Joseph Smith's 1823 vision: Uncovering the angel message
✍ Scribed by G. St John Stott
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1988
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 970 KB
- Volume
- 18
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0048-721X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
J oseph Smith, Jr claimed to have seen an angel in the autumn of 1823, and to have learned from that angel of the Book of Mormon . He further claimed that the da y after his vision he found the Book of Mormon
plates. An analysis of Smith's vision narratives-the earliest of which dates to 1832-shows that such claims were anachronistic. Smith could not have found the plates that year. Possibly Smith invented the vision in order to gain status in his family; more probably, however, there was a vision (hallucination) which Smith interpreted differently as time passed and he saw its significance for his career as prophet and ' translator' .