First Vision

This is the biography of a contested memory, how it was born, grew, changed the world, and was changed by it. It's the story of the story of how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began. Joseph Smith, the church's founder, remembered that his first audible prayer, uttered in spring of 1820 when he was about fourteen, was answered with a vision of heavenly beings. Appearing to the boy in the woods near his parents' home in western New York State, they told Smith that he was forgiven and warned him that Christianity had gone astray. Smith created a rich and controversial historical record by narrating and documenting this event repeatedly. In First Vision, Steven C. Harper shows how Latter-day Saints (beginning with Joseph Smith) and others have remembered this experience and rendered it meaningful. When and why and how did Joseph Smith's first vision, as saints know the event, become their seminal story? What challenges did it face along the way? What changes did it undergo as a result? Can it possibly hold its privileged position against the tides of doubt and disbelief, memory studies, and source criticism-all in the information age? Steven C. Harper tells the story of how Latter-day Saints forgot and then remembered accounts of Smith's experience and how Smith's 1838 account was redacted and canonized. He explores the dissonance many saints experienced after discovering multiple accounts of Smith's experience. He describes how, for many, the dissonance has been resolved by a reshaped collective memory.

Joseph Smith's First Vision of the Father and the Son in 1820 was the first of many visions the Prophet and early Church members experienced. This volume brings together some of the finest presentations from the 2020 BYU Church History Symposium honoring the bicentennial of the First Vision. Explore the influence of the First Vision, as well as teachings of other visionaries.

This is the biography of a contested memory, how it was born, grew, changed the world, and was changed by it. It's the story of the story of how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began. Joseph Smith, the church's founder, remembered that his first audible prayer, uttered in spring of 1820 when he was about fourteen, was answered with a vision of heavenly beings. Appearing to the boy in the woods near his parents' home in western New York State, they told Smith that he was forgiven and warned him that Christianity had gone astray. Smith created a rich and controversial historical record by narrating and documenting this event repeatedly. In First Vision, Steven C. Harper shows how Latter-day Saints (beginning with Joseph Smith) and others have remembered this experience and rendered it meaningful. When and why and how did Joseph Smith's first vision, as saints know the event, become their seminal story? What challenges did it face along the way? What changes did it undergo as a result? Can it possibly hold its privileged position against the tides of doubt and disbelief, memory studies, and source criticism-all in the information age? Steven C. Harper tells the story of how Latter-day Saints forgot and then remembered accounts of Smith's experience and how Smith's 1838 account was redacted and canonized. He explores the dissonance many saints experienced after discovering multiple accounts of Smith's experience. He describes how, for many, the dissonance has been resolved by a reshaped collective memory.

Jesus Christ is arguably the most famous man who ever lived. His image adorns countless churches, icons, and paintings. He is the subject of millions of statues, sculptures, devotional objects and works of art. Everyone can conjure an image of Jesus: usually as a handsome, white man with flowing locks and pristine linen robes. But what did Jesus really look like? Is our popular image of Jesus overly westernized and untrue to historical reality? This question continues to fascinate. Leading Christian Origins scholar Joan E. Taylor surveys the historical evidence, and the prevalent image of Jesus in art and culture, to suggest an entirely different vision of this most famous of men. He may even have had short hair.

Today's scholars of Joseph Smith's First Vision stand on the shoulders of giants. This volume reproduces some of the seminal articles written by the giants who have studied it for half a century. It is a monument to their contributions. The past of First Vision scholarship is indispensable to the present. Those who study the First Vision today depend very much on the works of the scholars that are reprinted in this volume. Moreover, these scholars discovered and published much of the source material on which their articles are based and on which we depend. Scholarly debate and criticism are important elements of the historical discipline because the contest of ideas leads to deeper research and more thorough analysis. Certain historians setting out to discredit Joseph Smith's claims were central to the formation of subsequent First Vision scholarship because their work proposed the questions that later formed the historical debate. Subsequently, Latter-day Saint scholars responded to the challenges with an increase energy that greatly benefited the study of early Mormonism.

Pillar of Light is a graphic novel about on Joseph Smith's First Vision. Created by veteran comic book artist Sal Velluto and Andrew Knaupp, this unique telling of the story that will reach people young and old in a new and profound way.Joseph Smith Jr. authored four accounts of his "First Vision" during his lifetime. Critics have claimed that the differences between the accounts amount to contradictions and are evidence he fabricated the story. The narration found in this book incorporates elements from all the accounts given by the Prophet, as well as accounts recorded by those who heard him.

"A combined account of Joseph Smith's First Vision, taken from nine contemporaneous accounts"--

Mobility First considers domestic transportation through the intersection of four crucial and timely elements: global, economic, and cultural competitiveness; urban development and trends; demographics; and transportation engineering and design. The book proposes solutions that will mitigate the troubling consequences of congestion, spiraling road costs, bad roads, and political inertia.