Hi there, podcast friends, Professor Anthony Sweat from the Department of Church History and Doctrine at BYU.

I want to kick off this episode by asking you a few questions.

If I were to ask you, what were the first words that God spoke to teenage Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove?

What would you say?

You might have answered with, Joseph, this is my beloved son, hear him, but would any of you have said, Joseph, my son, thy sins are forgiven thee?

Or fill in the blank from the first vision, Quote, I saw a column of what?

Light, right?

Actually, a few of the first vision accounts don't use the word light.

Instead, they use the word fire.

Who else did Joseph Smith see in the first vision other than the father and the sun?

One account says, quote, I saw many angels.

Or, what if I asked you this? How old was Joseph when he began his search for truth?

14, you say? Well, actually, listen to this. Quote, at about the age of 12 years, my mind became seriously impressed with regard

for the all-important concerns for the welfare of my immortal soul, end of quote.

Where are these details coming from, and how is it that you may not be familiar with some of them?

Well, they come to us from the nine contemporary accounts of the First Vision produced

during Joseph Smith's lifetime. Most of us are already very familiar with the official

1838 account in Joseph Smith history canonized in the Pearl of Great Price. But there are also

accounts from Joseph in 1832, 1835, and 1842, along with Orson Pratt's 1840 account,

Orson Hyde's 1842 account, David Nye White's 1843 and Alexander Nybar's 1844 account of the First Vision.

Professor Kerry Mulestein from BOU's Department of Ancient Scripture

has taken these nine accounts and put them together in a fabulous book publication

...