Commenting
on early retellings of the First Vision by Joseph Smith, Steven Harper wrote:
Joseph Smith’s reluctance to tell of his
first vision apparently ended in the early to mid-1830s . . . recent research
related to The Joseph Smith Papers
shows that as early as 1833, Smith remembered the vision with believers, who
then communicated it to others. These tellings and retellings formed a
transactive memory, “a set of individual memory systems in combination with the
communication that takes place between [the] individuals” (Daniel M. Wegner, “Transactive
Memory: A Contemporary Analysis of the Group Mind,” in Theories of Group Behavior, ed. Brian Mullen and George R. Goethals
[New York: Springer-Verlage, 1987], 186) . . . .By telling memories of his
vision, Smith shared it in several ways, making those who heard co-owners in a
sense, and giving them some power over how the story was told, remembered, and
communicated . . . Historians have long wondered why Smith “withheld the vision
from the public until 1840,” but the newly discovered evidence shows that he
shared it, at least with some believers. He may have delayed publication, but
he told the vision story repeatedly, perhaps often, in private settings,
earlier and more frequently than has been previously thought. (Steven C.
Harper, First Vision: Memory and Mormon
Origins [New York: Oxford University Press, 2019], 53, 54, 56)
Harper then
provides examples of the evidence of Joseph sharing the vision very early on,
such as:
While preaching in Salt Lake City in 1853,
Milo Andrus remembered that, at age nineteen, about 1833, he listened to “the
testimony of that man Joseph Smith”—how Smith envisioned a glorious angel in
the woods “and trees seemed to be consumed in blaze” as he learned that “darkness
covered the earth” and the Christian creeds were “universally wrong” (Milo
Andrus, July 17, 1853, papers of George D. Watts, MS 4534, box 2, disk 1. May
1853-July 1853 images 231-256. Partial transcript in CR 100 317, box 2, folder
15. Transcribed by LaJean Purcell Carruth, October 3, 2012, corrected October 2013).
In late 1839 Joseph Curtis wrote, “In the
spring of 1835 Joseph Smith . . . came to Michigan & paid us a visit.”
While there, Smith explained to believers “the reason why he preached the
doctrine he did.” Curtis remembered Smith telling the story of sectarian
revival, how members of his family joined in the excitement, and how he felt
anxious and found guidance in James 1:5. “Believing it,” Curtis wrote, “he went
with a determination to obtain to enquire of the lord himself after some
struggle the Lord manifested to him that the different sects were rong” (Joseph
Curtis, “History of Joseph Curtis,” MS 1654, Church History Library, Salt Lake
City, 5) . . . Mary Horne, one of those converts, heard the story, perhaps
repeatedly from Joseph Smith himself in Toronto in the summer of 1837. She was
among the few who accompanied her prophet as he visited each congregation. “I
heard him relate his first vision when the Father and Son appeared to him,” she
remembered. And, like others who are on record, she noted the emotional power
of the telling, an element that helped the memory endure and increased her
desire and ability to communicate it later (M. Isabella Horne, “The Prophet
Joseph Smith, Testimony of Sister M. Isabella Horne,” Relief Society Magazine, March 1951, 158-60) . . . a boy named John
Alger heard Smith saying that God “touched his eyes with his finger and said, ‘Joseph,
this is my Beloved Son, hear Him.’ As soon as the Lord had touched his eyes
with his finger he immediately saw the Savior.” This experience endured in
Alger’s memory, and he passed it onto others (A. Karl Larson and Katherine
Miles Larson, eds., The Diary of Charles
Lowell Walker [Logan: Utah State University Press, 1980], 1:755-56). (Ibid.,
53-55)
With respect
to John Alger’s account and belief in God as corporeal, Harper notes:
According to Walker, Alger “told us at the
bottom of the meeting house steps that he was in the House of Father Smith in
Kirtland when Joseph made this declaration, and that Joseph while speaking of
it put his finger to his right eye, suiting the action with the words so as to
illustrate and at the same time impress the occurrence on the minds of those
unto whom He was speaking.” Wilford Woodruff preached in 1837 that God was
embodied. See Thomas G. Alexander, Things
in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff [Salt Lake
City: Signature Books, 1993], 58). (Ibid., 57 n. 15)