One of the issues that keeps getting brought up is the lack of evidence on the First Vision It s been said repeatedly that there s no historical evidence that Smith had this vision and that it wasn t historically significant enough to be discussed in the context of his early life Let me counter this with a short quote from the Preface to Robert Remini s biography on Joseph Smith I should make it clear at the outset that I am not a Mormon As such I faced several problems in writing this book one of which involved Joseph s visions and revelations which are crucial to an understanding of him his Church and the times in which he lived After considerable thought I decided to present his religious experiences just as he described them in his writings and let readers decide for themselves to what extent they would give credence to them I am not out to prove or disprove any of his claims As a historian I have tried to be as objective as possible in narrating his life and work Remini p x In his book Remini presents the First Vision as Smith said it happened the same as other biographers do and the same way I believe we should do Like Remini we should not be trying to prove or disprove any of Smith s claims but unlike Remini or job is fairly simple We don t have to worry about what was historical and what was not We don t need to do original research Our job is to reflect reliable sources