For some time now I have heard about the four different versions of the first vision. Today I made the effort to look them up. One was from Joseph Smith’s Diary. One was written by him for a publication and the other two were written by someone else.
The official version is longer than the rest. The two written by Joseph Smith were short. I can see that someone could easily discredit Joseph Smith from reading the other versions.
One of the things I understand is that Joseph Smith got better at revelation and translation as he got older. I believe that the last version was aided by revelation to bring clarity back to the story. Some might say the story was embellished and I am going to let them believe what they want.
I’m going to relinquish my testimony to the fact that the church that restored is still moving forward and is doing much good in the world in spite of imperfect people like me.
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