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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 3: Difference between revisions
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*''History of the Church'' 5:153-55.
*''History of the Church'' 5:153-55.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Nauvoo city charter}}
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G.D. Smith cites chapter 2 of the present work.  However, no argument or justification for this claim is provided in the previous chapter either.
G.D. Smith cites chapter 2 of the present work.  However, no argument or justification for this claim is provided in the previous chapter either.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Nauvoo city charter}}
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*[[Polygamy Book/The Peace Maker]]  
*[[Polygamy Book/The Peace Maker]]  
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*Lawrence Foster, "A Little-Known Defense of Polygamy from the Mormon Press in 1842," Dialogue 9 (Winter 1974): 21–34.
*Lawrence Foster, "A Little-Known Defense of Polygamy from the Mormon Press in 1842," ''Dialogue'' 9 (Winter 1974): 21–34.
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*G.D. Smith here over-simplifies an extremely complex issue, with no references or argument.
*G.D. Smith here over-simplifies an extremely complex issue, with no references or argument.
See: Kenneth W. Godfrey, "Causes of Mormon Non-Mormon Conflict in Hancock County, Illinois, 1839-1846," Ph.D. thesis (1967), Brigham Young University.
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*No source provided. He merely asserts and moves on.
*No source provided. He merely asserts and moves on.
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*Speculation.
*Speculation.
*Despite Smith's repetition of his "tryst" fable, there is no evidence of a sexual relationship with Sarah Ann.
*Despite the author's wearisome repetition of his "tryst" fable, there is no evidence of a sexual relationship with Sarah Ann.
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/"Love letters"]]
*[[../../Misrepresentation_of_sources#Sarah_Ann_Whitney_and_the_letter_to_the_Whitneys|Misrepresentation of sources—Letter to Whitneys]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*[[../../Romance]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Love_letters_Whitney}}
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====196====
====196====
||Financial and marital issues, especially concerning the Lawrence sisters, would inflame public opinion prior to Smith's arrest. G.D. Smith does not tell us that Madsen's work demonstrates that Joseph properly discharged all his financial duties as guardians of the Lawrence estate.
||Financial and marital issues, especially concerning the Lawrence sisters, would inflame public opinion prior to Smith's arrest.
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The author does not tell us that Madsen's work (which he cites for his claim) demonstrates that Joseph properly discharged all his financial duties as guardians of the Lawrence estate.
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Mismanagement of the Lawrence estate|Mismanagement of the Lawrence estate?]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
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*GLSFARMS Paper Gordon Madsen, ‘The Lawrence Estate Revisited: Joseph Smith and Illinois Law regarding Guardianships,’ Nauvoo Symposium, Sept. 21, 1989, Brigham Young University
Gordon Madsen, ‘The Lawrence Estate Revisited: Joseph Smith and Illinois Law regarding Guardianships,’ Nauvoo Symposium, Sept. 21, 1989, Brigham Young University.
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||There was a "conflict of interests between building a church community and [Joseph's] continuing affection for young women."
||There was a "conflict of interests between building a church community and [Joseph's] continuing affection for young women."
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*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
*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]]
*[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Age_wives}}
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||Helen's biographer concludes that she 'expected her marriage to Joseph Smith' to be a ceremony 'for eternity only,' not an actual marriage involving physical relations.
||Helen's biographer concludes that she 'expected her marriage to Joseph Smith' to be a ceremony 'for eternity only,' not an actual marriage involving physical relations.
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||  
*There is no evidence for physical relations in Sarah's marriage to Joseph.
*There is no evidence for physical relations in Sarah's marriage to Joseph. The source cited, Compton, does not agree with G.D. Smith's reading: “there is absolutely no evidence that there was any sexuality in the marriage, and I suggest that, following later practice in Utah, there may have been no sexuality. All the evidence points to this marriage as a primarily dynastic marriage.”{{ref|compton1}}
*The source, Compton, does not agree with G.D. Smith's reading: “there is absolutely no evidence that there was any sexuality in the marriage, and I suggest that, following later practice in Utah, there may have been no sexuality. All the evidence points to this marriage as a primarily dynastic marriage.”  
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
*SEE GLSFARMS article
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Helen Mar Kimball]]
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Helen Mar Kimball]]
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||"How surprised she was to discover 'that it included [marriage for] time also": a physical union at age fourteen with a thirty-seven year-old man."
||"How surprised she was to discover 'that it included [marriage for] time also": a physical union at age fourteen with a thirty-seven year-old man."
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*G.D. Smith again distorts the above source.
*The author again distorts the source. The surprise was not in finding that she needed to have "a physical union," but that she was regarded as married, and so could not date others her age while Joseph was alive.
*The surprise was not in finding that she needed to have "a physical union," but that she was regarded as married, and so could not date others her age while Joseph was alive.
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Helen Mar Kimball]]
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Helen Mar Kimball]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
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*{{CriticalWork:Compton:Sacred Loneliness|pages=500}}
*{{CriticalWork:Compton:Sacred Loneliness|pages=500}}
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*In addition to hiding Compton's conclusion, Smith does not tell us that his Kimball source likewise concluded that the marriage with Helen was “unconsummated.”  
*In addition to hiding Compton's conclusion, Smith does not tell us that his Kimball source likewise concluded that the marriage with Helen was “unconsummated.”  
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Helen Mar Kimball]]  
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Helen Mar Kimball]]  
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
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*Stanley B. Kimball, Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer (Ubana: University of Illinois Press, 1981): 109-110.
*Stanley B. Kimball, ''Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer'' (Ubana: University of Illinois Press, 1981): 109-110.
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||"That [Rhoda Richards] was her husband Brigham's cousin was apparently secondary to the grander scheme of interlocking the hierarchy in marriage."
||"That [Rhoda Richards] was her husband Brigham's cousin was apparently secondary to the grander scheme of interlocking the hierarchy in marriage."
||  
||  
*Here G.D. Smith again relies on presentism to provide a hostile interpretive lens. It was not unusual for first cousins to marry; notable first-cousin marriages include scientists Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein; composers Edvard Grieg and Sergei Rachmaninoff; the founding prime minister of Canada, John A. Macdonald; and authors Edgar Allen Poe and H. G. Wells.  Nineteen of the present-day states permit unrestricted marriage between first cousins, and most countries have no restrictions at all on marriage between cousins.  In its exploitation of the presentist fallacy, G. D. Smith’s remark is utterly irrelevant in its historical context.
*Here G.D. Smith again relies on presentism to provide a hostile interpretive lens. It was not unusual for first cousins to marry.  Nineteen of the present-day states permit unrestricted marriage between first cousins, and most countries have no restrictions at all on marriage between cousins.  In its exploitation of the presentist fallacy, G. D. Smith’s remark is utterly irrelevant in its historical context.
*[[../../Presentism]]
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
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*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
*Presumes or implies that Joseph Smith and William Clayton were the author(s).
*Presumes or implies that Joseph Smith and William Clayton were the author(s).
*Clayton would testify: "Joseph commenced to dictate the revelation on celestial marriage, and I wrote it, sentence by sentence, as he dictated. After the whole was written, Joseph asked me to read it through, slowly and carefully, which I did, and he pronounced it correct."
*Clayton would testify: "Joseph commenced to dictate the revelation on celestial marriage, and I wrote it, sentence by sentence, as he dictated. After the whole was written, Joseph asked me to read it through, slowly and carefully, which I did, and he pronounced it correct."{{ref|clayton1}}
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*No source provided.  
*No source provided.  
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Cynical}}
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*G.D. Smith fails to tell us that Joseph's remarks are a tongue-in-cheek reply to Bennet's previous letter.
*G.D. Smith fails to tell us that Joseph's remarks are a tongue-in-cheek reply to Bennet's previous letter.
*GLSFARMS paper
*[[Joseph Smith's narcissism]]
*Probably wiki this section….
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||G.D. Smith again quotes Joseph: "‘I am learned, and know more than all the world put together."
||G.D. Smith again quotes Joseph: "‘I am learned, and know more than all the world put together."
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*G.D. Smith does not quote enough of Joseph's remarks to complete his thought:
*G.D. Smith does not quote enough of Joseph's remarks to complete his thought.
*"If you tell them that God made the world out of something, they will call you a fool. The reason is that they are unlearned but I am learned and know more than all the world put together—the Holy Ghost does, anyhow.  If the Holy Ghost in me comprehends more than all the world, I will associate myself with it."
*G.D. Smith also avoids quoting the better versions of this talk, from the ''Times and Seasons'', ''BYU Studies'', or even Signature Books.
*G.D. Smith also avoids quoting the better versions of this talk, from the Times and Seasons, BYU Studies, or even Signature Books.
*[[Joseph Smith's narcissism]]
*GLS FARMS paper
{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
*Maybe also wiki….
  ||
  ||
*''History of the Church'' 6:222–223.  
*''History of the Church'' 6:222–223.  
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*We have evidence of sexual relations for only nine wives.
*We have evidence of sexual relations for only nine wives.
*GLSFARMS paper
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
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*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Children of polygamous marriages]]
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Children of polygamous marriages]]
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*The Life & Testimony of Mary Lightner (Salt Lake City: Kraut's Pioneer Press, n.d.); "Mary E. Lightner's Testimony, As Delivered at Brigham Young University)," [punctuation is like that in Smith] Apr. 14, 1905, 41-42, complied by N.B. Lundwall, LDS Archives, at Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
*The Life & Testimony of Mary Lightner (Salt Lake City: Kraut's Pioneer Press, n.d.); "Mary E. Lightner's Testimony, As Delivered at Brigham Young University)," [punctuation ''sic''] Apr. 14, 1905, 41-42, complied by N.B. Lundwall, LDS Archives, at Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
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||"Until decisive DNA testing of possible Smith descendants—daughters as well as sons—from plural wives can be accomplished, ascertaining whether Smith fathered children with any of his plural wives remains hypothetical."
||"Until decisive DNA testing of possible Smith descendants—daughters as well as sons—from plural wives can be accomplished, ascertaining whether Smith fathered children with any of his plural wives remains hypothetical."
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*This is true, but G. D. Smith fails to tell us that all those who have been definitively tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded. Would he have neglected, I wonder, to mention a positive DNA test?
*This is true, but G. D. Smith fails to tell us that all those who have been definitively tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded. Would he have neglected, one wonders, to mention a positive DNA test?
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Children of polygamous marriages]]
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Children of polygamous marriages]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
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*G.D. Smith again uses loaded language.  There is little evidence that Joseph's proposals were romantic or amorous.
*G.D. Smith again uses loaded language.  There is little evidence that Joseph's proposals were romantic or amorous.
*[[Joseph_Smith_and_polygamy/Did_women_turn_Joseph_down|Women who rejected plural marriage]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
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*Cordelia Morley Cox, Autobiographical statement, Mar. 17, 1909, Perry Special Collections.  
*Cordelia Morley Cox, Autobiographical statement, Mar. 17, 1909, Perry Special Collections.  
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|232||Eliza Winters “perhaps did not” resist Joseph’s advances “but apparently talked about it all the same.”
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====232====
||Eliza Winters “perhaps did not” resist Joseph’s advances “but apparently talked about it all the same.”
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*Eliza Winters wiki?
 
*There is no evidence that Eliza ever said anything about it.
*There is no evidence that Eliza ever said anything about this.
*GLSFARMS
*[[Polygamy_book/Early_womanizer#Eliza_Winters|Eliza Winters]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Eliza Winters}}
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*[[Native Americans to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage?]]
*[[Native Americans to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage?]]
*[[Polygamy_book/Initiation_of_the_practice|Initiation of the practice]]
*[[Polygamy_book/Initiation_of_the_practice|Initiation of the practice]]
*Joseph did not direct them to marry the women.  None did so.  Joseph reported that God said that "It is my will, ''that in time'', ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites…." (italics added). 
*That this might entail plural marriage was only realized three years later when Joseph was asked about it.  None of the missionaries in 1831 understood the plural marriage implication.
[[Polygamy_book/Initiation_of_the_practice|Beginnings of plural marriage]]
||
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*[See also p. 260.]
*No source provided.
*Joseph did not direct them to marry the women.  None did so.  Joseph reported that God said that "It is my will, ''that in time'', ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites…." (italics added). 
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Early knowledge}}
*That this might entail plural marriage was only realized three years later when Joseph was asked about it.
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====236====
====236a====
||G.D. Smith hints that Emma would have to sneak up on Joseph to check up on him, as evidenced by “his warning to Sarah Ann to proceed carefully in order to make sure Emma would not find them in their hiding place.”
||G.D. Smith hints that Emma would have to sneak up on Joseph to check up on him, as evidenced by “his warning to Sarah Ann to proceed carefully in order to make sure Emma would not find them in their hiding place.”
||  
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*Joseph’s hiding place from the mob and instructions to the Whitneys have been transmogrified into a hiding place for Joseph and Sarah Ann.
*Joseph’s hiding place from the mob and instructions to the Whitneys have been transmogrified into a hiding place for Joseph and Sarah Ann.
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/"Love letters"]]
*[[../../Misrepresentation_of_sources#Sarah_Ann_Whitney_and_the_letter_to_the_Whitneys|Misrepresentation of sources—Letter to Whitneys]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*[[../../Romance]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Love_letters_Whitney}}
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====236====
====236b====
||G. D. Smith asks us to “assume . . . that LeRoi Snow’s account [about Emma and Eliza and the stairs] was accurate.”
||G. D. Smith asks us to “assume . . . that LeRoi Snow’s account [about Emma and Eliza and the stairs] was accurate.”
||  
||  
*[See also p. 130-134.] Yet again, Smith provides no hint that most researchers doubt this event.
*Yet again, the author provides no hint that most researchers doubt this event. He does nothing to deal with his sources' objections here or elsewhere.
*He does nothing to deal with their objections here or elsewhere.
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Emma Smith/Eliza R. Snow and the stairs|Emma, Eliza, and the stairs]]
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Stairs}}
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====236====
====236c====
||"Just as Joseph sought comfort from Sarah Ann the day Emma departed from his hideout…."
||"Just as Joseph sought comfort from Sarah Ann the day Emma departed from his hideout…."
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*G.D. Smith's version of Sarah Ann is again trotted out.
*The author's version of Sarah Ann is again trotted out.
*[[Joseph Smith and polygamy/"Love letters"]]
*[[../../Misrepresentation_of_sources#Sarah_Ann_Whitney_and_the_letter_to_the_Whitneys|Misrepresentation of sources—Letter to Whitneys]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*[[../../Romance]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Love_letters_Whitney}}
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Womanizing and romance}}
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||Joseph had a "prolonged dalliance with Fanny Alger."
||Joseph had a "prolonged dalliance with Fanny Alger."
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*[[Polygamy_book/Introduction_of_the_eternal_marriage|Fanny Alger—affair or marriage?]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
*[[Polygamy book/Initiation of the practice]]
*[[Polygamy book/Initiation of the practice]]
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*No source provided.
*No source provided.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Hancock_ignored}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Fanny Alger}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Womanizing and romance}}
{{EndClaimsTable}}
{{EndClaimsTable}}
==Endnotes==
#{{note|compton1}} Todd M. Compton, “Response to Tanners,” post to LDS Bookshelf mailing list (no date), <http://www.lds-mormon.com/compton.shtml> (accessed 2 December 2008). Compare with Smith, ''Nauvoo Polygamy'', 198–202, 302, 362 and Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'', 14.
#{{note|clayton1}} See Smith, ''An Intimate Chronicle'', 558; see also ''History of the Church'' 5:xxxii; citing William Clayton, affidavit, 16 February 1874, Salt Lake City, Utah; originally published in Andrew Jenson, "Plural Marriage," ''Historical Record'' 6 (May 1887): 224-226.

Revision as of 21:02, 23 December 2008


Chapter 2
A FAIR Analysis of:
Criticism of Mormonism/Books
A work by author: George D. Smith
 Chapter 4

Chapter 3

Page Claim Response Author's sources

159

 "several days after Orson Pratt, Sidney Rigdon, and Ebenezer Robinson declined to affirm Smith's good character…."
  • The three were Pratt, Rigdon, and George W. Robinson, not Ebenezer. (See Manuscript History, 29 August 1842; History of the Church 5:139; Faulring, American Prophet's Record, 254).
  •  Citation error
  • History of the Church 5:125, 139.

160

 Governor Carlin described that Nauvoo statute on writs as an "extraordinary assumption of power….most absurd and ridiculous…[a] gross usurpation of power that cannot be tolerated."
  • History of the Church 5:153-55.

Nauvoo city charter (edit)

  • See also ch. 1: 2
  • See also ch. 2a: 139
  • See also ch. 3: 160, 161, and 163

161

 "The Nauvoo charter, which was the basis for this presumption of independence from state jurisdiction…."

G.D. Smith cites chapter 2 of the present work. However, no argument or justification for this claim is provided in the previous chapter either. Nauvoo city charter (edit)

  • See also ch. 1: 2
  • See also ch. 2a: 139
  • See also ch. 3: 160, 161, and 163

162

 It is interesting that [The Peace Maker, a non-member's defence of polygamy] appeared during the hiatus in the erstwhile marriage frenzy of 1842 and while Smith's apostles were traveling the countryside to counter Bennett's words and deny polygamy."
  • G.D. Smith does not discuss the many differences between The Peace Maker and LDS doctrine.
  • G.D. Smith and his source also ignore the arguments which had been raised against Joseph's participation or approval.
  • Polygamy Book/The Peace Maker
  • Lawrence Foster, "A Little-Known Defense of Polygamy from the Mormon Press in 1842," Dialogue 9 (Winter 1974): 21–34.

163

 "…the entire Mormon community would be expelled from Illinois, primarily because of the dominant sense they betrayed public trust."
  • G.D. Smith here over-simplifies an extremely complex issue, with no references or argument.

See: Kenneth W. Godfrey, "Causes of Mormon Non-Mormon Conflict in Hancock County, Illinois, 1839-1846," Ph.D. thesis (1967), Brigham Young University.

  • No source provided. He merely asserts and moves on.

185

 Joseph's "summer 1842 call for an intimate visit from Sarah Ann Whitney…substantiate[s] the intimate relationships he was involved in during those two years."
  • No source provided.

Whitney "love letter" (edit)

185

 "However, the History of the Church predictably gives no notice of these weddings."
  • No source provided.

Censorship of Church History (edit)

190

 "The pretended marriage [of Joseph Kingsbury to the polygamously-married Sarah Ann Whitney] could have been a precaution against possible pregnancy."
  • No source provided.

Whitney "love letter" (edit)

193

 Lucy Walker "told Joseph she required a revelation before she would submit [to plural marriage]. He promised that if she prayed, she would receive her own personal manifestation from God, which she reported she received 'near dawn after—a sleepless night"—when a "heavenly influence" and feeling of "supreme happiness…took possession" of her."
  • Littlefield, Reminiscences, 48; Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 100, 557.

196

 Financial and marital issues, especially concerning the Lawrence sisters, would inflame public opinion prior to Smith's arrest.

The author does not tell us that Madsen's work (which he cites for his claim) demonstrates that Joseph properly discharged all his financial duties as guardians of the Lawrence estate.

Gordon Madsen, ‘The Lawrence Estate Revisited: Joseph Smith and Illinois Law regarding Guardianships,’ Nauvoo Symposium, Sept. 21, 1989, Brigham Young University.

198

 There was a "conflict of interests between building a church community and [Joseph's] continuing affection for young women."
  • No source provided.

Ages of wives (edit)

  • See also ch. Preface: ix
  • See also ch. 1: 1, 22, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 44
  • See also ch. 2: 53
  • See also ch. 2a: 142-143
  • See also ch. 3: 198
  • See also ch. 6: 408

198

 "Joseph was pursuing Helen" Mar Kimball.
  • No source provided.

201

 Helen's biographer concludes that she 'expected her marriage to Joseph Smith' to be a ceremony 'for eternity only,' not an actual marriage involving physical relations.
  • There is no evidence for physical relations in Sarah's marriage to Joseph. The source cited, Compton, does not agree with G.D. Smith's reading: “there is absolutely no evidence that there was any sexuality in the marriage, and I suggest that, following later practice in Utah, there may have been no sexuality. All the evidence points to this marriage as a primarily dynastic marriage.”[1]
  • Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
  • Joseph Smith and polygamy/Helen Mar Kimball

201

 "How surprised she was to discover 'that it included [marriage for] time also": a physical union at age fourteen with a thirty-seven year-old man."
  • The author again distorts the source. The surprise was not in finding that she needed to have "a physical union," but that she was regarded as married, and so could not date others her age while Joseph was alive.
  • Joseph Smith and polygamy/Helen Mar Kimball
  • Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)

201

 "As she put her ambivalent feelings into verse in her "Reminiscences," Helen had "thought through this life my time will be my own," but "the step I am now taking's for eternity alone." She saw her "youthful friends grow shy and cold" as "poisonous darts from sland'rous tongues were hurled." She was "bar'd out from social scenes by this destiny," and faced "sad'nd mem'ries of sweet departed joys"
  • This poem in fact demonstrates G.D. Smith's distortion. Her concern was indeed that she was "bar'd out from social scenes"—she could not date while married. This does not mean, however, that there were sexual relations, and G.D. Smith's source agrees.
  • In addition to hiding Compton's conclusion, Smith does not tell us that his Kimball source likewise concluded that the marriage with Helen was “unconsummated.”
  • Joseph Smith and polygamy/Helen Mar Kimball
  • Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
  • Stanley B. Kimball, Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer (Ubana: University of Illinois Press, 1981): 109-110.

205

 "That [Rhoda Richards] was her husband Brigham's cousin was apparently secondary to the grander scheme of interlocking the hierarchy in marriage."
  • Here G.D. Smith again relies on presentism to provide a hostile interpretive lens. It was not unusual for first cousins to marry. Nineteen of the present-day states permit unrestricted marriage between first cousins, and most countries have no restrictions at all on marriage between cousins. In its exploitation of the presentist fallacy, G. D. Smith’s remark is utterly irrelevant in its historical context.
  • Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism
  • No source provided.

214

 "Even though Smith and Clayton spent three hours preparing the eloquent language" of D&C 132….
  • Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
  • Presumes or implies that Joseph Smith and William Clayton were the author(s).
  • Clayton would testify: "Joseph commenced to dictate the revelation on celestial marriage, and I wrote it, sentence by sentence, as he dictated. After the whole was written, Joseph asked me to read it through, slowly and carefully, which I did, and he pronounced it correct."[2]
  • No source provided.

217

 "Smith found it useful to reference the conditional restriction on marriage found in the Book of Mormon."
  • No source provided.

Joseph Smith: cynical motivations (edit)

  • See also ch. 4: 252

225-226

 G.D. Smith intends Joseph to be seen as arrogant. He quotes a letter from Joseph to James Arlington Bennet: “I combat the errors of ages; I meet the violence of mobs; I cope with illegal proceedings from executive authority; I cut the Gordian knot of powers, and I solve mathematical problems of universities, with truth . . . diamond truth; and God is my ‘right hand man.’” G. D. Smith then editorializes: “With such a self-image, it is not surprising that he also aspired to the highest office in the land: the presidency of the United States.”
  • G.D. Smith fails to tell us that Joseph's remarks are a tongue-in-cheek reply to Bennet's previous letter.
  • Joseph Smith's narcissism

226

 G.D. Smith again quotes Joseph: "‘I am learned, and know more than all the world put together."
  • G.D. Smith does not quote enough of Joseph's remarks to complete his thought.
  • G.D. Smith also avoids quoting the better versions of this talk, from the Times and Seasons, BYU Studies, or even Signature Books.
  • Joseph Smith's narcissism

Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)

  • History of the Church 6:222–223.

227

 "There is no reason to doubt that Smith's marriages involved sexual relations in most instances."
  • We have evidence of sexual relations for only nine wives.
  • Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
  • No source provided.

227

 "Mary Elizabeth Lightner spoke of 'three children' whom she said she 'knew he had.'"
  • The Life & Testimony of Mary Lightner (Salt Lake City: Kraut's Pioneer Press, n.d.); "Mary E. Lightner's Testimony, As Delivered at Brigham Young University)," [punctuation sic] Apr. 14, 1905, 41-42, complied by N.B. Lundwall, LDS Archives, at Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

228-229

 "Until decisive DNA testing of possible Smith descendants—daughters as well as sons—from plural wives can be accomplished, ascertaining whether Smith fathered children with any of his plural wives remains hypothetical."
  • This is true, but G. D. Smith fails to tell us that all those who have been definitively tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded. Would he have neglected, one wonders, to mention a positive DNA test?
  • Joseph Smith and polygamy/Children of polygamous marriages
  • Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
  • No source provided.

230

 "In 1841, Sarah Pratt firmly rebuffed Smith and remained monogamously committed to her missionary husband."
  • G.D. Smith here again follows Bennett completely uncritically. He tells us nothing about the multiple witnesses who testified to Sarah's adultery with Bennett.
  • John C. Bennett
  • Bennett, History of the Saints, 228-31; "Workings of Mormonism Related by Mrs. Orson Pratt," 1884, LDS Archives.

231

 "Cordelia C. Morley Cox….had rejected [Joseph's] amorous proposal."
  • Cordelia Morley Cox, Autobiographical statement, Mar. 17, 1909, Perry Special Collections.

232

 Eliza Winters “perhaps did not” resist Joseph’s advances “but apparently talked about it all the same.”
  • There is no evidence that Eliza ever said anything about this.
  • Eliza Winters
  • Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
  • No source provided.

Eliza Winters (edit)

  • See also ch. 1: 28-29 and 29
  • See also ch. 3: 232

234

 "According to LDS theology, the posthumous sealing meant that Heber would be Smith's son in the eternities, not the son of his biological father."
  • Heber was connected to Joseph because all believers had to be sealed into one large family. This was no attempt to displace Heber's biological father, but grew out of the recognition that his father had not been a believer, and so had not accepted essential ordinances. Later clarification under Wilford Woodruff encouraged believers to be sealed to their biological family, with the understanding that such matters would be sorted out through God's mercy and justice via proxy ordinances for the deceased.
  • Vicarious ordinances
  • No source provided.

Sealing takes away families? (edit)

  • See also ch. 2: 77
  • See also ch. 3: 234

235

 [In 1831 Joseph] "directed missionaries to marry native American women."

Beginnings of plural marriage

  • No source provided.

Early preoccupation with polygamy (edit)

236a

 G.D. Smith hints that Emma would have to sneak up on Joseph to check up on him, as evidenced by “his warning to Sarah Ann to proceed carefully in order to make sure Emma would not find them in their hiding place.”
  • No source provided.

Whitney "love letter" (edit)

236b

 G. D. Smith asks us to “assume . . . that LeRoi Snow’s account [about Emma and Eliza and the stairs] was accurate.”
  • Yet again, the author provides no hint that most researchers doubt this event. He does nothing to deal with his sources' objections here or elsewhere.
  • Emma, Eliza, and the stairs
  • No source provided.

Emma, Eliza & stairs (edit)

236c

 "Just as Joseph sought comfort from Sarah Ann the day Emma departed from his hideout…."
  • No source provided.

Whitney "love letter" (edit)

237

 Joseph's "insatiable addition of one woman after another to an invisible family…."
  • No source provided.

Womanizing & romance (edit)

237

 Joseph had a "prolonged dalliance with Fanny Alger."
  • No source provided.

Ignoring Hancock autobiography (edit)

Fanny Alger (edit)

Womanizing & romance (edit)

Endnotes

  1. [note]  Todd M. Compton, “Response to Tanners,” post to LDS Bookshelf mailing list (no date), <http://www.lds-mormon.com/compton.shtml> (accessed 2 December 2008). Compare with Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy, 198–202, 302, 362 and Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 14.
  2. [note]  See Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 558; see also History of the Church 5:xxxii; citing William Clayton, affidavit, 16 February 1874, Salt Lake City, Utah; originally published in Andrew Jenson, "Plural Marriage," Historical Record 6 (May 1887): 224-226.
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