The moment everything supposedly began… and immediately started falling apart.
The First Vision is ground zero for Mormonism. According to the Latter Day Saint belief, in the spring of 1820, a 14-year-old Joseph Smith walked into the woods, prayed about which church was true, and God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him to say: "None of them." Bold start. This single moment is the foundation of the LDS Church's authority. No First Vision? No Restoration. No Restoration? No need for Joseph Smith, gold plates, temples, missionaries on bikes, or any of it.
But there's just one problem. Well, several. And they're all written in Joseph's own hand.
1832 Version: The Forgotten (and Inconvenient) Account
"I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee... my soul was filled with love..."
— Joseph Smith, 1832 First Vision account
Yep, just "the Lord." Not God the Father and Jesus as two separate beings. Just one person. And it gets weirder: this version says Joseph's reason for praying wasn't about which church was true, it was because he felt guilty for his sins. Contrast that with what modern LDS missionaries will tell you: Joseph supposedly prayed about which church to join. That version doesn't show up until years later.
1838 Version: The "Official" Story (aka the Edited One)
"I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description... One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said (pointing to the other)—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"
— Joseph Smith—History 1:17 (Pearl of Great Price)
Now it's God the Father and Jesus, two distinct beings. Now it's about the one true church being restored. Now it's got more theological flair, more drama, and more of what the LDS Church teaches today. The issue? It's not just a minor detail that got clarified over time, it's a completely different event.
So… Which One Was the Real First Vision?
If you're a prophet of God and you had a vision where God the Father and Jesus Christ both physically appeared to you, that's not a detail you accidentally leave out in the first version. That's like Peter forgetting to mention Jesus walking on water in the Gospel of Mark. The First Vision story wasn't revealed as church doctrine until years after the LDS Church was already founded. Why? Because it hadn't even been finalized yet. The story evolved over time to fit the theology that was being invented as Joseph went along.
Biblical Standard for Prophets: Test Everything
"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world."
— 1 John 4:1
"God is not a God of confusion but of peace."
— 1 Corinthians 14:33
God doesn't give multiple contradictory versions of a vision to His prophets. Prophets don't forget who they saw. And God doesn't flip-flop on whether one church is true or whether all of them are an abomination. When someone claiming to speak for God can't get the story straight in their own handwriting, the red flags should be flying.
The House Built on Sand
If the foundation of the LDS Church is the First Vision, and the First Vision changes every time Joseph tells it, what's the Church really built on? And if the story had to be rewritten to become "official," maybe it wasn't inspired. Maybe it was just crafted, like the rest of the narrative that follows.