Mormon Historian Admits Joseph Smith First Vision Problems Raised in CES Letter - Dr. Steven Harper | Ep. 1976

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2024

⏱️ 238 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Join us for a discussion with Sandra Tanner and Dan Vogel as we explore a remarkable video featuring BYU Professor and leading Mormon historian Steven C. Harper. In this video, Harper addresses key issues with the First Vision narrative and acknowledges several challenges raised by the CES Letter.

Show Notes

YouTube

00:07:40 Wesley Walters

00:13:45 Clip - Fawn Brodie

00:26:09 Clip - Steven Harper on Joseph changing his story

00:27:37 Summary of the 1838 Account of the First Vision

00:39:42 Hermeneutics of doubt and trust

00:42:55 Clip - Bushman taking a charitable approach

00:50:02 Clip - publishing through Oxford

00:56:12 Clip - Memory studies nature of memory

01:00:38 John calling BS on Joseph Smith’s vision

01:19:15 Joseph Smith believed that God and Jesus were one being in 1832

01:30:50 The problem with Mormon apologetics with the First Vision

01:37:50 Clip - Critics not trusting Joseph Smith

01:45:32 Clip - How can you know without the Spirit?

01:55:45 Faith is a matter of choice?

02:01:19 Clip - BYU responding to Wes Walters

02:18:12 Clip - How many accounts of the First Vision?

02:36:20 Who visited him changes from 1832 to 1838

02:38:55 Clip - There will always be doubt

02:54:00 Clip - I might not have seen what Joseph saw

02:56:55 Distinguishing features of modern Mormonism

03:03:46 Mental gymnastics

03:13:50 Clip - Who does Joseph tell?

03:19:00 Joseph Smith’s name on the Methodist Sunday School

03:24:55 Clip - Ask Joseph Smith

03:34:25 Final thoughts

Mormon Stories Thanks Our Generous Donors!

Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today:

Our Platforms:

Social Media:

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host
0:04.7	John DeLind. It's December 20th, 2024, and we are super excited today, again, to be covering
0:12.2	Joseph Smith's first vision. It would seem the most simple and straightforward part of
0:19.2	Mormon history, the founding of Mormonism that
0:23.0	many would attribute the first vision to being, you know, it should be as simple as Joseph
0:27.8	Smith tells us what happened and then God's one true church rolls forth like a stone cut out
0:34.6	of the mountains without hands to consume all nations.
0:38.1	But alas, it's not that simple, right, Sandra?
0:41.4	That's right.
0:43.3	So it turns out that in one of the most bold CEO, what is it,
0:51.2	SEO plays in all of sort of Mormon discourse in 2024.
0:56.8	A new YouTube channel has popped up called CES Letters,
1:00.6	which is just simply a brazen attempt at grabbing CES letter SEO
1:08.5	and then trying to promote apologetic, faithful beliefs through that attempt.
1:17.3	That's what we're doing.
1:18.6	This is an ongoing series of us, me, Herardo, Sandra, Dan Vogel, and sometimes a special
1:25.2	guest basically responding to the Mormon Church's attempts
1:30.4	in modern day to try to explain problems in Mormon church history.
1:36.4	So recently, BYU professor, I believe his name is Stephen Harper, who I believe is
1:42.8	one of the founding authors of the Mormon Church's first vision essay in the gospel topics essays.
1:50.0	He has recorded a new video through the CES Letters YouTube channel,
1:55.0	trying to help us all feel better about and restore belief in the credibility of Joseph Smith's first vision.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. John Dehlin, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. John Dehlin and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.