Joseph Smith and His First Vision: Context, Place, and Meaning, 2020 Church History Symposium

This volume celebrates the bicentennial of Joseph Smith's 1820 First Vision of the Father and the Son, a founding event in the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. Contributors examine the various accounts of the vision, the religious excitement prevalent in the region, the question that prompted Joseph to enter the grove, the powers of darkness that assailed him, and the natural environment and ultimate preservation of the Sacred Grove. This volume brings together some of the finest presentations from a 2020 BYU Church History Symposium.

Alexander L. Baugh is a professor and chair of the Department of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. He specializes in researching and writing about the Missouri period of early Church history (1831–39). He is the author, editor, or coeditor of ten books and has published more than eighty historical journal articles, essays, and book chapters.

Steven C. Harper is a professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. He was the managing historian and a general editor of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days. He was named editor in chief of BYU Studies Quarterly in September 2018. He authored Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants and Joseph Smith's First Vision.

Brent M. Rogers is an associate managing historian for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. He is the editor of several books as well as the author of numerous articles and the book Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory (University of Nebraska Press), which received numerous awards.

Benjamin C. Pykles is a historic sites curator for the Historic Sites Division of the Church History Department. He was formerly an assistant professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Potsdam. He is the author of Excavating Nauvoo: The Mormons and the Rise of Historical Archaeology in America.