Allen argues that the accounts’ variations reflect different emphases in retelling and recording the experience. He also concludes that the First Vision circulated only narrowly in the 1830s and acquired its central place in Church teaching gradually, especially after Smith’s death.
- James B. Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s “First Vision” in Mormon Thought,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1, no. 3 (1966): 29–46.
Throughout most of the 1830’s the story was not circulated, either in church periodicals or missionary literature.