampshire, his family’s there for a little while, and he also knew that a history that was going to be published nationally would be a good way for the church to get itself out there, to provide some background on where we come from and tell our own story. So even if John Wentworth doesn’t publish it, and neither does George Barstow, Joseph Smith publishes it, and it’s published just under the title “Church History” in the Times and Seasons, 1842, March 1st.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah. I read on the Joseph Smith Papers website that Barstow, Wentworth’s friend here, in his history of New Hampshire, ultimately only went all the way up to the year 1819 in his history. So he ends at 1819, and since the Latter-day Saint church had not been established until 1830, that was his justification for not including what Joseph had written in his history.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So we don’t have any evidence that Wentworth or Barstow didn’t publish it because of malignant reasons. They weren’t anti-Mormons or anything like that.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this one, because it’s also written for the public and published in a public newspaper, the Times and Seasons, has that more polished feel that the 1838 account has.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The 1838 account, however, is an excerpt from the history of the church, which winds up being six volumes. So this one is more of a self-contained, brief narrative where Joseph really, really quickly and really efficiently goes over his early life, the First Vision, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, Moroni, the founding of the church, and then the Standard of Truth—I think a lot of people out there would be familiar with the Standard of Truth. When I was a missionary our mission president had us memorize it and recite it at the first of all of our zone conferences—

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—and then it ends with the Articles of Faith. So if you want to read this firsthand, you just go to the Joseph Smith Papers site, type in “Church History 1st March 1842.” It’ll come right up. It’s definitely worth a read. It’s not long, either. And it’s a great, succinct history that covers all the big stuff up to the organization of the church and has some of Joseph Smith’s best language in it. And, like I said, there’s a reason why it’s probably a little bit more polished than other things Joseph wrote, too, because it appears that this was probably written in collaboration with Orson Pratt, who had already published a similar history, and Joseph just kind of draws from it and uses a lot of similar phraseology to describe what happened. He’s got something that already works. I mean, I was a curriculum writer for the church, and when they asked us to write something new, the first question always was, “Do we already have something that could just do this?”

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And Orson’s had already been written and edited, so it makes sense that they would take it and polish it and put it out, because Orson’s was written in Britain for an audience over there. Now they’re creating an American version of it that’s going to go out to them. So let’s talk a little bit about the highlights, Scott. You want to walk us through a couple of things that are different about the 1842 account?

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah. Well, I like how you mentioned that it’s succinct. This is actually just incredibly succinct in my mind. Is this the shortest one by word count? I don’t know if it is, but it’s succinct.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 And it’s going to talk to us about the factionality of Christianity, right? It’s going to emphasize the visionary qualities of the experience. He mentions—let me quote a little bit here from the account. He—this is kind of new language. He says that when he had been praying fervently in the grove, he said, “My mind was taken away from the objects with which I was surrounded, and I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision and saw two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in features and likeness.” He hasn’t used this kind of language prior to this. This is interesting, that his mind was “taken away from the objects with which I was surrounded,” and then he mentions that these two beings exactly resembled each other in features and likeness. I think that’s one unique aspect of this.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think that “features and likeness” observation that he makes there, too, is maybe an olive branch to traditional Christianity. I mean, at this point, saying that they’re two separate beings could be something that’s upsetting to some Christians. But to say, well, they precisely resembled each other, you know? That their unity isn’t just metaphysical, you know? It’s literal. They look like each other. They’re a literal father and son pairing. May have been a way of trying to reach out to Christians and say, yeah, what I saw was a unified pair that talked to me together. But again, this one, shortest message, too, he says, “They told me that all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines, and none of them was acknowledged of God as His church and His kingdom, and I was expressly commanded to go not after them.” And so he doesn’t pull his punches, you know? He still is saying, the message to me was that the churches weren’t God’s kingdom. He doesn’t say that the churches were evil. This one’s maybe a little bit softer than 1838 where the creeds are an abomination and the ministers draw near to me with their lips but their hearts are far from me, but just a simple acknowledgement that every religious denomination had a few things that were wrong and that none of them was the church that Jesus had founded. So, like I said, I see it as an olive branch to basically say to people, we’re not saying that your church is the kingdom of the devil, or anything like that, we’re saying that over time, incorrect doctrines have crept into Christianity, and that the authority that was originally invested in the ancient church is gone, that it’s not there anymore, and so he says, “I was given a promise that the fullness of the gospel should at some future time be made known unto me.”

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah. I think that’s important. This is the only account where he explains that he was told that at some future time he would receive additional information, right? That “the fulness of the gospel should at some future time be made known unto me.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah. This is the only account that does that. Also, I’m struck by the context here that this is meant to be published in a non-LDS press, and yet it’s very bold, as you mentioned, maybe toned down a little from the 1838 account, but still very bold. It’s got some PR overtones. It’s concise. It’s straightforward. It’s matter-of-fact. It’s very informative. Joseph comes across as very confident, very self assured, kind of ready to bring the world God’s truth.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 And I think we need to just note in the broader context here, this is 1842. I mean, this is at the height of Joseph Smith’s strength and prosperity and popularity as a prophet, right? The church is becoming more respected. They’re starting to become a force to be reckoned with. Certainly that’s true politically.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 You can’t ignore the Mormons, right? You can’t ignore the Mormons anymore. Who are these people? We need to tell their story. So I think Joseph, the way he’s coming across here and what he’s choosing to include and to exclude, again, is informed by the context, right? He says none of the churches were acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom, but this isn’t all about doom and gloom and despair. He was promised that the gospel fulness would at some future time be made known to him. And let me tell you about what happened next, right? And so this is, in a way, a missionary text.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 So the 1838 is kind of a defense of our own story. We want to own the story because there’s so much persecution. This is the missionary text. This is, we’re not getting a lot of persecution here in 1842. Things are actually as good as they’ve ever been for the church.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Thank you for asking us to be able to tell our own story, and here’s kind of the missionary angle on it. So I just—again, the context really is important to understanding the text.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And he writes this one in such a way so that a person who’s not a Latter-day Saint who wants to know real specifics would be with him. For instance, in this one, when he describes translation, he gives the exact dimensions of the plates. The plates were this tall, this wide, this long. Three rings that bound them together. Then he describes the Urim and Thummim at length, and how he used the Urim and Thummim to translate. He’s taking into account things that the public might be interested in. And so it’s similar to 1838 in that he knows, I’ve got to get the facts pinned down here. So he probably sat down and said, gosh, how big were the plates? What was going on when the vision was received? What was the message that I was given? But it does seem like he adjusts the message a little bit so it’s not quite as confrontational as the 1838 account is. At this point he’s two years away from running for president, you know? And Latter-day Saints have built a pretty nice city and are being seen with a little bit more respectability. There’s a Masonic Lodge opening in Nauvoo. And so this is a very confident account of the First Vision. I mean, part of the polish here, too, might be that this one’s intrinsically linked to another account of the First Vision, which is actually the first published account of the First Vision. So we noted how Joseph Smith writes one privately in 1832, he has a conversation that’s recorded in ’35, starts on his history in 1838, and then in 1842 published it in the newspaper. But the first time that the story of the First Vision appears in print is Orson Pratt’s account—

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—which is published in 1840 in Scotland. And so that one appears to be a major influence on the Wentworth letter as well.

Scott Woodward:
 Totally.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You can kind of compare them side by side.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the other thing is is Orson Pratt is, I think it’s fair to say, probably the most educated and erudite of the apostles.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He, throughout his life, is the most well spoken. Later on, they’re going to choose Orson to be the person that announces publicly plural marriage. He has a debate with the chaplain of the United States Senate where he just totally cleans the guy’s clock verbally. And so it would make sense that Joseph Smith would consult the work of a real literary stylistician, like Orson Pratt, when he’s writing the ’42 history.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah, well, there you go, listeners. You’ve got now a fun little fact you can share around the dinner table tonight. You can ask, “Do you know what the very first account of Joseph Smith’s vision, when it was published, and who wrote it?” Make it worth 100 celestial points. If someone can nail down, it was Orson Pratt, actually, who first published an account. That’s got to be worth maybe even some donuts. I don’t know, but I think that’s an interesting fact that even though the 1838 account was intended to go public, it was not published before 1840’s. Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They’re—yeah, they’re still working on Joseph Smith’s history at this point.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So Orson beats him to the punch.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Another stop along the way would be we leave the accounts that come directly from Joseph Smith and look at secondary accounts, or—I shouldn’t say they’re secondary. They’re written by secondary witnesses who, we’re almost positive, heard the story from Joseph firsthand but then wrote it up as a missionary tract or a journal entry, so . . .

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Let’s talk a little bit about Orson’s, which is called “An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions” and is published in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1840. So give us some background on that one.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah. So Orson is, yeah, he’s awesome. His brother, Parley P. Pratt, actually joins the church before him and explicitly, like, makes a beeline for Canaan, New York, which is where Orson was, and tells him about the restored gospel. At 19 years old, Orson Pratt joins the church, is baptized by his older brother Parley. Shortly thereafter, it was, I think, maybe six weeks after his baptism, he meets Joseph Smith, [who] receives D&C 34 on his behalf. When he’s 23 years old he is appointed to be part of the newly organized Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. This is 1835. And then with the Quorum of the Twelve, he’s going to serve a mission to the British Isles from 1840 to 1841. This is that time period when he’s going to publish this account. So he’s an apostle, and he had traveled, actually, to the eastern United States to get on the boat to go to the British Isles. He had stopped for a number of weeks there in the East, preparing to leave, and Joseph Smith actually happened to be in the East as well, petitioning the federal government for a redress for the Latter-day Saint Missouri losses. And so Orson Pratt’s going to attend some speeches that Joseph Smith delivered during his stay in the East, and he’s going to accompany him on a little journey from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania over to Monmouth, New Jersey in December 1839. So we know right before Orson Pratt leaves from the East Coast to the British Isles, he’s spending some significant time with Joseph.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 So he likely heard—we don’t have specific accounts that I’m aware of, but—he likely heard Joseph recount his early visions at that time, a subject that Joseph did publicly address while in the Eastern States. And if not then, likely then, but if not then, we know that Orson Pratt was part of Joseph’s inner circle.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 He had had many of opportunities to hear Joseph speak about his early visionary experiences. And so, you know, we need to hypothesize a little here that it’s likely that Orson Pratt heard one of Joseph Smith’s tellings of the First Vision on the East Coast right before he leaves to Europe.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 If not, that’s okay. He’s part of the inner circle. He’s heard it. In fact, he’s going to use some of Joseph Smith’s language from 1832 account, 1835 account. He’s going to talk about the forgiveness of sins, for instance, things that Joseph doesn’t say in the public 1838 account. And so we know that Orson’s got his information directly from the source.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 And so when he gets over to Europe, 1840, this is where he’s going to publish, as you mentioned, in Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, in September 1840, this pamphlet, it’s called, the actual full name of the pamphlet is “An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, and of the Late Discovery of Ancient American Records.” It’s a long title. He writes to his fellow apostle George A. Smith, who was there. He said, “I shall be at conference in Manchester, England on the 6th of October, if the Lord will.” And then he says, “I will bring about 2,000 pamphlets with me, which are now in the press.” He shows up to England with loads of copies of pamphlets of this story of Joseph Smith, and that’s the first time the story is publicly printed and distributed.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this one’s pretty thorough. I mean—

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—Pratt’s pamphlet is 31 pages long.

Scott Woodward:
 31 pages.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Which is probably longer than—I don’t know when his brother wrote “Voice of Warning,” which is supposed to be the most influential tract of the 19th century, other than the Book of Mormon converts more people, but . . . This is a lengthy history that contains a lot of specifics, too, about the plates, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. It comes from a good source. And again, I can’t emphasize enough, Orson Pratt was a polyglot. Like, he was good at a lot of things. He was good at mathematics. He was good at writing. He was generally the person that the early brethren would put on the stand when they had to have a debate with someone else because he was fast on his feet and really, really knew the scriptures well.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He’s a theologian as well, him and Parley, the Pratt brothers. And even though Orson has some ups and downs—he struggles with plural marriage and is even briefly excommunicated for a period of months, then brought back into the church—he is seen as one of the greatest defenders of the church in the 19th century. In fact, Brigham Young said, “If Brother Orson were chopped up into one-inch bits, every one would cry out that Mormonism is true.” So this is best-case scenario, you know, a person telling the story who’s got the skills and the intellect to really write it well, and I think this is one of the great accounts of the First Vision, one that shouldn’t be overlooked just because it doesn’t come directly from Joseph Smith. It’s about as close as you can get to hearing from Joseph Smith and hearing it from a really, really good writer.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I think you’ve noted a little bit, Scott, that if you put the 1842 history and the Orson Pratt history side by side, you can see a lot of similar phrases popping up.

Scott Woodward:
 Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Like, it’s clear Joseph used this a little bit when he wrote the 1842 history.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah, and I think that’s the biggest endorsement that you could give to Orson Pratt’s account, right? Is that Joseph Smith’s going to quote from Orson Pratt’s account when he tells his 1842 account. If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what’s an endorsement. When the person who the experience happened to quotes a guy to tell his own story, that’s a nod. That’s really good. Joseph really appreciated the linguistic power of Orson Pratt and wants to draw upon that. It is polished. It is beautiful. The First Vision account itself is not terribly long. Let’s quote a little bit from it so you can see maybe some of the connections and how Joseph draws from it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Orson will invariably be more long-winded than Joseph, so what it seems Joseph is doing in the 1842 account is giving a more concise version of what Orson Pratt had said.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 It was published, by the way, in America in 1841. So there was an account of Orson Pratt’s pamphlet circulating in America.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 And so Joseph is using that again, which is already a proven concept in Europe and now in America, and he’s drawing from that, making it more concise, using his own language, of course, but also drawing some specific phraseology from Orson. So let me give some examples.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Okay.

Scott Woodward:
 Camera 1. Orson Pratt says, “When somewhere about 14 or 15 years old, he began seriously to reflect upon the necessity of being prepared for a future state of existence.” Camera 2, Joseph Smith. “When about 14 years of age, I began to reflect upon the importance of being prepared for a future state.” That’s direct language, right? And then Joseph will use his own unique language to talk about how there was a clash in religious sentiment going on, and if I went to one society they said one thing, and if I went to another, they pointed to their own particular creed as the summum bonum of perfection. That’s all Joseph’s own language. But then, as you go down a little bit, it happens again. Orson Pratt says, “He therefore retired to a secret place in a grove but a short distance from his father’s house and knelt down and began to call upon the Lord.” Joseph will shorten that, using similar phrases. He’ll say, “I retired to a secret place in a grove and began to call upon the Lord.” What’s interesting to me is where it gets the most overlap between the two is when the vision actually happens.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Here’s a direct quote from Orson: He said, “His mind was caught away from the natural objects with which he was surrounded, and he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision and saw two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in their features or likeness.” And we’ve already quoted this from Joseph. Let’s quote it again side by side. He said, “My mind was taken away from the objects with which I was surrounded, and I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision and saw two glorious personages, who exactly resembled each other in features and likeness.” That’s almost word for word, it’s just the first person, third person is the only difference here.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Again, clearly Joseph is drawing from Orson. So Orson Pratt got the ideas directly from Joseph, but now Joseph is turning around and using the language of Orson Pratt to now explain his own experience. So, very interesting. Any others you would highlight there?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, one thing I’d want to highlight is that sometimes members of the church get this perception that Joseph Smith did everything, you know? I even know some people that have broken away from the church that kind of have this feeling like if it didn’t come from Joseph Smith, then I don’t trust it. And to be honest with you, when you closely examine the materials that were produced when Joseph Smith was president of the church, a lot of it’s in collaboration with other people.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We don’t like the idea of a church curriculum department because we like this thought of the lone voice standing in the wilderness telling his story, but Joseph Smith was a smart guy and was surrounded by smart people and took advantage of that. Like, he wasn’t just a good leader; he was a good collaborator.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so, to me, him going to Orson and saying, you have written my story so well, and I love the turn of phrase. To me, it’s interesting, too, that when Joseph writes his history, what he generally does is shorten it. Like, he’s much more, I guess you’d say, straightforward than Orson is.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Orson’s got a good vocabulary, I guess you’d say.

Scott Woodward:
 A little more verbose.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And when Joseph Smith makes changes, it’s generally to tighten up the manuscript and make it a little bit more on point. But I just think that when we talk about the early Restoration, we have to talk about this remarkable group. If we don’t acknowledge people like Orson Pratt and Parley P. Pratt and Orson Hyde, who also helped tell the story and turn it into a missionary narrative—because we talked about how Joseph’s earliest histories are sort of exploratory, like we don’t quite know why he was writing it. Was he sorting through his feelings?

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Was he trying to answer people’s questions? This one, he’s got a good writer that’s helping him say, hey, let’s talk about the parts of the message that would be most valuable for a seeker after truth. And this is where the First Vision starts to undergo that transformation where it’s really going to become a missionary tract.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think it’s fair to say, too, that Orson plays a role in the formulation of the scriptures as we know them. The Pearl of Great Price as it exists. He’s the person that puts the verses into the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, comes up with the sections, adds, I believe, 24 sections to the Doctrine and Covenants, including some of the most vital ones.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so this is consistent that Joseph would work in collaboration with the most gifted writer and speaker in the church to say, help me write this. I don’t have the same kind of education as you. I want to take what you’ve already written and use it to tell my story. That’s one of those things that just gets my goat up, is when people say, “I only accept stuff that comes from Joseph Smith.” I know a guy who won’t, for instance, accept section 134 of the Doctrine and Covenants because Joseph Smith wasn’t there the day that it was sustained as part of the scriptural canon, and I’m saying, well, he was on the committee when the Doctrine and Covenants was published.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And he helped with it in 1844, and he never saw fit at those times to remove it. So we’ve got to acknowledge a generation that’s remarkable here. If Joseph Smith is the head, there’s also a number of good people like Orson Pratt God raised up to assist him in the work.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah, I think been pointed out by people much more extensively than we’re saying it here, but one of the geniuses of Joseph Smith, if you will, is councils, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Is drawing together gifted and consecrated people to produce things that are better than any single individual could have produced on their own.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 W. W. Phelps, right, early on; Oliver Cowdery; Sidney Rigdon; and then it seems that this next phase, after Oliver’s kind of out of the picture and Sidney’s waned, now we’re getting Pratt brothers are really making a big splash and Orson Hyde, and then in Nauvoo, we’re going to get some great scribes there: William Clayton and others. And so.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah. Amen. We have mentioned several things that Joseph pulls from Orson’s account, but can I share maybe one or two that are unique to Orson’s account that I think are actually really insightful?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 There’s no way that Orson could have known any of this except for Joseph telling him. For instance, when he talks about Joseph going into the grove, and he begins to call upon the Lord, Orson says this: “At first he was severely tempted by the powers of darkness, which endeavored to overcome him.” That sounds like the 1838 account, 1835 account. “But he continued to seek for deliverance until darkness gave way from his mind. He was enabled to pray in fervency of the Spirit and in faith, and while thus pouring out his soul, anxiously desiring an answer from God, he at length saw a very bright and glorious light in the heavens above, which at first seemed to be at a considerable distance.” These details are fascinating.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 “He continued praying while the light appeared to be gradually descending toward him, and as it drew nearer it increased in brightness and magnitude, so that by the time that it reached the tops of the trees, the whole wilderness for some distance around was illuminated in a most glorious and brilliant manner.” And then, interesting detail, he says, “He expected to have seen the leaves and boughs of the trees consumed as soon as the light came in contact with them, but perceiving that it did not produce that effect, he was encouraged with the hopes of being able to endure its presence.” I love that. “It continued descending slowly until it rested upon the earth and he was enveloped in the midst of it.” A marvelously detailed account of the light coming toward Joseph and his internal thought processes and his relief at recognizing that as this beam of light was coming right toward him, the trees that it was touching were not consumed. Therefore, there might be some hope he might survive. I mean, these are all details that only Joseph could have known and told his trusted friend and fellow apostle Orson.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And I’ve always been intrigued by that imagery he uses of the light coming towards him. Like, every time I think that we put this on film, it’s been, boom, they’re there, you know? And Orson makes it sound like he’s watching this phenomenon come closer to him.

Scott Woodward:
 Gradually.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. The interesting thing about Orson Pratt’s account is you could make the case that he’s saying Joseph Smith was mentally transported away, but there’s also aspects of his account, like the light interacting with the trees, that definitely give us a feeling of place.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I had a student come up to me and say, “Why do we call it the First Vision? Why don’t we call it the first appearance?” I said, “Well, that’s the language Joseph Smith used.” And then she said, “Was it a vision, or was it an appearance?”

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think language like this, where it talks about light interacting with the objects around it, makes it sound like it might be more accurate to call it an appearance. But again, Joseph and Orson in their accounts do say, “My mind was taken away from the objects I was surrounded,” so it straddles that line between, were they in the grove with him, or was he taken somewhere else, or what happened?

Scott Woodward:
 And Orson, he actually gives a moment to when his mind was caught away. The next sentence, right after what I just read, he says, “When it,” meaning the pillar of light, “When it first came upon him, it produced a peculiar sensation throughout his whole system.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, physical, yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah, and as soon as—he says immediately when that light now touches him, that’s when his mind was then caught away from the natural objects with which he was surrounded. And so then he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision and saw the two glorious personages. So yeah, that is—it’s difficult. What language should we use? He uses the word vision here, but that’s only after the light touched him. Orson puts it as the moment the vision began was when the light touched him. It’s a great account. So detailed. You can picture it vividly.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. This one’s significant enough that even though it’s not technically a Joseph Smith document, it is on the Joseph Smith Papers site.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You just have to go there and search for “an interesting account of several remarkable visions,” and you can pull this up and read through it. The rest of it’s definitely worth a read because, like I said, Orson’s just a good writer, and it’s one of the most fascinating early histories of the church that’s given.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah. It’s actually featured on the front page of Joseph Smith Papers. There’s—it’s been there as long as I can remember on josephsmithpapers.org. There’s a little icon just under Featured Topics that says Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision, and it’ll take you to all the best accounts we have of everything we’ve been talking about, including, yeah, Orson Pratt and Orson Hyde, Levi Richards, David Nye White, Alexander Niebaur, and we’ll talk more about those, but, yeah, those are easily accessible from the homepage on josephsmithpapers.org.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Well, before we wrap up we want to do one last account, real brief here.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This one’s from another Orson: Orson Hyde. He’s another original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Orson Hyde has an interesting story, too. He’s a convert from the Kirtland area, one of Sidney Rigdon’s close associates. He is excommunicated before he writes his account of the First Vision, but according to his biographer has a vision of the Sons of Perdition that puts the fear of God in him enough that he comes back into the church and then volunteers to go on a 6,000-mile journey to Jerusalem to dedicate the Holy Land, has all kinds of adventures along the way, and in 1842 in Germany publishes—I’m not going to try and say the German. I will try. “Ein Ruf aus der Wüste,” which translates as “a cry out of the wilderness.” This one is also really heavily influenced by Orson Pratt’s. I’m guessing he had a copy of Orson’s with him. But he translates it into German. In fact, if you pull it up on the JSP site, they’ll still just have the original German page there. But they have the excerpt where the First Vision is described translated into English so you can see it. A couple things that he emphasizes here: so, starts out by describing at length, because his parents were poor and had to feed a large family, his education was meager. He was able to read fairly well, but his ability to write was very limited, and he had only very literary knowledge. His knowledge of letters did not go any further. Most of the subjects were generally taught in the United States of America were completely unknown to him at the time he received this heavenly message. So he really goes out of his way to emphasize that Joseph Smith is not a religious scholar: that he’s a young man who is disadvantaged who comes from the backwoods. And then one interesting thing that he adds here has to do with the darkness, the demonic attack that happens before the First Vision. This is unique to Orson Hyde’s account. “On one occasion he went to a small grove of trees,” this is what he writes, “near his father’s home and knelt down before God in solemn prayer. The adversary then made several strenuous efforts to cool his ardent soul. He filled his mind with doubts and brought to mind all manner of inappropriate images to prevent him from obtaining the object of his endeavors.” That’s probably as specific as any of the accounts get about what was actually going on with Joseph.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s interesting. Doubts and inappropriate images come in to try and stop him.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“But the overflowing mercy of God came to buoy him up and gave him a new impetus to his failing strength. The dark cloud soon parted, and light and peace filled his frightened heart, and he once again called upon the Lord with faith and fervency of spirit,” so . . .

Scott Woodward:
 This is something that Orson Hyde could not possibly know without having heard it from Joseph Smith, right? Or from those who’ve heard it from Joseph.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Talking about his inner world. Yeah. This is from one who knew Joseph telling the story and giving us some details that none of Joseph Smith’s firsthand accounts had given us about, yeah, the doubts and inappropriate images. That’s interesting. That’s very personal.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 Absent from Joseph’s own firsthand accounts.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Then the rest of it is very similar to 1842 and Orson Pratt. “The natural world around him was excluded from his view so that he would be open to the presentation of heavenly and spiritual things. Two glorious heavenly personages stood before him, resembling each other exactly in features and likeness,” and the summary of the message, again, don’t join any religious sects, they’d all erred in doctrine, none was recognized by God, this is all pretty close to what the Wentworth Letter and Orson Pratt wrote, “and he was further commanded to wait patiently until some future time when the true doctrine of Christ and the complete truth of the gospel would be revealed to him. The vision closed, and peace and calm filled his mind.”

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Again, a great account and obviously influenced by Orson Pratt, but written on the opposite side of the Atlantic when Joseph Smith is composing his history. So Orson Pratt has a big influence on Orson Hyde and Joseph Smith and how they write their accounts of the First Vision, or at least these ones we’ve been discussing today.

Scott Woodward:
 In summary, then, the 1842 account, and we have Orson Hyde’s account, in large measure thanks to Orson Pratt.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
 At least the language that he provided is used by both of them, and so, yeah, great nod to the influence of Orson Pratt. We don’t really talk about him enough. He’s one of those quietly, at least in our day, quietly influential apostles, so.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. There’s a great biography of Orson Pratt by a guy named Breck England that I highly recommend, and apparently someone is working on a scholarly biography. The name escapes me right now. When it comes to Orson Hyde, Myrtle Hyde has written a book on him. She’s one of his descendants. And a colleague of mine at BYU named Andy Reed has done some good work on Orson because Andy’s background is in Jewish studies, and Orson has the strongest connection to Jewish people because he actually goes to the Holy Land. In fact, right on the Mount of Olives, Orson Hyde Memorial Gardens were dedicated back in the 1970s to recognize that Orson came there and dedicated the holy land years and years before the state of Israel’s founded and people start moving there, so two good folks. And can I add one last factoid about these two guys, too?

Scott Woodward:
 Well, yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Since they’re original members of the Quorum of the Twelve, Orson Hyde and Orson Pratt were in line of succession to become president of the church after Brigham Young passed away. Not too long before Brigham Young passed, he met with the entire Quorum of the Twelve and basically said, I’m going to reorganize seniority based on continuous service. And he tells Orson Hyde and Orson Pratt that because they were both excommunicated, their seniority reset, and John Taylor was going to be president of the church. Now, I could be wrong on this, but I don’t think there was any murmuring or jealousy from the two Orsons, even though they were in line to lead the church, and obviously we needed John Taylor during that really difficult period when the persecution surrounding plural marriage kind of reaches its apex, so—

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—two great people that really contribute to our First Vision knowledge.

Scott Woodward:
 Yeah. So we need maybe one more episode to talk about the final secondhand accounts of those who left accounts of hearing Joseph Smith personally bear his witness and tell his story. So that’ll be our next episode. Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week we continue this series by exploring five significant secondhand accounts written by people who claim to have personally heard Joseph Smith share his experience. and which contain even more details that add to our understanding of Joseph’s First Vision. Also, as we near the end of this series, we want to hear your questions about Joseph’s First Vision. You can record yourself asking your question anytime before March 29th, 2023, and send it to info@scripturecentral.org. Let us know your name, where you’re from, and try to keep it to about 20 seconds or so. And please also transcribe your question when you email it in. That helps us a lot. Today’s episode was produced by Zander Sturgill and Scott Woodward, edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.