Dear Gramps,
Did the Lord Translate/Transfigure Joseph Smith at the time of his first vision. The scripture says no man can see God with his natural eye an live. Moses, the Brother of Jared and others that saw or spoke with the Lord mention not seeing with their natural eye. The same with the many who saw Jesus after his crucifixion in the old world and the American continent, were all of these individuals blessed by the Lord for this specific purpose. Where in the gospel writings are these questions entertained. Last note, Why would Joseph Smith wait for so many years before writing the events of his first vision. With all he had gon through with Moroni, one would think he would have documented that sacred event immediately.
D Farr, from Layton, Utah
Dear D. Farr,
There is a natural tendency for us to translate to historical times under consideration the conditions of our own times. We give no thought to making immediate Xerox copies of anything in print that we want to save. If we want to keep a record of any trivial thing we merely use the keyboard to type it into some file on our computer, where we can make as many instantaneous copies as we want, and send the memo with instant transmission to anyone in the world. These commonplace things would have been unbelievable magic 150 years ago. It was not a common thing in the early 1800s to write anything down. Most of the people in those days did not know how to write. And when they did write something, they usually plucked a tail feather from a turkey, cut the end of it on the bias and then cut a slit in the end. They then found some paper and a bottle of ink, and dipping the feather in the ink, were able to write a few words before getting some more ink on the feather. It was really a laborious process. When records were kept of meetings, someone would use this pen and ink process and write the proceedings according to their memories of the meeting or event. What would have been really unusual and hard to understand would have been if Joseph would have gone home and written down all the proceedings of that day.
Gramps
