By Jerald and Sandra Tanner, and LaMar Petersen

On November 9, 1966, LaMar Petersen wrote a letter to the Manuscript Editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. About half of this letter was printed in volume 1, number 4, page 9.

We feel that this letter is rather important, and therefore we are publishing it in its entirety:

Dear Sir:

This is intended not so much a critique of James Allen’s “the Significance of Joseph Smith’s First Vision in Mormon Thought” in the autumn issue of Dialogue as a commendation. Generally Mr. Allen has been forthright and factual in his enumeration and study of source materials relating to this subject. To those in the L.D.S. Church nurtured on the familiar words of the Vision as found in the Pearl of Great Price and various other Church annals, the additional information here presented may be surprising, and to some disturbing. However, many of Dialogue’s readers are likely to agree with the thought expressed by P.A.M. Taylor on page 110:

“secrecy does more harm to the Church’s reputation than could result from any disclosures from the archives.”

Mr. Allen is evidently not seeking to impose a dogmatic interpretation of the Vision but rather to juxtapose the accounts for easy comparison and analysis. He rightly notes that belief in the Vision is cardinal in the faith of the Saints, that it is the fulcrum upon which modern-day revelation rests. This being so it is the more important that nothing pertinent be omitted.

In the editors’ preface to the autumn issue it states that portions of two early accounts by Joseph Smith of his First Vision are here printed “for the first time.” This is an error. Modern Microfilm Company of Salt Lake City, Jerald and Sandra Tanner proprietors, published one of these accounts (the one referred to by Mr. Allen on page 39 as having been written “about 1833”) more than a year ago in a work entitled Joseph Smith’s Strange Account of the First Vision. Mr. Tanner informs me that more than 600 copies of this book have been sold to date. The statement credited to Levi Edgar Young on page 4 and 14 of the Tanner work may have had a direct bearing on the emergence of the so-called 1833 document and they pose an important question in relation to Mr. Allen’s statement on page 35, “few if any who saw it realized its profound historical significance.” Though Mr. Young was not sure of the date his description of the document fitted what has been revealed. His statements were first published in an earlier Tanner work, Changes in Joseph Smith’s History (January 1965) and provoked considerable discussion at the time.

Inasmuch as some who have written about the First Vision emphasize the importance of the identification of the personages as the Father and the Son (see for example Hugh Nibley, “Censoring Joseph Smith’s Story,” Improvement Era) Mr. Allen would have done well to point the lack of such identification is such standards as the Orson Pratt Remarkable Visions, the Wentworth Letter, and the Daniel Rupp account. These testaments are often used as source for the belief that Deity did indeed visit the youthful Prophet in the Grove, but it so happens that while the inference may be there, direct testimony is lacking.

It would have been an aid to the reader in evaluating the First Vision documents if the writer had referred to the incidents leading to the Vision as recorded in two prime accounts: (a) by Oliver Cowdery in the Messenger and Advocate in 1834-5 and (b) by Joseph Smith in the Times and Seasons in 1842. The motivation to prayer, the quest for guidance, the events leading to the appearance of a personage, or personages, are sufficiently similar as to cause confusion in the mind of the reader. Mr. Allen might have commented upon the parallels and differences and attempted some clarification. Many serious students of Mormonism feel that this [is] a problem which has gone begging for 120 years. One has only to note the references to the First Vision by Church Authorities in the Journal of Discourses to see that a review is needed. (See 1:299; 2:171, 196-7; 6:29, 355; 7:369; 10:127; 12:333-4; 13:65-6, 77-8, 324; 14:141, 261-2; 18:239; 20:167; 21:308; 25:157.) Compare also Deseret News, May 29, 1852, page 1, column 1, with History of the Church, vol. II, page 312, ed. B. H. Roberts.)

One page 34 Mr. Allen says: “Perhaps the closest one may come to seeing a contemporary diarist’s account of the story is in the journal of Alexander Neibaur, which is located in the Church Historian’s office.” It should be noted that such journals are not open for public inspection. Several researchers have been denied access to this particular journal, including the donor. (This is according to a letter from Hugh Nibley to Jerald Tanner, photostat of which appears on page 23 of Tanner’s book, Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? (Salt Lake City 1964).

Sincerely yours,

LaMar Petersen

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