Accounts of the First Vision

Joseph Smith recorded that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him in a grove of trees near his parents’ home in western New York state when he was about 14 years old.

In the fall of 1835, Joseph Smith recounted his First Vision to Robert Matthews, a visitor to Kirtland, Ohio.

Joseph Smith published two accounts of the First Vision during his lifetime. The first of these, known today as Joseph Smith—History, was canonized in the Pearl of Great Price and thus became the most well-known account.

Orson Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles authored the earliest published account of Joseph Smith’s First Vision of Deity in this pamphlet in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1840.

Orson Hyde of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles published this account of Joseph Smith’s early visions in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1842.