One topic I have not discussed in my 4 years of blogging is discrepancies in the First Vision accounts.  Basically, there are 4 accounts of the First Vision.  The account in the Pearl of Great Price is the last account, and comes from 1838.  John Dehlin and Richard Bushman discuss these variations in Part 2 of John’s 4 1/2 hour interview with Richard Bushman.  I have been publishing the transcripts of the interview serially as I complete the transcripts.  This transcript continues immediately after Bushman’s discussion of “the facts” of history.

JD, “Hmmm, well that’s very helpful.  Thank you for providing for that sort of overview of that animal we call history.  Let’s jump into the first issue, and that’s the First Vision, and I’ll set you up so you can hit the ball out of the park so to speak.  I didn’t learn until well after I graduated from college that there was anything other than one version of the Joseph Smith story. Continue Reading »

This is a continuation from my previous post where John Dehlin interviews Richard Bushman.  While some people talk about “objective” history, Bushman states that such a notion is impossible.  I thought this was a valuable discussion, and Bushman shows that there can be a lot of interpretations of “The facts”.

JD, “Right, ok, yeah.  So with that, I take 10 or 11 issues just to tackle.  What I’m going to do is try and set up for you what the traditional perceptions are, have you validate where the facts, you know add the facts that tell the full story, or the full story that we can tell, so that we really know instead of what the stereotyped, you know white-washed view is, what the facts or the historical facts seem to demonstrate, and then we’ll have a discussion on you helping us understand how you might put these issues in historical context, how you might put them in spiritual context, and if there’s any debunking that needs to happen where there’s a typical anti-Mormon claim or position, and it’s just flat out incorrect.  Maybe you can inform us of that as well.  Is that fair?”

Bushman, “Well let me begin be talking about talking about ‘the facts.'” Continue Reading »

John Dehlin of Mormon Stories interviewed Richard Bushman for 4 1/2 hours back in 2007.  I’ve posted transcripts of the first 50 minutes of this interview (Part 1) in 3 separate posts because it was so long.

1. Growing Up as Richard Bushman
2. How he chose to become a Historian
3. The Church Should Stay Out of the History Business

In this portion, Dehlin introduces Part 2 and apologizes for some audio problems (which I thought were minor).  Bushman continues talking about some Joseph Smith biographies that he had discussed in the previous post, and then they discuss whether some issues that Mormons have trouble with are “legitimate”, and how Dr. Bushman has responded to these people. Continue Reading »