Review of Alexander L. Baugh, Steven C. Harper, Brent M. Rogers, and Benjamin C. Pykles, eds. Joseph Smith and his First Vision: Context, Place, and Meaning (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021). 289 pages. $27.99 (hardcover).

Abstract: In the year 2020, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints celebrated the 200th anniversary of the First Vision of the Prophet Joseph Smith. As a part of honoring that seminal moment in the Church’s history, the Church History Symposium focused on the context, place, and meaning of the First Vision. Selected papers from the conference have been published in Joseph Smith and his First Vision: Context, Place, and Meaning, edited by Alexander L. Baugh, Steven C. Harper, Brent M. Rogers, and Benjamin C. Pykles, offering new insights and research into Joseph Smith’s theophany in the Sacred Grove that has inspired millions worldwide to ask of God as Joseph did. The papers selected for publication are well-written and provide a great deal of new scholarship relating to the dramatic theophany that Joseph Smith experienced, and, as such, it is a great addition to any Latter-day Saint’s library.

For Latter-day Saints, the year 2020 was especially a noteworthy year, marking the 200th anniversary of what is appropriately described as the founding event of the Restoration of the Gospel in modern times:

Two hundred years ago, on a beautiful spring morning in 1820, young Joseph Smith, seeking to know which church to join, went into the woods to pray near his home in upstate New York, USA. He had questions regarding the salvation of his soul and trusted that God would direct him.

[Page 72]In humility, we declare that in answer to his prayer, God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph and inaugurated the “restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21) as foretold in the Bible.1

As a part of the efforts by Latter-day Saints to follow President Nelson’s urge to remember the First Vision,2 the biannual Church History Symposium hosted a range of scholars, professors, and other Latter-day Saints to delve into the beginning of our shared history, memory, and origins as Latter-day Saints. The symposium — miraculously held just before the Church made efforts to limit in-person meetings to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus — hosted multiple papers dealing with the context, place, or meaning of the First Vision for Joseph Smith and for Latter-day Saints in general. The insights shared in the published papers in this volume are a great addition to any Latter-day Saint’s library.

The fourteen papers selected are divided into four categories. The first category combines the three keynote addresses, given at the beginning and closing of the symposium. The next section deals with the historical context in which the First Vision should be understood, followed by a section relating to the Sacred Grove, the place where God the Father and God the Son appeared to the boy prophet. The fourth and final section deals with various theological or analytical lessons that can be drawn from the First Vision, and modern efforts to portray and teach the First Vision to a growing Church.

The first keynote paper is from President Dallin H. Oaks,