Editing First Vision (section)

===Criticism and response===
Writing of the "unusual excitement on the subject of religion" described in the First Vision story canonized by the LDS Church, [[Milton V. Backman]] said that although "the tools of the historian" could neither verify nor challenge the First Vision, "records of the past can be examined to determine the reliability of Joseph's description regarding the historical setting."<ref>{{Harvnb|Backman|1969|p=2}}</ref> [[Grant H. Palmer|Grant Palmer]] and other critics claim that there are serious discrepancies between the various accounts, as well as [[anachronisms]] revealed by lack of contemporary corroboration.<ref>A recent skeptical summary of the First Vision stories is [[Grant H. Palmer|Grant Palmer]], ''An Insider's View of Mormon Origins'' (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 235–54. Palmer, a retired LDS religious instructor was [[Excommunication (LDS Church)|disfellowshipped]] by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after publishing this book. Palmer concludes his chapter, "The 1832 account describes Joseph's experience most accurately. Smith's 1832 description does not forbid him from joining a church, nor does it mention a revival or persecution. Instead, he became convicted of his sins from reading the scriptures and received forgiveness from the Savior in a personal epiphany. He stated that his call to God's work came in 1823 from an angel, later identified as Moroni. When a crisis developed around the Book of Mormon in 1838, he conflated several events into one. Now he was called by God the Father and Jesus Christ in 1820 during an extended revival, was forbidden to join any existing church, and was greatly persecuted by institutions and individuals for sharing his vision of God. This version is not supported by historical evidence." (253–54)</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Brodie |first1=Fawn |title=No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet |date=1946 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York |pages=24–25 |quote=Joseph's first autobiographical sketch of 1834, which we have already mentioned, contained no whisper of an event that, if it had happened, would have been the most soul-shattering experience of his whole youth. The description of the vision was first published by Orson Pratt in his ''Remarkable Visions'' in 1840, twenty years after it was supposed to have occurred. Between 1820 and 1840 Joseph's friends were writing long panegyrics; his enemies were defaming him in an unceasing stream of affidavits and pamphlets, and Joseph himself was dictating several volumes of Bible-flavored prose. But no one in this long period even intimated that he had heard the story of the two gods. At least, no such intimation has survived in print or manuscript... Joseph's mother, when writing to her brother in 1831 the full details of the Book of Mormon and the founding of the new church, said nothing whatever about the "first vision"... The first published Mormon history, begun with Joseph's collaboration in 1834 by Oliver Cowdery, ignored it altogether, stating that the religious excitement in his neighborhood occurred when he was seventeen (not fourteen)... Joseph's own description of the first vision was not published until 1842, twenty-two years after the memorable event...  If something happened that spring morning in 1820, it passed totally unnoticed in Joseph's home town, and apparently did not even fix itself in the minds of members of his own family. The awesome vision he described in later years may have been the elaboration of some half-remembered dream stimulated by the early revival excitement and reinforced by the rich folklore of visions circulating in his neighborhood.}}</ref> Other critics, like [[Fawn Brodie]] and [[Jerald and Sandra Tanner]], argue that the Smith's accounts are not unique and not much different from similar visions and accounts being reported by others, such as Elias Smith and Asa Wild, around the same time.<ref>[http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/changech6.htm  ''The Changing World of Mormonism''] by Jerald and Sandra Tanner (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Mission, 1981), p. 159. The Elias Smith citation is from Elias Smith, ''The Life, Conversion, Preaching, Travels, and Sufferings of Elias Smith'' (Portsmouth, N.H., 1816, pp. 58-59).</ref>

Leaders of the LDS Church have acknowledged that the First Vision as well as the [[Book of Mormon]] and Smith himself constitute "stumbling blocks for many." [[Apostle (Latter Day Saints)|Apostle]] [[Neal A. Maxwell]] wrote:
<blockquote>In our own time, Joseph Smith, the First Vision, and the Book of Mormon constitute stumbling blocks for many—around which they cannot get—unless they are meek enough to examine all the evidence at hand, not being exclusionary as a result of accumulated attitudes in a secular society. Humbleness of mind is the initiator of expansiveness of mind.<ref>Neal A. Maxwell, ''Meek and Lowly'' (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1987) p. 76.</ref></blockquote>

In a 2007 [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]] documentary, [[Richard Mouw]], an [[Evangelicalism|evangelical]] [[Theology|theologian]] and student of Mormonism, summarized his feelings about the First Vision:
<blockquote>My instinct is to attribute a sincerity to Joseph Smith. And yet at the same time, as an evangelical Christian, I do not believe that the members of the godhead really appeared to him and told him that he should start on a mission of, among other things, denouncing the kinds of things that I believe as a Presbyterian. I can't believe that. And yet at the same time, I really don't believe that he was simply making up a story that he knew to be false in order to manipulate people and to gain power over a religious movement. And so I live with the mystery.<ref>{{citation |contribution-url=https://www.pbs.org/mormons/etc/script.html |contribution=Part One (Night One Transcript) |title=The Mormons |author=''[[Frontline (US TV series)|Frontline]]'' and ''[[American Experience]]'' |editor=[[Helen Whitney]] |publisher=[[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]]|title-link=The Mormons (film) }}</ref> </blockquote>