Item Detail
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26343
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5
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13
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English
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Evaluating Three Arguments Against Joseph Smith's First Vision
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Interpreter : A Journal of Mormon Scripture
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2
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Orem, UT
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The Interpreter Foundation
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17-33
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Historically there have been just three basic arguments against the authenticity of Joseph Smith's first vision. They all begin with the a priori premise that such a vision simply could not have happened. The arguments originated with the Methodist minister to whom Joseph related his vision, author Fawn Brodie, and the Reverend Wesley Walters. The minister's critique is explained by Methodism's shift away from ecstatic religious experience. Fawn Brodie is shown to have made innovative yet flawed arguments within the narrow scope allowed by her conclusion that Joseph was a charlatan—a conclusion that did not allow for alternative interpretations of new evidence. Walters is shown to make fallacious arguments of irrelevant proof and negative proof in his understandably determined effort to undermine Joseph Smith's credibility. Close-minded believers in Joseph's vision are similarly likely to make unfounded assumptions unless they become open to the rich historical record Joseph created. Belief in the vision should correspond to Christian empathy for and civility toward critics.
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“Effusions of an Enthusiastic Brain” : Joseph Smith’s First Vision and the Limits of Experiential Religion
First Vision Controversies : Implications for Accounts of Mormon Origins
Joseph Smith and the Doctrine of Sealing
Sincerity, Imagination, and Mythmaking : Fawn Brodie and the First Vision
Variants in the Stories of the First Vision of Joseph Smith and the Apostle Paul -
Awakenings in the Burned-Over District : New Light on the Historical Setting of the First Vision
‘Awash in a Sea of Faith’: America and the Second Great Awakening
Fawn McKay Brodie : A Biographer's Life
History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, and Morris' Reserve
Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith : Psychobiography and the Book of Mormon
Joseph Smith : The Making of a Prophet
New Light on Mormon Origins From the Palmyra Revival
No Man Knows My History : The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet
Opening the Heavens : Accounts of Divine Manifestations 1820-1844
Reverend George Lane--Good 'Gifts,' Much 'Grace,' and Marked 'Usefulness'
The Power and Form of Godliness : Methodist Conversion Narratives and Joseph Smith's First Vision
The Words of Joseph Smith : The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph
William Smith on Mormonism