Mormon Discussion’s podcast production is certainly not connected to The Mormon Church aka The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It also is most assuredly not approved or endorsed by Intellectual Reserve, Inc or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Any of the awesome content or the solid opinions expressed, implied or included in Mormon Discussion Inc’s awesome podcast lineup and production are solely those of Mormon Discussion Inc. and/or its program hosts and not those of Intellectual Reserve, Inc. or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Mormon Discussion Inc is a 501(c)(3) and is in the arena of journalistic work and is part of a free press. A free press is fundamental to a democratic society. It seeks out and circulates news, information, ideas, comment and opinion and holds those in authority to account. The press provides the platform for a multiplicity of voices to be heard. At national, regional and local level, it is the public’s watchdog, activist and guardian as well as educator, entertainer and contemporary chronicler. Under the “fair use” defense, however, another author may make limited use of the original author’s work without asking permission. Fair use is based on the belief that the public is entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism.
The fair use privilege is perhaps the most significant limitation on a copyright owner’s exclusive rights.
Subject to some general limitations discussed later in this article, the following types of uses are usually deemed fair uses:
- Criticism and commentary: for example, quoting or excerpting a work in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment. A book reviewer would be permitted to quote passages from a book in a newspaper column, for example, as part of an examination of the book.
- News reporting: such as summarizing an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report. A journalist would be permitted to quote from a political speech’s text without the politician’s permission.
- Research and scholarship: perhaps quoting a short passage in a scholarly, scientific, or technical work for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations. An art historian would be able to use an image of a painting in an academic article that analyzes the painting.
- Nonprofit educational uses: for example, when teachers photocopy limited portions of written works for classroom use. An English teacher would be permitted to copy a few pages of a book to show to the class as part of a lesson plan.
- Parody: that is, a work that ridicules another, usually well-known, work by imitating it in a comic way. A comedian could quote from a movie star’s speech in order to make fun of that star.
About the missing pages at the back of JS’s journal: I wonder…Could it be they were blank pages when they were torn out? Because that’s part of how Mark Hoffman got his forgeries to pass inspection: he removed pages from old books and journals and wrote on them. That way the paper passed the dating tests.
As far as the word vision goes this quote came to my mind from a Mormon Matters interview. I wrote it down because it was so jarring for me to think of it as anything other than a physical manifestation.
“The first vision is an example of our current understanding being imposed back onto the First Vision. To my knowledge, for him it was always a vision in which anything could happen and not be doctrinally accurate. We have made it into a visitation. In fact in that 1976 film “Joseph Smith’s First Vision”, the subtitle was The visitation of the Father and the Son to the Prophet Joseph Smith. I was in the theater with Bob Millet when we watched that and both of our eyebrows flipped over the top of our heads because that was like “wow when did it become the visitation!?!” See? It seems that we have imposed our current understanding onto the first vision.”
– Phil McLemore, http://mormonmatters.org/2014/07/16/239-243-jesus-christ-within-mormonism/, part 1, about 1:05:00
i like this and once we narrow Joseph down to one who had a vision that he and everyone after has over reached on this and everything else then we can begin to let go of the stuff we said came from God that didn’t and stop hurting others.
Jeff Lindsay mentions several pre-1832 documents that show early discussions of JS’s first vision, that you do not discuss in this. It also appears that BY had discussed the First Vision as well.
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_first_vision.shtml
I would love a link please of any pre 1832 documents. Thanks
This is very interesting and thought provoking. I recently read a book by an LDS author on near death experiences entitled “The Eternal Journey: How Near-Death Experiences Illuminate Our Earthly Lives” by Craig R. Lundahl. This brings about a number of thoughts regarding the first vision. My first thought was if Joseph’s vision could be compared to the spiritual visions or experiences by these people. Did the people they encountered in an ND appear to have physical bodies. It seems to me that this type of spiritual experience could be likened to Joseph’s vision and what he experienced. It may be similar in nature to his vision of Moroni and other beings. I’m certainly not implying that I believe Joseph had an ND. I just think that it’s possible that spiritual visions may be similar in nature to the spiritual visions or experiences in an ND. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks for a great podcast.