First Vision Debunked

okay great plug on the book my chapter deals with as you can see the title Joseph Smith's first vision and the Book of Mormon the historical approach and I have to admit if you're going to do the historical approach you have to do a little bit of homework you have to kind of get up to speed on what the history of Mormonism is all about and such and I know there are a lot of historical aspects that can be addressed I deal with it all the time but the reason why I felt it was important to address these two issues is because there have been some very significant statements made about the first vision and also made about the Book of Mormon and I'm going to go into this so I'm gonna probably talk a little bit quickly here because I'm gonna cram about an hour and a half presentation into 30 minutes and that's gonna be very hard anyway first of all we have this statement from Gordon D Hinckley he was a 16th president of the Mormon Church this is a conference message that he gave back in October of 1961 he said I would like to say that this cause is either true or false either this is the kingdom of God or it is a sham and a delusion either Joseph talked with the father and the son or he did not if he did not we are engaged in blasphemy what do I have to do you want this Mike - okay let me let me move over here then okay let's go on maybe here we go first of all let's talk about James 1:5 Mormons will often bring up James 1:5 as we find where Joseph Smith claims in his history in section 1 verse 11 while I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contest of these parties of religionists and I'll explain what he's talking about later I was one day reading the Epistle of James first chapter fifth verse which reads if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not or without reproach and it shall be given him now there's something that we need to understand when it comes to James 1:5 Joseph Smith misuses it and this is what I mean by that well James speaks specifically of wisdom Joseph Smith uses this verse in connection with his search for knowledge you see the difference here wisdom is the proper application of knowledge so he is misusing James 1:5 if he's going to go to James 1:5 in the New Testament to get this knowledge you would think if he's going to use wisdom he's also going to use the rest of the Bible to test his conclusions which of course he does not which causes a lot of problems now we find that Joseph Smith regarding his first vision gave at least four different accounts this is the 1832 diary vision account this is the first one it's the one that's written in his own hand we know that much but there's some interesting details about his 1832 account that we need to keep in mind when we examine all the others as well first of all Smith claims to be in his 16th year of his age or he would be 15 he knows from reading the scriptures he said that there is no society or denomination built upon the gospel of Jesus Christ in other words he already knows that all the churches are false and he learns this by reading the scripture he says he is concerned about the welfare of his soul and he cries to the Lord for mercy so that was the motivation for this encounter with one that he calls the Lord who was crucified obviously this must be Jesus because the father was not crucified so he's giving us enough details to find out what's actually going on why he's motivated to go out and to pray and such he says that the Lord that was crucified tells him that he is forgiven there's no mention of any religious excitement or revival that motivated him to go out into the woods at this time now in November night 1835 he gives another count in this one he claims to be about 14 years old not 15 he claims that when he went out into the woods to pray he was startled by a noise behind him like some person was walking toward him he sprung up on his feet but no one was there that's what he says an unidentified personage appeared in the midst of a pillar of flame this is what he says in this account another personage leader appears and said unto me thy sins are forgiven thee he testified unto me that Jesus Christ is the son of God now the language here is interesting because that seems like a strange way for Jesus to describe himself like a third person Jimmy likes this Jimmy likes that you remember the Seinfeld episode but he it sounds like some other personage was talking about Jesus as if it's not Jesus that's doing the talking again there's no mention of any religious excitement or revival in this particular vision account okay well okay let's go back to that there's another 1835 account this is November 14th Joseph Smith gives Erastus Holmes a brief relation of my experience while in my juvenile years say from six years up to the time I received my first visitation of angels visitation of angels which was when I was about 14 years old now it's a very brief account doesn't go into a lot of detail but the visitation of angels becomes significant again in this account he does not mention any religious excitement no revival whatsoever that motivated him to go out into the woods then we come to the 1838 account this is the 8th this is the version that most Mormons are familiar with and this is the version that I think is the real foundation of Mormonism because there are some details in here that clearly clearly makes the statement that the Mormon Church is true or I should at least say that all the others are false Smith for the first time in this account mentions a religious excitement in the spring of 1820 this involved the Baptist the Methodists and Presbyterians urges in the Palmyra area where he lived at the time he is confused as to which church is true in this account he talks about the different argumentation that was going on between the various denominations that were involved he claims he is motivated by James 1:5 to pray about the matter he claims he is visited by two personages one says to Smith this is my beloved son hear him that makes it pretty clear who these two personages are that allegedly appeared to Joseph Smith Smith is told by one or both we might assume that by these personages that all the churches are wrong their Creed's are an abomination and their professors are corrupt he is warned not to join any of them in this vision and this claim surprises him for he says for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong well that's not what he said in 1832 what's fascinating about this claim is that this appears in if you have a post 1981 edition of Joseph Smith's testimony if you have a pre 1981 Edition that claim isn't found in it they added that late that's a relatively later addition in to Joseph Smith's testimony I don't know why they did that they it probably would have been better had they not put it in there because it so shows that there is indeed a contradiction in Joseph Smith's testimony all right let's look okay all right let me let me talk about the revival a little bit okay yeah let me go to the revival according to Joseph Smith and this is in his history this is section 1 verses 5 6 & 7 he says sometime in the second year after our removal to Manchester City New York there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion great multitudes United themselves to the different religious parties I with that I was at this time in my 15th year or he was 14 the Presbyterians were most decided against the Baptists and Methodists and used all the powers of both reason and sophistry to prove their error so he's showing this conflict that was going on between the various denominations that were involved in this particular revival that he experienced one thing Joseph Smith does in this account is he gives us enough details that we can pinpoint precisely what revival he is referring to and the way he describes this revival it is clear that he's describing a revival that took place not in 1820 but in 1824 that causes some significant problems for Joseph Smith's story let me just go through some of them here first of all know the religious excitement that Smith describes as I said did not take place in 1820 no multitudes were added to any of the churches that he mentions in this revival okay and he mentions the Baptist Methodist and Presbyterian churches we know from the church records of these churches that they did not experience any huge amount of growth at most maybe five five okay some lost I think one of them lost five another one gained fine I think they probably stole them from that one I guess maybe and one that one didn't show any any increase or decrease in membership at all but clearly in 1820 there was no great multitudes added to these churches this revival that Smith is describing as I said took place in 1824 now you might say well is that really all that significant significant absolutely it's significant and this is why changing the date and this is why the Mormon Church won't change they keep using the the bogus 1820 date because they know if they changed the date it messes up the chronology and that really exposes a problem if changing the date would disrupt Smith's chronology for example he claims he was persecuted for telling this story as an obscure boy only between 14 and 15 years of age instead he would be a young man of around 18 in other words not quite at that innocent age where you probably wouldn't expect such such a lie okay they're always trying to play off his innocence well at 18 yeah you're not so innocent at 18 I would say okay and this would become a problem there would also be this problem Smith claimed that the angel Moroni appeared to him in 1823 that's easily documented or three years after he learned that all the churches are wrong if the revival really took place in 1824 Smith's encounter with Moroni would have really been his first vision so that messes everything up so this is why I think the Mormon Church will not give the proper date they are going to have to stick with this this date of 1820 because I think they understand the significance now Mormon apologists have often pointed to an 1820 methodist camp meeting but the details of the two events are not the same I actually heard at a Sunstone symposium D Michael Quinn talked about this Methodist can't hate him and I happen to be sitting behind Dan Vogel who's written a number of books on Mormon history and I remember when Quinn tried to use this argument of a Methodist camp meeting that somehow bolsters Smith claims you know this revival going I remember Dan Vogel's head just going down and he just shook his head like this and I was kind of chuckling because I agree with Dan I thought Quinn was really out of line in that and it really for a historian of his caliber that was very disappointing but what else do they have what else do they have my methodist camp meeting as a Methodist there's normally not a lot of Presbyterians and Baptists joining in in that event so it can't be the same thing that Joseph Smith was talking about let me go the liar there we go all right exodus 33:20 if we read in the King James Version which Joseph Smith probably would have had at that time it reads and he said thou canst not see my face for there shall no man see me and lived all right what does Joseph Smith do with this now he comes out with the Joseph Smith translation later on he is commanded by God to do a new translation of the Bible why because as Mormons believe even to this day the Bible has been corrupted it was transmitted inaccurately down through the ages many plain and precious parts were taken out of it allegedly and so it's not trustworthy so God gives Joseph Smith a revelation to give us a new set of scriptures that would you would think solve the problem well notice what he does to exodus 33:20 he adds several words to this passage where it says and he said unto Moses thou canst not see my face at this time lest mine anger be kindled against the also and I destroy thee I have no idea why God speaks in King James English but anyway he says and thy people and for there shall no man among them see me at this time and live for they are exceeding sinful and no sinful man half at any time neither shall there be any sinful man at any time that shall see my face and live but wait a minute that's exactly what Joseph Smith claims happened to him he saw God the Father he saw Jesus the Son so you can ask the question well why is there's this apparent contradiction you have to remember the Joseph Smith translation according to Joseph Smith himself in volume 1 page 368 of the documentary history of the church Joseph Smith himself says he finished his translation of the Bible in July of 1830 now if this was a story that Smith was always telling it would really make no sense to change exodus 33:20 and make it very clear that no sinful man at any time will ever see the face of God and live why does he put that in there I think it's clear he wasn't telling the story this is a later invention even after 1833 remember his 1832 diary account never mentions God the Father it only mentions the Lord who was crucified so that would be allegedly speaking of Jesus we would assume correct all right absolutely Joseph Smith does in his testimony talk about how he was involved in a lot of sinful practices so if a Mormon wants to say well Joseph Smith was righteous they need to go back and read Joseph Smith's own account well this is why I think that this first vision was a later invention according to James B Allen from Brigham Young University apparently not until 1843 when the New York Spectator printed a reporter's account of an interview with Joseph Smith did a non Mormon source publish any reference to the story of the first vision as far as Mormon literature is concerned there was apparently no reference to Joseph Smith's first vision in any published material in the 1830s from all this it would appear that the general church membership did not receive information about the first vision until the 1840s and that the story certainly did not hold the prominent place in Mormon thought that it does today they didn't know about it because it wasn't being told this is a later invention by Joseph Smith now let's switch to the Book of Mormon we have Jeffrey R Holland to consider that everything of saving significance in the church stands or falls on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and by implication the Prophet Joseph Smith's account of how it came forth is as sobering as it is true it is a sudden death proposition either the Book of Mormon is what the Prophet Joseph said it is or this church and its founder are false deception from the first instance onward so you see Mormon leaders understand the importance of these two stories in their history and I have found that if you can convince a Mormon that these two stories are not true they're probably on their way out of the Mormon Church because it all hangs on this testimony Mormonism stands or falls on the testimony of Joseph Smith well let's go on and let's look at this a little more closely first of all we know that Joseph Smith claimed he was visited by Moroni on September 21st 1823 it was Moroni who said that there was a book deposited written upon gold plates that's significant because you're hearing Mormons now saying well they weren't gold they were golden why are they doing that why are they doing that they're trying to change the metal content why because they know gold is heavy and they know that becomes problematic well I often respond by saying well gee gold also looks like gold so what's the issue here but I want to bring out the pet the fact that look don't you believe it was Moroni that buried the plates don't you think he would have known what they were made of he says gold plates Joseph Smith said well they had the appearance of gold so what the angel said they were gold plates let's go by the first-hand account here also giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent and the source from whence they sprang all right Smith is allowed to retrieve the plates on September 22nd 1827 so this would be four years later he wraps them in a linen frock he started through the woods thinking it might be safer than the traveled road so much for his prophetic insight on this one but just as he jumped over a log he was struck from behind with a gun okay actually is a man with a gun the gun doesn't have operate on its own Joseph however was able to knock the assailant down and flee half a mile later he was assaulted again but managed to escape and before he arrived home he was accosted a third time his mother said that when he reached home he was altogether speechless from fright and the fatigue of running interesting this story is in a correlated manual annual church history in the fullness of times Joseph Smith's mother in this account says that this that the plates were located about three miles from the Smith home so Joseph Smith is carrying these plates for a distance of three miles he's able to jump over at least one log with them and then he's accosted three times why three people wanting to steal the place from Joseph and this is what Mormons believed that they were trying to do why would they why would they spread out like that I mean you know a wolf pack mentality would have worked a lot better why didn't all three hide behind the log with the guy with the gun I don't know but they decide to spread out for some strange reason and Joseph Smith with these plates was able to knock them down in such a way that he was able to run at the top of his speed his mother says in her account with a limp that he had ever since he had Lake surgery as a boy quite a feat see Mormons have never really tried to duplicate this story they read it they believed it they don't really see through the problem areas that many of us have have found in our reading these accounts now Joseph Smith claims in the history of the church volume 4 page 537 these records were engraving on plates which had the appearance of gold each plate was 6 inches wide 8 inches long and not quite so thick as common 10 the volume was something near 6 inches in thickness a part of which was sealed and you can see here this little metal brace bracket here this is all that Joseph Smith translated was the top 2 inches according to the Mormon Church's story all right well let's think about this if the place were really that size according to Joseph Smith's own writing then gold weighing 1204 pounds per cubic foot the size Joseph Smith gives us means that the plates that he had were 1/6 of a cubic foot nobody really disagrees with that all right if made of gold Smith's plates would have weighed around 200 pounds now there's my replica set of plates being picked up by a Mormon apologist and it was interesting when picked up my plates the first words out of his mouth well you know some people think the plates only weighed fifty pounds and I to which I said you're a Heartland model theorist there was no 53 pound plates in North America he's using an argument for Tim baaga which is only found in Central America I don't know if you realize that what he used it but what why was that comment so significant to me he knew the plates were too heavy and my plates being sheet metal are only 80 pounds and I tried to tell people if you want to get up to the 200 pound weight that Joseph Smith probably had at the plates were really gold you have to take my 80 pound plates here double the stack and add another half a stack by the time I explain that to most Mormons they see there's a problem here so then we start getting all the real strange excuses Joseph Smith was a buff farm boy I've heard that and till I'm blue in the face and but the big one is the miracles don't you believe in miracles and this is my response to that and this is one that you could use as well if Joseph Smith was really given a miracle by God to lift two hundred pound plates why our Mormon apologist trying to get the weight of the plates down to a manageable wedding why are you taking away glory from God even God couldn't allow him to pick up two hundred pounds as 53 pounds as some are trying to argue today that argument doesn't work no Mormon apologist as I bring out no Mormon apologists argues as Smith was given supernatural strength instead as I say they tried hard to get the weight of the plates down to a manageable level and you might even hear one guy out there he's been telling people that I'm telling a bunch of lies that the plates only weight about 30 pounds you cannot get these plates down to 30 friends I don't care if Joseph Smith had aluminum plates okay you cannot get the weight down to that small level well that's what Joseph Smith's father allegedly said so what we also know that Joseph Smith's father by the testimony of one of his own sons never saw the plates so how does he know what weighed 30 pounds if he said that at all okay if that was really a legitimate quotation so there's a lot of problems in this but I've heard all sorts of excuse now what does the Book of Mormon supposedly contain the Book of Mormon is a sacred record of some of the people who lived in the American continents between 2000 BC and AD 400 it contains the fullness of the gospel Joseph fielding Smith the 10th president of the church said by fullness of the gospel has met all the ordinances and principles that pertain to the exaltation in the celestial kingdom that's quite a statement he's making there it makes you wonder is he ever read this book to come up with a comment like that but yet this is what we hear I was out there Thursday night listening to a young man who's very faithful latter-day saint telling me about the superiority of the Book of Mormon but yet when I was asking what does it teach oh it teaches everything you need to know what what I can't get answers I can't get answers I'm trying I'm dealing with a Mormon missionary an email right now he also wrote me because he believes in the superior already of the Book of Mormon what does it teach that I need to know to get nearer to God as Joseph Smith said he will not tell me the best thing he's told me so far that he thinks is a good answer is it mentions Jesus Christ more times than the Bible that's an answer I mean come on that might work with some ignorant investigator but you know I may have been born at night but it wasn't last night so that's not gonna really work you got to do better than that and we need to challenge our Mormon acquaintances on this and start to get them thinking about these issues Smith said that the bug he told the brother and that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth and the Kiester of our religion a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts and by any other book but yet when we start looking at what the Book of Mormon doesn't teach you'll notice the unique teachings of Mormonism are not even found in there they're not even found there I don't want time to go through all these in fact it's being a little stubborn here doesn't mention men can become gods or any of those things something let me go through these and just give them a quick glimpse all right eternal progression word of wisdom or any type of health code it doesn't mention anything like that and I'm having a hard time with my little there we go and then we have these doesn't mention ironical mckissick priesthood temple and down with ceremonies celestial marriages baptisms for the dead mandatory tithe and yet we all know in studying Mormonism that these points are absolutely necessary for Mormon hopes to achieve exaltation and they're not even mentioned in the Book of Mormon all right correct so today we have no new evidence that Nephites existed okay Nephites exists no evidence of me fight that's that's bad English sorry I went to public schools give me a break no book of Mormon City has been verified no Book of Mormon artifact has been found the LDS Church takes no official position as to where the alleged Book of Mormon lands were located Mormon tours to the alleged Book of Mormon lands there they are admittedly speculative even the one put out by at that time it was the foundation for ancient research in Mormon studies now known as the Neal Maxwell Institute when they would have tours to the Book of Mormon lands they would always say things like thought to be could be maybe never anything that was definitive so these are problem areas that we can raise with our Mormon friends to get them to start seeing some problems in this book but I would hope that you would not stop here see I want to go on and show why I think not only is the Book of Mormon inferior Mormon history is inferior but I want to show them the superiority of the New Testament gospel and I want to use this to hopefully gain their their confidence that I know what I'm talking about now let's switch gears and let's start talking about where they are in light of eternity so that's that's my hope if when I get into a conversation with a Mormon and I didn't get the bell rung all right I'm done all right so chip I give it back to you [Applause]

Channel: Aaron Shafovaloff

Views: 11,955

Rating: 4.6309962 out of 5

Keywords: First Vision, Sacred Grove, LDS, Joseph Smith

Id: vLk-1mBNFww

Length: 28min 21sec (1701 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 02 2018