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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 1: Difference between revisions
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*This calls into question, then, the author's theory that Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon and had been concocting the whole polygamy thing since his teen years.
*This calls into question, then, the author's theory that Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon and had been concocting the whole polygamy thing since his teen years.
|-
|-
|29||"The same year he married Emma…Joseph also probably had met Louisa Beaman, then only twelve years old."||[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]] ||
|29||"The same year he married Emma…Joseph also probably had met Louisa Beaman, then only twelve years old."||
*Presentism. Trying to make age difference stark, and implying (?) that Joseph may have been lusting even at this point, given his turbulent adolescent problems?
 
*Smith commonly exploits the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) presentist fallacy] in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
*Smith commonly exploits the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) presentist fallacy] in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
*[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
||
* No source provided.
|-
|-
|29||[Joseph's] "relationships in Ohio with various families and their daughters—some quite youthful at the time—allowed him to invite the young women into his further confidence when they were older."||[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]] ||
|29||[Joseph's] "relationships in Ohio with various families and their daughters—some quite youthful at the time—allowed him to invite the young women into his further confidence when they were older."||
*See above.
*Smith commonly exploits the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) presentist fallacy] in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
*Also parents were involved too.
*[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
||
*No source provided.
|-
|-
|30||"In most cases, the women were adolescents or in their twenties when he met the.  About ten were pre-teens, others already thirty or above."||[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]] ||
|30||"In most cases, the women were adolescents or in their twenties when he met the.  About ten were pre-teens, others already thirty or above."||
*See above.  What's the point of all this otherwise?
*See above.  What's the point of all this otherwise?
*Smith commonly exploits the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) presentist fallacy] in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
*[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
||
* No source provided
|-
|-
|30||"Whitney's daughter Sarah Ann would become one of Joseph Smith's wives, although at the time [1831] she was only five years old."||[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]] ||
|30||"Whitney's daughter Sarah Ann would become one of Joseph Smith's wives, although at the time [1831] she was only five years old."||
*Presentism.  More emphasis on wives' age difference.
*Smith commonly exploits the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) presentist fallacy] in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
*[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
||
* No source provided
|-
|-
|31||Mary Elizabeth Rollings was "an excitable and impressionable young woman…at age thirteen…had interpreted words spoken in tongues…."||[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]] ||
|31||Mary Elizabeth Rollings was "an excitable and impressionable young woman…at age thirteen…had interpreted words spoken in tongues…."||
*Smith commonly exploits the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) presentist fallacy] in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
*[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
||
* No source provided
|-
|-
|31||"It was eleven years after the Smiths roomed with the Whitneys that Joseph expressed a romantic interest in their daughter, as well."||[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]] ||
|31||"It was eleven years after the Smiths roomed with the Whitneys that Joseph expressed a romantic interest in their daughter, as well."||
*Sarah Ann again
* G.D. Smith is again pushing his "romantic" version of the letter to the Whitneys
*Love letter
*Smith commonly exploits the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) presentist fallacy] in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
*Romance
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/"Love letters"]]
*[[/../../Misrepresentation_of_sources#Sarah_Ann_Whitney_and_the_letter_to_the_Whitneys]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*[[../../Romance]]
*[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
||
* No source provided
|-
|-
|31||"Another future wife, Marinda Johnson, was fifteen when she met Smith in Ohio.  She said when he looked into her eyes, she felt ashamed.  At the time, the Smiths were living with Marinda's family…."||[[../../Misrepresentation of sources#"she felt ashamed..."|"she felt ashamed..."]]<br>[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]] ||
|31||"Another future wife, Marinda Johnson, was fifteen when she met Smith in Ohio.  She said when he looked into her eyes, she felt ashamed.  At the time, the Smiths were living with Marinda's family…."||
*What is he trying to imply?  Joseph made her ashamed?
What is he trying to imply?  Joseph made her ashamed?  This is false&mdash;she felt ashamed for doubting Joseph's prophetic call once she'd met him.  Note that Smith also does not tell story of Marinda's mother being healed of a palsied arm by Joseph (See Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'', 230).
*No source provided.
*[[../../Misrepresentation of sources#"she felt ashamed..."|"she felt ashamed..."]]
*Note that the author does not tell story of Marinda's mother being healed of a palsied arm by Joseph (See Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 230).
*Smith commonly exploits the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) presentist fallacy] in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
*[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
||
*No source provided.
|-
|-
|32||"The seven-year-old daughter of Apostle Heber C. Kimball was still another future wife…When she married Smith a few years later in Nauvoo at the age of fourteen, it was with her father's encouragement."||[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]||
|32||"The seven-year-old daughter of Apostle Heber C. Kimball was still another future wife…When she married Smith a few years later in Nauvoo at the age of fourteen, it was with her father's encouragement."||
*Presentism
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Helen Mar Whitney|Helen Mar Whitney]]
*Smith commonly exploits the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) presentist fallacy] in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
*[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
||
* No source provided
|-
|-
|32–33||This series of events raises a few questions.  What was the nature of Smith's relationships with these young women form the time he first met them?  How relevant is it that in many instances he had lived under the same roof as his future wife prior to marrying her?|| ||
|32–33||This series of events raises a few questions.  What was the nature of Smith's relationships with these young women form the time he first met them?  How relevant is it that in many instances he had lived under the same roof as his future wife prior to marrying her?||  
*Ah, now we see why it's brought up!  But, G.D. Smith explores none of these matters in detail&mdash;he just leaves it up to the readers' imagination.  It does raise some questions, such as:
# wouldn't it be hard to hide anything inappropriate in the close quarters of 19th century home?
# doesn't this mean that these women and their families knew both the public and private Joseph very well—they were not merely 'seduced' by his public persona?
* [[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
||
*No source given.
*No source given.
*Ah, now we see why it's brought up!  Indeed, it does raise questions, such as:
1)hard to hide an affair in close quarters of 19th century home
2)these women knew Joseph very well—they were not merely 'seduced' by his public persona.
|-
|-
|33||Lucinda and George [Harris] lived across the street from the Smiths. At an unspecified time, but probably by 1842, Lucinda became one more of the prophet's plural wives.|| ||
|33||Lucinda and George [Harris] lived across the street from the Smiths. At an unspecified time, but probably by 1842, Lucinda became one more of the prophet's plural wives.|| Compton dates the marriage to 1838.
*No source given.  Compton dates to 1838.
||
*No source given.   
|-
|-
|34||[In Illinois Joseph] "was still hunted by law officials for old offences."||[[../Loaded and prejudicial language]]||
|34||[In Illinois Joseph] "was still hunted by law officials for old offenses."||
*The language presumes Joseph was guilty, and that such tactics were not simply an excuse to seize him.  This point should be argued and supported with data, not asserted.
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
*[[../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
||
*No source provided.
*No source provided.
*Hunted for ''alleged'' offences, which were never proven.
|-
|-
|35||"During the 1837 recession, Smith's unchartered bank, called the Kirland Safety Society Anti-banking Company, collapsed.  Angry Ohioans could not be repaid for loans they had made to Mormon merchants and some church members lost their savings."||[[Kirtland Safety Society]]||
|35||"During the 1837 recession, Smith's unchartered bank, called the Kirland Safety Society Anti-banking Company, collapsed.  Angry Ohioans could not be repaid for loans they had made to Mormon merchants and some church members lost their savings."||
*We are not told that loans were made because the Saints (including Joseph) were considered good credit risks.  The economic collapse caught everyone by surprise.
*[[Kirtland Safety Society]]
||
*No source provided.
*No source provided.
*Note that loans were made because the Saints (including Joseph) were considered good credit risks.  The economic collapse caught everyone by surprise.
|-
|-
|37||"Missourians were alarmed by the influx of Mormons…and met to decide what to do about the intrusion.  Sidney Rigdon warned that if they lifted their hand against the church, they would be 'exterminated.'  In response to this incendiary speech, violence erupted on both sides, and Governor Lilburn Boggs soon declared in an echo of Rigdon's rhetoric that 'the Mormons…must be exterminated,' 'treated as enemies,' and 'driven from the State if necessary' to protect 'the public peace.'|| ||
|37||"Missourians were alarmed by the influx of Mormons…and met to decide what to do about the intrusion.  Sidney Rigdon warned that if they lifted their hand against the church, they would be 'exterminated.'  In response to this incendiary speech, violence erupted on both sides, and Governor Lilburn Boggs soon declared in an echo of Rigdon's rhetoric that 'the Mormons…must be exterminated,' 'treated as enemies,' and 'driven from the State if necessary' to protect 'the public peace.'|| ||

Revision as of 05:51, 19 December 2008

Claims made in Chapter 1

Page Claim Response Author's sources
1 Louisa Beaman "was about to become the first plural wife of Joseph Smith."
  •  History unclear or in error
  • No source provided.
1n1 Note: "There is some evidence that Smith might have engaged in the practice prior to this, but this is the first documented marriage."
  • No source provided.
  •  History unclear or in error
1 Note: "Had romance blossomed between her and the charismatic...prophet."
  • No source provided.
1 Joseph 35 versus Louisa 26
  • No source provided.
2 Nauvoo "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants."
  • No source provided.
2 The Mormons' Prophet had told them about the kingdom they would be called to adminster when Jesus returned to rule."

NOTE

  • Dan Erickson, "As a Thief in the Night": The Mormon Quest for Millennial Deliverance (SLC: Signature Books, 1998)< 6, 46, 59, 121, 123-48.
2 Note: "No one knew precisely when the final end would come, but they knew it was imminent."
  • G.D. Smith leaves unmentioned that many/most Christians have always seen the end as imminent.
  • No source provided.
2 "With an acquisitive eye on neighboring lands and the will to triumph over older settlers through political bloc voting, Joseph's behavior concerned some of the longtime Illinoisans who lived around the Saints."
  • No source provided.
2 "A few years earlier, the people in Missouri had gone to war to expel Mormons from their state."

NOTE

  • No source provided.
2 "Now fear of [the Mormons'] city-wide militia, use of local petitions of habeas corpus to dismiss state warrants, and rumors of a 'plurality of wives' had put citizens on edge."
  • Smith fails to tell us that
  1. the Mormons were equally afraid, having been driven by state militias from two states
  2. their use of habeas corpus had contemporary case law and legal theory on their side
  3. dislike for the Mormons also a strong political motivation in their enemies
  • No source provided.
2 "Mormons had left their New York homes under uneasy circumstances."
  • No source provided.
  •  History unclear or in error
3 "So plural marriage was central to the broad sweep of LDS experience..."
  • Polygamy was unpracticed by anyone but Joseph Smith prior to Nauvoo. Polygamy had nothing to do with Mormons moving from New York. The need to flee Missouri likewise had little to do with plural marriage. Joseph's marriage to Fanny Alger was one factor among many causing problems in Ohio (though the financial problems and collapse of the Kirtland Safety Society were probably more significant).
  • Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Historical errors
  • No source provided.
  •  History unclear or in error
3 Plural marriage "was illegal on that afternoon in 1841 when the Mormon prophet married Louisa Beaman." Joseph Smith and polygamy—Illegal?
  • Revised Laws of Illinois, 1833; Revised States of the State of Illinois, 1845, secs 121, 122.
3-4 Joseph "chose some thirty three men...who would join him in denying its practice."
  • No source provided.
4 The inner circle of plural marriage "would lose one of its key members in 1842 when John C. Bennett quarreled with Smith and then left."
  • There is no evidence that Bennett was ever sanctioned to practice plural marriage. He was never part of the Quorum of the Anointed who received the full temple endowment.
  • John C. Bennett
  • No source provided.
5 "Remarkably, Smith's role in introducing polygamy in Nauvoo has been largely excised from the official telling of LDS history."
  • No source provided.
5 that Danel Bachman and Ron Esplin's Encyclopedia of Mormonism entry on plural marriage briefly mention[s] the "rumors" of plural marriage in the 1830s and 1840s but only obliquely refer[s] to the teaching [of] new marriage and family arrangements
  • "Plural Marriage", Encyclopedia of Mormonism
  • Text: "Rumors of plural marriage among the members of the Church in the 1830's and 1840's led to persecution, and the public announcement of the practice after August 29, 1852, in Utah gave enemies a potent weapon to fan public hostility against the Church.
5 Claim: "Such revisionism continues today. When asked about polygamy on national televsion in 1998 LDS President Gordon Bh. Hinckley dismissed its historical importance, positing that 'when our people came west [in 1846-47], they permitted [polygamy] on a restricted scale.' He failed to acknowledge how important the 'law of celestial marriage' had been for the church's founder and his followers. Particularly revealing was how the church president phrased his answer to exclude the entire pre-Utah period of church history. He made it clear he would not welcome any probing into the life of Joseph Smith and his wives or of Smith's requirement that others embrace the practice."
  • Gordon B. Hinckley, interviewed by Larry King, CNN broadcast, Sept 8, 1998. [Cited from secondary sources]
6 Where there was resistance, the prophet inveighed against it revealing God's rule that 'no one can reject [polygamy] and enter into my glory' (D&C 132, 51, 52, 54).
  • The actual text reads: "I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory." Plural marriage was at times a manifestation of the new and everlasting covenant, but even during the polygamous era leaders were clear that one did not necessarily have to practice polygamy to be saved.
  • Polygamy a requirement for exaltation
  • The only men who become gods are those that practice polygamy?
6 Joseph predicted second coming not before 40 years, and by 1890, and those of rising generation will not taste of death until Christ comes.
  • No source provided
7 "Smith was familiar with nineteenth century writer Thomas Dick..."
  • Thomas Dick, The Philosophy of a Future State, 2d. American ed. (Brookfield, Mass: n.p., 1830); quoted in LDS Messenger and Advocate 3 (Dec 1836): 423-25.
7 Joseph "had already proven his own mettle among God's elect when he mastered the use of magic stones and 'translated' the Book of Mormon."
  • No source provided.
8 Joseph's dispensationalism had many past antecedants
  • No source provided.
9 "Joseph preached [apocalyptically] as regularly as any other apocalyptic preacher of his day…."
  • No source provided.
9 "…understandably hesitant to specify a precise date for the end of the world, Smith knew that 'our redemption draweth near.'?"
  • Jesse, 306
10 On Joshua the Jewish minister [Robert Matthews]: "Smith found him credible enough to converse with from 11:00 a.m. until evening when Smith invited him to stay for dinner." "Without objection from Smith, Matthias asserted: 'The silence spoken of by John the Revelator…is between 1830 & 1851…."
  • Jesse, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:68–73, 568–69.
11 Robert Matthews (see above) "advocated what he called a 'community of property and of wives,' in a more 'spiritual generation.' Mormons avoided the idiom but not the practice." "…Mormon communal practices extended to property as well as to marriage."
  • Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 8.
11 "Across the Atlantic, the communal experiment advocated by Marx and Engels appeared in London only a few years later in 1848."
  • Communist Manifesto (1848; New York: Bantam, 1992).
12 Polygamy was evidently on Smith's mind even before founding the Mormon Church, if that can be deduced from the marriage formula inscribed in the Book of Mormon.
  • No source provided
12 Book of Mormon was "…begun shortly after he eloped with Emma Hale in January 1827."

NOTE

12 Joseph "completed a ritualized five-year search for the gold plates…"
  • No source provided
12 "Each year at the autumnal equinox, which according to rodsmen and seers was a favourable time to approach the spirits guarding buried treasures, Smith had gone to the hill where he sought after the plates.
  • No source provided
12n29 "As noted by Quinn, that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"
13 Oliver Cowdery said Joseph wanted to "commune with some kind of messenger."
  • Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps, LDS Messenger and Advocate 1 [No. 5] (Feb 1835): 79.
  • The quote is incorrect in Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, 125, 134, which the author appears to be quoting without checking Quinn's primary source for accuracy.
13 Oliver Cowdery said Joseph "had heard of the power of enchantment, and a thousand like stories, which held the hidden treasures of the earth."
  • Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps, LDS Messenger and Advocate 1 (Feb 1835): 79.
  • CITATION is in ERROR. He is quoting from Quinn, Early Mormonism, 125, 134 & Vogel, Indian Origins, 14–15.
  • Actual quote is found in: Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps, LDS Messenger and Advocate 2/1 (October 1835): 197.
13-14 "Smith elaborated this idea to 'raise up seed' [in Jacob 2:30] with the signal might [sic] be given again and polygamy would be re-introduced….

NOTE

  • No source provided
14 [In 1831 Joseph] "sanctioned the first breach in marriage mores. It occurred in Smith's charge to missionaries to the Indians when he told single and married men alike that they should marry native women. Polygamy may have been on his mind…."
  • See accessory notes files
  • No source provided.
14 …W.W.Phelps reported on the prophet's instructions in all their antebellum racism. Through intermarriage, Smith said, the Indians would become white, delightsome, and just" and fulfill the Book of Mormon prophecy that 'the scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white [pure] and delightsome people."

G.D. Smith presumes that Joseph's expression was about race, rather than behavior.

  • W.W. Phelps to Brigham Young, Aug. 12, 1961, LDS Archives.
14n34 The 1840 Book of Mormon substituted the word 'pure' for 'white,' although the wording reverted back to "white" again in the English 1841 and later foreign editions, then became 'pure' again in 1981.
  • No source provided.
14n34 Even so, other passages in the Book of Mormon still refer to 'white' as 'delightsome' and a 'skin of blackness' as a 'curse' (2 Ne. 5; Jacob 3:5, 8-10; Alma 3-6-9; 3 Ne. 2:14-15; Morm. 5:15).

Smith ignores that many (if not most/all) of these have a symbolic role, as illustrated in Joseph's change discussed above (though Smith apparently tries to undercut that impression). Richard L. Bushman, LDS author of a recent biography of Joseph Smith, writes:

...[T]he fact that [the Lamanites] are Israel, the chosen of God, adds a level of complexity to the Book of Mormon that simple racism does not explain. Incongruously, the book champions the Indians' place in world history, assigning them to a more glorious future than modern American whites.... Lamanite degradation is not ingrained in their natures, ineluctably bonded to their dark skins. Their wickedness is wholly cultural and frequently reversed. During one period, "they began to be a very industrious people; yea, and they were friendly with the Nephites; therefore, they did open a correspondence with them, and the curse of God did no more follow them." (Alma 23꞉18) In the end, the Lamanites triumph. The white Nephites perish, and the dark Lamanites remain. [3]
  • Lamanite curse
  • John A. Tvedtnes, "The Charge of 'Racism' in the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 183–198. off-site
14n34 Skin color was important in other LDS scriptures as well, and blacks of African ancestry were denied full participation in the church until 1978.
14n34 "Interestingly, the rhetoric underlying the theology may have resulted from 1830s Mormons trying to convince their neighbors in the slave state of Missouri that they were not abolitionists."

Smith avoids drawing the obvious conclusion—the "importance" of skin color "in other LDS scriptures" as it applied to race may have been read in as justification for the rhetoric. Thus, the scripture reading followed the rhetoric; the theology did not derive from the scriptures.

  • Misrepresents Campbell's argument here, I think in the previous part of the footnote. Cites Campbell, "'White' or 'Pure': Five Vignettes," Dialogue 29 (Winter 1996) 119-120; Lester E. Bush Jr. and Armand L. Mauss, Neither White nor Black (SLC, Signature Books, 1994).
15 Ezra Booth…[claimed] the expressed goal of the mission as being to secure a "matrimonial alliance with the natives." However, the missionaries did not seem successful in this area. Booth is probably wrong; the accounts say Joseph didn't explain the plural marriage issue until 3 years later, so married men could hardly be out looking for Indian wives in 1831. Native Americans to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage?
  • Deseret News (20 May 1886); Ezra Booth letter, Ohio Star, (8 Dec 1831).
15 "One wonders when Emma Smith might have first suspected that her husband was contemplating plural marriage…As Emma regarded her handsome spouse, what in Joseph's youthful experiences may have suggested the unusual family arrangements that were to follow?"
15 "We know Joseph often stayed overnight on visits with other families. Was Emma aware that later marriages would develop out of these family visits among their close friends? Could she have seen this coming—the injunction to enter into 'celestial marriage'?"
  • Of course, everyone ELSE probably stayed overnight on visits with families.
  • Presentism.
15-16 "An examination of Smith's adolescence from his personal writings reveals some patterns and events that might be significant in understanding what precipitated his polygamous inclination." Psychobiographical analysis of Joseph Smith
  • See GLS segment from paper in auxillary materials.
  • Psychobiography
  • Mind reading
  • Distortion of sources
16-20 "The vices and follies of youth…."
  • See GLS segment for pp. 15-16
19-20 William Stafford…remembered "Joseph…looking in his glass" and seeing "spirits…clothed in ancient dress" standing guard over treasures." The Hurlbut affidavits—Williams Stafford
  • Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (1834), 234–35.
20 "Joseph cut 'a sheep's throat [and] led [it] around a circle while bleeding," his former acquaintances remembered, to appease the evil spirit."
  • Howe?
20 Joseph 'professed to tell people's fortunes' by gazing at a 'stone which he used to put in his hat,'…." Joseph Smith and the occult
Joseph Smith and seer stones
  • Howe?
21 "In a March 1, 1842 letter to John Wentworth…he left out any reference to the sinful thoughts he had previously mentioned. He had come effectively to de-emphasize the feelings of sin and guilt he had once experienced." Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Mind reading
  • History of the Church 4:535–41
  • Jesse, Writings of Joseph Smith, 241–248.
21 "Despite his ambiguity on these points, there is every indication that he took an interest in polygamy at an early period, beyond what we read in his autobiographies or in the Book of Mormon."
  • No we don't. We have no other evidence, and Smith hasn't given us any here. Not sure how to use this….
  • NOTE
21 "What was new about this [1838] account [of Moroni's visit] was that this time the 1823 angelic announcement was preceded by an 1820 'First Vision,' which included not just 'personages' or 'angels' but a visitation by the God of heaven—'The Father and The Son.'" First Vision accounts
  • No sources provided.
22 Lucy said, "in the course of our evening conversation[,] Joseph would give us some of the most ammusing [sic in Smith] recitals…[and] describe the ancient inhabitants of this [American] continent their dress their manner of traveling the animals which they rode." Joseph Smith's "amusing recitals" of ancient American inhabitants
  • Anderson, Lucy's Book, 329, 345.
22 "There is nothing in Lucy's account about women, wives, or early struggles with chastity…."
  • He is now presuming that he has demonstrated this, when it is all a farce.
22 "…that same year [1832], [Joseph] had famously become involved with a sixteen-year-old carptenter's daughter named Fanny Alger, who eventually moved into the Smith home in about 1835."
  • The date is not at all sure. At any rate, it was either 1833 or 1835; no one else argues for 1832, I don't think.
22 "Emma never indicated that her husband had told her anything specifically about his experiences prior to their marriage or the details of his involvement with other women, although she did know about Fanny Alger."
  • No evidence there WERE other women before Fanny.
22 "…it must have been a fascinating courtship, conducted as it was among unseen spirits and Joseph's unsettling conversations with angels." Psychobiographical analysis of Joseph Smith
  • Mind reading
  • Prejudiced
  • Also distorts the textual record, since Cowdery's account (cited previously) made it clear that there was nothing unsettling at all about it.
22 "Joseph and Emma had been bound by treasure magic from their first meeting in 1825, because Joseph…[came] to help Josaih Stowell located buried treasure [and] boarded with Emma's father."
22 "It was in a mysterious atmosphere of imaginative lore and a mix of theology and magic that Joseph and Emma eloped." Joseph and Emma eloped in an atmosphere of "imaginative lore and mix of theology and magic?"
  • How does he know? A page earlier we are told, "Emma did not leave a diary, and her letters do not mention anything about Joseph's adolescence or later experiences with women." (p. 22) This is all supposition—invented out of thin air.
23 "The treasure seeker presented himself as someone who had special knowledge that was beyond the woman's ken."
  • How does he know???
25 "What Joseph failed to explain in this [1838] version [of his history of money digging] was the apparent continuum from treasure seeking to finding gold plates or the similar modus operandi in placing a 'seer stone' in a hat…" Joseph Smith and seer stones
  • Van Wagoner and Walker, "Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing,' Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15 (Summer 1982): 2:50 [sic];
  • George D. Smith, "Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon," Free Inquiry [Secular humanist pub!] 4 (Winter 1983-84): 27n2.
25 "It is also true that Joseph's career in money digging was much more extensive than he intimated in his 1838 narrative."
25 Bainbridge "glass-looking" is called "a trial" Joseph Smith's 1826 glasslooking trial
  • Was not a trial, was a hearing
27 Isaac Hale not being allowed to look at the plates was a "clumsy subterfuge." Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Loaded and prejudicial language
  • Loaded language
28 "Joseph's personal charisma was working its effect where he needed to rely on others for help. He elicited sympathy and created a sense of urgency; his enterprises bore a strange significance."
28 "A talisman he is said to have worn while digging carried this inscription: 'Confirm O god thy strength in us so that neither the adversary nor any Evil thing may cause us to fail.'" Joseph Smith and Jupiter talisman
  • "Said to have worn"—said by someone selling it after his death. I don't think there's any other evidence?
  • Quinn, Early Mormonism, 68
  • Van Wagoner and Walker, "Joseph Smith Gift," 2.
28 "If his wife shared in his sense of triumph [for getting the plates], she was nevertheless forbidden to see the plates herself."
  • She explained this didn't trouble her—see last interview, her witness, etc.
  • Van Wagoner & Walker, "Joseph Smith Gift," 50.
28 "Married life was not easy. In fact, it was riddled with doubts, rumors, and deception from the start."
28 "…Joseph was haunted by the suspicion, which followed him from place to place, that he crossed moral boundaries in his friendship with other women." Psychobiographical analysis of Joseph Smith
  • How does the author know that Joseph was "haunted by the suspicion?" He is attempting to read Joseph's mind.
28-29 Joseph had an affair with Eliza Winters in 1828 Eliza Winters
  • see attached info
29 "When Emma's mother, Elizabeth Hale, was asked about this [the purported seduction of Eliza Winters] in an interview forty-six years later, she declined to comment. Whatever she might have known went with her to the grave in February 1842…."
  • Vogel, Early Mormon Documents 4:296–97, 346–60; see also Frederick G. Mather, "The Early Mormons: Joe Smith Operates at Susquehanna," Binghamton Republican (29 July 188).
  • NB: this author interviewed Eliza (see previous) who likewise said nothing about Joseph's attempted seduction.
29 "In the revelation [D&C 132] Emma was promised annihilation if she failed to 'abide this commandment.'"
29 "Curiously enough, the revelation [D&C 132] did not invoke the Book of Mormon's justification for taking more wives—the call to raise a righteous seed."
  • This calls into question, then, the author's theory that Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon and had been concocting the whole polygamy thing since his teen years.
29 "The same year he married Emma…Joseph also probably had met Louisa Beaman, then only twelve years old."
  • No source provided.
29 [Joseph's] "relationships in Ohio with various families and their daughters—some quite youthful at the time—allowed him to invite the young women into his further confidence when they were older."
  • No source provided.
30 "In most cases, the women were adolescents or in their twenties when he met the. About ten were pre-teens, others already thirty or above."
  • No source provided
30 "Whitney's daughter Sarah Ann would become one of Joseph Smith's wives, although at the time [1831] she was only five years old."
  • No source provided
31 Mary Elizabeth Rollings was "an excitable and impressionable young woman…at age thirteen…had interpreted words spoken in tongues…."
  • No source provided
31 "It was eleven years after the Smiths roomed with the Whitneys that Joseph expressed a romantic interest in their daughter, as well."
  • No source provided
31 "Another future wife, Marinda Johnson, was fifteen when she met Smith in Ohio. She said when he looked into her eyes, she felt ashamed. At the time, the Smiths were living with Marinda's family…."

What is he trying to imply? Joseph made her ashamed? This is false—she felt ashamed for doubting Joseph's prophetic call once she'd met him. Note that Smith also does not tell story of Marinda's mother being healed of a palsied arm by Joseph (See Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 230).

  • No source provided.
32 "The seven-year-old daughter of Apostle Heber C. Kimball was still another future wife…When she married Smith a few years later in Nauvoo at the age of fourteen, it was with her father's encouragement."
  • No source provided
32–33 This series of events raises a few questions. What was the nature of Smith's relationships with these young women form the time he first met them? How relevant is it that in many instances he had lived under the same roof as his future wife prior to marrying her?
  • Ah, now we see why it's brought up! But, G.D. Smith explores none of these matters in detail—he just leaves it up to the readers' imagination. It does raise some questions, such as:
  1. wouldn't it be hard to hide anything inappropriate in the close quarters of 19th century home?
  2. doesn't this mean that these women and their families knew both the public and private Joseph very well—they were not merely 'seduced' by his public persona?
  • No source given.
33 Lucinda and George [Harris] lived across the street from the Smiths. At an unspecified time, but probably by 1842, Lucinda became one more of the prophet's plural wives. Compton dates the marriage to 1838.
  • No source given.
34 [In Illinois Joseph] "was still hunted by law officials for old offenses."
  • No source provided.
35 "During the 1837 recession, Smith's unchartered bank, called the Kirland Safety Society Anti-banking Company, collapsed. Angry Ohioans could not be repaid for loans they had made to Mormon merchants and some church members lost their savings."
  • We are not told that loans were made because the Saints (including Joseph) were considered good credit risks. The economic collapse caught everyone by surprise.
  • Kirtland Safety Society
  • No source provided.
37 "Missourians were alarmed by the influx of Mormons…and met to decide what to do about the intrusion. Sidney Rigdon warned that if they lifted their hand against the church, they would be 'exterminated.' In response to this incendiary speech, violence erupted on both sides, and Governor Lilburn Boggs soon declared in an echo of Rigdon's rhetoric that 'the Mormons…must be exterminated,' 'treated as enemies,' and 'driven from the State if necessary' to protect 'the public peace.'
  • History of the Church 3:42, 175.
  • Note that Smith tells us nothing of the 1833 violent dispossession of the members in Jackson County, Missouri. The next paragraph says only that "Mormons found strife wherever they settled…this was true first in Jackson County….then to a succession of other counties."
38 "The Mormon leaders were apprehended and jailed by state and local militia, and their followers were expelled in November 1838."
38 "…Smith and fellow prisoners escaped to join their people in Illinois, where they proceeded to found a theocratic society."
  • No source provided.
  • This distorts the facts. Mormons were in the majority, but others lived there. Joseph did not rule by fiat, but government was conducted democratically under a charter granted by the Illinois legislature.
38n81 "Todd Compton has assembled the most complete documentation regarding Joseph and Fanny's relationship. However, I hesitate to concur with Compton's interpretation of their relationship as a marriage."
  • FANNY ALGER stuff and McLellin docs from GLSFARMS article
  • Note that GD Smith does not engage or do more than mention Compton's strongest evidence: the Hancock autobiography. (He says only "Compton…draws from a late reminiscence by Mosiah Hancock to suggest that Smith married Alger in early 1833."[41 n. 90] But, we are nowhere told that this witness claimed to have performed the marriage ceremony.
  • See FANNY ALGER, MARRIAGE OR AFFAIR book chapter in notes attached.
  • Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 25–42. ( Index of claims )
39 "Joseph wrote in his journal on December 4, 1832, 'Oh, Lord, deliver thy servant out of temtations [sic] and fill his heart with wisdom and understanding.' If this was not in reference to Fanny Alger, it coincided with the report of two of Joseph's scribes, Warren Parrish and Oliver Cowdery, that Joseph had been 'found' in the hay with his housekeeper."
  • No source provided.
  • Neither Parrish nor Cowdery said anything about them being found in the hay together. That relies entirely on William McLellin's second and third hand reports—see above.
  • See the Jessee version of the diary—Joseph seems to have been troubled by McLellin's excommunication the day prior to writing this. (In Notes file)
39 Parrish said Joseph and Fanny were discovered together "as a wife"…
  • No source provided.
  • The Parrish report is from Benjamin F. Johnson, who Smith fails to tell us went on to say, "without a doubt in my mind, Fanny Alger was, at Kirtland, the Prophet’s first plural wife."
  • FANNY ALGER stuff and McLellin docs from GLSFARMS article
39 Cowdery called it a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair."
  • FANNY ALGER stuff and McLellin docs from GLSFARMS article
39–41 William McLellin claims
  • FANNY ALGER stuff and McLellin docs from GLSFARMS article
  • Note that Smith nowhere mentions evidence which supports the marriage theory:
    • the hostile Ann-Eliza Young
    • Fanny's parents
    • Hancock autobiography
40–41 McLellin sometimes claims there was also a "Miss Hill."
  • FANNY ALGER stuff and McLellin docs from GLSFARMS article
  • Mormon Enigma, 66.
41–42 "It might be important to mention that the testimony here and elsewhere regarding "[having] Fanny Alger as a wife" employs a Victorian euphemism that should not be construed to imply that Fanny was actually married to Joseph."
  • No source provided.
  • Yet it is not clear why we should not so construe it. G. D. Smith does not tell us that Johnson (the same person who reported the term 'had…as a wife') then insisted in the same document that “without a doubt in my mind, Fanny Alger was, at Kirtland, the Prophet’s first plural wife.” G. D. Smith provides no evidence or citation to enforce his reading over Johnson’s clear view of the relationship.
42 "There is no evidence to corroborate the claim that Fanny was pregnant."
  • No source provided.
  • There is reason to doubt this claim, not merely to regard it as unconfirmed.
  • FANNY ALGER PREGNANCY? From GLSFARMS.
42–43 Five "primary accounts" of the Fanny relationship:

1) Oliver Cowdery & Warren Parrish 2) FG Williams via McLellin 3) Emma Smith via McLellin 4) Benjamin F. Johnson 5) Fanny Brewer's affidavit|| ||

  • There is no Warren Parrish statement as suggested in #1; only Johnson's citation of him in 1905.
  • McLellin – see GLSFARMS
  • Benjamin F. Johnson –
  • GD Smith fails to mention:

6) Ann Eliza Webb x 2 (hostile, but thought was a marriage) 7) Chauncery Webb

  • See TABLE 2 in GLSFARMS None
44 "Rumors may have been circulating already as early as 1832 that Smith had been familiar with fifteen-year-old Marinda Johnson, a member of the family with which Smith lived in Ohio."
  • No source provided.
  • Compton and Van Wagoner both reject this version of events.
  • See GLSFARMS, Marinda Nancy Johnson.
44 "Lucinda Harris…[claimed] she was Joseph's 'mistress' four years before an 1842 conversation with Sarah Pratt…."
  • Lucinda Harris in GLSFARMS
  • Wilhelm Wyl, Mormon Portraits Volume First: Joseph Smith the Prophet, His Family and Friends (Salt Lake City: Tribune Printing and Publishing Co., 1886), 60.
  • D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Signature Books, 1994), 618.
44 n. 100 “Van Wagoner...and Compton...argue that the mobsters...reacted to financial shenanigans, not to indiscretions with their sister. In defense of this position, Van Wagoner and Compton point to the fact that Sidney Rigdon was also tarred and feathered that night”
  • G. D. Smith fails to mention the strongest arguments advanced by those who disagree with him. He provides no citation for the explanation that he adopts.
  • See GLSFARMS, Marinda Nancy Johnson. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 4 n. 4; Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 220–222.
45 "Gary James Bergera….[argued that] 'Smith introduced members…to the ordinances of…eternal marriage (1841)…."
  •  History unclear or in error
  • Joseph was teaching the doctrine of eternal marriage well before 1841.
  • See FANNY ALGER, MARRIAGE OR AFFAIR book chapter in notes attached.
44–45 "Civil marriage" was "an outdated marriage contract which, church members came to understand, was an inefficacious as an improper baptism."
  • Not true, since one could be in good Church standing if one was civilly married, but not if one was committing adultery.
  • Beyond the grave, marriages were not binding. But this does not mean that they were "outdated," or that Church members did not continue to marry civilly.
  • Anderson and Faulring's review of Compton in the FARMS review talks about this too….. Bergera, "The Earliest Eternal Sealings for Civilly Married Couples Living and Dead," Dialogue 35 (Fall 2002): 41–42, 45. (I've not read this – GLS)
48 "In Smith's narrative, an otherworldly being Smtih called 'the Lord' defends polygamy…." Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Loaded and prejudicial language
48-49 "The revelation [D&C 132] contravenes the Book of Mormon passage where polygamy is said to be allowed under certain conditions but is likely an indication of wickedness…." "However, Smith's 1843 revelation changes all this. Section 132 establishes polygamy as a virtuous higher law that is forever 'true'—no longer a time-sensitive practice." Contradiction between D&C 132 and Jacob 2
49 "Another revelation, almost seeming to recall Smith's teenage concerns about sinful thoughts and behavior, reiterated this standard: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery….'" Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Mind reading
  • DC 42꞉24
  • Again presuming what he has failed to prove—that Joseph was challenged by sexual sin from early adolescence.
50 "…in 1841, Joseph Smith and Luisa Beaman participated in the first formal ceremony to legitimize a plural coupling." Joseph Smith and polygamy
  • No source give.
  • Again ignores the Hancock autobiography, Ann Eliza Webb, Chauncery Webb, and Benjamin F. Johnson.
50 "…Smith engaged in even more perilous anti-social behavior by indulging in sexual relations with the daughters and wives of close friends, albeit mostly in marital and religious contexts." Joseph Smith and polyandry
  • No source given.
  • Sexual relations in a marital context is not an "anti-social" act. If all the data is taken into account, all were sanctioned in this way (see p. 50).|| ||
  • There is scant evidence that Joseph had sexual relations with any polyandrous wife.
  • See GLSFARMS
51 "…LDS leaders denied violating Illinois law…." Lying about plural marriage
  • No source given.
51 [Today there is] "the continued abusive coercion of underage girls in polygamous communities. Although polygamy has been repeatedly condemned by the contemporary LDS Church, the Nauvoo beginnings of the practice remain in LDS scripture as Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants and in the church's temple sealings. Guilt by association
  • Newspaper articles on "fundamentalist" plural marriage

Endnotes

  1. [note]  William J. Hamblin, "That Old Black Magic (Review of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, by D. Michael Quinn)," FARMS Review of Books 12/2 (2000): 225–394. [{{{url}}} off-site]
  2. [note] Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 99.
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