Thursday, July 21, 2022

Jacob Vidrine on the Charge that John D. Lee and Orson Hyde Lied About the Transfiguration of Brigham Young

  

False Witnesses?

 

Another common claim made against the Transfiguration is that there were two individuals who claimed to witness it but were not present for the August 8, 1844 conference: Orson Hyde and John D. Lee who both gave accounts of seeing Brigham Young transfigured to look like Joseph Smith, yet neither were in Nauvoo at the time of the conference. Orson Hyde did not return to Nauvoo until August 13th, and John D. Lee did not return to Nauvoo until August 20th (Richard S. van Wagoner, “The Making of a Mormon Myth: The 1844 Transfiguration of Brigham Young,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 28, no. 4 [Winter 1995]: 17-18).

 

Yet John D. Lee was sincere in his belief even after apostatizing and in writing his autobiography recalled that he witnessed a “resemblance” of Brigham to Joseph in Nauvoo:

 

“Time passed on until the whole twelve got in from their missions and a conference was held, and the several claimants came forward with their claims. Sidney Rigdon was the first who appeared upon the stand. He had been considered rather in the background for sometime previous to the death of the Prophet. He made but a weak claim, Strang did not file any. Just then Brigham Young arose and roared like a young lion, imitating the style and voice of Joseph the Prophet. Many of the brethren declared that they saw the mantle of Joseph fall upon him. I myself, at that time, imagined that I saw and heard a strong resemblance to the Prophet in him, and felt that he was the man to lead us until Joseph’s legal successor should grow up to manhood, when he should surrender the Presidency to the man who held the birthright” (Mormonism Unveiled: Or the Life and Confessions of John D. Lee [1877], 155).

 

Was John D. Lee just an incompetent liar? IT seems improbable that if he had adopted this as a cultural myth in Utah that his blinders wouldn’t have fallen off by the time he knew he was going to be executed for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. John D. Lee at this time was extremely bitter against Brigham Young, believing himself to be a scapegoat for a crime committed by many others and not just himself.

 

Orson Hyde is another individual accused of bearing a false testimony to being a witness to the Transfiguration. One of Orson Hyde’s accounts of the Transfiguration was in 1869:

 

“We went among the congregation and President [Brigham] Young went on the stand. Well, he spoke, and his words went through me like electricity. ‘Am I mistaken?’ said I, ‘or is it really the voice of Joseph Smith?’ This is my testimony; and it was not only the voice of Joseph, but there were the features, the gestures and even the stature of Joseph before us in the person of Brigham. And though it may be said that President Young is a complete mimic, and can mimic anybody, I would like to see the man who can mimic another in stature, who was about four or five inches higher than himself. Everyone in the congregation—everyone who was inspired by the Spirit of the Lord—felt it. They knew it. They realized it” (Journal of Discourses 13:181 [October 6, 1869]).

 

The solution to these problematic accounts lies in the earliest accounts of the Transfiguration of Brigham Young. Many of the early accounts of the Transfiguration clearly did not speak of it as a one-time event but a continuous experience. If the Transfiguration miracle occurred on later occasions after August 8, 1844, then neither John D. Lee or Orson Hyde necessarily were lying and could have been sincere in their testimonies. (Jacob Vidrine, “Succession to Brigham Young,” One Eternal Round: A Magazine Dedicated to Mormon History and Theology 2, no. 19 [December 15, 2020]:27-29)