Interview of Church Historian and BYU Professor, Dr. Harper

[nibbler]

Or in some tellings you have two babies instead of one.

[Roy]

JS also went back and made changes and revisions to some of his revelations afterwards as his understanding evolved.

Right, there have been several editions of the D&C and we can see how revelations have been revised over time.

It concerns me again that Dr. Harper only addresses the FV as a material and corporeal visitation. Did JS and his contemporaries consider it as a vision or a visitation? What evidence do we have for how JS understood his own experience?

I've never really thought of it before and perhaps it's the subject of another post but if it was a vision how could the vision alone establish that god has a corporeal body? Then again, if it's a visitation but there's no physical contact, how would the visitation establish that god has a corporeal body?

When Jesus visited disciples after the resurrection the disciples in those stories would often touch Jesus to establish that he was corporeal. Sight only (vision or visitation with no physical contact) doesn't really achieve that.

I don't know that Joseph Smith ever claimed that the teaching that god had a body was derived from his FV experience. It's my understanding that the concept of god and Jesus being two separate beings came much later in the restoration. That could also be why we have multiple FV accounts; much like the D&C, the FV had to be revisited and tweaked as the theology matured.

Yes, If the FV was ethereal and ineffable and abstract as a vision then it becomes much more pliable.

I like to think of the vision of young Colton Burpo.

In the wake of this revelation, Todd had more questions than answers. How had Colton known what his parents were doing during the operation? Todd and Sonja hadn’t told him—had someone else? Most importantly, was the experience Colton described a dream, or had Jesus and the angels really visited him?

Once the Burpos had returned home from their trip, Todd decided to ask Colton more about his experience with Jesus and the angels. He started with an open question: What else happened when Colton was with Jesus?

First, Colton revealed that he’d met not only Jesus, but also Jesus’s cousin. Jesus told Colton that his cousin had baptized him. (Colton said that he didn’t know the cousin’s name, but Todd identified him as John the Baptist.) Then, Colton blurted out that Jesus owned a rainbow-colored horse. Finally, he stated that there had been lots of colors in the place he’d been. Todd asked where exactly that place was. Colton responded that it was heaven.

This information floored Todd. Until then, he’d assumed that if Colton’s experience was real, it had been an example of divine visitation: Jesus and the angels appearing to someone on Earth. However, it now seemed that Colton had traveled to heaven.

I think that it is worth a compare and contrast with the FV of JS.

Colton's dad wondered if it was a dream or a visitation, then he seemed to adjust to the idea that Colton had "traveled to heaven." This happened while Colton's body was in surgery. What does it mean to "travel" to another place while your body is located in another place? Is this astral projection? How is it different from a visionary dream or a vision? We have lots of scriptural examples of these sorts of revelations.

How should we interpret that Colton saw that Jesus owns a rainbow-colored horse? Is that a metaphor and symbolic or does everyone in heaven get their own rainbow colored horse?

I feel like if Colton's vision was in the same time/place/circumstance as the FV of JS then we might today be insisting that Colton was visited by a material and corporeal rainbow-colored horse and that this proves that horses go to heaven and they are rainbow colored.

Ok. Now I'm going to get real heretical. JS not only felt empowered to make changes and revisions to his OWN FV experience and D&C revelations but, I would argue, that JS likewise felt empowered to make changes and revisions to the holy writings of others. I feel that the BOM, inserted timeline-wise between the Old and New Testament, represents such a change and revision. JS later did the same with the BOA. He also applies a similar approach to his revision/translation of the bible and makes many changes through revelation. This is also where he receives the Book of Moses and inserts it into the scriptural timeline. My point in bringing this up is only to suggest that JS felt empowered for his inspirations and revelations to travel non-linearly. IOW, He could go back and change history to better align with his current present.

[DarkJedi]

I know I'm a little late to the party but I was on a trip and then there's all the stuff to catch up on. So here I am.

I started the video but didn't finish, too long for me for something that wasn't a movie I like (and I've cut out of shorter movies before). From what I saw I think your take is good Roy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFfZfNvCntY

My general summary is that Dr. Harper is a longtime church employee that cannot say anything that contradicts the current dominant LDS narrative and this makes me feel like he is less genuine. Like everything he says is through a lens/persona of someone who is half historian and half PR spokesman for the church. Because of this dual role, I feel that Dr. Harper sacrifices trying to understand or illustrate the historical JS in favor of the current LDS legendary status of the man. This plays into my difficulty in trusting church sources because I feel like I am being continuously blamed, gaslighted, and patronized. I feel that this is a very different approach than what seems to be a more academic (while still faithful and charitable) historical approach taken by Richard Bushman.

Agreed I often feel the same with people like Richard Bushman or Terryl Givens. But I think Bushman and Givens tell the truth (or at least the facts they know) and offer little in the way of their own opinion on historical matters, and they seem to let the readers draw their own conclusions. I think Harper is less like that and thus more prone to having to walk the line.

Assume that you never have all the facts. There are historians that spend their whole lives studying this out and they don't have all the facts. You will never have all the context.

I am not a real historian, but I was a history teacher. I learned several things from that experience, including that history actually changes as available facts and evidence change. And, history is always viewed and written through a lens - even first hand accounts are from the point of view of the person offering it. We never will have all the facts and we never will have an unbiased account.

It was pointed out that some individuals legitimately could have expected to be better informed through their church studies. This is partially why the "Come follow me" program places responsibility on the individual for your own gospel learning. However, "our teachers and the church need to prepare." (I'm not fully sure what was meant by that sentence, I listened to it multiple times)

Yeah, I don't get it either. I do believe in the premise of Come Follow Me, but I believe it was poorly implemented. However I do give the church a pass on the implementation because what they were attempting was a wholesale culture change of being spoon fed everything. I think I believe in Come Follow Me because it's what I did before there was a "program" in the process of rebuilding my faith but I think most people haven't done anything in that respect because they don't see the need or importance (even though the prophet they profess to follow has told them they do). Again, I give them a pass because I think they simply don't know how (or maybe don't want to put in the effort - a side effect of having been spoon fed).

Put faith in JC. Some may have false assumptions about who JC is but we can get a more accurate depiction through his direct words in the D&C. Faith in Christ leads to faith in those that Jesus has called and revealed himself through. For example, JS was flawed but was chosen as the representative of JC. BY had plenty of faults that we could dig up if we wanted, but if we are charitable we can learn from his faults while also celebrating his achievements.

Faith in Jesus Christ I absolutely agree with. I also agree that many people (members) really do have false assumptions about Christ and about God. That's what my faith crisis was about (as opposed to historical issues). I guess that makes my point of view on this very different. I disagree that D&C is the best best way to get an accurate depiction but I honestly have not studied it extensively since coming to my own view and understanding of Christ (FWIW, I believe the four gospels to be the best way to get an understanding of JC).

And I agree that Joseph and Brigham and many other early church leaders were flawed and God still worked with them. That's important to understand because it also helps us understand that God will work with us as well, despite our own flaws (and despite our "worthiness" - all are worthy of God's love and help). I also disagree that faith in Christ leads to faith in our leaders, and could do just the opposite.

Many that leave Mormonism also lose faith in the bible because without the BoM as a supporting witness the Bible doesn't seem credible.

Yep, many people who leave the church do lose faith in the Bible but that's because they can't separate the idea that God and the Gospel could exist and be true without the "true" church. IOW, most people who I know who have left the church also left religion behind completely (although I do know some who make a go of it in other churches or religions). I am honestly not sure the BoM has much to do with it other than the idea that of the church is not true then neither is the BoM (along with the other dominoes that fall). My own point of view is that neither the Bible nor the BoM validate one another, but they are both good books which can and do bring people closer to God and Christ.

If you can't believe in restored gospel, believe in God and then work your way back. Lots have done so. It is often through personal spiritual experiences that people find their way back and not through rationality. Testimony delivered that we can access spiritual knowledge and that it is reliable.

One of the few ideas I am mostly in agreement with - because it was my own experience. However, I did and do use rationality.

Mention of depression and that some struggling with it might not feel the sprit in those moments but can rely on those spiritual impressions they had before the depression. Communication always involves an Encoder and a decoder and noise. We can work to be better decoders. Doubts and skepticism can be noise that prevents our access to the communication.

Maybe. It's not this simple, and doubts are not evil. This idea also smacks a bit of blaming the victim.

Story of guy named McClellan that asked for and received revelation through JS. He later became very antagonistic to JS but always affirmed the revelation addressed to him and also the BoM. Anyway, he led a tortured life of only intermittently following the advice calling him to repentance in the revelation. Sometimes people leave the church because they don't want to be reminded of the need to repent.

I am familiar with the McClellan story (I may actually be distantly related to him) but it's far more complex. What I think Harper is really trying to say here is that some people leave the church because they want to sin (where have you heard that before?). I don't think that's true, but I do think some people leave because they don't believe what they're doing is a sin or is as serious a sin AND the church can make the repentance process seem much more arduous than it really is (it has nothing to do with punishment).

First Vision Accounts:
Question your assumptions, Don't assume that you would tell your parents right away, or right it down right away, or always tell it the same way. You can't assume to know what an 1820 person would do. Don't assume that JS is lying. Lots of people were having visions at the time but most were limited in purpose to personal comfort. God can appear to anyone and can be at work in the lives of Muslims and Christians of all flavors. Most (of the contemporaries of JS that were having visions) tended to get more ambiguous or uncertain about the exact nature of their visions over time. JS, by contrast, became more concrete over time. Through his "interpretive memories" that make sense of it in retrospect.

Agreed. We have a very different point of view than those that lived in that area 200 years ago. Mysticism was a much more prevalent and important part of their every day lives, and we simply can't understand.

The FV gives us the true nature of God. "If JS is telling the truth and God shows up materially" standing next to his son. We often say ... God & Christ show up in corporeal bodies, that's true but also more stuff.

I have little trouble with the idea that what Joseph said he saw was God the Father and Jesus Christ as separate beings. It makes some sense to me. I do not believe they appeared corporeally or physically - Jospeh never said it was anything other than a vision.

Restoration is fullness of Gospel and that is a responsibility to share with others but not something that makes us better than them.

Agreed it doesn't make us better than others - we're not that chosen. We probably have a different definition of what the restoration means and what sharing it means.

[DarkJedi]

The FV gives us the true nature of God. "If JS is telling the truth and God shows up materially" standing next to his son. We often say ... God & Christ show up in corporeal bodies, that's true but also more stuff.

The first vision is a pretty safe go-to example when church apologists are addressing church history issues. There are multiple accounts and how do we harmonize those? Do we dismiss the experience because of the multiple accounts? I think most people can understand that there are multiple logical and rational reasons why we might expect multiple accounts. Easy-peazy

It concerns me again that Dr. Harper only addresses the FV as a material and corporeal visitation. Did JS and his contemporaries consider it as a vision or a visitation? What evidence do we have for how JS understood his own experience? If JS considered it a vision and not a visitation, why would we not believe him? How does Dr. Harper's position and training as a historian and also experience with/access to the 1st person accounts of JS and his contemporaries inform Dr. Harper's stated position that this was a material and corporeal visitation? Is this position something that was arrived at academically or is it something that was confirmed through the holy spirit?

As you're probably aware, I live in (and grew up in) an area quite close to the "cradle of the restoration." I have been to Palmyra, the "sacred grove," the Hill Cumorah, etc., too many times to count or remember. I have studied the first vision fairly extensively (which is why I am convinced that what Joseph was really asking for was forgiveness, and according to him he got it). Nowhere in anything I have ever read did Joseph refer to it as anything other than a vision. And, Joseph himself rarely talked about it and seemingly didn't like to talk about it. He did not see that as what made him a prophet (probably because it was more personal for him because he was seeking forgiveness). Most of the earliest church leaders knew little or nothing at all about it.

I think the idea that it was a corporeal visit, as opposed to "only" a vision, is that most people can't wrap their heads around the abstract idea of a vision or "waking dream." That's not real enough for them. There's really a conundrum there because we talk about having to have faith in God and Jesus and many other things because we can't see or touch them, but in order for the FV to be "real" it had to be physical. I would also assert that while as far as we know no one else was present, if someone else were present it is entirely possible Joseph could have seen it but not the other person (and this could be true of Moroni's visits where there were others present, although apparently asleep).

[Roy]

As you're probably aware, I live in (and grew up in) an area quite close to the "cradle of the restoration." I have been to Palmyra, the "sacred grove," the Hill Cumorah, etc., too many times to count or remember. I have studied the first vision fairly extensively (which is why I am convinced that what Joseph was really asking for was forgiveness, and according to him he got it). Nowhere in anything I have ever read did Joseph refer to it as anything other than a vision. And, Joseph himself rarely talked about it and seemingly didn't like to talk about it. He did not see that as what made him a prophet (probably because it was more personal for him because he was seeking forgiveness). Most of the earliest church leaders knew little or nothing at all about it.

I think the idea that it was a corporeal visit, as opposed to "only" a vision, is that most people can't wrap their heads around the abstract idea of a vision or "waking dream." That's not real enough for them. There's really a conundrum there because we talk about having to have faith in God and Jesus and many other things because we can't see or touch them, but in order for the FV to be "real" it had to be physical. I would also assert that while as far as we know no one else was present, if someone else were present it is entirely possible Joseph could have seen it but not the other person (and this could be true of Moroni's visits where there were others present, although apparently asleep).

Yeah, lots of people need for it to be a corporeal visitation for it to be "real." We also have the same problem with the golden plates. Did it have to be physical plates? Why? What if God wanted to give us correct principles through an extended parable?

I think we have good evidence for the visions not being visible to other people present.

“Through the power of the spirit our eyes were opened and our understandings were enlightened,” they wrote, “so as to see and understand the things of God.”2 Philo Dibble, who was also in the translating room that day, remembered that he “felt the power, but did not see the vision.”3 Joseph and Sidney’s account of their experience was soon recorded in the Church’s revelation book, copied by missionaries to be shared in the Church’s branches, and published in the Church newspaper.

From the preface of D&C 110

Visions manifested to Joseph Smith the Prophet and Oliver Cowdery in the temple at Kirtland, Ohio, April 3, 1836. The occasion was that of a Sabbath day meeting. Joseph Smith’s history states: “In the afternoon, I assisted the other Presidents in distributing the Lord’s Supper to the Church, receiving it from the Twelve, whose privilege it was to officiate at the sacred desk this day. After having performed this service to my brethren, I retired to the pulpit, the veils being dropped, and bowed myself, with Oliver Cowdery, in solemn and silent prayer. After rising from prayer, the following vision was opened to both of us.”

1–10, The Lord Jehovah appears in glory and accepts the Kirtland Temple as His house; 11–12, Moses and Elias each appear and commit their keys and dispensations; 13–16, Elijah returns and commits the keys of his dispensation as promised by Malachi.

Here we have Jesus and others appear to JS in a "vision" and bestow priesthood keys.