The Problem of Recordkeeping

A study of Joseph Smith’s accounts of the First Vision must necessarily include a discussion of what it was like to try and keep records at that time. We live in an information age. Never in the history of the world has there been such an abundance of information available to everyone, or so many tools that make recordkeeping possible. In 1820, books and records were much less available, and recordkeeping was much more difficult. To judge Joseph Smith fairly, we must try to understand what it would have been like for him to try and keep records.

Joseph Smith’s education and early record keeping

“Sources concerning Joseph’s earliest years (1805–19) are fragmentary. The main source of information about Joseph’s early years is Lucy Mack Smith’s history.”¹ In her book, Lucy doesn’t say much about the education of her children, other than the following: “As our children had, in a great measure, been debarred from the privilege of schools, we began to make every arrangement to attend to this important duty. We established our second son Hyrum in an academy at Hanover; and the rest, that were of sufficient age, we were sending to a common school that was quite convenient.”² Joseph Smith did not have a formal education, and writing for him was a challenge.

On November 27, 1832, Joseph Smith wrote a letter to William W. Phelps, and said, “O Lord God deliver us in thy due time from the little narrow prison almost as it were total darkness of paper pen and ink and a crooked broken scattered and imperfect language.”³ It seems that writing was not easy for Joseph Smith, perhaps due to his lack of education.

When the Church was organized on April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith received a revelation in which the Lord commanded him: “Behold, there shall be a record kept among you; and in it thou shalt be called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church through the will of God the Father, and the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ.”⁴ As a result of that revelation, “the Prophet learned how important it is to the Lord for a history of the Church to be kept, and he soon called Oliver Cowdery to be the first Church historian and recorder.”⁵

In the early 1800s, Joseph Smith lived in frontier America, where education was not prevelant, and where he would not have had any inclination to write down his experiences. It wasn’t until he received the revelation in 1830 that he started thinking about keeping records in addition to the sacred revelations he had received (including the Book of Mormon). Even after that revelation in 1830, it took him two years to start his history.

The Availability of Paper

I am not a historian, so I can’t give much detail about this, but there is an account in the life of Joseph Smith that indicates paper and writing materials might not have been an accessible commodity, so it would have been challenging to obtain the materials necessary to keep records.

In 1829, Joseph and Emma Smith were living in Harmony, Pennsylvania, on property near Emma’s parents. At this time, Joseph was working on the translation of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Knight Sr. lived about 30 miles to the north, in Colesville, New York, and was very interested in Joseph’s work.⁶ Speaking of Joseph Knight Sr., Joseph Smith wrote: “[He] very kindly and considerately brought us, a quantity of provisions, in order that we might not be interrupted in the work of translation.”⁷ Of that same experience, Joseph Knight Sr. recalled providing “a Barral of Mackrel and some Lined paper for writing … some nine or ten Bushels of grain and some five or six Bushels taters [potatoes] and a pound of tea.”⁸

This small mention of providing paper, along with food, indicates the challenge that it must have been to obtain writing materials. Apparently without it, Joseph could not have continued with the work of translation. If writing materials were not easily available, keeping records would have been challenging.

So What?

Joseph Smith’s earliest account of the First Vision was written in 1832, or 12 years after the experience. Why did he wait so long to try and make a record? I have heard many people say this length of time calls into question the veracity of the experience. Although there are many other factors that can explain why he didn’t immediately write down his experience, one factor is simply the challenge of record keeping.

As an uneducated laborer, Joseph Smith would not have thought to keep a record. Writing was not easy for him, as he expressed in his 1832 letter to W.W. Phelps. The materials were not easily available. Keeping a record was not on his mind until he received a revelation in which the Lord told him to keep a record, and even then it took him a couple of years to start.

I have no concern about the fact that it took Joseph 12 years to record his First Vision experience. Considering the circumstances of his time, it seems reasonable to me that he wouldn’t have thought to write about it.

References

1. Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, “The Early Years, 18​05–19,” in Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer, ed. Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Kent P. Jackson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 1–22, https://rsc.byu.edu/joseph-smith-prophet-seer/early-years-1805-19, (citing Lucy Mack Smith, The Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, ed. Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996), xxxvii; and Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 67–68.)
2. Lucy Mack Smith, The History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, ebook published on Kindle by Zion’s Camp Books, chapter 13.
3. Letter to William W. Phelps, 27 November 1832, p. 2, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 13, 2023, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-william-w-phelps-27-november-1832/2.
4. Doctrine & Covenants 21:1, Revelation, 6 April 1830 [D&C 21], p. 28, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 13, 2023, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-6-april-1830-dc-21/1.
5. Marlin K. Jensen, “There Shall Be a Record Kept among You,” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2007/12/there-shall-be-a-record-kept-among-you?lang=eng&id=p3#p3.
6. Larry E. Morris, “The Knight and Whitmer Families,” in Revelations in Context: The Stories behind the Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Matthew McBride and James Godlberg (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2019), https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/revelations-in-context/the-knight-and-whitmer-families?lang=eng.
7. Morris, “The Knight and Whitmer Families,” (citing Joseph Smith, “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” 20, josephsmithpapers.org.)
8. Morris, “The Knight and Whitmer Families.”