Appearance
First Vision
The CES Letter's First Vision section opens with a quote from Gordon B. Hinckley staking the Church's credibility on whether the vision happened — then spends four pages arguing it didn't. The method: list the multiple accounts, declare them contradictory, assert no one heard about the vision for over a decade, and close with a personal betrayal frame about institutional concealment.[1]
The core claim is blunt: "This is in direct contradiction to his 1832 first vision account."[2] The accounts differ in emphasis and detail, therefore the story was invented and embellished over time.
But what does the documentary record actually show — and does the variation pattern match fabrication or genuine memory?
Bullet points aren't arguments
The CES Letter lists six "other problems" as rapid-fire bullets — who appeared, Joseph's age, his motive, the revival timing, Presbyterian membership, Godhead theology — giving the impression of overwhelming contradiction without developing any single point enough for the reader to evaluate it.[3]
This is accumulation, not analysis. Each of these has a documented answer. But stacked as a list, they feel unanswerable — which is the point.
Silence isn't denial
The 1832 account doesn't mention two personages, Satan's opposition, or the "which church" question. The CES Letter treats these omissions as contradictions — as if not mentioning something is the same as denying it.[2:1]
That's not how memory works, and it's not how anyone evaluates historical accounts. Paul's three retellings of his Damascus Road experience in Acts vary on whether his companions heard the voice, whether only Paul fell down, and whether his commission came from Ananias or directly from Jesus. No serious biblical scholar treats those variations as evidence Paul invented the experience.[4]
The "late appearance" claim is factually wrong
The CES Letter states: "There is absolutely no record of any claimed 'first vision' prior to this 1832 account."[5]
That's false. The Palmyra Reflector (February 14, 1831) — a hostile newspaper — reported that Joseph "had seen God frequently and personally." D&C 20:5, canonized in April 1830, references "a remission of his sins" in a three-part narrative matching the First Vision arc. The Joseph Capron affidavit (1827) mocked the Smiths for "holy intercourse with Almighty God."[6]
Hostile witnesses were talking about the vision before Joseph wrote it down. That's not the pattern of a story being invented. It's the pattern of an oral account that preceded a written one.
A friendly source, frozen in time
The CES Letter quotes BYU historian James B. Allen's 1966 Dialogue article — "There is little if any evidence..." — as though it were a devastating insider admission.[5:1] It doesn't mention that Allen was a faithful Latter-day Saint, was working with incomplete records, and updated his position as new documents surfaced. Runnells freezes the scholarship at 1966 and ignores everything that came after.
The same tactic applies to the revival question. The CES Letter relies on Wesley Walters's no-revival thesis, which has since been contradicted by camp meeting records, Methodist conference minutes, the Palmyra Register (June 28, 1820), and membership statistics showing Genesee District Methodists grew 24% in one year.[7]
The positive case
The First Vision is, by documentary standards, the best-documented theophany in history. Nine accounts survive from Joseph's lifetime — four firsthand, five secondhand — more than exist for Moses at the burning bush, Isaiah's temple vision, or Paul on the road to Damascus.[8]
The 1835 account destroys the embellishment thesis. If the story were growing over time, details should increase with each telling. The 1835 account — three years before the "official" 1838 version — includes "many angels" in addition to two personages. The 1838 account drops the angels. A fabricated narrative adds spectacle. This one removes it.[9]
The 1832 account is the fatal problem for fabrication. It's a private, unfinished, unpublished journal entry partly in Joseph's own handwriting. Its content — personal anguish over sin, the Lord granting forgiveness — doesn't serve the institutional purpose the fabrication thesis requires. A man inventing a divine endorsement for his church would lead with "God told me to start a new church." Joseph led with "I was convicted of my sins and the Lord forgave me."[10]
Steven C. Harper applied cognitive memory research to the accounts and found the variation pattern matches what scientists document in genuine recollections of significant events. A fabricated story tends to become more fixed over time — working from a script. The First Vision accounts show natural variation. Seven core elements remain consistent across all of them.[11]
Bottom line: The CES Letter presents variation between accounts as proof of fabrication. Memory science says the opposite — it's fabricated stories that stay rigid. The First Vision has nine surviving accounts, hostile witnesses corroborating the claim before Joseph wrote it down, and a variation pattern that matches real memory. It's not the weakest link in the chain. It's among the strongest.
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "First Vision," pp. 32-35. ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "First Vision," pp. 34-35. ↩︎
John A. Tvedtnes, cited in "First Vision," Debunking the CES Letter, https://debunking-cesletter.com/first-vision/. "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." See also "Why Are There Different Accounts of Paul's Conversion?" Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/why-are-there-different-accounts-of-pauls-conversion ↩︎
"Gold Bible, No. 6," The Reflector (Palmyra, NY), February 14, 1831; D&C 20:5 (April 1830); Joseph Capron affidavit, collected by D.P. Hurlbut (1833), in E.D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (1834), 259. Capron describes the Smiths' claims to "holy intercourse with Almighty God" during the late 1820s. ↩︎
Larry C. Porter, "Rev. George Lane — Good 'Gifts,' Much 'Grace,' and Marked 'Usefulness,'" BYU Studies 9, no. 3 (1969): 321-340; Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 36-39. Bushman documented 19 revival locations in the region during 1819-1820. ↩︎
Steven C. Harper, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). Harper calls it "the best-documented theophany in history." ↩︎
Joseph Smith, Journal, 9-11 November 1835, pp. 23-24, Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-1835-1836/24 ↩︎
History, circa Summer 1832, Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-summer-1832/1 ↩︎
Steven C. Harper, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), chapters 2-3. Harper applies findings from cognitive psychology on flashbulb memory and autobiographical memory to the First Vision accounts. ↩︎