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Andrew Jenson called First Vision personage an "angel"

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Questions

Is it possible that as late as the end of the nineteenth century that there was uncertainty among LDS Church officials about the identity of Joseph Smith's First Vision visitants? A history article printed in 1888 by assistant Church historian Andrew Jenson twice referred to one of the visitors as an "angel".^[1] Two years later Church leaders revised Jenson's text to clear up the discrepancy but did not provide any notation about the change.

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here

Answer

When the light of historical scholarship shines upon this particular charge of the critics, it quickly becomes apparent that this is really a non-issue. By the time that Andrew Jenson had published his anomalous First Vision account in 1888 the Pearl of Great Price rendition of the same story had already been canonized by the Church for eight years. Latter-day Saints had long been familiar with the official version of events that took place in the Sacred Grove and the precise identities of Joseph Smith's celestial visitors.

Detailed Analysis

The publication that anti-Mormon critics are referring to was called The Historical Record and it was printed in Salt Lake City, Utah. Volume 7 of this collection contains the reference that critics utilize to try and cast doubt upon the veracity of the First Vision account.

Andrew Jenson was not a Church historian ('assistant' or otherwise) in 1888 when he wrote the text in question. A book produced by Jenson himself indicates that “his services were engaged by the First Presidency, and he was blessed and set apart by Apostle Franklin D. Richards [on] April 16, 1891, as ‘an historian’ in the Church.”^[2] Jenson was not sustained as the Assistant Church Historian until 10 April 1898. (See Autobiography, 192, 193, 391). Since Andrew held no position of authority in the LDS Church when he made his "angel" comments, they cannot be looked upon as having any kind of evidentiary value in regard to what Church leaders believed at the time.

Church critics neglect to tell their readership that Andrew Jenson is plainly listed as the editor and the publisher of both the initial 1888 text and the revision which they allege was printed in 1890. Furthermore, they fail to make note of the fact that when volumes 5-8 of The Historical Record were advertised for sale in a Utah newspaper in 1889 it was noted that this was a "work which Brother Jenson offers" to the public (Deseret Weekly, vol. 39, no. 15, 5 October 1889, 460). There is, therefore, no justification whatever in claiming that the LDS Church was somehow responsible for the content of Andrew Jenson's original 1888 article or the revised text that was issued later.

IDENTIFICATION OF THE TWO PERSONAGES

Critics also conveniently forget to tell their audience about the context of the remarks in question. Andrew Jenson is quoting - at length - from the official 1838 Church history account of the First Vision (first published in 1842). Jenson made an important modification to the quoted material that needs to be noted. When Jenson reached the part where the Prophet's two heavenly visitors identified themselves he capitalized the entire phrase, "THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, HEAR HIM". It is the "Son" who is, just a few paragraphs later, twice identified as "the angel". Thus, Jenson does not in any way confuse facts and state that an angel (in the sense of a heavenly being who is subordinate to Deity) appeared during the First Vision. Rather, Andrew Jenson was applying the title of "angel" to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The chronological timeline below demonstrates, with ample documentation, that both before and shortly after Brother Jenson produced his disputed text he understood that Joseph Smith's First Vision consisted of seeing the Father and the Son.

4 July 1877

On 4 April 1877 Andrew Jenson publicly announced that with the approbation of the First Presidency of the LDS Church, and under the direct supervision of Apostle Erastus Snow, he and another LDS convert would publish Joseph Smith's history in the Danish-Norwegian language (Deseret News, vol. 26, no. 12, 25 April 1877, 178). The first pamphlet in this series was printed on 4 July 1877 (see Autobiography, 102-103). In the First Vision section of this pamphlet one of two personages - who are both suspended in the air - points to the other one and says, "Denne er min elskelige Son, hor ham" (Danish trans. - "That is my loveable Son, listen to him").

1879

All of the pamphlets in Jenson's series on the history of the Prophet were combined in book form and entitled Joseph Smiths Levnetslob. The First Vision account is found near the front of the book (Andrew Jenson and Johan A. Bruun, Joseph Smiths Levnetslob (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Office, 1879), 2-4).

17 April 1883

Elder Erastus Snow wrote to Andrew Jenson and informed him that he would be allowed to publish his translation of the Pearl of Great Price in his Danish periodical called Morgenstjernen ("Morning Star") (see Autobiography, 132). Jenson read proofs for this project on 18 November 1883 (see Autobiography, 134) and the text was published in Morgenstjernen, vol. 2, 1883, pp. 81-107 and 161-78. This text identified the Prophet's visitors in the Sacred Grove as the Father and the Son.

January 1886

In The Historical Record, vol. 5, no. 1, January 1886, page 1 Andrew Jenson quoted a Church history text that was written by Elder George A. Smith in 1855 (see Deseret News, vol. 5, no. 26, 5 September 1855, 2). Jenson's quote includes the portion of Elder Smith's history that speaks of the "two glorious Beings" who appeared to the Prophet. Elder Smith's capitalization of the word "Beings" makes it clear that these individuals were Deity.

5 April 1888

In a General Conference address - only about three months after issuing his January 1888 "angel" text - Andrew Jenson said,

"We claim in regard to the Latter-day Saints that it is necessary for them today . . . to know whether Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God or not, and whether or not he did receive the manifestations and power of God; to know if he did see the Father and the Son when he went to the woods to pray . . . . When [Joseph Smith] made the declaration that all were going astray that none of the sects of the day were right and that the Lord acknowledged none of them, he only repeated what was told him. It was very presumptuous for a boy of his standing in society to make such sweeping declarations as these, especially when that boy lived in the wilderness of New York . . . withal unlearned in the things of this world, a mere youth, and yet he made the declaration that all the Christian world had gone astray, that none of the sects were right, and that he had heard the voice of Jehovah" (Millennial Star, vol. 50, no. 18, 30 April 1888, 276-77).

1890 Revision

One thing that critics have not acknowledged in their published comments about Andrew Jenson's text is that near the top of the page of Jenson's revised article he provided an important note about his source material. There he clearly stated that his record was “Compiled in part from the history of Joseph Smith, published in the Millennial Star, and from Geo[rge] Q. Cannon’s writings about Joseph, the Prophet, as published in the Juvenile Instructor.” This is very significant information since a consultation of Brother Cannon’s writings reveals that precisely twenty-two years earlier he was teaching in the Juvenile Instructor that Joseph Smith “had the glorious privilege of beholding the Father and the Son.”^[3] And, of course, the story of the First Vision that Jenson was drawing details from in the Millennial Star was the 1838 official Church history account, where the Father and Son are clearly identified.

16 January 1891

In a public discourse Andrew Jenson spoke of the Prophet attending revivals, entering the woods to pray for wisdom in accordance with James 1:5, being attacked by the power of darkness, a light descending from the sky, and "then a vision of two glorious personages standing above him in the air, one of whom speaking to him, while pointing to the other, said: 'This is my beloved [S]on, hear him.' Here, then, was Jesus Christ being introduced by His Father to Joseph Smith, the praying boy, who next was informed by the Great Redeemer Himself, that all the sects of the day were wrong" (Brian H. Stuy, ed., Collected Discourses [Burbank, CA: B.H.S. Publishing, 1988], 2:[16 January 1891]).

WHY USE THE WORD "ANGEL"?

The one question about this whole episode that cannot be answered with certainty is—Why did Andrew Jenson decide to attach the title of "angel" to Jesus Christ in his January 1888 text? One possible explanation is that he made an innocent copyist's mistake. At the precise point where he employs the term "angel" he stops quoting the official Church history at length and begins closely paraphrasing and mixing together a small amount of material from the 1838 history and the Wentworth Letter. And then he goes right back to quoting the 1838 history at length. This section of the document reads, in the exact order, as follows:

[1838 quotation] "I was answered that I must join none of them . . . . [The personage said,] 'they teach for doctrine the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.'"

[paraphrased mixture / modified] The angel again forbade Joseph to join any of these churches [1838], and he promised that the true and everlasting Gospel should be revealed to him at some future time [Wentworth]. Joseph continues:

[1838 quotation / modified] "Many other things did he (the angel) say unto me which I cannot write at this time."

It may be that when Brother Jenson was creating his document he had both of Joseph Smith's accounts sitting before him (1838 History and 1842 Wentworth). After stopping his direct quote of the 1838 text perhaps he glanced over at the Wentworth Letter's First Vision recital and saw the word "angel" very near to the phrase which he had decided to glean from (located only two sentences away) and when he returned to writing his new document he erroneously incorporated that term.

A second possibility is that Andrew Jenson understood that calling the Savior an "angel" was a perfectly acceptable convention for his time, and he saw nothing inappropriate about utilizing it in his writings. Noah Webster's standard nineteenth century English dictionary lists "Christ" under the entry for "Angel"^[4] and some theological texts of the day called Jesus Christ the "Angel of the Lord" (William Smith, Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 1: s.v. “Angel of the Lord”).

A third possibility is that Andrew Jenson may have been uncritically drawing information from the previously published Joseph Smith journal entry for 14 November 1835 which reads: "I received the first visitation of Angels which was when I was about 14 years old."^[5] If Jenson did not compare this entry with the 9 November 1835 entry (which had been published two weeks earlier)^[6] he may have drawn the faulty conclusion that Joseph Smith had referred to both the Father and the Son as "Angels", instead of the correct conclusion that the Prophet actually "saw many angels" during the First Vision—along with the Father and the Son.

Notes

1. [note] Andrew Jenson, Historical Record (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson, 1888), 7:355–356. (January 1888)
2. [note] Andrew Jenson, Latter-Day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia: A Compilation of Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 4 vols., (Salt Lake City, A. Jenson History Co., 1901; reprinted Salt Lake City, Utah : Greg Kofford Books, 2003), 1:261.
3. [note] George Q. Cannon, "Joseph Smith, the Prophet," The Juvenile Instructor 1 no. 1 (January 1866), 1.
4. [note]  Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828), s.v. "definition #4, entry #4 “Angel,” definition #4, entry #4."
5. [note]  Deseret News (29 May 1852).
6. [note]  Deseret News (15 May 1852).