Methodists of the day carefully qualified the nature of
their visionary experiences with phrases like “by faith, I saw . . .” or by
affirming that it was just a dream. Benjamin Abbott and Philip Gatch thus each
qualified their visions by noting that it was “by faith” that they saw Jesus
Christ (and in Gatch’s case, God the Father). Dan Young likewise saw and
conversed with Christ but was careful to explain that it was not a literal
vision but rather “a very singular dream” while he slept. (Young, Autobiography
of Dan Young, 28–29.) Most commonly, individuals described their visions in
ambiguous terms. Henry Boehm, for example, described that he “had a view of the
atonement of the Son of God,” and “by faith, I realized my interest in it,”
while Ezekiel Cooper expressed his conversion in equally vague terms: “I had an
opening to my mind of the infinite fullness of Christ, and of the willingness
of the Father, through his Son, to receive me into his favor.” (Wakeley, The
Patriarch of One Hundred Years, 17; Cooper, Beams of Light, 18.)
Joseph Smith, by
contrast, affirmed unambiguously that “it was nevertheless a fact, that I had
had a vision. . . . I had actually seen a light and in the midst of that light
I saw two personages, and they did in reality speak to me. . . . I knew it, and
I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it.” (Smith,
"History-1839," in Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 1:274) It was thus not necessarily a matter of what Joseph
Smith experienced, but rather how he explained it. The straightforward and sure
language he used to describe his vision filtered its meaning, making it more
threatening to the Methodist minister in whom he confided. (Christopher
C. Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness: Methodist Conversion Narratives and
Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Journal of
Mormon History 37, no. 2 [Spring 2011], 113-14)
With respect to Joseph’s use
of language concerning his theophany and how it differs from purported
visionary experiences of the time, Jones also noted that one should:
Compare Smith's language with that of Dan Young, Autobiography
of Dan Young, 28-29, who affirmed that his vision of Christ was "a
very singular dream," but nothing more. Susan Juster, Doomsayers:
Anglo-American Prophecy in the Age of Revolution (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 115-16, notes that "Evangelicals were very
careful in the language they used to describe their visionary experiences,
always conscious of the porous line separating faith from superstition. They
used words like 'seemingly' and 'by faith' to signal their awareness of the
enormous channels of truth and knowledge .... In general, visions should be
seen-not felt or heard in any physical way-and seen by the 'eye of faith'
alone." (Ibid., 114 n. 96)
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