Talk:First Vision

message: I'm wondering about the side-by-side comparison section added in this edit. At first glance it seemed interesting, but when I look at the rest of the article it seems a but unwieldy and redundant. Earlier in the article we have several subsections with fairly detailed descriptions of each account. And if that's not enough, further down there's a large table explicitly noting the differences between accounts. I feel the more digested version is more accessible to readers than side-by-sides of the complete texts but the side-by-side could be interesting to some. Would it make sense to create a daughter article like Comparison of First Vision accounts? pinging User:Epachamo and User:John Foxe ~Awilley (talk) 04:56, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm. I can see advantages to both. John Foxe (talk) 15:40, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

text: Full disclosure, it was me who added the side-by-side comparison.  I put it at the end so as not to take away from the simplicity of the 'digested version.'  A casual reader can get the general overview, and the reader who finds the complete texts interesting can get what they want as well.  If there is a new daughter article, I think it should include ALL of the 'redundant sections', and just keep in this article a summary of the salient points.  I am willing to create the new daughter article if it is agreed that this should be the case. It could also include comparisons of secondary accounts as well, which would definitely be unwieldy in this article, but be interesting to some. Unless you object Awilley or John Foxe, I will start to make the change. Epachamo (talk) 15:39, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fine with me. (I pinged you because you had added the new section). As for what happens with this article if/when the daughter is created, I think the new section should go entirely and the other ones might merit some prudent trimming and a  template at the top of the section. ~Awilley (talk) 18:16, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I'll give it another week of waiting, and if I haven't heard anything by then, I will begin a draft article and invite both of you for editing.  My intent would be to include the new section entirely, add content from the other sections.  Once it is live and accepted, then prune this current article down to a single section. Epachamo (talk) 15:17, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

text: I think in the comparison article in its current form is VERY incomplete.  It could show ALL the accounts and even second hand recollections, which would make the daughter article more necessary than it is now.  I will tell you that I myself came to this article trying to find a side by side comparison and did not find one.  I then searched the internet and could not find one, which is why I added it.  I completely agree that it is not interesting to every reader, but there is a subset of readers like myself who will find it extremely interesting.  The current article is getting rather large and it will get larger over the next month, as several discussions are incomplete. Epachamo (talk) 21:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  New side-by-side comparison section 

message: Over the last couple of weeks I've read dozens of articles and books the last month on the First Vision and only one D. Michael Quinn has anything to say that connects Smith's folk magic background with the first vision. It is the only source quoted in this article, and I argue that the meaning and intent of what Quinn writes in not reflected appropriately here in this article. The vast majority of scholars feel that the First Vision was a result of the religious environment, not folk magic environment. To be clear, Quinn does NOT claim that folk magic was an influence in Smith receiving his vision as is strongly implied in this article.  Quinn was and still is a believer that the First Vision actually occurred, and his book is written through that lens.  Here is what Quinn says in full:
"In light of the efforts of ordained clergy to suppress folk magic, Joseph Sr.'s 1820 thophany ("first vision") is important. By the early 1820s the Smith family had already participated in a wide range of magic practices, and Smith's first vision occurred whithin the context of his family's treasure-quest. 
 His first emphasis was God's forgiveness, yet some of Smith narratives state that God told him the clergymen of any organized church were wrong.  At this time the revivals of western New York's so-called 'Burned-over District' were bringing thousands out of private folk religion and into organized churches, whose clergy opposed folk magic.  Nonetheless, Smith's vision of the divine gave him every reason to ignore the clergy's insturctions, including denunciations of the occult."
In other words, according to Quinn, the role that magic played into how Smith and other's responded to it.  He continues in another section:
"It was not because of its content that Palmyra residents ridiculed Joseph Smith's first vision, but because of the claim that God appeard to a local treasure-seer."
It should be noted that Quinn's book came out at the same time as the Salamander letter, and was in part a response to it.  The only other section that I could find in his book connecting magic to Smith's vision is painful when viewed from this side of history:
"After Joseph Smith's 1820 face-to-face vision of God, his cultural heritage predisposed him to expect a visitation from ' Salamanders, the inflamed guests of the region of fire.' The salamander symbolized divinity."
I plan on paring down and moving the information on magic into the "Interpretations and Responses" unless an additional source can be found. Epachamo (talk) 01:02, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for checking. Good call. John Foxe (talk) 01:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal and movement of the section on Magic in the context section