Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 2

Claims made in "Chapter 2: Comfort me now"

Page	Claim	Response	Author's sources
53	[Joseph] "recommended his friend, whose seventeen-year-old daughter he had just married, should 'come a little a head, and nock…at the window.'"	Joseph Smith and polygamy/"Love letters"	Internal contradiction: p. 65 Age presentism Smith, Letter to "Brother and Sister [Newel K.] Whitney, and &c.," Nauvoo, Illinois, Aug. 18, 1842, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City.
53	The prophet then poured out his heart, writing to his newest wife: "My feelings are so strong for you…now is the time to afford me succour….I know it is the will of God that you should comfort me now."	Joseph Smith and polygamy/"Love letters"	Joseph is speaking to all three, and again distorting the letter as he began the book. Whitney letter, Aug. 18, 1842.
53	"Emma Hale, Joseph's wife of fifteen years, had left his side just twenty-four hours earlier. Now Joseph declared that he was "lonesome," and he pleaded with Sarah Ann to visit him under cover of darkness. After all, they had been married just three weeks earlier.	Joseph Smith and polygamy/"Love letters"	Loaded language trying to make Joseph appear sexually voracious and insensitive to Emma. As stated in the letter, the reason for the visit was to perform ordinances. Whitney letter, Aug. 18, 1842.
54	“Did Sarah Ann keep this rendezvous on that humid summer night? Unfortunately, the documentary record is silent.” But “the letter survives to illuminate the complexity of Smith’s life in Nauvoo” (p. 54).		The documentary record is not silent, however, as to why Joseph sought a visit with his plural wife and her parents: to “tell you all my plans . . . [and] to git the fulness of my blessings sealed upon our heads, &c.” Small wonder that Joseph didn’t want a hostile Emma present while trying to administer what he and the Whitneys regarded as sacred ordinances. And, it is unsurprising that he considered a single private room sufficient for the purposes for which he summoned his plural wife and her parents. None
54	"What interested me most was how Smith went about courting…these women."		No evidence that Joseph did any courting. He often used intermediaries. See wiki on spiritual experiences. Bushman on lack of wooing terminology.
55	"When [polygamy] was officially abandoned in 1890, what previously had been called 'celestial marriage' was subtly redefined to specify something new: marriage performed in LDS temples for this life and for an expected eternal afterlife."	Need wiki article on this claim.	S*hould link too to the FANNY ALGER AFFAIR or MARRIAGE wiki, which has the raw material for the answer (but one must expand into the Utah period). No source provided.
55	Plural marriage had been a key principle of Mormon exaltation; but by adaption, celestial marriage was still said to be required, only now it meant monogamy rather than polygamy.	Polygamy a requirement for exaltation
55	"Despite his crowded daily schedule, the prophet interrupted other activities for secret liaisons with women and girls…."	Loaded language	No source provided.
55	"He assured the women and their families that such unions were not only sanctionied but were demanded by heaven and fulfilled the ethereal principle of 'restoration.'"		Does not tell us that Joseph had the women get their OWN witness. See spiritual experiences with plural marriage. Women could and did turn Joseph down with no consequences. (Need wiki?) No source provided.
56	"There may have been even more wives and plural children."	Anything might have happened. Fallacy of possibility. None
57	History of the Church says nothing about Nauvoo on the day of Louisa Beaman's marriage to Joseph.	Censoring history	Specific wiki article from GLSFARMS on Smith's History of the Church nonsense. No source provided.
63	"As will be seen, conjugal visits appear furtive and constantly shadowed by the threat of disclosure."		NOTE I’m not sure he ever DOES show this, except with Sarah Ann Whitney. I'll watch for it…. No source provided.
65	“when Joseph requested that Sarah Ann Whitney visit him and ‘nock at the window,’ he reassured his new young wife that Emma would not be there, telegraphing his fear of discovery if Emma happened upon his trysts”	Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Contradictions	Internal contradiction: The invitation was to Sarah and her parents Loaded language, "trysts"  History unclear or in error No citation given
65	"One of the instrumental people in the inauguration of plural marriage was John [C.] Bennett…."		A huge leap, presuming that Bennett's adulteries were ever sanctioned by Joseph, or had anything to do with plural marriage. [See also p. 119] [GLS had 3 chapters on him; maybe use…..]
65	"…in 1841 [Bennett] functioned as perhaps Joseph Smith's closest confident."		Ignores that Joseph began to distrust him for cause long before their public rupture.
65	Joseph was "sharing power" with Bennett		Bennett's power was mainly secular. He did little in the religious realm. Joseph had wanted to be relieved of temporal responsibilities, and Bennett was available. GLS Bennett chapters
65	"In the spring of 1842, Bennett spoke out against Smith and was soon stripped of his offices and titles."		Bennett was guilty of serial immoralities, and had been disciplined on multiple occasions. He only "spoke out" once he learned that he was to be stripped of membership in the Church. GD Smith has cause and effect reversed, because he doesn't want us to know of the overwhelming evidence of Bennett's guilt. GLS Bennett chapters
65	"Each accused the other of immoral behavior."		Bennett was accused by far more people, over a far greater length of time, of "immoral behavior." Many of his accusers were not LDS and had nothing to do with the Mormons. Bennett only began to accuse Joseph once his own crimes were repeatedly revealed.
65	"While some of his claims may have been exaggerations, much of what he reported can be confirmed by other eyewitness accounts."		Many of Bennett's claims are clearly false. GD Smith uses Bennett uncritically, and naively. The things which Bennett can "confirm" are mostly things like names of people Joseph married. Bennett also clearly forged some material from others.
65	"Even though his statements must be weighed critically, he cannot be merely dismissed as an unfriendly source who fabricated scandal."		GD Smith never does this weighing for us. Much of what he writes, after analysis, must be dismissed as fabrication or exaggeration, however. Even anti-Mormon authors warned of Bennett's problems: "There is, no doubt, much truth in Bennett's book…but no statement that he makes can be received with confidence."
65	"Bennett had an ambitious but colorful background."		This hides a mountain of evidence about Bennett's pre-LDS behavior, including: repeatedly using others' names to fraudulently support the establishment of medical colleges selling bogus medical diplomas selling bogus diplomas in other fields (e.g., law) lying and misrepresentation serial adulteries and infidelities. Abandonment of wife and children None
66-67	"Writing on March 23, 1846, Bennett claimed to have known 'Joseph better than any other man living for at least fourteen months!'….Bennett was well positioned to know all about any behind-the-scenes transactions.		GD Smith here accepts Bennett uncritically. Despite his claim, he was never part of the inner circle which received the highest temple ordinances introduced by Joseph. Bennett and Rigdon "were conspicuously absent" when Joseph Smith spoke to those who would be among the first to receive the full endowment necessary "to finish their work and prevent imposition" by Satan. Bennett had secular influence, but relatively little to do with religious matters in Nauvoo: "Thus, the considerable embarrassment to Joseph Smith and Mormonism which some have inferred from Bennett's alleged duping of the Mormons is cast in a new light because Bennett himself so effectively refutes his own claim that he was a close confidant of Joseph Smith. Unwittingly, Bennett indisputably demonstrates that he was neither directly involved with the endowment, eternal marriage, nor plural marriage—the most significant private theological developments during Bennett's stay in Nauvoo. Smith, Saintly Scoundrel, 56.
68	“Joseph” is merely “feigning impartiality” before going on to practice “undemocratic block voting”		Block voting is not undemocratic—many interest groups vote en masse for candidates which will meet their needs. Joseph was not feigning when he said, "We care not a fig for a Whig or Democrat….We shall go for our friends." (p. 68) He was indicating that party made no difference to the Saints; what mattered is who would agree to defend them. Prejudicial language No source provided.
69	"Undeterred" by reports of a negative assessment of Bennett, Joseph "named Bennett Assistant President of the Church."		Joseph knew from personal experience that "it is no uncommon thing for good men to be evil spoken against," and did nothing precipitous. The accusations against Bennett gained credence when Joseph learned of his attempts to persuade a young woman "that he intended to marry her." Joseph dispatched Hyrum Smith and William Law to make inquiries, and in early July 1841 he learned that Bennett had a wife and children living in the east. Non-LDS sources confirmed Bennett's infidelity: one noted that he "heard it from almost every person in town that [his wife] left him in consequence of his ill treatment of her home and his intimacy with other women." Another source reported that Bennett's wife "declared that she could no longer live with him…it would be the seventh family that he had parted during their union."
69	Bennett was Assistant President of the Church	Presentism.	Sidney Rigdon, a counsellor in the First Presidency, was frequently ill. On April 8, "John C. Bennett was presented, with the First Presidency, as Assistant President until President Rigdon's health should be restored." Modern readers should be cautious in projecting the role of the current First Presidency on Joseph's day. In the modern Church, the First Presidency is almost always composed of two apostles who have extensive experience in ecclesiastical affairs called to serve with the President. In Joseph's day, this was not the case. Most of Joseph's counsellors in the First Presidency were to betray his trust, including Jesse Gause, Frederick G. Williams, Sidney Rigdon, William Law and John C. Bennett. While some of these counsellors received keys, Bennett did not. None were apostles prior to their call. No source provided.