Gone Are the Days

Abstract

Richard Bushman’s 2005 biography of Joseph Smith incorporated the findings of the New Mormon history. Bushman saw changes over time in Smith’s vision accounts and granted the critics that point, just not their interpretation that it meant Smith did not experience what he claimed. Bushman did not question whether Smith told the truth about his vision, only what truth he told he time he recorded it. Bushman’s Joseph Smith is therefore not the deceived or deceiving one of Fawn Brodie or Wesley Walters, but neither is he the simplified teenage prophet of the movies and manuals. Though initially barred from use in LDS religious education curriculum, provided the standard interpretation of Smith’s first vision adopted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by 2018. This was most evident in “First Vision Accounts” and Saints: The Standard of Truth, volume 1—products espoused and promoted by LDS leaders.