Explanation for JS's initial first vision account?
 

Does anyone know an explanation as to why Joseph Smith's initial first vision account says he saw only one being?

Link to the entire text?

A few days ago someone posted a link to a table that showed the different attributes of each of JS' documented accounts of the FV. His first account, and I believe second account, said he saw only one being.

Well, in order to give you a good answer (or perhaps you could also answer this for yourself), it makes sense to be reading the actual account rather than some tabular checklist.

He made it all up?

Apologist version: He chose to emphasize different things in different accounts depending on his audience.

More likely: He decided he wanted his church to reject the trinity only after he'd gotten the ball rolling.

In the Pearl of Great Price account, he said that he saw a lot more which he could not speak about at that time. I wonder if he was nervous about spilling out all the details, and as time went by, he felt comfortable sharing more significant details to the public in general.

That's the ticket.

His thoughts on God, what the Godhead was, were static and not set in stone at age 14?

1832 Joseph made his first real attempt to pen down his christian experience. It's an interesting read to see the anguish he stated he went through between the ages of 12 to 15. To me, he intimates he came to the knowledge of apostasy between this age before his vision. Others might read it differently. Here is the account:

http://deseretbook.com/personalwritings/4

In 1835 he said he was visited by a personage who declared Jesus was the Christ and was accompanied by a large volume of angels. Makes no distinction who this personage was, but that it occurred to him when he was 14. This account is found in his personal diary.

In 1838 we get the version we are all familiar with found in the D&C.

The PoGP account was one of the later ones. 1842, as I recall. That explanation therefore doesn't work.

Edit: Swing and a miss. 1838 indeed. Still, it was one of the later accounts.