Did Lehi see Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father in 1 Nephi 1:8?

1 Nephi 1:8

Lehi prays "to the Lord."
When he is praying "to the Lord" he sees a pillar of fire.
He was freaked out.
He goes home.
He lies in his bed.
He was "carried away in a vision."
He "thought he saw" God sitting upon his throne, surrounded by numberless concourses of angels.
He saw "One" who was really bright come out.
Twelve others followed the "One."
The "One" gave Lehi a book and told him to read it.
As he read he felt the Holy Ghost.

...and his dream continues, but that's enough for now.

Some observations:

It is ambiguous from the language whether or not the person on the throne is the same as the person who comes down. It could have just been a scene change in his vision.

But it kind of seems unlikely, because the word "One" seems to differentiate the bright person coming down from God sitting upon his throne.

If they were the same person - if Lehi recognized them as the same person - then I guess it would be much more likely for him to describe it differently.

Also, I've always thought it was kind of weird that Nephi says that his dad "thought he saw." In English, the pragmatic meaning of that is often, "...but he didn't really." Is Nephi saying that his father Lehi was wrong?

From what I understand, the Jews at that time were worshiping Jehovah - though I am pretty sure they did not call him that. I think there is something about the holiness of the name of God that made it need to be substituted with the vowels from the Hebrew word for lord, adonai, and when you mix that together with yhwh you get Yahowah and then there is a shift in the pronunciation of these letters in English to Jehovah. The King James translators used the word LORD in all caps when they translated this word. Jehovah is just the proper name of the God of Israel in English. He is the premortal Jesus Christ. 

Huh. In Czech it is translated as Hospodin?!

Which is not the same as Pán. To me, it seems to evoke some kind of meaning of like, one who gives or saves. Hospoda is a pub, a hospodář is one of the 23 jillion Czech words for farmer (sort of, more like a bailiff I guess), hospodárný is someone who is economical/frugal/saves, hospodárnost is frugality, hospodářství is administration, or a homestead. 

Side note: I am really sad that the Bible is not included in the LDS library (and thus in the wordcruncher library). I really wish I could search the word of God in Czech the same way. Also, my understanding is that Bible kralická was translated earlier than KJV from some of the same source text? I guess? So yeah, like...reading it in Czech will definitely be interesting!

I discovered that the article I read yesterday and posted about is actually wrong. The word Jehovah shows up 9 times (not 7 times) in the Old Testament. 

OT : 9

NT : 6

BoM : 13

D&C : 9

PGP : 5 <-- which is significant because this book is super short.

Meanwhile, I did a search for "LORD" in all caps:

OT : 6,468

NT : 5

...and that's it. When Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he did not put LORD in all caps. 

My understanding is that Judaism has always been extremely strictly monotheistic. It would have been majorly shocking for Lehi to see two different members of the Godhead.

I know that even very righteous prophets of old didn't have a perfect understanding of our relationship to God. For example, the brother of Jared in the book of Ether is scared out of his wits when he sees Jesus Christ's finger reaching out to touch the stones to give them light on their journey across the ocean. He never knew or even imagined that God had a body - I think he was even surprised to see God in a human form at all. 

I think it still took a while before Lehi and his family understood the godhead and our relationship to God. And that is okay.

I also know that we have been told that we live in a time when we have the fullness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This means we might have access to knowledge about God's nature that previous generations, including Lehi, maybe didn't.

It was sort of part of the Law of Moses to pray to Jehovah, though surprisingly less than I though. The Bible Dictionary has this to say:

Before the first generation of mankind had passed away, men began to call upon the name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26; Moses 5:4). Prayers, whether with (Gen. 12:8; 13:4) or without (Gen. 20:7; 32:9–11) sacrifice, were constantly offered by the patriarchs to God. The efficacy of the intercession of good men was recognized (Gen. 18:23; 20:7; Ex. 32:11).

Prayer is nowhere specifically commanded as a duty in the law, and prayers were not prescribed at the sacrifices except on two occasions: a confession of sin on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:21) and a thanksgiving when offering the firstfruits and tithes (Deut. 26:3, 13). It is, however, certain from the nature of things, and from the custom in later times, that prayer accompanied sacrifice.

and later: 

As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part (Matt. 7:7–11). Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings.

Jews like Lehi didn't understand that Jehovah and the Messiah are the same person, and they believe that the Messiah 1. has not come and 2. will be totally human, not divine. They also did not really pray to God the same way as we do today at all. Remember that the word "Christ" is just Greek for "Messiah", which means "the anointed one." 

To Lehi, it would have been really surprising to learn that the godhead is made up of three separate beings, all of whom might be mentioned in this vision: God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. He would have been really overwhelmed. And he was.

There was a really inspiring talk given at last general conference about the nature of God the Father. It was literally just doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, and very positive doctrine at that.

Here is a very short excerpt with gajillions of links: 

During mortality, Heavenly Father provides us with the conditions we need to progress within His plan. The Father begot Jesus Christ in the flesh14 and provided Him with divine help to fulfill His mortal mission. Heavenly Father will likewise help each of us if we will strive to keep His commandments.15 The Father gives us agency.16 Our lives are in His hands, and our “days are known” and “shall not be numbered less.”17 And He ensures that eventually all things work for the good of those who love Him.18It is Heavenly Father who gives us our daily bread,19 which includes both the food we eat and the strength we need to keep His commandments.20 The Father gives good gifts.21 He hears and answers our prayers.22 Heavenly Father delivers us from evil when we let Him.23 He weeps for us when we suffer.24 Ultimately, all of our blessings come from the Father.25

So here's what I think: 

I think the bright "One" that Lehi saw was Jesus Christ. It seems like he did not yet know who Jesus was. I think it's possible that God sitting on the throne who Lehi saw was either Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father if his vision were some kind of nocturnal thing where he wasn't actually physically transported somewhere. Elsewhere in the scriptures, people have to be transfigured in order to endure the presence or glory of heavenly beings like God the Father. I think it would be super unlikely for Lehi to have been transfigured at this point in his ministry; that seems to be an end-of-one's-mortal-mission event, therefore Lehi's vision here was more likely some kind of nocturnal vision. 

I think it's possible that Lehi and Nephi disagreed about who Lehi saw. Perhaps Nephi thought it was more likely that he saw Jesus Christ sitting on the throne. There are lots of examples of the LORD sitting on his throne in the Old Testament (and a few in the New Testament). Jesus Christ definitely has a throne. 

In the end, I think it's not super important; I'd probably side with Nephi more than Lehi, but that's because I'm totally biased and have been reading his words my entire life, so I feel like he's an old friend. What do you think?