Under Attack

Abstract

Drawing on newly discovered accounts (1832, 1835) and lots of contextual research, James Allen and Milton Backman added an alternative memory to the buffer on which the saints could draw for memory resources. Believing historians formed a faithful, complex understanding of Smith’s vision that accounted for the incongruity the critics saw in the historical record. The believing historians selected and related new items to old ones. They showed how new elements could be integrated recursively with the long-established story. The laity hardly noticed, however. Compared to the expanding number of Mormons whose conversions were often tied to the canonized account of Smith’s first vision, Mormon historians were a tiny minority. Publishing their findings did almost nothing to alter the Mormon collective memory or make it more resilient to critics. The disruptive potential of the newly discovered records and ways of interpreting them remained latent, waiting for an information age to unleash it.