If you’re LDS, we pray the info here gives you pause. Ask yourself why there are so many variations to Joseph Smith’s story that came straight from Smith himself. These aren’t made up ‘anti-Mormon’ stories, rather, these are firsthand accounts of what he said happened in a grove of trees.
If someone showed up on your doorstep with so many contradictions about a major life event, would you believe them?
When I was a member of the Church I always thought I was just confused again, or mistaken about things I was taught. After I left, I realized I had a pretty good memory after all…
The following synopsis of events is so confusing it’d make the most confident person stop, and wonder what they just read. It’s amazing they have young folks barely out of puberty, telling the oft repeated story of another youngster in a grove of trees.
The problem?
There are so many versions of his life changing experience it makes one wonder if it ever happened at all. Oliver Cowdery, Smith’s right hand man, wrote numerous versions of this supposed event, but each one differed than the previous one.
Cowdery wrote this event took place in 1821, not 1820, and stated only the Father appeared to Smith. Gone was the two person appearance of the Father and Son. Furthermore, he stated Smith was sixteen, and then seventeen years old, not fourteen.
Smith’s diary had its share of problems as well. In one version, readers are told he was fifteen, disagreeing with other claims he was fourteen.
- 1835 • under the keen eye of Smith’s supervision, Cowdery wrote yet another version of Smith’s tall tale, and published it in a Mormon owned periodical, The Messenger and Advocate. This time around Smith was 15 years old when a messenger appeared to him in 1822.
A few months later, they retracted their statement, stating Smith was 17 years old in 1823.
- 1838 • Joseph Smith finally finished the official ‘first vision’ story.
Remember, records show Smith was born on December 23, 1805. The ‘official version’ states Moroni appeared to him in September 1820 which means Smith was 14 years old.
My, what a tangled web we weave…
You can read more about Smith’s sketchy 1st Vision account at ‘Eleven Versions of Joseph Smith’s First Vision’.
Please, share this with a Mormon you know, and especially with those missionaries who come knocking on your door! They, of all people, deserve to know the truth!
With Love in Christ;
Michelle