Paul and Joseph Comparing Paul S Witness PDF

Paul and Joseph:
Comparing Paul’s Witness to the Resurrection to Joseph Smith’s Visions

Robert M. Bowman, Jr.
Executive Director, Institute for Religious Research
LDS prophets and theologians, following Joseph Smith’s own lead, often compare the
“First Vision”—Joseph’s reported encounter with the Father and the Son in 1820—to the
experience of Saul of Tarsus (Paul) seeing the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. In the
canonical account of the First Vision, Joseph Smith makes the comparison explicit:
However, it was nevertheless a fact that I had beheld a vision. I have thought since,
that I felt much like Paul, when he made his defense before King Agrippa, and related
the account of the vision he had when he saw a light, and heard a voice; but still there
were but few who believed him; some said he was dishonest, others said he was mad;
and he was ridiculed and reviled. But all this did not destroy the reality of his vision.
He had seen a vision, he knew he had, and all the persecution under heaven could not
make it otherwise; and though they should persecute him unto death, yet he knew, and
would know to his latest breath, that he had both seen a light and heard a voice
speaking unto him, and all the world could not make him think or believe
otherwise. So it was with me. 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; and though I was hated and
persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they were
persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely for so
saying, I was led to say in my heart: Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have
actually seen a vision; and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world
think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it,
and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it; at least I
knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation. (JS-H
1:24-25)
Joseph’s comparison of himself to Paul forms the basis of several arguments

defending the historical authenticity of the First Vision. These arguments conclude that
criticisms of the First Vision, if applied consistently, would also call into question the
historicity of the resurrection of Christ. Richard Lloyd Anderson, for example, states:
Both Paul and Joseph Smith had a “first vision.” ….Many Christians who comfortably
accept Paul’s vision reject Joseph Smith’s. However, they aren’t consistent in their
criticisms, for most arguments against Joseph Smith’s first vision would detract from
Paul’s Damascus experience with equal force.1
This paper critically engages this comparison of Paul and Joseph’s “first visions.” A
case will be made that the comparison fails and that Christians are rationally warranted and
consistent to accept Paul’s testimony while rejecting Joseph’s.
1
Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Parallel Prophets: Paul and Joseph Smith,” Ensign, April 1985, 12.
Bowman/Paul and Joseph—page 2
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RESURRECTION AND THE FIRST VISION
The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ together form the cornerstone event of
the Christian faith. As the apostle Paul put it, the death and resurrection of Christ were “of
first importance” with regard to “the gospel” (1 Cor. 15:1-4).2 Paul went on to say that if
Christ has not been raised, then the Christian faith is in vain and the apostles were
misrepresenting God by claiming that he had raised Christ from the dead (1 Cor. 15:13-19).
The importance of Jesus’ resurrection to the Christian faith can hardly be exaggerated.
All four Gospels present Jesus’ death and resurrection as the focus and climax of their
biographical narratives about Jesus (Matthew 27-28; Mark 15-16; Luke 23-24; John 19-21).
The resurrection of Jesus is the dominant theme of the apostles’ preaching recorded in the
book of Acts (2:22-36; 3:13-15; 4:10-11; 10:39-41; 13:28-37; 17:18, 30-32; 23:6; 24:14-15,
21; 25:19; 26:6-8, 22-23). Jesus’ resurrection is a significant theme in most of the other NT
writings (e.g., Rom. 1:4; 10:9; 2 Cor. 4:14; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:20; Phil. 3:10-11; Col. 2:12; 1
Thess. 1:10; 2 Tim. 2:8; Heb. 13:20; 1 Peter 1:3, 3:21; Rev. 1:5). The resurrection of Christ is
a basic presupposition of the Christian faith: as the Risen Lord, Jesus has conquered sin and
death on our behalf, has been exalted to the throne of heaven at the Father’s right hand, and
has sent the Holy Spirit to give us new life and to make us God’s people through faith in
Christ. This is why the resurrection of Christ is a key element in the Apostles Creed, the
Nicene Creed, and most of the other confessions and statements of faith that Christians have
written throughout church history.
Numerous LDS prophets and apostles have asserted that the First Vision functions in
LDS thought as the cornerstone event of the LDS Restoration. Gordon B. Hinckley’s
statement is representative of the many such statements that could be cited:
This glorious First Vision…was the parting of the curtain to open this, the
dispensation of the fulness of times. Nothing on which we base our doctrine, nothing
we teach, nothing we live by is of greater importance than this initial declaration. I
submit that if Joseph Smith talked with God the Father and His Beloved Son, then all
else of which he spoke is true. This is the hinge on which turns the gate that leads to
the path of salvation and eternal life.3
LDS leaders have also often explicitly compared the two events, stating that the First
Vision is the greatest event in history second only to the Resurrection. According to the LDS
Church’s official website, “Joseph Smith’s first vision stands today as the greatest event in
world history since the birth, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”4 The church’s
manual for preparing missionaries quotes Joseph F. Smith on the importance of the First
Vision:
The greatest event that has ever occurred in the world, since the resurrection of the
Son of God from the tomb and his ascension on high, was the coming of the Father
and of the Son to that boy Joseph Smith, to prepare the way for the laying of the
2
Biblical quotations are taken from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.
3
Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Nov. 1998, 71, also quoted in “The First Vision,” chap. 3 in Church
History in the Fulness of Times Student Manual (Salt Lake City: Church Educational System, 2003),
29.
4
“Joseph Smith: The First Vision: Introduction,” josephsmith.net (2010).
foundation of his kingdom—not the kingdom of man—never more to cease nor to be

overturned.5
The LDS Church routinely predicates the truth of its religion on the First Vision, a
position explicitly stated, for example, by LDS Presidents Heber Grant and Howard Hunter:
Heber J. Grant: “Either Joseph Smith did see God and did converse with Him, and
God Himself did introduce Jesus Christ to the boy Joseph Smith, and Jesus Christ did
tell Joseph Smith that he would be the instrument in the hands of God of establishing
again upon the earth the true Gospel of Jesus Christ—or Mormonism, so-called, is a
myth. And Mormonism is not a myth!”6
Howard W. Hunter: “I am grateful for my membership in the Church; and my

testimony of its divinity hinges upon the simple story of the lad under the trees
kneeling and receiving heavenly visitors—not one God, but two separate, individual
personages, the Father and the Son, revealing again to the earth the personages of the
Godhead. My faith and testimony hinge upon this simple story, for if it is not true,
Mormonism falls. If it is true—and I bear witness that it is—it is one of the greatest
single events in all history.”7
PERSPECTIVE AND METHOD
The Mormon Comparative Argument
The comparisons that Latter-day Saints make between the First Vision and the
Resurrection, and more narrowly between the First Vision and Paul’s witness to the
Resurrection, are not made in a vacuum. They are obviously not aimed at persuading atheists
or other skeptics. The logic of the arguments that turn on such comparisons presupposes the
truth of the Resurrection and of Paul’s witness to it. The basic structure of the Mormon
apologetic may be set forth as follows:
Premise 1: Argument X against the historicity of Joseph’s vision is comparable to

argument Y against the historicity of Paul’s vision.
Premise 2: If two arguments are comparable, then either both are sound or both are
unsound. (taken as analytically true)
5
Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1939), 495, quoted in “The
Restoration and the Coming Forth of New Scripture,” chap. 9 in Missionary Preparation Student
Manual (2005), 72. The statement is frequently quoted in LDS publications.
6
Heber J. Grant, “Some Things We Must Believe,” Improvement Era, Sept. 1938, 519, quoted, e.g.,
in “‘Praise to the Man’: Latter-day Prophets Bear Witness of the Prophet Joseph Smith,” chap. 47 in
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, 2011), 541–57.
7
Howard W. Hunter, “Joseph—The Seer,” address given on Dec. 15, 1960, in Logan, UT; in Annual
Joseph Smith Memorial Sermons (1966), 2:197–98; quoted in Teachings of Presidents of the Church:
Joseph Smith, chap. 47.
Conclusion 1: If argument X against the historicity of Joseph’s vision is sound, then

argument Y against the historicity of Paul’s vision is sound. (from premises 1
and 2)
Premise 3: But Paul’s vision is historical. (assumed)
Premise 4: Any argument against the historicity of an event that is historical is unsound.
(taken as analytically true)
Conclusion 2: Therefore, argument Y against the historicity of Paul’s vision must not be
sound. (from premises 3 and 4)
Conclusion 3: Therefore, argument X against the historicity of Joseph’s vision is also not
sound. (from conclusions 1 and 2)
This apologetic argument is intended quite specifically and pointedly as a response to

those Christian critics of the LDS faith—especially evangelical Protestant critics—who
accept Christ’s resurrection and Paul’s apostolic office but reject Joseph Smith’s first vision
and prophetic office.
Given this context of the LDS apologetic comparisons of Paul and Joseph Smith, it is
best for my own perspective and approach to be made explicit. I am an evangelical
Protestant,8 and so obviously my theological beliefs do include belief in the resurrection of
Jesus Christ and his appearance to Paul, and they do not include belief in Joseph Smith’s
prophetic office or in the appearance of Jesus Christ to Joseph Smith in the First Vision. This
means that I accept premise 3 of the above argument.
Evangelicals are likely to accept premise 4 of the argument as well. There is a
difficulty here: historical arguments are generally probabilistic, inductive, or abductive rather
than deductive. Thus, there might be well-reasoned, well-evidenced historical arguments
against the historicity of an event that is actually historical. As long as such arguments
conclude that the event is unlikely or improbable, the argument may be a good one even
though the event actually occurred. If there are other considerations that support the event’s
historicity, they may outweigh the otherwise good argument against it. Even so, if the
argument cannot be shown to have any faults (either flawed reasoning or incorrect or
incomplete facts), it remains an unanswered difficulty. So premise 4 needs at least some
qualification: An argument against the historicity of an event that actually took place
normally has some fault or weakness. By the way, it might be appropriate to suggest that
evangelicals should be prepared to acknowledge that in some instances scholars might have
reasonable objections to specific elements of the historical narratives in the Bible. From an
evangelical perspective, these objections would be difficulties that remain unresolved even
though there is historical evidence for the reliability of the Bible that far outweighs such
unresolved problems.
Despite the qualification to premise 4 just suggested, the crucial issue with regard to
the Mormon apologetic argument here concerns the first two premises. The objection turns on
the claim that argument X against the historicity of Joseph’s vision is comparable to
argument Y against the historicity of Paul’s vision. By “comparable” is meant that arguments
X and Y proceed from materially similar or “parallel” premises and that the arguments follow
a similar form or line of reasoning. Here all depends on whether the arguments really are
similar enough to warrant claiming that if one argument is unsound the other must be as well.
8
Broad-based statements representative of evangelical belief across the spectrum of evangelical
denominations include the Statement of Faith of the World Evangelical Alliance (1951, last revised
2001), the Lausanne Covenant (1974), and the Cambridge Declaration of the Alliance of Confessing
Evangelicals (1996).
If the arguments are similar in some ways but different in any relevant way, the major premise
of the argument (premise 1 above) fails.
Evangelicals should have no trouble acknowledging that some arguments against the
historicity of the First Vision, due to their superficiality or other defect, are unsound and
should therefore not be used. Some arguments are better than others. If a particular argument
against the First Vision turns out not to be a sound or good argument, evangelicals should
cheerfully abandon that argument. Consider the following simple (and quite simplistic)
objection to the First Vision:
Premise X1: There is an apparent discrepancy between two of Joseph Smith’s accounts of
the First Vision.
Premise X2: If an individual provides accounts of a supposed event that contain any
apparent discrepancies, that event should be deemed unhistorical.
Conclusion X: Therefore, the First Vision should be deemed unhistorical because of the
apparent discrepancies in the two accounts.
One can easily see how such an argument would be unsound in other contexts, such as in
regards to the historicity of Paul’s Damascus road experience:
Premise Y1: There is an apparent discrepancy between two of Luke’s accounts of Paul’s
vision.
Premise Y2: If an individual provides accounts of a supposed event that contain any
apparent discrepancies, that event should be deemed unhistorical.
Conclusion Y: Therefore, Paul’s vision should be deemed unhistorical because of the
apparent discrepancies in the two accounts.
The matter of apparent discrepancies, with regard to both Joseph Smith’s vision and
Paul’s vision, will be considered in some detail below. The point here is simply that some
arguments, as expressed, simply do not work. They may need to be revised, augmented, or
otherwise reconstructed into better arguments that do work, or they may need to be
abandoned in favor of better arguments that approach the matter in another way. The
researcher should also be willing to consider the possibility that all of the objections to the
event in question fail and that the event might even have good evidence for it. After all, the
goal should be discovering and explaining the truth, not simply defeating the opposing
viewpoint. A good apologist is an advocate for the truth wherever it may be found, not a
campaign spokesperson intent on defending his “side” no matter what.
One other methodological observation is in order here. An argument cannot be refuted
merely by pointing out that a comparable argument leads to an undesirable conclusion. That
strategy is an effective way to exemplifying the problem but is not the same as explaining the
problem; it does not specify what is wrong with either argument. With regard to the above
arguments X and Y, the atheist is likely to favor both arguments, since he regards both Paul
and Joseph as either mistaken or lying witnesses. Thus, what the Mormon apologist really
needs to do is to show what is wrong with the argument against the First Vision, not merely
respond that a similar argument might be brought against Paul’s vision. On the evangelical
side, what is needed is to show that the case against the historicity of the First Vision is
cogent in a way that similar-sounding objections to Christ’s appearance to Paul are not.
Evangelical Theological Criticism of the First Vision

Evangelicals can consistently and cogently argue that the First Vision should be
rejected simply because of its theological opposition to biblical doctrine. That is, they might
present an a priori objection to the First Vision along the following lines:
Premise T1: Any claim that contradicts the Bible (as understood in evangelical theology) is
false.
Premise T2: The First Vision (as understood in LDS theology) contradicts the Bible (as
understood in evangelical theology).
Conclusion T: Therefore, the First Vision (as understood in LDS theology) is false.
The parenthetical qualification “as understood in evangelical theology” is expressed

for the benefit of non-evangelicals; among evangelicals that qualification would not need to
expressed verbally because it would be understood implicitly. That is to say, the argument is
an avowedly evangelical argument. Its rhetorical purpose is to explain to evangelicals why
they should not accept the First Vision and to explain to Mormons why evangelicals are
critical of the First Vision. Within the context of evangelical discourse it is understood that
any theological assertions that evangelicals make are themselves subject to testing by
comparison with biblical theology.9 Thus, Premise T1 does not mean, and cannot be reduced
to mean, that any claim that contradicts evangelical theology is false. If an evangelical could
be shown that the First Vision did not contradict the Bible, that evangelical should abandon
this particular objection.
By the same token, the parenthetical qualification “as understood in LDS theology” is
usually tacit but is made explicit to clarify that it is the event as explained in LDS teaching
that contradicts the Bible as understood by evangelicals. The qualification is necessary even if
implicit, since what is at issue is not fundamentally whether Joseph Smith was sincerely
reporting his experience but rather whether the Father and the Son actually appeared to
Joseph. An evangelical would have no a priori theological objection to Joseph having an
experience that he understood to be an appearance of the Father and the Son. For example, an
evangelical might hypothesize that Joseph had such an experience but that it was a dream,
hallucination, or demonic deception. Furthermore, one might question whether the First
Vision story even in its canonical version in Joseph Smith–History carries all of the
theological freight with which LDS teaching has loaded it over the years. Mormons in the
decades following the death of the second LDS president, Brigham Young, began reading
back into the First Vision story more and more theological implications.10 Nevertheless, an
evangelical theological assessment of the First Vision naturally takes as its point of departure
the interpretation customarily given by LDS authorities to it.
Thus, in order to make the argument cogent in an evangelical context, one simply
needs to specify elements of the First Vision story as generally understood by Mormons that
contradict the Bible as generally understood by evangelicals—and to specify biblical passages
that warrant the relevant evangelical doctrinal positions. The two elements that stand out here
are the claim that the Father and the Son appeared as separately embodied, anthropomorphic
9
For an excellent introduction to evangelical theological method and biblical theology that has an
especially practical emphasis on pastoral application, see Michael Lawrence, Biblical Theology in the
Life of the Church: A Guide for Ministry, 9Marks (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010).
10
See especially James B. Allen, “Emergence of a Fundamental: The Expanding Role of Joseph
Smith’s First Vision in Mormon Religious Thought,” Journal of Mormon History 7 (1980): 43-61.
The article was recently reprinted in Exploring the First Vision, ed. Samuel Alonzo Dodge and
Steven C. Harper (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2012), 227-60.
figures and that Christ told Joseph Smith that all of the churches existing at the time were
unacceptably wrong. These elements of the First Vision story contradict the evangelical
understanding of the Bible’s teaching about God and the church:
(1) Evangelicals understand the Bible to teach that only the Son, and not the Father, is
embodied in human form, due to the Son humbling himself to become embodied as a
man in the Incarnation for the purpose of redemption (e.g., John 1:14-18; 4:24; Phil.
2:6-8; Col. 1:15; 2:9; Heb. 1:3; 2:14-18; 10:5; 1 John 4:9-14).
(2) Evangelicals understand the Bible to teach that the church that Christ founded in the
first century would continue on the earth until the end of the age (e.g., Matt. 16:18;
18:19-20; 28:18-20; Luke 24:46-47; Eph. 2:18-22; 4:11-16; 5:25-27; 2 Peter 3:1-18;
Jude 3).11
Evangelical Historical Criticism of the First Vision
While such a theological—one might say dogmatic in the classical sense of the term—
approach certainly has its place, its value is somewhat limited by the fact that it is, as already
stated, an evangelical argument. It has some value in explaining to Latter-day Saints why
evangelicals find the First Vision objectionable. However, the argument is unlikely to be
persuasive for Latter-day Saints themselves, who approach matters of doctrine in a very
different way than evangelicals. Hence, evangelicals generally seek to persuade Mormons that
the First Vision did not occur by using historical reasoning to call into question the credibility
or reliability of the story. It is at this point that the LDS apologetic argument based on
comparisons between Joseph Smith and the Apostle Paul come into view. LDS apologists12
contend that evangelical historical objections to the First Vision use reasoning that would, if
applied consistently, also lead to doubts about the claim that Paul saw the risen Jesus. Clearly,
such an argument is not intended to persuade skeptics who are already dubious of the
Resurrection as well as the First Vision. The purpose of the argument is to encourage faithful
Mormons not to lose their faith in Joseph Smith and to show evangelical critics of
Mormonism that their historical objections to faith in Joseph Smith are unsound.
LDS arguments comparing Joseph with Paul, then, have both theological and
historical aspects. Theologically, Mormons view both Paul and Joseph as prophets, men to
whom Christ revealed himself and imparted an inspired understanding of the gospel. Hence,
Richard Lloyd Anderson argues, “If Paul was a prophet, Joseph Smith was also a prophet.
The evidences that support Paul’s prophetic calling also support that of Joseph Smith.”13
11
Excellent representative works of evangelical theology that treat these and other issues include
Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 1992); Millard J.
Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998); Wayne A. Grudem,
Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000); and
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 5th ed. (New York: Wiley-Blackwell,
2010). Oden and McGrath are especially helpful in placing evangelical theology in the context of the
teachings of Christians throughout church history; Erickson and Grudem are especially helpful in
explaining how evangelicals base their theological views on the Bible.
12
I do not use the term apologists here prejudicially or in any contrast to scholars, since I would
certainly classify myself as an evangelical scholar and apologist. Rather, I speak of LDS apologists
because the term accurately includes both academic and non-academic Mormons who seek to use
reasoned argumentation in defense of LDS claims.
13
Anderson, “Parallel Prophets,” 12.
Historically, Mormons contend that the factual difficulties pertaining to Joseph’s prophetic
calling in the First Vision are no more problematic than similar difficulties pertaining to
Paul’s apostolic calling in his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. Yet
this argument proceeds from a theological premise, namely, that the historicity of Paul’s
vision of the risen Jesus is a given.
The approach taken here is to place the comparisons made by LDS apologists in the
broader context of historical criticism. What is meant here by historical criticism is not the
so-called “historical-critical method” that assumes the Enlightenment philosophical baggage
of naturalism or anti-supernaturalism. Rather, historical criticism refers to the use of historical
methods for the purpose of investigating the historical facts that gave rise to the text one is
studying. Such methods can be used in ways that reflect anti-supernatural bias, but they need
not be so used. Historical criticism asks, “To what historical circumstances does this text
refer, and out of what historical circumstances did it emerge?”14 Historical criticism, then,
seeks to determine as far as possible what happened that gave rise to a particular text. Such an
investigation operates on the basis of a “critical realist” philosophy of history that maintains
that acquisition of knowledge of the past is possible while acknowledging that historical
investigators do bring presuppositions and subjectivity to their study. It assumes neither that
the events narrated in the text did occur nor that they did not. Instead, it investigates whether
those events occurred by seeking the best explanation for the available evidence, external and
internal.15 By “best” is meant an explanation inferred from the available evidence that is the
most plausible, has the greatest explanatory scope and power, is weakened by disconfirming
evidence less than rival explanations, and requires the fewest or least obtrusive ad hoc
hypotheses.16 LDS scholar William Hamblin has described this method with approval as one
that pursues “the most plausible explanation for the existence of the text” in view of the
“relative explanatory power” of each explanation.17
Before looking at the comparative argument defending the First Vision by appealing
to similarities with the evidence for Paul’s vision of Christ, then, we should be clear as to
what the evidence is in both cases. It will be helpful also to sketch from an evangelical
14
Richard E. Burnett, “Historical Criticism,” in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the
Bible, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Craig G. Bartholomew, and Daniel G. Treier (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2005), 290 (290-93).
15
For this approach to historical criticism and its application to biblical studies, see, e.g., N. T.
Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God 1
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1992), 35-91; Scot McKnight, Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the
Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2005), 3-46; Paul
Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the
Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), esp. 17-21; Michael R. Licona, The
Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,
2010), 50-89. I have discussed historical criticism and its application to the Book of Mormon in “The
Sermon at the Temple in the Book of Mormon: A Critical Examination of Its Authenticity through a
Comparison with the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew,” Ph.D. diss. (South African
Theological Society, 2014), chapter 3.
16
These criteria are set forth and explained in C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical
Descriptions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 19-28. On disconfirming evidence, see
Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 357-73.
17
William J. Hamblin, “An Apologist for the Critics: Brent Lee Metcalfe’s Assumptions and
Methodologies,” FARMS Review 6 (1994): 503 (434-523). In context, Hamblin is suggesting that
such a method ought to be pursued in the study of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
perspective the historical argument for Paul’s vision of the risen Jesus as well as the historical
argument against Joseph Smith’s first vision, in order to consider in context the objections
Mormons raise against the latter argument.
PAUL’S VISION OF JESUS CHRIST
Sources for Paul’s Vision
The main sources of information pertaining to Paul’s vision of Christ and conversion
are the epistles of Paul and the book of Acts. Although non-evangelical scholars commonly
dispute the authenticity of the Pastorals and a few other Pauline epistles, there is no debate at
all concerning the epistles of most relevance, namely, Galatians and 1 Corinthians.18
Everyone agrees that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in AD 54/55. Galatians is dated either 48/49,
shortly before the Jerusalem Council in 49 (Acts 15:1-35), or about 54, a few years after the
Council. The issues pertaining to these two dates are thorny but need not concern us here.19
Galatians and 1 Corinthians are also among Paul’s earliest epistles, which are also the earliest
Christian literature extant20; the only other epistles he wrote before 55 were the comparatively
short 1 and 2 Thessalonians (50-52). To put these dates in perspective, Jesus was probably
crucified in 33, and Paul’s conversion, based on the information in Acts and Galatians, would
have been a year or so later.21 This means that Paul’s fullest written accounts of his
conversion were composed between 14 to 20 years after the fact and appeared in some of his
18
Statements made here on matters concerning which there is reasonable consensus among biblical
scholars will not receive special documentation. For mainstream (usually non-evangelical)
introductions to books of the Bible, authors, events, and the like, see The Anchor Bible Dictionary,
David Noel Freedman, editor-in-chief, 6 Vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1992). The best one-volume
textbook on critical issues for the New Testament, in this author’s opinion, is now Andreas
Köstenberger, L. Scott Kellum, and Charles Quarles, The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An
Introduction to the New Testament (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2009). An invaluable reference work
on Paul is Dictionary of Paul and His Letters: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship,
ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,
1993).
19
For a good, recent introduction to the problem, see Thomas R. Schreiner, Galatians, Zondervan
Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament 9, Clinton E. Arnold, gen. ed. (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2010), 22-29.
20
Unless the epistle of James was written in the 40s, as a minority of conservative scholars think.
21
Scholarship has long held that Jesus must have died in either AD 30 or 33. For evidence supporting
AD 33, see Paul L. Maier, “Sejanus, Pilate, and the Date of the Crucifixion,” Church History 37
(1968): 3-13; “The Episode of the Golden Roman Shields in Jerusalem,” Harvard Theological
Review 62 (1969): 109-121; Harold W. Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1977), 95-114; Kenneth F. Doig, New Testament Chronology (Lewiston, NY:
Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), chap. 23; Colin J. Humphreys and W. G. Waddington, “The Jewish
Calendar, a Lunar Eclipse, and the Date of Christ’s Crucifixion,” Tyndale Bulletin 43 (1992): 331-51
(one of several journal articles they wrote on the subject); Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical
Chronology, rev. ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998), 359-65; Harold W. Hoehner, “The
Chronology of Jesus,” in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, ed. Tom Holmén and
Stanley E. Porter (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 3:2315-60. Since LDS scholars commonly use AD 33 as the
date of Christ’s death and resurrection, they should have no objection to its use in this paper.
earliest epistles, and arguably (if one accepts the early date for Galatians) in his very first
epistle. The importance of these epistles as providing firsthand, eyewitness testimony is
obvious.
The origin and historical value of Acts are matters of more serious controversy. The
author explicitly claims to have been a traveling companion of Paul for periods during his
itinerant apostolic ministry and on his journey to Rome (Acts 16:10-16; 20:6-15; 21:1-17;
27:1-8, 15-18, 27, 29, 37; 28:1, 10-16). The external evidence from the late second century
unanimously identifies the author as Luke the physician, mentioned three times in the Pauline
epistles (Col. 4:14; 2 Tim. 4:11; Philem. 24) but never named in Acts. For these and other
reasons, the traditional view that Luke was the author is most likely correct, despite the
objections of scholars who are unprepared to admit anything in Acts originated from an
eyewitness.22 Among scholars who accept Luke’s authorship of Acts, there is no consensus
on its date, which may have been around 61/62 at about the time the narrative of Acts ends,23
or sometime in the 70s or perhaps even later.24 More significant than the author’s name or the
date is the issue of what sort of text is Acts (its genre) and to what extent its narrative may be
deemed historically reliable. Here again, though the issues are highly contested, excellent
arguments have been made from internal evidence, archaeology, contemporary literature, and
comparisons with Paul’s epistles demonstrating that Acts is an impressive work of historical
writing in the best tradition of ancient Greco-Roman historiography.25 Paul’s encounter with
the risen Christ and his transformation from persecutor of the church to Christian apostle is a
major theme in Acts: Luke not only gives a narrative account of these events (Acts 8:1-3; 9:1-
20) but also quotes two separate speeches by Paul rehearsing the same story (Acts 22:3-21;
26:2-23).
Before Paul’s Vision
That the apostle Paul claimed that the risen Christ appeared to him and called him to
be an apostle is not in dispute, as he says so repeatedly and emphatically in his epistles (Gal.
1:1, 11-16; 1 Cor. 9:1-2; 15:8-9; Rom. 1:4-5; see also Eph. 3:1-8; 1 Tim. 1:12-16; 2:7; 2 Tim.
1:11-12).26 There are seven lines of evidence that cumulatively weigh heavily in favor of the
conclusion that Paul’s claim was most likely true. These seven lines of evidence will be
categorized chronologically as pertaining to what came before the reported vision, what was
reported about the vision itself, and what came after the reported vision.
22
See especially Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, ed. Conrad H.
Gempf, WUNT 49 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 308-34; Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical
Commentary, Vol. 1: Introduction and 1:1-2:47 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 402-16.
23
Hemer, Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, 365-410.
24
Keener, Acts, 383-401.
25
Again Hemer and Keener give standout treatments; see Hemer, Book of Acts in the Setting of
Hellenistic History, 1-307; Keener, Acts, 51-382. Contrary views on authorship, date, and historicity
are represented notably by Richard I. Pervo, Acts, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009), 5-
7, 14-18, and his earlier work, Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists (Santa Rosa,
CA: Polebridge, 2006).
26
Citations listed in likely chronological order. Since Paul understood an apostle of Christ to be
someone to whom Christ had appeared and given a commission (1 Cor. 9:1), all of Paul’s references
to himself as an apostle (not cited above) are also implicitly claims to have seen the risen Christ.
1. Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus had precedent in the appearances of the
crucified and risen Jesus to those who had become apostles before him.
Paul’s claim to have seen the risen Lord Jesus might be regarded with some
skepticism, were it not for its historical context. That context was one in which there was rich
evidential support for the resurrection of Jesus as historical fact. The literature on this subject
is enormous and the issues need not be treated thoroughly here.27 In brief, three lines of
evidence independent of Paul’s experience confirm that Jesus had risen from the dead in a
glorified state.
First, it is historically certain that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical, Jewish
teacher who was regarded by many Jews as a figure of high religious significance before he
was executed by crucifixion at the order of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.28 As
mentioned previously, Jesus’ crucifixion can be dated with some confidence to AD 33. As
John Dominic Crossan, an extremely liberal New Testament scholar, put it: “Jesus’ death by
execution under Pontius Pilate is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”29 While some
burden of proof might fairly be assigned to the belief that Jesus rose from the dead, the
burden of proof falls entirely on anyone who denies that Jesus died on the cross.30 This means
that we may reasonably and decisively set aside many of the most popular theories to explain
away the Resurrection, including the theories that Jesus never existed, that someone else was
crucified in his place, and that he only passed out or “swooned” on the cross.
Second, although the point is naturally disputed by many (not all) non-Christian
scholars, the evidence strongly supports the Gospels’ accounts that Jesus’ body was buried in
a rock tomb just outside Jerusalem and that the tomb was soon afterward found to be empty.
The uniform testimony of the four Gospels that the first humans to discover the empty tomb
were women—led by Mary Magdalene, whom Luke acknowledges was a former demoniac
(Luke 8:2-3)—can hardly be denied as anything but stubborn fact. The Gospels’ descriptions
of the rock tomb in which Jesus’ body was buried are consistent with the robust
archaeological studies of numerous such tombs in the Jerusalem area, proving that those
accounts did not originate as later fictions by Christians living in another part of the Roman
Empire. Craig Evans has recently reviewed the evidence supporting the Gospels’ reports that
Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, buried Jesus’ body. Evans showed that
rabbinical and Qumran texts attested to the Sanhedrin taking responsibility for the burial of
executed criminals and that Roman policies did not preclude the proper burial of someone
executed by crucifixion.31 Again, it is unlikely that Christian authors would have invented a
pious fiction in which a member of the Sanhedrin, which had handed Jesus over to the
27
See especially William Lane Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of
the Resurrection of Jesus, Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity, Vol. 16 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin
Mellen Press, 1989); Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical
Approach (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011).
28
See especially the book by famed agnostic New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus
Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperOne, 2012).
29
John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story
of the Death of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper, 1995), 5.
30
For a brief, popular overview of this issue, see Kenneth D. Boa and Robert M. Bowman Jr., 20
Compelling Evidences that God Exists: Discover Why Believing in God Makes So Much Sense, 2nd
ed. (Colorado Springs: Cook, 2005), 134-40.
31
Craig A. Evans, in How God Became Jesus, 73-89.
Romans for execution, was credited with burying Jesus. That the empty tomb was no fiction
is confirmed by the fact that the earliest denials of the Resurrection admitted the empty tomb
as fact. Those who denied that Jesus rose from the dead contended either that the disciples
had stolen the body (Matt. 28:11-15) or that someone had simply reburied the body in another
location (John 20:2, 13-15). Virtually no one defends the theft explanation today, and few
defend the reburial theory, despite the recent book and documentary about the so-called Jesus
tomb.32 Finally, the Gospel accounts are restrained in their descriptions of what occurred at
the tomb. “In comparison with the apocryphal stories of later centuries, the tomb stories [in
the New Testament Gospels] show little elaboration of miraculous detail. In comparison with
developments in New Testament materials, they do not show extensive influences from Old
Testament passages. Hence, we must presume that the story is early and that there was no
clear evidence to controvert it.”33 For these reasons, it is highly probable that Jesus’ body was
buried in that rock tomb and that the tomb was found to be empty by women who knew Jesus,
as the Gospels report. “It is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical
grounds; those who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical assumptions.”34
Third, the evidence is overwhelming that several individuals who knew Jesus
personally had experiences that they were convinced were encounters with Jesus risen from
the dead. Although non-Christian scholars sometimes dispute the empty tomb, they rarely
dispute that some of the earliest disciples reported seeing Jesus risen from the dead. Indeed,
somewhat surprisingly, those experiences are accepted as historical fact with about the same
degree of confidence and scholarly support as the existence and death of Jesus. There are
several reasons this is so: the uniform (and eminently plausible) testimony of the Gospels that
Jesus’ disciples had given up all hope in him when he was crucified; the prevailing belief in
Judaism at the time that resurrection to immortal life would take place only at the end of the
age; the fact that the reports involved both individuals and groups; and the fact that the belief
that Jesus had risen from the dead is the only available and plausible explanation for how the
Christian movement began. Bart Ehrman concedes, “For it is a historical fact that some of
Jesus’ followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his
execution.”35 Their experiences, by themselves, do not prove the Resurrection, but the
experiences are proven fact. “Their testimonies cannot prove them to have been right in
supposing that Jesus had risen from the dead. However, these accounts do prove that certain
people were utterly convinced that that is what he had done.”36
These three facts taken together—Jesus’ death on the cross, his burial in a rock tomb
and the disappearance of the body from that tomb, and the subsequent experiences of various
persons who reported seeing Jesus alive—are extremely difficult to explain on any hypothesis
other than that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead. This is why nearly all such hypotheses
deny at least one of these three facts, despite the strong evidences for them. “Once you allow
32
See especially Buried Hope or Risen Savior: The Search for the Jesus Tomb, ed. Charles L.
Quarles (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2008).
33
Pheme Perkins, Resurrection: New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1984), 94.
34
D. H. van Daalen, The Real Resurrection (London: Collins, 1972), 41.
35
Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999), 231.
36
Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (New York: Charles Scriber’s Sons,
1977), 176.
that something happened to the body that morning, all the other data fall into place with ease.
Once you insist that nothing so outlandish happened, you are driven to ever more complex
and fantastic hypotheses.”37
Paul’s experience of seeing the risen Jesus looks very credible in the context of the
substantial evidence for the historicity of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. Once one
accepts as historical fact that Jesus rose from the dead, Paul’s testimony that the risen Jesus
appeared to him becomes difficult to deny. Practically speaking, it is difficult to find any
historian who affirms Jesus’ resurrection but denies his appearance to Paul. Why this is so
will become clear from the evidence that follows.
2. Paul had aggressively persecuted Christians prior to his conversion.
There is little if any doubt among historians about this part of Paul’s story. Paul
himself repeatedly admitted and expressed shame over the fact that he had viciously
persecuted believers in Jesus. “I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy
it” (Gal. 1:13). Paul described himself as “the least of the apostles” and “unworthy” of the
office because of his persecution of the church (1 Cor. 15:9; cf. 1 Tim. 1:13-16). Even when
he was not discussing his former persecution of Christians or his vision of Christ, Paul
referred to himself disparagingly as “the least of all the saints” (Eph. 3:8) and described his
apostleship as itself a gift of God’s “grace” (Rom. 1:5; Eph. 3:7). These oblique references to
Paul’s unusually dishonorable pre-Christian conduct make it impossible to suppose that his
explicit references to having persecuted Christians are anything but truthful confessions.
Furthermore, Paul pointed out to the Galatians that several years after his conversion
the Christian churches in Judea still did not know him personally but were aware that he had
formerly persecuted Christians but had become one of its notable proponents (Gal. 1:22-24).
This means that Jewish Christians knew about Paul’s pre-Christian activity of persecution and
his subsequent conversion within several years of those events.38 Paul’s focus in that account
was not on his having once persecuted Christians but on the fact that he had become an
apostle through a direct call of Jesus Christ (see Gal. 1:1, 11-12, 16-20). He was defending
that claim against criticisms from extreme Jewish-Christian opponents who were teaching the
Galatians that circumcision was a requirement for salvation; those opponents evidently
challenged Paul’s apostolic office by claiming it was derivative from and inferior to that of
the Jerusalem apostles (see Gal. 1:18-19; 2:2-3, 6-9, 11-12; 5:2-6, 11; 6:12-15). It is unlikely
that Paul would have attributed to Jewish Christians knowledge about his life that his Jewish-
Christian opponents in Galatia would have known was false. Here again, then, the only
plausible conclusion is that Paul was truthful in reporting that he had persecuted Christians
prior to his own conversion.
Luke’s account of Paul’s participation in the persecution of Christians (at a time when
he went by the name Saul) is consistent with Paul’s firsthand admissions (Acts 7:58; 8:1-3;
9:1-2). Yet Luke’s account is clearly not dependent on Paul’s epistles, since Acts does not
follow neatly Paul’s own narrative of events in Galatians 1:13-24. For example, Luke says
nothing about Paul going to Arabia (Gal. 1:17), and Paul’s chronological notes about his
subsequent movements (Gal. 1:18; 2:1) are not reflected in any clear way in Acts. Thus, Acts
37
N. T. Wright, in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, by N. T. Wright and Marcus Borg (London:
SPCK, 1999), 124.
38
Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 374-75.
provides an account of Paul’s persecution of the church that is literarily independent of Paul’s
epistles.39
3. Paul carried out his persecution of the church motivated by religious zeal and in
the belief that he was upholding the Law of Moses.
Paul states in Galatians that he persecuted the church out of zeal for the traditions of
his fathers in Judaism (Gal. 1:13-14). When Paul recites his Jewish credentials to the
Philippians, immediately after mentioning his status as a trained Pharisee he acknowledges
that his zeal was demonstrated by his persecution of the church. He then immediately claims
that he was blameless “as to righteousness under the law” (Phil. 3:5-6). The juxtaposition of
these self-descriptions shows that in Paul’s pre-Christian way of thinking, persecuting
Christians was an act of zeal for the Jewish faith and consistent with fidelity to the Mosaic
law. It is clear that Paul felt completely justified and even proud of his actions against the
church until his conversion, when he came to see his activity as grave wrongdoing. Modern
attempts to psychoanalyze Paul as suffering from hallucinatory visions under the strain of a
guilty conscience are on the wrong track.
Luke reports that Saul agreed with the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:1) and that he was
aggressive in persecuting the church after that event (8:2-3). He quotes Paul as saying later
that he persecuted the Christians because he was zealous for God just as were the men of the
Jewish establishment, having himself been trained in the strict Pharisaic movement under
Gamaliel (22:3-4). It was on the basis of those beliefs that he had thought he should oppose
Jesus’ followers and that he was furiously angry against them (26:9, 11).
Thus, Both Paul and Luke also attest independently to Paul’s motivation for
persecuting the church. He thought the church’s message undermined the traditions of
Judaism as taught by the Pharisees, and zeal for those traditions led him to persecute
Christians.
Paul’s Vision
4. Luke’s accounts of Paul’s vision are consistent with Paul’s own account in
Galatians yet clearly independent of it.
There are three accounts of Paul’s vision in Acts (9:1-9; 22:4-11; 26:9-18) and one
major account in Galatians (1:11-16) in addition to several references to Paul’s vision,
conversion, or commission elsewhere in his epistles (1 Cor. 9:1-2; 15:8-9; Rom. 1:4-5; Eph.
3:1-8; 1 Tim. 1:12-16; 2:7; 2 Tim. 1:11-12). As mentioned already, it is reasonably clear that
Luke’s narrative in Acts was produced independently of the epistles. This means that Luke’s
accounts of Paul’s vision are independent of the text of Paul’s account in Galatians, though
not, of course, necessarily independent of Paul. This literary independence is all the more
significant in view of the substantial agreements between Luke and Paul concerning what
happened:
 Paul’s vision occurred in the context of his campaign of persecution of the church
(Acts 8:1; 9:1-2; 22:4-5; 26:9-12; Gal. 1:13-16; 1 Cor. 15:9; 1 Tim. 1:12-15).
39
See further Keener, Acts, 233-37.
 Paul’s vision took place sometime after the resurrection appearances to the other
apostles, but only about a year or so after them (Acts 9:1-2; 1 Cor. 15:8; Gal. 1:17-18;
2:1).40
 Paul was in the Damascus area when the vision took place (Acts 9:3; 22:6; 26:12; Gal.
1:17).
 Christ appeared to Paul (Acts 9:7; 22:14; 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8).
 The focus of Christ’s revelation to Paul was his commission to preach the gospel to
the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; 22:21; 26:16-18; Gal. 1:16; Eph. 3:2-8).
Thus, Luke agrees independently with Paul’s epistles regarding the “who, what, when,
where, and why” of Paul’s vision of Jesus Christ.
One interesting similarity between Acts and the epistles with regard to Paul’s
experience is the lack of any detail regarding what Paul saw. As noted above, both Acts and 1
Corinthians state that Paul saw the risen Christ; yet both refrain from including any
description whatsoever of Christ. Luke’s and Paul’s readers know that the Lord who appeared
to Paul was Jesus resurrected from the dead, but they know this from what Luke and Paul say
elsewhere about Jesus’ resurrection, not from their account of his appearance to Paul. Luke’s
focus, as much as Paul’s, is on what Christ said to Paul.
The lack of any description of the visual component of Paul’s experience (beyond the
references in Acts to the light in which Christ appeared) has been the basis of a serious
misunderstanding. Paul’s experience has sometimes been interpreted as not an objective
vision of a resurrected and glorified Jesus but rather as a subjective, inner vision of a purely
heavenly Lord. A key text that has been cited in support of this interpretation is Paul’s
statement, “God…was pleased to reveal his Son in me” (Gal. 1:15-16a). Unless this statement
is to be pitted against Paul’s explicit statements in 1 Corinthians that he saw the risen Christ
(1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8), it will need to be understood in some other way. It is possible to construe
“in me” to carry the sense “to me,”41 but it is also possible that Paul used this phrase to
emphasize that his encounter with the risen Christ was a revelation that went beyond visual
sighting to an understanding of the gospel centered on Christ. The Galatians did not question
Jesus’ resurrection; they (or some of them) questioned Paul’s gospel.
After Paul’s Vision
5. Paul’s apostleship, though not deriving from the Jerusalem apostles, was later
accepted by them.
In Galatians 1, Paul emphasized in several ways the point that his apostolic calling or
commission came directly from Jesus Christ, not from any of the other apostles. “Paul, an
apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father…. For
I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s
gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a
revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11-12). Paul went on to point out that he met with two of
40
Paul’s references to periods of three and fourteen years might be construed consecutively or not,
inclusively or not, complicating precise chronological correlations. In addition, it is disputed whether
Gal. 2:1-10 refers to the Jerusalem Council in AD 49 or an earlier visit. However these questions are
answered, the data require a date for Paul’s vision no later than about AD 34-35.
41
Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 375-79.
the apostles, Peter and James, three years after Christ’s revelation to him (1:18-19). Despite
any tensions that arose between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles, Paul insisted that they were
in agreement on the gospel. The “pillars” of the Jerusalem church—Peter, James, and John—
had met with Paul and agreed that Christ had called him to preach the gospel to the Gentiles
just as Peter had been called to preach the gospel to the Jews (2:7-9). In 1 Corinthians, Paul
similarly explained that the gospel he preached was the same gospel as that preached by the
other apostles, the core of which was Christ’s death and resurrection (1 Cor. 15:1-8).
“Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed” (1 Cor. 15:11).
All of the available evidence from other sources confirms Paul’s claim in this regard.
Luke’s history reports that Paul was commissioned by Christ through his appearance to Paul
on the road to Damascus, with the only human agent involved being Ananias, who was not
one of the apostles (Acts 9:3-20; Acts 22:5-21; 26:12-20). The Jerusalem apostles later
affirmed the validity of Paul’s ministry (15:1-29). The epistle of 2 Peter refers to Paul as a
“beloved brother” and his epistles as Scripture, if sometimes difficult to understand (2 Peter
3:15-16). Even if one denies (as most non-evangelical scholars do) that the apostle Peter
wrote 2 Peter, its attribution to the apostle shows that by the time it was written Christians
who thought highly of Peter also regarded Paul as an apostle. Outside the New Testament,
there are references to both Peter and Paul as apostles in the late first century and early second
century in the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp (1 Clem. 5.2, 5-7; 47.1-5;
Ignatius, Rom. 4.3; Eph. 12.1-2; Polycarp, Phil. 3.2; 11.3; 9.1). Not quite everyone accepted
Paul’s apostolic authority, but the evidence shows that Peter and other apostles did.42
If Peter and other apostles allied with him accepted Paul as an apostle, clearly they
had accepted his claim that Christ had appeared to him. Such an endorsement, coming from
Jesus’ original followers who had become his authorized spokesmen after he rose from the
dead, is a compelling reason for anyone who accepts the Resurrection to accept Paul’s story.
6. Paul not only converted to faith in Christ but he championed the incorporating
of Gentiles into the Christian faith without requiring them to convert to
Judaism.
Paul did not simply convert to faith in Christ, nor did he simply become an
enthusiastic evangelist for the Christian gospel; he pioneered the Gentile mission. This fact
constitutes a remarkable line of evidence that Paul was telling the truth when he claimed that
the Lord Jesus had appeared to him. The argument here was developed most notably half a
century ago by Daniel P. Fuller.43
The Gentile mission was not simply a cross-cultural evangelistic outreach comparable
to Europeans evangelizing Native Americans. It was the radical venture of inviting Gentiles
to become members of the covenant community of believers in Jesus the Jewish Messiah
without requiring them to practice the Jewish religion. Paul insisted that Gentile converts did
not need to practice the religious, ceremonial, and dietary requirements of the Law of Moses.
Most particularly, Gentile male converts did not need to be circumcised. Such a mission was
Cf. J. R. Michaels, “Paul in Early Church Tradition,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed.
42
Hawthorne, Martin, and Reid, 692-93.

43
Daniel P. Fuller, Easter Faith and History (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 208-29. Perhaps it
should be noted that many years ago I was Fuller’s student and (for one year) his teaching assistant.
For a relatively rehearsal and endorsement of Fuller’s argument, see Richard V. Peace, Conversion in
the New Testament: Paul and the Twelve (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 60-65.
antithetical to the strict, exclusivist Judaism in which Paul was reared and educated. “The
Jews did seek to make converts among the Gentiles…. But a Gentile could only become a
full-fledged Jew to the extent that he was willing to submit to all the Jewish distinctives.”44
Paul’s missionary program entailed nothing less than a complete reconfiguration of the people
of God.
Although Paul’s missionary program challenged the exclusivity of the Jewish religion,
he understood it to be consistent with and the fulfillment of the Jewish faith as revealed in the
Scriptures (our Old Testament). Paul’s epistles are filled with explicit quotations from
Scripture as well as numerous allusions. He argued that true Jews were those who were
circumcised in their hearts by the work of the Spirit (Rom. 2:28-29; Phil. 3:3)—an idea that
derived directly from the Old Testament (Lev. 26:41; Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; 9:26; cf.
Acts 7:51). Although the gospel went beyond what was explicit in the Law, it was consistent
with and indeed fulfilled the Law, because Christ was the goal or endpoint toward which the
Law was directed (Rom. 3:29-31; 10:4).
Paul’s zeal for the gospel as a message of salvation for the Gentiles, with no “Jewish
strings attached,” stood in dramatic contrast to his previous zeal for the Law as the exclusive
basis for salvation and participation in the chosen people of God. Something must have
happened to turn the Pharisee into the apostle to the Gentiles. The only plausible explanation
is that he had the experience he reported having of Christ appearing to him. “Since the
Gentile mission stemmed from a man who was and who remained a loyal Jew, and since this
mission was opposed by the Jews who thought and felt as Paul did before his conversion,
therefore Paul’s testimony that it was the gracious appearance of the risen Christ to him that
changed him and led to the Gentile mission must be true.”45
7. Paul’s teaching, life, and death demonstrate that he was sane and that his
experience on the Damascus road was transformative in remarkably positive
ways.
The evidence considered so far constitutes a very strong case for thinking that Paul
sincerely thought that the risen Jesus Christ had appeared to him and commissioned him to be
the apostle to the Gentiles. However, some additional considerations confirm beyond
reasonable doubt Paul’s sincerity and also fairly rule out the notion that his experience on the
Damascus road was some sort of hallucination or other delusion. These considerations have
to do with his teaching, his life, and his death.
(a) As an apostle, Paul articulated a revolutionary way of life based on love that
broke down barriers and lifted human beings. Paul’s mission not only drew Gentiles into the
church but established an understanding of community that breaks down barriers based on
nationality, ethnicity, cultural differences, and other such barriers. Paul welcomed women
into important roles in Christian ministry46 and encouraged slave-owners and slaves to view
one another as brothers in Christ (1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:28).47 It was Paul that wrote the
44
Fuller, Easter Faith and History, 218 n. 34.
45
Fuller, Easter Faith and History, 246.
46
For a helpful, brief overview see Craig S. Keener, “Man and Woman,” in Dictionary of Paul and
His Letters, ed. Hawthorne, Martin, and Reid, 583-92 (esp. 589-92).
47
On the complex issue of Paul’s view of slavery, see John Byron, Recent Research on Paul and
Slavery (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2008); more broadly, James M. Hamilton, “Does the
Bible Condone Slavery and Sexism?” in In Defense of the Bible: A Comprehensive Apologetic for the
famous “love chapter” of the Bible (1 Cor. 13). In many ways, Paul was a man far ahead of
his time.
(b) Paul lived a life devoid of material wealth, power, and sexual fulfillment yet
without advocating retreat from ordinary life. Paul was not above accepting material support
from Christians who appreciated his ministry. As he pointed out to the Corinthians, the other
apostles rightly benefited from such support. The Lord Jesus himself had directed the apostles
to seek out individuals who would host them in their homes while they proclaimed the gospel
(1 Cor. 9:4-6, 14; cf. Matt. 10:11). Yet Paul did not take advantage of this policy, probably
because doing so might have raised suspicions, even if unfounded, about his motives in
predominantly Gentile communities. Specifically in Corinth, he supported himself by his
trade as a tentmaker (Acts 18:1-4; 1 Cor. 4:12), and that seems to have been his usual practice
(see 1 Cor. 9:15-18; 1 Thess. 2:9; 2 Thess. 3:7-9).48 For some thirty years he apparently had
no home of his own. He occupied no position of influence or power in society. Although most
of the other apostles were married, Paul was not (1 Cor. 7:7-8; 9:5). Although Paul had
opponents who strongly criticized him on various grounds (that he was not really an apostle;
that he was not an impressive individual in person; that he undermined the Law of Moses;
that he was philosophically unsophisticated), no one seems to have accused him of financial
or sexual improprieties.49
(c) Paul suffered unjustly and repeatedly throughout his ministry and finally died for
his testimony to the risen Christ. Both Acts and Paul’s epistles attest to the many
persecutions, including imprisonments, beatings, and attempted murder, which Paul suffered
during his years of ministry (Acts 9:23-25, 29; 16:19-24; 21:30-35; 23:12-15; 1 Cor. 15:30-
32; 2 Cor. 4:7-12; 6:4-5; 11:23-28; Gal. 5:11). The apostle to the Gentiles was executed in the
aftermath of the AD 64 fire in Rome, which Nero blamed on the Christians. Although Paul’s
execution is not narrated in the New Testament, it was mentioned by Clement of Rome
(where Paul died) before the end of the first century (1 Clem. 5.2). There is no reason to think
that these troubles were in any way consequences of illegal or immoral conduct on Paul’s
part; they were simply the result of him preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The seven lines of evidence considered here converge in support of the conclusion
that the risen Christ had truly appeared to Saul of Tarsus, calling him to abandon his
persecution of the church and to become Christ’s emissary to proclaim the gospel to the
Gentiles. Such an about-face from persecutor and Torah-zealous Pharisee to inclusive, Christ-
centered apostle to the Gentiles must have been precipitated by some event or events. Paul’s
own testimony was that the change was the direct result of the risen Christ’s appearance and
revelation to him. His teachings, life, and martyrdom all support the sincere, clear-headed,
and enlightened nature of Paul’s transformative encounter with the Lord.
Authority of Scripture, ed. Steven B. Cowan and Terry L. Wilder (Nashville: B&H, 2013), 335-48,
esp. 343-47.
See further Paul W. Barnett, “Tentmaking,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Hawthorne,
48
Martin, and Reid, 925-27.

Cf. Paul W. Barnett, “Opponents of Paul,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Hawthorne,
49
Martin, and Reid, 644-53.

JOSEPH’S VISION OF JESUS CHRIST
Sources for Joseph’s Vision
The point of departure for any study of the First Vision must be the account that since
1880 has been officially recognized by the LDS Church as part of its canonical scriptures in
the short book called Joseph Smith—History (hereafter JS-H), which is included in the
collection known as the Pearl of Great Price.50 This work provides a selective account of
certain foundational events prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon: the First Vision
(dated 1820), the appearances of the angel Moroni from 1823 to 1827 and his granting Joseph
custody of the gold plates, some information about the translation of the plates as the Book of
Mormon (1828-29), and the bestowal of the priesthood on Joseph and his associate Oliver
Cowdery (1829). The account was excerpted from a longer work that was composed (in
several drafts and copies) between 1838 and 1841 by Joseph dictating to scribes and that was
first published in the Mormon newspaper Times and Seasons from 1842 to 1846 under the
title “History of Joseph Smith.”51 The material excerpted from this History in Pearl of Great
Price thus includes the only official, scriptural account of the First Vision (JS-H 1:5-26).
Other accounts of the First Vision, or something like it, were also produced during
Joseph’s lifetime as well as after his death in 1844. Most of these occasioned little comment
or concern, despite some differences with the canonical account, until the discovery and
publication of an earlier account that differed markedly. This earlier account was part of
Joseph’s first attempt at a history, probably drafted in the summer of 1832 (two years after
publishing the Book of Mormon). Most of this history was dictated by Joseph to a scribe,
Frederick G. Williams, but the portion dealing with the First Vision is written in Joseph’s
own handwriting—the only such account. This 1832 History was unknown to the public until
its discovery in the LDS Church Historian’s Office by BYU student Paul Cheesman, who
published the text of the document in his 1965 Master’s thesis.52 Subsequent study led LDS
scholars to date the manuscript to about the summer of 1832 and to identify the First Vision
portion as written in Joseph’s handwriting.53
The discovery of the 1832 History led scholars to take a closer look at the many other
accounts of possible relevance to the First Vision. The most important of these are three
accounts that date from 1834 and 1835, after the shelved 1832 account and before the official
account that was composed in 1838 and 1839. (1) In December 1834 and February 1835,
Joseph’s associate Oliver Cowdery published a series of articles on the origins of the LDS
50
The current text of this and other LDS scriptures is available online at
https://www.lds.org/scriptures. The most recent edition of the LDS scriptures was released in 2013.
51
“History Drafts, 1838-circa 1841,” in The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, Volume 1: Joseph Smith
Histories, 1832-1844, ed. Karen Lynn Davidson, David J. Whittaker, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and
Richard L. Jensen (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2012), 187-203 (editors’ introduction),
204-463 (text and notes). This work is hereafter cited (following the editors’ own practice) as JSP,
H1. The text of the texts on which JS-H is based is found on pp. 187-245, 276-77, 292-97.
Photographic images and transcripts of the manuscripts for this and most of the other relevant
accounts are found online at the Joseph Smith Papers website, http://josephsmithpapers.org/.
52
Paul R. Cheesman, “An Analysis of the Accounts Relating Joseph Smith’s Early Visions,” M.R.E.
thesis (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 1965), 126-32.
53
For details, see JSP, H1, 3-10; for the text, see 10-16; for photographic plates, see 17-22.
movement in the LDS newspaper Messenger and Advocate. (2) Joseph gave an account in
November 1835 in a conversation with one Robert Matthews, alias Joshua the Jewish
minister, that was recorded by a scribe in Joseph’s journal.54 (3) That same month, Joseph
gave an account to Erastus Holmes on November 14, 1835. This account was eventually
published in 1852 by the LDS Church.55
Reference Written/ Description

Published
Joseph Smith History, 1832, Nov. 1832 Joseph saw “the Lord” (i.e., Jesus); first clear
account in Joseph’s hand reference to a divine vision.
Oliver Cowdery, Messenger Dec. 1834 When Joseph was 15—corrected in 2/35
and Advocate Feb. 1835 issue to 17, in 1823, on Sept. 21—he was
troubled by the revival, praying to know
truth; visited by a messenger from heaven to
tell him that his sins were forgiven.
Joseph’s journal, about a Nov. 1835 Joseph saw one personage in a pillar of fire
conversation with “Joshua” in which nothing was consumed, and another
personage told Joseph that Jesus is the Son of
God; these appear to be angels.
Joseph’s journal, as told to Nov. 1835 Joseph had his “first visitation of angels”
Erastus Holmes when he was 14.
Joseph Smith History, 1839 1838/39 Official account: Joseph saw two personages,
one of whom referred to the other as his
“beloved Son.”
The discovery and analysis of these different accounts of the First Vision have raised
doubt even for some Mormons as to whether it happened.56 The difficulties posed by these
accounts prompted the LDS Church to post a lengthy article on its official website addressing
some of the issues concerning the First Vision.57 Mormon scholars have published additional
studies attempting to answer some of the problems.58 Despite these efforts, it will be argued
here that the evidence is fairly overwhelming that the First Vision did not occur but was a
later story developed by Joseph in the 1830s. As with the treatment of Paul’s vision presented
earlier, the argument here will deal with what came before Joseph’s vision, the vision story
itself, and what came after the vision.
54
The Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-
McGee, and Richard L. Jensen; Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman,
gen. eds. (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008), 87-95.
55
In Deseret News, May 29, 1852; later published in History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 7 Vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1902), 2:312.
56
A notable study critical of the historicity of the First Vision is Grant Palmer, An Insider’s View of
Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 235-68. This book has provoked at least
half a dozen negative reviews from LDS scholars.
57
“First Vision Accounts,” LDS.org (Gospel Topics), Nov. 2013.
58
See especially Exploring the First Vision, ed. Samuel Alonzo Dodge and Steven C. Harper (Provo,
UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2012); Stephen C. Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide
to the Historical Accounts (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 2012).
Before Joseph’s Vision
1. The basic elements of Joseph Smith’s first vision story—the appearance of deity
and the message that Christianity was apostate—were part and parcel of his
religious upbringing.
Joseph Smith Jr. was born December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont.59 His parents,
Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, were primitivists, part of a movement of disaffected
Protestants who regarded all denominations as having fallen away from original, true
Christianity. Primitivists ran a gamut of beliefs. At one extreme were Deists and
Universalists; Joseph Sr. as a young adult had helped to start a Universalist society. At the
other extreme was a kind of proto-Pentecostalism that looked for miraculous manifestations
of varying kinds as precursors to the Second Coming. Both Joseph Sr. and Lucy reported
having had dreams or visions portending judgment on Christendom and suggesting hope of
salvation for their family.
After several moves to various towns in Vermont and much hardship, the family
moved to Palmyra in upstate New York when Joseph was twelve years old. In the
unpublished autobiographical account written in 1832, Joseph claimed that between the ages
of twelve to fifteen he had become convinced that there was no true church on the earth—a
notion that he clearly could have picked up at that age from his parents. In the winter of 1819-
20 the Smith family moved into a cabin near the border of Palmyra and what later was
renamed Manchester. It was in the woods near that home where Joseph later claimed the First
Vision took place.
Mormons commonly regard Joseph’s vision as an unprecedented, revolutionary event,
one that Christians in his society would have universally regarded as bizarre if not offensive.
That God would answer a farm boy’s prayer for spiritual enlightenment, especially by a direct
revelation or visitation, is viewed in the Mormon mythos as a radical claim that was alien to
the cold, apostate Christendom in which Joseph grew up.60 Joseph’s official account
encourages this perception with his assertions that a local Methodist minister denounced all
visions as of the devil and that all of the churches in his area united in criticizing his claim to
have had a vision (JS-H 1:21-22). In fact, reports of religious visions and dreams were quite
common in Joseph’s culture; while some people of course rejected such stories many other
people accepted and were even attracted to them. Ironically, Methodists were especially likely
to tell such stories. Nor was Joseph’s specific claim to have seen Christ or God
59
The material in this paragraph and the next is substantially repeated from my entry on “Smith,
Joseph Jr.,” in the forthcoming Baker Encyclopedia of Religious Movements, ed. H. Wayne House
(Grand Rapids, Baker, 2016). Note that the precise title of that work is still subject to revision.
Among the best biographies of Joseph Smith are on the skeptical side Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The
Making of a Prophet. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), and on the Mormon side Richard
Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, with Jed Woodworth (New York: Knopf,
2005).
60
This aspect of the LDS story of Joseph Smith is expressed in literally dramatic form in the annual
“Mormon Miracle Pageant” held in Manti, Utah; see Robert M. Bowman Jr., “Manti Pageant Review:
The Mormon Myth, Not the Mormon Miracle” (Grand Rapids: Institute for Religious Research,
2012).
unprecedented, since other pious individuals during the same period reported such
experiences.61
It is true that if Joseph Smith has been literally visited in the woods by the Father and
the Son as two separately embodied, glorified Men, with all of the theological ramifications
such a revelation entails in Mormon teaching, such an event would indeed have been
unprecedented. However, this interpretation of the First Vision was not advanced by Joseph
Smith but developed about forty years after his death.62 During Joseph’s lifetime, his various
accounts of the First Vision would have seemed controversial but not unprecedented—and it
would not have been especially controversial except for its function to augment his claim to
be a prophet.
This background information on Joseph Smith’s family and culture is telling. It shows
that Joseph’s first vision story—whether true or not—reflected religious beliefs already in
place in his religious and cultural context. Moreover, the specific content or message at the
core of the First Vision in all of the accounts, that all of the churches were apostate, was an
idea Joseph most likely had already picked up from his parents even before the vision would
have taken place.
Joseph’s Vision
If reports of visions of deity were common in Joseph’s culture, he might very well
have had such an experience. That would not mean that he really saw the Father and the Son,
but it would mean that he was sincere in claiming to have had some such experience.
However, other considerations make it almost certain that in Joseph’s case the story was a
late fiction, invented to buttress his authority as the Prophet of the new Church he founded.
Two such considerations pertain to the First Vision story itself: its late origin and
development, and the important contradictions in the accounts Joseph gave.
2. The First Vision story was developed by Joseph Smith in the 1830s and remained
unknown to Mormons or their critics until 1842.
The earliest document referring to something like the First Vision was Joseph Smith’s
November 1832 History. Even this account poses serious problems, as will be explained
below. In any case, prior to late 1832, there are no credible reports of Joseph claiming to have
had a vision of either the Father or the Son in the years preceding Moroni’s first visitation in
1823. Sources commonly cited by Mormon apologists to demonstrate knowledge of the First
Vision prior to late 1832 simply do no such thing: they are typically references to Joseph’s
first encounter with Moroni or vague references to Joseph receiving revelation from God.63
Joseph’s earliest statement indicating that he had some religious experience prior to
the first visitation of the angel is dated June 1830, a couple of months after he founded the
LDS Church. The statement is noteworthy for its lack of any indication that a vision or
visitation was involved in that prior experience. “After it was truly manifested unto this first
elder that he had received a remission of his sins, he was entangled again in the vanities of the
61
See Christopher C. Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness: Methodist Conversion Narratives
and Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Journal of Mormon History 37, 2 (Spring 2011): 88-114.
62
See Allen, “Emergence of a Fundamental,” cited earlier (above, n. 10).
63
See Robert M. Bowman Jr., “Alleged Early References to the First Vision” (Grand Rapids: IRR,
2009), an overview of four articles dealing with notable examples of such early references.
world; but after repenting, and humbling himself sincerely, through faith, God ministered
unto him by an holy angel, whose countenance was as lightning, and whose garments were
pure and white above all other whiteness; and gave unto him commandments which inspired
him; and gave him power from on high, by the means which were before prepared, to
translate the Book of Mormon” (D&C 20:5-8). Mormons have often cited the statement that
“it was truly manifested unto this first elder [Joseph Smith] that he had received a remission
of his sins” as Joseph’s earliest published reference to the First Vision.64 However, what
Joseph meant by having the remission of sins “manifested” to him, as is made clear later in
the same revelation, was that the Spirit gave him assurance of forgiveness through his
repentance and contrition shown by his good works (D&C 20:37; see also D&C 21:7-9). The
lack of any reference to a vision in that earlier experience stands in stark contrast to Joseph’s
explicit and detailed comments about the angel’s visitation.65
The lack of any recognizable, direct reference to the First Vision in D&C 20 is all the
more remarkable when one considers that Joseph read a version of D&C 20 at the first
conference of the newly formed Church in June 1830.66 If the First Vision was the foundation
of the LDS Church, it is peculiar, to put it mildly, that there was no clear reference to it
presented to the religion’s members in its foundational meetings.
The lack of references to the First Vision prior to November 1832 cannot be dismissed
as a mere argument from silence. Two facts taken together are relevant here. The first is that
the First Vision is supposedly the foundational event of Mormonism, comparable to the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ and second in importance only to that event. Omitting any
reference to the First Vision at the first LDS Church conference would be like Peter omitting
any reference to the Resurrection in the first Christian sermon (Acts 2).
The second fact is that Joseph Smith had already produced a significant amount of
written materials by November 1832. In particular, the first 84 sections of Doctrine &
Covenants, taking up 161 pages in modern printed editions, were all produced prior to
September 1832. Yet there is not one definite reference to the First Vision in all that material.
This would be roughly analogous to the apostle Paul writing more than half of his epistles
without ever mentioning the risen Christ’s appearance to him (whereas in fact Paul mentions
it in his earliest epistles, Gal. 1:1, 15; 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:3-23; cf. 1 Thess. 1:10).
The situation is actually worse than what has already been stated, because the account
in Joseph Smith’s November 1832 History was never made public in Joseph’s lifetime. As
mentioned earlier, the 1832 account remained unknown even to Mormons generally until
1965, when Paul Cheesman discovered it in the Church Historian’s archives. The first
detailed account of the origins of the LDS movement to be made public was published by
Oliver Cowdery in 1834-1835 and clearly began the story in 1823 with Joseph’s supposed
first encounter with the angel of the plates. Cowdery represented his articles, which were
64
E.g., Richard Lloyd Anderson, “The Organization Revelations (D&C 20, 21, and 22),” in Studies in
Scripture, Volume One: The Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Robert L. Millet and Kent P. Jackson (Salt
Lake City: Deseret, 1989), 110-11; Grant Underwood, “Doctrine and Covenants: Sections 20-22,” in
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 1:410; Bushman,
Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, 39.
65
See further Robert M. Bowman Jr., “‘Truly Manifested’—Does D&C 20:5 Refer to the First
Vision?” (Grand Rapids: IRR, 2009).
66
Robert J. Woodford, “The Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants,” Ph.D. diss.
(Brigham Young University, 1974), 286-301; Early Mormon Documents, ed. Dan Vogel (Salt Lake
City: Signature Books, 1996-2003), 1:9-10 (hereafter cited as EMD).
published in the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, as “a full history of the rise of
the church of the Latter Day Saints.”67 In his fourth article he commented that although he
had previously apologized for the brevity of his account, “It was not my wish to be
understood that I could not give the leading items of every important occurrence.”68 That is,
Cowdery claimed to be giving an account that included all of the most important events
pertaining to the rise of the LDS movement. He proceeded in that article to trace the origins
of the movement to events in 1823 when he says that Joseph Smith, troubled by the “religious
excitement” of the time, prayed, “if a Supreme being did exist, to have an assurance that he
was accepted of him.” Obviously, if Joseph had seen the Father and the Son in 1820, he
would not have been praying in 1823 still uncertain if a supreme being existed. According to
Cowdery, Joseph’s prayers were answered on September 21, 1823, when a glorious
“personage” appeared in his bedroom who was a “messenger” of the Lord sent to assure
Joseph that his sins were forgiven and to inform Joseph about the book buried near Joseph’s
home, which he was to translate.69 Thus, in 1835 the story that was being taught publicly was
still that Joseph’s first encounter with a supernatural being was the visitation of the angel in
1823. The 1839 History was not published until 1842, which means that it was really not until
that time that the LDS rank and file were introduced to the idea that Joseph had been visited
by deity three years prior to Moroni’s first visitation.
Richard Bushman admits, in an understatement, that “most early converts probably
never heard about the 1820 vision,” and suggests that the paucity of early references to the
First Vision may be explained as due to the fact that “at first, Joseph was reluctant to talk
about his vision.”70 Yet Joseph was not at all hesitant to talk about the supposed visitations of
the angel who showed him the plates. Nor was he reticent to mention even more spectacular
religious experiences. In February 1832—seven months before Joseph penned his account of
seeing the Lord when he was a boy—Joseph produced a revelation claiming that he and his
scribe Sidney Rigdon, while they were working on Joseph’s inspired revision of the Bible,
had a vision in which they saw Jesus Christ! According to Joseph’s account, they “beheld the
glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of his fullness…. For we saw
him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only
Begotten of the Father” (D&C 76:20, 23). Here was a perfect opportunity for Joseph to have
mentioned that he had personally seen Christ twelve years earlier, if that had actually
happened, yet he says nothing about it. His claim that he and Sidney had such a vision shows
that however Joseph’s silence about the First Vision might be explained, it was not due to
shyness or caution on Joseph’s part.
3. The history of written statements about Joseph’s initial revelatory visions

exhibits clear evidence of trial and error storytelling and theological
development.
67
EMD, 2:417, emphasis added.
68
Ibid., 2:426, emphasis added.
69
Ibid., 2:427-30.
70
Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, 39. These statements are repeated almost verbatim
in Michael R. Ash, Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism
and Doubt, 273-79, 2nd ed., expanded and rev. (Redding, CA: Foundation for Apologetics
Information and Research [now FAIRMormon], 2013), 274.
According to the Gospel Topics article at LDS.org on the First Vision accounts, “The
various accounts of the First Vision tell a consistent story, though naturally they differ in
emphasis and detail.” The article alleges, “Some have mistakenly argued that any variation in
the retelling of the story is evidence of fabrication.”71 This statement sets up a convenient and
common straw man that Mormons can then easily knock down.72 What critics allege is that
the accounts conflict with one another and that they do so because the story developed in
tandem with Joseph’s developing theology.
Some of the evidence for the development of the First Vision story has already been
mentioned. In 1830, a couple of months after Joseph Smith founded the LDS Church, he
made a statement for the first time indicating that he had some sort of religious experience
prior to the visitation of the angel who revealed the Book of Mormon plates to him (D&C
20:5-8). As explained above, at this point nothing had been said about a vision or visitation of
supernatural beings of any kind connected to that first religious experience, let alone a
visitation of two divine persons.
a. When Did Joseph Have the Vision?
In 1832 Joseph began writing his History and included in it an account of seeing “the
Lord.” According to this account, Joseph became concerned for his salvation “at about the
age of twelve years” and was troubled “from the age of twelve years to fifteen” (i.e., about
1818-1821). The reason for his concern was that he had become convinced from reading the
Bible that all of the churches had apostatized from the true faith, giving him no sound way to
know that he was forgiven of his sins.73 He was convinced, however, that God existed,
agreeing with the Psalmist (Ps. 14:1; 53:1) that it is fools who say there is no God.74 He
therefore called on the Lord for mercy and “in the 16th year” (i.e., 1822) of his life a light
from heaven shone down on him. Joseph “saw the Lord,” who told him that he had been
crucified for the sins of the world, that Joseph’s sins were forgiven, and confirmed that the
world had turned away from the gospel.75 After going through a period of backsliding into sin
and after his family “suffered many persicutions and afflictions,” when Joseph “was
seventeen years of Age” he “called again upon the Lord” and had a “heavenly vision” in
which “an angel of the Lord” came to him at night and told him about the “plates of gold.”
This happened, Joseph said, on September 22, 1822, though the reference to his being 17
years old would make the date 1823, as Joseph later corrected himself.76
The 1832 account displays significant disagreements with the later official 1839
account found in Joseph Smith—History. There is the obvious chronological confusion as to
when the First Vision took place: in the earlier account it was in 1822 or perhaps 1821 with
the mistake regarding the date of the angel’s visitation taken into account; in the later
account, it was definitely in the spring of 1820. There is also some confusion as to the day of
the angel’s visitation: in the 1832 account Joseph says the angel appeared three times in the
71
“First Vision Accounts,” LDS.org.
72
For the same straw man representation of the critics’ objection, see Ash, Shaken Faith Syndrome,
275.
73
EMD, 1:27-28.
74
Ibid., 1:28.
75
Ibid.
76
Ibid., 1:29, and n. 7.
night on September 22 and again the next day, whereas in the 1839 account the night
visitations were on the night of the 21st. If these were the only problems, one might excuse
them as simple mistakes.
b. What Did Joseph Pray?
A second discrepancy between the two accounts is that in the 1832 History Joseph had
already concluded from reading the Bible that all of the churches were apostate, whereas in
the 1839 History Joseph said that his purpose in praying was to know which church to join.
“My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I
might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be
able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the
sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and
which I should join” (Joseph Smith—History 1:18). This discrepancy is a far more serious
one than the confusion over the dates, as the problem here goes to the heart of why Joseph
supposedly went into the woods to pray in the first place. Moreover, the problem here is a
direct contradiction between the two accounts over a matter of substance.
c. Whom Did Joseph See?
The third discrepancy concerns whom Joseph saw in the woods in his first vision.
According to the 1832 account, he saw “the Lord,” that is, the Lord Jesus; according to the
1839 account, he saw the Father and the Son. It is true that the 1832 account does not deny
that the Father was present, and so on that basis a Mormon might try to dismiss this criticism
as an argument from silence. On the other hand, the visible appearance of the Father
alongside the Son is surely one of the most significant elements of the story. It certainly has
been viewed that way historically by LDS authorities. Gordon B. Hinckley commented on the
uniqueness of this aspect of the vision: “At no other time of which we have any record have
God our Eternal Father and His Beloved Son, the risen Lord, appeared on earth together….
Nothing like it had ever happened before.”77 This is why the argument presented by Michael
Ash will not work:
Nothing in the 1832 account states, however, that there was only one personage. If
you tell someone that you had visited with the President of the United States, does this
mean that the Vice President and First Lady were not present?78
Ash’s point is well taken but backfires as a defense against the particular objection
here. The situation is more akin to someone reporting that he had visited with the Vice-
President but neglecting to mention that he had also seen the President! Nor is the situation
comparable to the variations in the Gospel accounts of the women seeing one angel or two at
the tomb of Jesus, or the question of whether Paul’s companions on the road to Damascus
heard the voice or not, or other “minor discrepancies in the New Testament.”79 Again, the
supposed visible, embodied appearance of the Father alongside the Son in the woods is
regarded by Mormons as an essential element of the vision and as unique in the history of
77
Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Stone Cut Out of the Mountain,” Ensign, Nov. 2007, 84.
78
Ash, Shaken Faith Syndrome, 277.
79
Ibid., 277-78.
divine revelation (which it would be). Its omission, if it were factual, cannot be explained
away as a “minor” difference or as a matter of “emphasis” or “focus.”
The LDS.org article on the First Vision accounts acknowledges the problem and
suggests that the 1832 account may refer to two divine persons by the same title “the Lord.”
The article explains:
Note that the two references to “Lord” are separated in time: first “the Lord” opens the
heavens; then Joseph Smith sees “the Lord.” This reading of the account is consistent
with Joseph’s 1835 account, which has one personage appearing first, followed by
another soon afterwards. The 1832 account, then, can reasonably be read to mean that
Joseph Smith saw one being who then revealed another and that he referred to both of
them as “the Lord”: “the Lord opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord.”80
This theory that the text refers to two different persons as “the Lord,” specifically the
Father and the Son, may be becoming the standard answer to the difficulty.81 Assuming for
the sake of argument that the above explanation is correct, the account still conflicts with the
1838 account. Suppose the quoted statement means, “The Father opened the heavens upon
me, and I saw the Son.” This would still appear to mean that Joseph saw just one divine
person, not two.
Moreover, the interpretation that “the Lord” refers to the Father in the first instance
but to the Son in the second instance is ad hoc and strained. As Stan Larson, a Mormon
(though a rather unorthodox one) has pointed out, the passage uses the title “the Lord”
repeatedly without any indication that it refers to two different divine persons.82 A review of
the occurrences of the title in the account bears out Larson’s point:
I found that mankind did not come unto the Lord…

I cried unto the Lord for mercy….
And the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness….
And while in the attitude of calling upon the Lord….
And the <Lord> opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord….
Behold, I am the Lord of glory. I was crucified for the world….
And the Lord was with me….
The claim that the 1832 account meant to say that Joseph saw two personages is
therefore simply not plausible (even if it is, barely, possible). As it stands, the 1832 account is
inconsistent with the later 1838 account that is part of the canonical book Joseph Smith—
History. Nor is the difference between the two accounts with regard to who visited Joseph a
matter of an incidental detail omitted from the earlier account. Quite the contrary, this is a
major discrepancy that reflects the fact of Joseph’s theological development in the 1830s that
can be discerned from an examination of the revelations, teaching materials, sermons, and
supposed inspired translations he produced throughout the decade.
In the early 1830s, Joseph held to something close to the traditional Christian view of
the doctrine of the Trinity (see the Testimony of Three Witnesses; 2 Ne. 31:21; Mormon 7:7;
80
“First Vision Accounts,” LDS.org.
See also James B. Allen and John W. Welch, “The Appearance of the Father and the Son to Joseph
81
Smith in 1820,” in Exploring the First Vision, ed. Dodge and Harper, 72-73.
82
Stan Larson, “Another Look at Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Dialogue 47, 2 (Summer 2014): 52.
D&C 20:17, 28; Moses 7:29, 31). It would not have made sense in his theology at the time to
have the Father and the Son both appearing on earth in bodily form side by side. Even in his
February 1832 revelation, the vision Joseph said he and Sidney Rigdon had probably did not
involve actually seeing the Father. According to Joseph’s account, they saw “the glory of the
Son, on the right hand of the Father” in heaven; however, they apparently did not actually see
the Father but they “saw him,” the Son, “even on the right hand of God,” and they “heard the
voice” of the Father testifying to his Son (D&C 76:20, 23). The vision in D&C 76 reflects the
fact that Joseph had come to view Christ as someone distinct from God the Father, but it
lacks any indication of the Father appearing in a bodily form. In the 1835 Lectures on Faith,
which Joseph oversaw and approved, the Father was understood to be a “personage of spirit”
and the Son a “personage of tabernacle,” that is, with a physical body (Lectures on Faith 5.2).
Although the two “personages” are more sharply distinguished, still at this point the idea of a
literal appearance of the two divine persons on earth would not have fit Joseph’s theology.
Theological Development of the First Vision

Period Development of Joseph’s Story Development of Joseph’s Theology
1827- No indication that Joseph had any Joseph appears to accept a rough
early 1830 visions or revelations prior to the form of Trinitarian theology, even
spirit or angel revealing the location making modalist-sounding
of the gold plates. statements in the Book of Mormon.
1830 A passing reference to Joseph having Joseph still holds a rough form of
received a manifestation of the Trinitarian theology but is now
forgiveness of his sins some years avoiding modalist-sounding
prior to locating the gold plates. statements in his early revelations.
Late 1830- Joseph produces a draft in 1832 in Joseph works on revising the KJV
1835 which the Lord appeared to him a few Bible; instead of calling the three
years before he was shown the gold persons God, he now refers to the
plates. Joseph reports that he and Father alone as God and to Christ as
Sidney Rigdon had a vision in Feb. God’s “Only Begotten.”
1832 of the Son sitting at the Father’s
right hand. In late 1832, critics begin
referring to Mormons claiming to see
God and/or Christ and to talk to
Christ. In 1835, Oliver can still begin
Joseph’s story in 1823 with the angel.
Late 1835- Joseph says that two personages Joseph now makes a sharper
1837 appeared in his first vision, distinction between the Father as a
apparently angels. When the Kirtland personage of spirit and the Son, the
temple is dedicated in 1836, Joseph Lord Jesus, as a personage of flesh,
claims to have seen the Father and the as seen in the recently produced
Son in a vision of the celestial Lectures on Faith.
kingdom.
1838-1844 Joseph describes the two personages At some point Joseph concludes that
who appeared to him in the grove in the Father is a physically embodied
his new History in a way that makes personage (D&C 130:22, in 1843,
it clear that they are the Father and makes this explicit). He eventually
the Son. affirms that the three divine persons
are three separate Gods.
By the late 1830s, however, Joseph’s monotheistic worldview was coming apart, and
he apparently viewed the three persons of the Trinity as three separate beings and even
perhaps as three Gods. In an 1839 revelation, Joseph announced that a time was coming when
it would be known “whether there be one God or many gods,” and when other truths would
be revealed “according to that which was ordained in the midst of the Council of the Eternal
God of all other gods before this world was” (D&C 121:28, 32). By 1843 Joseph was
teaching publicly that God the Father was not, as stated in the Lectures on Faith, a personage
of spirit as opposed to one of tabernacle, but a personage with “a body of flesh and bones as
tangible as man’s” (D&C 130:22). Joseph’s claim in 1838/1839 that he had been visited in
1820 by the Father and the Son as two separately visible personages therefore reflects the
stage of Joseph’s theological development at that time.83
After Joseph’s Vision
4. Joseph Smith’s claim that he was vilified and persecuted for years because of his
testimony to the First Vision is demonstrably false.
The point has already been made that there is no clear reference to the First Vision in
any Mormon publication before 1842 and that the earliest reference to any sort of visionary
experience taking place before the visitations of Moroni was in a draft History written in late
1832 and promptly put away and forgotten. Based on this information alone, one might
suppose that Joseph Smith simply kept the matter to himself until he felt it was time to make
the First Vision public knowledge. However, this supposition runs headlong into another
claim that Joseph made, which was that from 1820 forward he was subjected constantly to
persecution because of the First Vision:
I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice
against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution,
which continued to increase; and though I was an obscure boy, only between fourteen
and fifteen years of age, and my circumstances in life such as to make a boy of no
consequence in the world, yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to
excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was
common among all the sects—all united to persecute me (JS-H 1:22).
Joseph claimed to have been surprised that his story would “attract the attention of the
great ones of the most popular sects of the day” in persecuting and reviling him (1:23). This
persecution continued for at least the next three and a half years, Joseph claimed, “all the time
suffering severe persecution at the hands of all classes of men, both religious and irreligious,
because I continued to affirm that I had seen a vision” (1:27).
If the leaders of all (or even many) of the denominational churches in the
Palmyra/Manchester area were inciting the public against the boy Joseph and stirring up
persecution against him that lasted for several years in reaction to his story of seeing the
Father and the Son (or seeing any supernatural being for that matter), someone should have
known about it. Yet the evidence is overwhelming that no one did—not his family, not his
friends, and not his enemies.
83
See further Luke P. Wilson, “Joseph Smith’s Changing Doctrine of Deity” (Grand Rapids: IRR,
1995).
Philastus Hurlbut in late 1833 collected affidavits and other statements from fifteen
individuals who had resided in Palmyra and Manchester at the same time as the Smiths, as
well as group statements signed by 11 residents of Manchester and 51 residents of Palmyra.84
These statements accused the Smith family members, especially Joseph Sr. and Joseph Jr., of
laziness, excessive drinking, failure or neglect to pay their bills or debts, habitual lying,
fighting, cheating, and similar failings. They criticized Joseph Jr.’s claims to be able to see
buried gold and silver with his seer stone. They claimed that Joseph purported to make
contact with ghosts, spirits, and other preternatural or supernatural entities, and to be able to
tell fortunes with the seer stone. They mentioned Joseph using magic circles to try to remove
buried treasure guarded by evil spirits and criticized the family for wasting their time in
frequent digging for treasure. They referred critically to Joseph’s claims concerning seeing an
angel and finding gold plates. The group statement from 51 Palmyra residents mentions that
the Smith family was “particularly famous for visionary projects,” referring to their treasure
hunting, and comments on the fact that Martin Harris and other local converts to Mormonism
were also “visionary.”85
Milton Backman, in his book defending the historicity of the First Vision, attempts to
connect these criticisms of Joseph Smith to the supposed persecution he suffered for his
testimony to the First Vision: “Upon learning of Joseph’s visions, settlers in Palmyra and
vicinity branded the Prophet’s testimony as a lie and a vicious falsehood.”86 Yet they never
mentioned Joseph claiming to have seen the Father and the Son (or even seeing only Christ).
Marvin Hill notes that “at least eleven of the fifty [actually fifty-one] Palmyra
witnesses…were members of the Presbyterian church in Palmyra.”87 According to Joseph’s
account, that church would surely have been involved in the persecution he says all of the
churches in his area directed toward him after he testified to the First Vision. Yet nothing of
the sort happened for, as Hill himself points out, Joseph’s mother and some of his siblings
were members of that church in good standing from 1824 to 1828.88 The critics whose
statements were collected in 1833 also included Baptists (George W. Stoddard and William
Parke), Quakers (Lucy Harris, Lemuel Durfee Jr., and Pliny Sexton), a Congregationalist
(Josiah Rice), an Episcopalian (Hiram K. Jerome), and a Methodist clergyman who knew
Joseph quite well (Willard Chase).89 If Joseph was harshly vilified and persecuted by all the
area churches for years during the 1820s because of the First Vision, it is hard to understand
why his many church-going local critics in 1833 never mentioned it when cataloguing all
sorts of other criticisms (fair and unfair) against Joseph and his family.
Even where someone appears to attest to the historicity of this supposed persecution
of the teenage Joseph, the textual evidence indicates the writer did not know about it during
that period of his life. For example, in the first draft of Lucy Mack Smith’s history, written in
1844-45 with Martha Jane Knowlton Carey, was included a chronological list of early events
in the Smiths’ family history. “Interestingly, the item about the first vision is inserted at a
84
For introductions and texts of these statements see EMD, 2:13-77.
85
Ibid., 2:48, 49.
86
Milton V. Backman Jr., Joseph Smith’s First Vision: Confirming Evidences and Contemporary
Accounts, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), 115.
87
EMD, 2:73.
88
Ibid.
89
Ibid., 2:29, 34, 49-51, 53-54, 64, 152.
slant interlinearly into the list, obviously added as an afterthought.”90 Lucy’s rough draft
contained no account of the First Vision at all, and the final version simply inserts a lengthy
excerpt from the 1839 History about the First Vision as it had appeared in print in 1842.91
After that excerpt ends, Lucy comments that between that First Vision and the appearance of
the angel in 1823 “nothing during this interval occurred of very great importance—though he
suffered, as one would naturally suppose, every kind of opposition and persecution from the
different orders of religionists.”92 Here again, the reference to Joseph suffering persecution is
added as something of an afterthought, and in even more general terms than in Joseph’s
account that Lucy had just excerpted.
Moreover, Lucy gave evidence that she was unaware of any such persecution at the
time just a few pages earlier in the same work. “At the age of fourteen,” Lucy said, as Joseph
was returning home from an errand “a gun was fired across his pathway, with the evident
intention of shooting him.” Lucy commented that they never did find out who tried to murder
Joseph, nor could they “discover the cause thereof.”93 Lucy’s comment that they could not
determine a motive for the apparent attempt on Joseph’s life poses a serious problem for the
official First Vision account. Backman cites Lucy’s report of the shooting as evidence of the
supposed “bitter persecution” that Joseph experienced following his First Vision.94 The
timing does seem to be right. According to Joseph’s official account (which Lucy follows just
a few pages later), Joseph (who was born December 25, 1805) was no more than about
fourteen years and three months old when he had the First Vision “early in the spring” of
1820 (Joseph Smith—History 1:14), that is, presumably late March or very early April.
Surely, if Joseph had experienced strong persecution immediately after the First Vision, Lucy
would have associated the shooting with that persecution. Yet she says the family never had
any idea what the motive was for the attempted murder of Joseph. Suppose for the sake of
argument that the shooting took place between December 25, 1819 and the beginning of April
1820, and therefore perhaps just prior to the First Vision. Even so, a religious person such as
Lucy would certainly have then associated the shooting with the First Vision (say, as a
demonically inspired attempt to prevent Joseph from having that vision). Yet Lucy made no
connection between the two events. After telling about the unexplained attempt on Joseph’s
life, Lucy even narrated her husband’s seventh vision95 before excerpting Joseph’s account of
his first vision.
The historical evidence considered here shows that Joseph Smith probably did not
suffer any persecution on account of the First Vision during his lifetime, let alone the intense
persecution he claimed to have endured in his teens. In addition, the whole idea of a fourteen-
year-old boy being the object of years of intense opposition and persecution for such a story is
implausible. As has already been mentioned, such stories of visions of deity—even stories of
seeing both the Father and the Son—were surprisingly common during the Second Great
Awakening, the religious revivalist movement that was sweeping early America and
Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoir, ed. Lavina Fielding
90
Anderson (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 141.

91
Ibid., 138, 331-35.
92
Ibid., 335.
93
Ibid., 329.
94
Backman, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 114.
95
Lucy’s Book, ed. Anderson, 329-30.
especially upstate New York during Joseph’s childhood. In fact, such stories were staples of
Methodist conversion testimonies.96
Granted that some Christians in the early 1800s were critical of these visionary
accounts, it is nevertheless highly unlikely that Joseph would have been harassed and
denounced by all or even several area churches over him telling such a story when he was still
just a boy. It is practically certain, rather, that Joseph invented the story as an adult to
characterize himself as a pious individual persecuted from his youth for his religious
testimony, to divert attention from the many known, more likely criticisms that people were
making against him.
5. Joseph’s claims to other visionary experiences taking place after the First Vision
are extremely dubious from several angles.
A full treatment of Joseph’s other alleged visions or visitations subsequent to the First
Vision is impossible here, largely because of the sheer number of them. One LDS scholar has
written a lengthy chapter simply documenting the reports of some 76 visionary experiences
Joseph claimed to have in a 25-year period (1820-1944).97 To put the matter bluntly, Joseph
Smith was either a fraud or a far greater visionary than anyone in the Bible. Visionary
experiences attested clearly in Joseph’s own accounts include many other angels (on several
different occasions); John the Baptist; the apostles Peter, James, and John; Michael identified
as Adam; Michael the archangel; the devil or Lucifer; Moses, Elias, and Elijah (despite the
fact that Elias is simply another form of the name Elijah), Gabriel identified as Noah;
Raphael; and of course the First Vision itself. Setting aside the legitimate theological and
historical-critical objections one might cogently raise to many of these alleged encounters, the
sheer proliferation of them is enough to warrant at least some measure of skepticism. One
need not be predisposed to disbelieve all stories of encounters with supernatural beings to be
warranted in disbelieving some stories. Not all visionaries are equally credible.
Over a dozen (probably about fifteen) of Joseph’s reported visions were of the angel
Moroni, who is said to have appeared to Joseph repeatedly throughout the period from 1823
to 1829. Of these many appearances of Moroni, only one was granted to anyone besides
Joseph Smith. On June 28, 1829, Moroni reportedly appeared to Joseph and three of his
friends and closest supporters—Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris—and
showed them the gold plates that Joseph has just finished translating as the Book of Mormon.
The appearance is recounted in an affidavit of sorts entitled “The Testimony of Three
Witnesses,” which is included as front matter in printed editions of the Book of Mormon.
Two facts are striking about this supposed angelic appearance. First, the three men were able
to see the angel at a place and time specified by Joseph Smith. In effect, he arranged for them
to see the angel. Second, the three men reportedly were only able to see the angel through
faith “by the power of God.”98 These two aspects of the men’s experience make it utterly
unlike any angelic appearance in the Bible and strongly suggest some sort of manipulation by
Joseph Smith.
96
Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness: Methodist Conversion Narratives and Joseph Smith’s
First Vision,” cited earlier.
97
Alexander L. Baugh, “Parting the Veil: Joseph Smith’s Seventy-six Documented Visionary
Experiences,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820-1844, ed. John W.
Welch with Erick B. Carlson (Provo, UT: BYU Press; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 265-326.
98
See also 2 Ne. 27:12 in the Book of Mormon; D&C 5:11, 13-14; 17:1-5.
Two of Joseph’s other supernatural visitations that was reportedly experienced with
someone else in 1829 were the appearances of John the Baptist in May and of the apostles
Peter, James, and John in June to confer on Joseph and Oliver the Aaronic and Melchizedek
priesthoods. The texts describing these supposed momentous events were not part of the 1833
Book of Commandments, the earliest version of the LDS scripture containing Joseph Smith’s
modern revelations that was later called Doctrine & Covenants. One of these later texts that
were not in the Book of Commandments is Doctrine & Covenants 13, a one-sentence
revelation that was written in 1839, first published in 1842, and eventually added to D&C in
1876. The other is D&C 27:5-13, a text of over 300 words added in 1835 to the revelation
previously published as Book of Commandments 28 by splicing them literally into the middle
of a sentence on a completely different subject. Not only is the new material added into the
middle of a sentence, but the “revelation” that tells about Joseph and Oliver receiving the
priesthoods is cumbersome, rambling, and thematically out of place in what was otherwise a
straightforward instruction to use water instead of wine in the sacrament. This evidence
clearly shows that the idea of resurrected persons conferring priesthoods on Joseph Smith and
Oliver Cowdery was added to the LDS scriptures after 1833. No other written evidence for
these claims before 1834 has been found. The reasonable conclusion is that these were stories
that Joseph and Oliver made up years after the events supposedly happened.
One other group of visions may be mentioned here, particularly because of its
relevance to another aspect of the case of Joseph Smith. At least three times, Joseph claimed
that he was compelled to ask women to enter into plural marriages (polygamy) with him
because the angel of the Lord had appeared to him with a sword drawn, threatening him with
destruction if he did not practice polygamy. Shocking as it may seem to non-Mormons, the
LDS Church has recently cited these reports as demonstrating that Joseph practiced plural
marriage out of pious obedience to God.99 It is far more plausible, of course, that Joseph used
this story as a way of manipulating the women (and their parents) into agreeing to the
practice.
Considering the many serious problems attending Joseph’s many other claimed
visionary experiences reasonably adds a further reason to be skeptical of Joseph’s claim to
have seen the Father and the Son in the spring of 1820.
6. Joseph’s work, life, and death do nothing to validate his claim to have seen the
Father and the Son, and in significant ways cast further doubt on that claim.
(a) Joseph’s claim to be a prophet of God has been decisively falsified by his
demonstrably fraudulent translations of ancient texts. A significant part of Joseph’s work as a
prophet was translating ancient scriptures. For most of the ancient scriptures that Joseph
purported to translate by a supernatural gift from God, the alleged ancient original texts are
not available to be compared to his translation. This is most notoriously the case with the
Book of Mormon; the gold plates, if they ever existed, were reportedly shown only to eleven
family members and friends on two carefully orchestrated occasions, and their location is no
longer known.
However, there is one instance in which the original text is available: the Book of
Abraham. Joseph claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham, a short, five-chapter text
partially paralleling material in Genesis, from some ancient Egyptian papyri purchased by the
LDS Church in 1835. In 1966 fragments from the papyri were recovered, and some of those
fragments were clearly from the papyrus that Joseph claimed to have translated (because they
99
“Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo,” LDS.org, 2014.
contained a drawing that Joseph included in the Book of Abraham along with his
explanation). Both LDS and non-LDS Egyptologists have translated the papyrus, and it is a
copy of an ancient pagan Egyptian funerary text called the Book of Breathings, not anything
related to Abraham.100
(b) Joseph Smith’s polygamy is further evidence that he was not a prophet of God.
While some men in the Old Testament practiced polygamy, Joseph Smith claimed to be a
Christian prophet of the restoration of true Christianity at the end of the age. The New
Testament is explicit that men in Christian ministry should have only one wife (1 Tim. 3:2;
Titus 1:6). Moreover, in his zeal to justify his polygamy, Joseph even distorted the Old
Testament, falsely teaching that God had commanded Abraham and others to take plural
wives (D&C 132:1, 29-37, 49-51, 57, 65). However, the assertion that God commanded
plural marriage in biblical times finds absolutely no support from the Bible itself. What one
finds instead is that God tolerated or at most permitted polygamy. In the case of Abraham, the
Bible actually conflicts with Joseph’s interpretation of the matter. According to Genesis,
Abraham’s sexual union with Hagar was an idea proposed by his wife Sarah, not something
the Lord commanded Abraham to do (Gen. 16:2-5).
Various aspects of Joseph’s polygamy are especially troubling, even to long-time
faithful Mormons. His first supposed plural marriage was almost certainly a simply case of
adultery, involving a young maid named Fanny Alger living in his home in the mid-1830s.
Joseph’s legal wife Emma threw Fanny out of their house when she found out about the
relationship, and Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris considered the relationship to have been
adulterous. Later references to the relationship as a plural marriage appear to be nothing more
than after the fact justification. Joseph’s formal plural marriages, contracted from 1841
through 1843, included two pairs of sisters, a mother and daughter, a 14-year-old girl (when
Joseph was 37), and between 12 and 14 married women, at least one of whom bore Joseph a
child. There is also the fact that Joseph consistently lied about the practice.
(c) Joseph suffered and eventually was killed, not for his faith or testimony to Christ,
but for his shady financial dealings, his polygamy, and other public offenses. Contrary to
Mormon propaganda, the intense opposition Joseph endured at first had relatively little to do
with Joseph’s religious claims. It certainly had nothing to do with the First Vision which, as
has been explained, was unknown by most or all Mormons through most of the 1830s and
largely unknown by non-Mormons even well after his death. His troubles at various times
involved accusations of adultery, charges of financial wrongdoing including banking fraud,
acquisition of land and political power, polygamy, and (only toward the end) his scandalous
teaching about becoming Gods.
On June 27, 1844, a mob stormed the Carthage jail and killed Joseph and his brother
Hyrum, although Joseph tried to defend against the mob with a pistol that had been smuggled
into the jail. Although the mob was certainly guilty of manslaughter and acted wickedly (and
stupidly), Joseph was no innocent, peaceful martyr. Yet his murder gave Mormons the pretext
to regard him, as they do to this day, as a lamb who went to the slaughter.
100
See Charles M. Larson, By His Own Hand upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri,
rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Institute for Religious Research, 1992); The Lost Book of Abraham:
Investigating a Remarkable Mormon Claim (DVD, Grand Rapids: IRR, 2002); Robert K. Ritner, The
Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition. P. JS 1-4 and the Hypocephalus of Sheshonq,
with contributions by Marc Coenen, H. Michael Marquardt, and Christopher Woods (Salt Lake City:
Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2011).
Conclusion
There is substantial evidence that nothing corresponding to the First Vision took place
in Joseph Smith’s life in 1820 or at any time in the 1820s. This finding does not preclude the
possibility that he had some sort of religious crisis experience as a young man, perhaps in the
early 1820s. However, the simpler explanation is that Joseph simply invented the story of the
First Vision in the 1830s after he had founded the LDS Church. The origins of Mormonism
are entirely explicable without the First Vision. The story itself drew on popular religious
beliefs of the period, especially the primitivist belief that Christianity had become apostate
and needed to be restored. It also reflected what was at the time a conventional motif of
religious experience, a conversion-related vision of an angel or divine being. Joseph told
markedly different versions of the story, contradicting himself on such fundamental questions
as whether he already thought all of the churches were false and who appeared to him in the
woods. His claim to have been persecuted for at least three years by all of the churches in the
area because of his telling people about the vision is demonstrably false. Moreover, his
subsequent claims to myriad visions of highly dubious character, his fraudulent book of
Abraham translation of an ancient pagan Egyptian funerary text, his scandalous and secretive
practice of polygamy, and the numerous other problems of his own making that led to his
death, all reflect badly on his claim to be a prophet. In turn, those legitimate doubts negate
any credibility that the First Vision might have. The convergence of all these lines of
evidence strongly points to the conclusion that the First Vision never happened.
DIFFERENCES IN THE ACCOUNTS OF PAUL’S AND JOSEPH’S VISIONS
As was explained briefly at the beginning of this paper, throughout Mormon history
Joseph’s first vision has been compared to Paul’s vision of Jesus Christ on the Damascus
road. In recent years LDS scholars and apologists have frequently sought to deflect criticisms
of Joseph’s first vision by arguing that similar issues pertain to Paul’s vision. If such issues or
problems do not stop Christians from accepting Paul’s story, so the argument goes, they
should not stop them from accepting Joseph’s.
The main point of this paper has been to show that the comparative argument fails
because it is based on isolated points of comparison rather than on comparing the two cases
of Paul and Joseph as wholes. It is the totality of the evidence from different directions that
must be considered in each case if any comparison between the two cases is to be made. It
should be clear from the foregoing that the case for Paul’s vision is quite strong while the
case against Joseph’s vision is just as strong. In conclusion, however, the most common
comparison with Paul’s story made by Mormons in defense of Joseph’s vision will be
considered: the differences in the accounts.
To deflect objections arising from the differences in the various accounts of the First
Vision, Mormons often point out that there are differences in the various New Testament
accounts of Paul’s “first vision” of the risen Christ. Anderson, for example, points out that
some of those accounts contain more details than others:
Critics love to dwell on supposed inconsistencies in Joseph Smith’s spontaneous

accounts of his first vision. But people normally give shorter and longer accounts of
their own vivid experiences when retelling them more than once…. This, too,
parallels Paul’s experience. His most detailed account of the vision on the road to
Damascus is the last of several recorded. (See Acts 26:9–20.)101
Anderson states that only in this last account in Acts 26 do we learn that Christ had
revealed that Paul was to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. However, this is incorrect. In
Luke’s third-person narrative account of Paul’s conversion, Luke reports that the Lord told
Ananias that Paul was “a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and
kings and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15). In addition, in his own written account in
Galatians, Paul says the mission to the Gentiles was part of the revelation he received at his
conversion (Gal. 1:16).
The argument regarding verbal differences in the accounts of Paul’s conversion is
taken to the extreme in a recent article by John Tvedtnes in the new LDS apologetic
periodical Interpreter.102 For Tvedtnes, every “variant” or verbal difference in the New
Testament accounts of Paul’s conversion, and even variants with regard to events occurring
over several years following his conversion, should be counted as differences comparable to
the differences in the various accounts of the First Vision. “Indeed, there are fewer
differences between the various accounts of Joseph Smith’s first vision than between the five
different accounts of Paul’s first vision and his trip to Damascus.”103 In order to get these
“five different accounts,” Tvedtnes counts 2 Corinthians 11:32-33, which says nothing about
Paul’s conversion or encounter with Christ but is merely about an event that happened in
Paul’s life some weeks or months later in Damascus (cf. Acts 9:23-25). Three of the other
four accounts appear in the same book, namely, the book of Acts (9:1-30; 22:5-21; 26:12-20),
again including material dealing with events that occurred well after Paul’s vision of Christ.
According to Tvedtnes, “some information given in one account is often left out of others,”
such as the omission in Acts 9:3 of the detail that the vision occurred at noon (cf. Acts 22:6;
26:13).104
The main problem with Tvedtnes’s argument is that it refutes a straw man.
Evangelicals and others who challenge the historicity of the First Vision do not claim that
every verbal difference in the First Vision accounts is evidence against it. No one argues that
Joseph Smith should have told the story with the same details and in the same words every
time. Thus, it is irrelevant that Luke’s report of Paul’s defense before Agrippa has a lengthier
account of Jesus’ words to Paul than Luke’s other, parallel accounts of the same event. Mere
differences are not problematic. Tvedtnes argues with regard to the parallel accounts in Acts
of Jesus’ words to Paul, “if these are intended to be verbatim accounts, then there are clear
contradictions.”105 But the premise is without merit, as there is no reason to think that Luke
intended his parallel accounts to provide verbatim transcripts of Jesus’ exact words. In fact,
since the book has one author who was responsible for the composition of all three parallel
accounts, one may take it as certain that the author did not intend to give complete or
verbatim quotations of Jesus’ words! Nor does any evangelical critic of the First Vision argue
that each account of the First Vision ought to read exactly the same.
101
Anderson, “Parallel Prophets,” 12.
John A. Tvedtnes, “Variants in the Stories of the First Vision of Joseph Smith and the Apostle
102
Paul,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 2 (2012): 73–86.

103
Ibid., 75.
104
Ibid., 84.
105
Ibid.
Tvedtnes concludes, “if we are to allow the Bible to give different versions of Paul’s
first vision and his reaction thereto (including different versions of the conversations that took
place), it seems unreasonable for anyone to criticize Joseph Smith for similar variants in the
different accounts of his first vision.”106 Indeed it would be unreasonable, but this is simply
not the case.
The more common and seemingly more forceful comparison involves the apparent
discrepancies in the accounts in Acts of Paul’s vision. The Mormon apologetics website
FAIRMormon explains the argument as follows:
Latter-day Saints often point out that the Bible's accounts of Paul's vision on the road
to Damascus appear to be contradictory. Yet, the Church’s sectarian critics accept
Paul’s account as true despite the Bible containing apparently frank contradictions in
its accounts. While accepting or explaining away these discrepancies, the critics
nevertheless refuse to give Joseph Smith the same latitude.107
Specifically, FAIRMormon appeals to the apparent discrepancy as to whether Paul’s

companions heard Christ’s voice or not (Acts 9:7; 22:9). The author discusses a popular
explanation of the discrepancy according to which the case of the Greek noun for “voice” is
different in the two verses and consequently the verb associated with it should be translated
differently. According to this exegesis, Acts 9:7 means that they heard the voice while Acts
22:9 means that they did not understand the voice. This interpretation is reflected in several
modern English versions (e.g., ESV, NASB, NET, NIV, TNIV, and NLT). However, as the
author goes on to point out, this exegesis is disputed by an evangelical New Testament
scholar, Daniel B. Wallace.108 The Mormon author leaves it at that—implying that since this
particular resolution of the discrepancy in Acts does not work, the LDS apologetic argument
remains unanswered. If Acts can have discrepancies in its accounts of Paul’s vision and yet
that vision still have taken place, Joseph Smith can have discrepancies in his accounts of his
own vision and yet that vision still have occurred.
This argument fails for three reasons. First, the apparent discrepancy in Acts is a very
minor, inconsequential difference that has nothing to do with the credibility of Paul’s having
seen the risen Christ. Assume for the sake of argument that the two statements in Acts are
actually contradictory. Even if that were the case, the contradiction would be over a minor
side-issue of no direct bearing on whether the event occurred. The difference does not come
close to being as significant as whether Joseph saw God the Father!
Second, a reality check is in order here. The discrepancies in Joseph’s multiple
accounts of the First Vision are significant because the accounts were given at various times
over a period of several years and paralleled his theological development during those years
from monotheist to polytheist. Nothing like that is going on with the accounts in Acts. These
accounts appear in the same book, produced at the same time, and therefore cannot be
evidence of Paul (or Luke) changing the story with the passing of time. The fact that the
accounts are part of the same book, moreover, ought to alert us to the possibility, even the
likelihood, that the difference is an intentional variation, not a mistake.
106
Ibid., 86.
107
“Joseph Smith’s First Vision/Paul’s accounts/Do Greek scholars solve the discrepancies in Paul’s
vision accounts?” FAIR Wiki, 2012.
108
Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New
Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 133-34.
Third, there are good reasons to think that the two statements in Acts are not
contradictory after all, but complementary. The argument from the different cases of the noun
for “voice” may be set aside as indeed fallacious, as not only Wallace but several noted Greek
scholars have pointed out for close to a century.109 To deny that there is a purely grammatical
explanation for the apparent discrepancy between Acts 9:7 and 22:9 does not eliminate the
plausibility of the explanation with which it is typically associated. This is a point made by
many of the same grammarians who have disputed the grammatical argument. A. T.
Robertson, for example, explains that rather than thinking that Luke has flatly contradicted
himself, it is quite natural to understand Acts 9:7 to mean that Paul’s companions heard the
sound of Christ’s voice but could not understand it. Such a distinction is “possible and even
probable here” even though it is not a grammatically “necessary” distinction that can be
assumed elsewhere.110 Richard Young concludes, “Whether the distinction is valid must be
decided on an individual basis and on the sense of the context. It does seem to be valid for
Acts 9:7 and 22:9.”111 Wallace argues, “It is still most reasonable to conclude that these
accounts are not presenting contradictory views about what Paul’s companions heard.”112 The
point may be made quite simply: to say that someone could not “hear” what someone else
said can mean that he did not hear the sounds or that he did not hear them well enough to
make out the specific words. In short, the explanation works without the fallacious
grammatical justification.
Conclusion
The apostle Paul’s vision of Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus enjoys rich
evidential support and is critical as an explanation for his dramatic about-face from
persecutor of the church to apostle to the Gentiles. By contrast, the prophet Joseph Smith’s
vision of Jesus Christ and God the Father in the woods near his upstate New York home in
1820 is not only sorely lacking in evidence, but is utterly lacking in credibility on a wide array
of fronts. Christians are more than consistent in accepting Paul’s story but not Joseph’s.
109
In addition to Wallace, see A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville:
Broadman Press, 1930), 3:118; C. F. D. Moule, An Idiom-Book of New Testament Greek, 2nd ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 36; Richard A. Young, Intermediate New Testament
Greek: A Linguistic and Exegetical Approach (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994), 40.
110
Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 3:117-18.
111
Young, Intermediate New Testament Greek, 40.
112
Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 134 n. 168.

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Paul and Joseph:

Comparing Paul’s Witness to the Resurrection to Joseph Smith’s Visions

Joseph’s comparison of himself to Paul forms the basis of several arguments

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RESURRECTION AND THE FIRST VISION

foundation of his kingdom—not the kingdom of man—never more to cease nor to be

Howard W. Hunter: “I am grateful for my membership in the Church; and my

PERSPECTIVE AND METHOD

The Mormon Comparative Argument

Premise 1: Argument X against the historicity of Joseph’s vision is comparable to

Conclusion 1: If argument X against the historicity of Joseph’s vision is sound, then

This apologetic argument is intended quite specifically and pointedly as a response to

Evangelical Theological Criticism of the First Vision

The parenthetical qualification “as understood in evangelical theology” is expressed

Evangelical Historical Criticism of the First Vision

PAUL’S VISION OF JESUS CHRIST

Sources for Paul’s Vision

Before Paul’s Vision

2. Paul had aggressively persecuted Christians prior to his conversion.

After Paul’s Vision

Hawthorne, Martin, and Reid, 692-93.

Martin, and Reid, 925-27.

Martin, and Reid, 644-53.

JOSEPH’S VISION OF JESUS CHRIST

Sources for Joseph’s Vision

Reference Written/ Description

Before Joseph’s Vision

3. The history of written statements about Joseph’s initial revelatory visions

a. When Did Joseph Have the Vision?

b. What Did Joseph Pray?

c. Whom Did Joseph See?

I found that mankind did not come unto the Lord…

Theological Development of the First Vision

After Joseph’s Vision

Anderson (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 141.

DIFFERENCES IN THE ACCOUNTS OF PAUL’S AND JOSEPH’S VISIONS

Critics love to dwell on supposed inconsistencies in Joseph Smith’s spontaneous

Paul,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 2 (2012): 73–86.

Specifically, FAIRMormon appeals to the apparent discrepancy as to whether Paul’s

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