Ordinals, Cardinals, and Joseph Smith's Age at the First Vision

A common criticism of the various First Visions accounts centers around the age Joseph Smith was when he had the theophany. If it took place in the spring of 1820, he would have been 14 years of age (being born December 23, 1805). However, it is common for many to claim he originally taught he was 16 years of age. Consider the following from Kyle Beshears:

 

But some of the variations seem at odds with his earliest account. Was he fourteen or sixteen when the vision occurred? (Kyle Beshears, 40 Questions About Mormonism [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic, 2026], 66)

 

The problem is that the 1832 account does not state that Joseph was 16 years of age when he had the First Vision.

 

Firstly, the phrase “in the 16th year of my age” is an interlinear insertion made by a scribe other than Joseph Smith. Here is the image from History, circa Summer 1832, p. 3:

 

 

Secondly, the interlinear insertion states the First Vision took place in the 16^th year of Joseph Smith’s “age.” 16 is a cardinal number; 16^th is an ordinal. If 1805 (Joseph Smith’s year of birth) is his 1^st year of life, 1820 would be his 16^th, so there is no inconsistency, even if one wishes to argue this insertion was added at the behest of Joseph Smith. The spring of 1820 would represent when Joseph Smith was 14 years of age, and at the same time, his 16^th year of age.

 

To be fair to Beshears, he also does note that:

 

It is unlikely Smith intentionally revised his First Vision primarily to match his new ideas about God or to secure power, as some critics have suggested. The church’s explanation is more convincing, which suggests differences between the accounts could be “read as evidence of [Smith’s] increasing insight, accumulating over time, based on experience.” The explanation does not identify what, exactly, the insight and experience were, but they were obviously collected over the years Smith led the church. If this observation is true, then presumably the church means to say he received revelatory insight in the years following 1832 that prompted him to modify his earliest account. In other words, as Smith grew in his role as the church’s prophet, his memory of the First Vision did, too. (Kyle Beshears, 40 Questions About Mormonism [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic, 2026], 67)

Update:

Today (March 6, 2026), I read Beshears' PhD dissertation. In it, we read the following in a footnote:

Interestingly, Beshears was indeed aware that the phrase was an insertion by someone other than Joseph Smith:

 

Yet, in his earliest account of the event (1832), Smith places it “in the 16th year of my age,” or 1821—the phrase was inserted by Smith’s scribe, Frederick G. Williams, JSP H:12. (Kyle Robert Beshears, “Wingfield Scott Watson and His Struggle to Preserve The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) After the Death of Its Founder” [PhD Dissertation; The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, December 2021], 36 n. 33, emphasis in bold added)

 

A less charitable reader could argue that, when trying to be more scholarly (in a PhD dissertation), Beshears will be more careful, but in a book aimed at “boundary maintenance” (which this book is), Kyle will let these things slide.