In an
attempt to support the claim that Joseph Smith originally presented his angelic
visitations as dreams, not real-world events, one critic wrote:
Articles in the Palmyra Freeman and the Rochester
Gem in August and September 1829 reported that Martin Harris had said in an
interview that Joseph saw “the spirit of the Almighty” three times “in a dream”
(E[arly]M[ormon]D[ocuments]
2:221, 272). Consistent with this report, Episcopal minister John A. Clark
sated in 1840 that Martin had told him in late 1827 or in 1828 that Joseph, “while
he lay upon his bed, had a remarkable dream” in which he saw “an angel of God”
(EMD 2:264). The Painesville Telegraph in December 1830 reprinted a newspaper
article from the previous month that reported that Parley P. Pratt and other
Mormons preaching in Ohio were stating that Joseph aw “an Angel of Light,
appearing in a dream” (“Beware of Imposters,” Painesville Telegraph, Dec. 14, 1830; online, sidneyrigdon.com. The
paper was published by E.D. Howe, who later became a noted critic of Mormonism).
(Robert M. Bowman Jr., Jesus’
Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions: Examining the Foundations of Christianity
and Mormonism [Tampa, Fla.: DeWard Publishing Company, 2020], 200)
It is
unfortunate that the author relies largely on secondary and hearsay sources.
Furthermore, the claim that Joseph initially presented his angelic visitations
as dreams was soundly refuted by Matthew B. Brown. In his paper Historical
or Hysterical: Anti-Mormons and Documentary Sources, we read the following (see esp. note 64 that discusses those sources Bowman references):
There is a group of nineteenth
century non-Mormon documents that say Joseph Smith learned about the existence
of the golden plates in a dream instead of in a vision.64 Critics point to these
documents and proclaim that the Prophet didn’t have a real-world experience
with a heavenly beingóit all just happened in the recesses of his subconscious
mind. But on this slide you will see that the ‘dream’ notion was formally
refuted in the Church’s official newspaper in July 1835. Oliver Cowdery, who
spoke with Joseph Smith on this subject sometime before committing his words to
paper, referred to the experience as an “open vision.” He noted that Joseph was
definitely “awake” because he was praying at the time. This experience, said
Oliver, was “not a dream.”65 The
Prophet confirmed these points just a few months later when he recorded in his
diary that he had “not been asleep” before this manifestation took place, and
classified the experience as a “vision.”66
Anti-Mormons, of course, will not be convinced by these
statements. They will point out that Oliver Cowdery’s refutation was printed
six years after the first ‘dream’ document appeared in print. But, as can be
seen by the information on this timeline, the Prophet had been teaching members
of his family and his close associates since 1823 that he had been visited “in
person” by a heavenly messenger, and he classified this experience as a
“vision.”67 It is also important to see on this slide that before
the first ‘dream’ document showed up in the newspapers in 1829 Daniel Hendrix
(in Palmyra)68 and
Thurlow Weed (in Rochester)69 were both
told by Joseph Smith himself that he had had a “vision,” not a dream. And David
Whitmer heard the angelic experience characterized as a “vision” when he spoke
with the townspeople of Palmyra in early 1828.70 The
information located on the lower right-hand corner of this slide is of special
interest. Here we find reference to the first ‘dream’ document in late August
1829. But notice that the person who produced this document Jonathan A. Hadley
admitted years later that during this same time period (Summer 1829) Martin
Harris told him that Joseph Smith was sure that his experience was not a dream. Now
look at the upper right-hand corner of this slide. Here we see that in 1831
(two years after the first ‘dream’ document appeared) non-Mormon newspaper
editor Orsamus Turner was not sure whether he should describe Joseph’s
experience as “a dream, or vision.”71 When the
‘dream’ documents are seen in their proper historical context they become much
less impressive than the anti-Mormons make them out to be.
Notes for the Above
64 Researchers
should notice that a substantial number of the non-Mormon ‘dream’ documents are
actually copying from each other–they are not independent confirmations of the
same idea. The Niagara Courier, 27 August 1829 and the Rochester
Daily Advertiser and Telegraph, 31 August 1829 both copy their
stories straight from a Palmyra Freeman article
that was published sometime in late August 1829. Since several ‘dream’
documents mention prominent Latter-day Saints some modern anti-Mormons have
tried to use them to make it look like these individuals were teaching that the
initial revelation about the golden plates came to Joseph Smith in a dream. An
article printed in the Gem of Literature and Science, 5
September 1829, for instance, twice mentions Martin Harris by name. But a
careful examination of this document reveals that Harris is not really being
quoted at all. Rather, the editor announces that he will relate “something
like” what Harris said and then he proceeds to relay content from the Palmyra
Freeman article. Likewise, a ‘dream’ document found in the Ohio
Star, 9 December 1830 mentions the Three Witnesses of the Book
of Mormon by name. But they are only mentioned after a paragraph that can be
clearly traced back to the text of the Palmyra Freeman. Thus,
there is no real connection between the Three Witnesses and the idea of Joseph
Smith having an unconscious revelatory experience. Another ‘dream’ document
that mentions prominent Church members is a letter written on 26 November 1830
in Amherst, Ohio. It was first published in the Milan Free Press (date
unknown) and then republished in the Painesville Telegraph, 14
December 1830. The author of this letter claims that a group of Mormon
missionaries–consisting of Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, Jr.
and Ziba Peterson–told him, and a group of about twelve other people, that the
Book of Mormon was “discovered by an Angel of light appearing in a dream to a
man by the name of Smith.” The accuracy of this second-hand source is seriously
called into question because only about two and a half months later Pratt and
Cowdery taught a tribe of American Indians about the origin of the Book of
Mormon and Pratt directly quotes Cowdery as saying to them that “the Great
Spirit sent an angel to [Joseph Smith], and told him where this book was
hid and commanded him to go and get it… [Later] the angel told him and showed
him, and gave him knowledge of the language, and how to interpret the book.”
There is no intimation whatsoever in the words of Oliver Cowdery that might
suggest that a dream was involved in the revelation of the Nephite record (see
Parley P. Pratt, Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt [Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985], 43).