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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Preface
A FAIR Analysis of: Criticism of Mormonism/Books A work by author: George D. Smith
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Chapter 1 |
Claims made in Preface
| Page | Claim | Response | Author's sources |
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| ix | Joseph was inspired by Napoleon's Egyptian discoveries | Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Napoleon's Egyptian discoveries |
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| ix | Joseph proposed a tryst with Sarah Ann Whitney | Joseph Smith and polygamy/"Love letters" |
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| ix | Joseph 36 versus Sarah 17 | Age of wives |
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| ix | Joseph's letter to Sarah Whitney was analogous to Napoleon's passionate love letter to Josephine. | Joseph Smith and polygamy/"Love letters" |
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| x | Joseph had a "predilection" to "take an interest in more than one woman." | Joseph Smith and polygamy |
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| x | Napoleon's Egyptian findings "lit a fire in Smith that inspired even the language of his religious prose." | Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Napoleon's Egyptian discoveries |
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| xi | Not the lost ten tribes | NOTE |
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| xi | "Little did Napoleon dream that by unearthing the Egyptian past, he would provide the mystery language of a new religion." | Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Napoleon's Egyptian discoveries |
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| xi | "Using Old Testament polygamy as a model" | NOTE |
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| xii | "Beyond his quest for female companionship...." | Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language |
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| xii | "...Smith utilized plural marriage to create a byzantine structure of relationships intended for successive worlds." | * There is no evidence that Joseph intended the relationship structure to be "byzantine." He did however, want all believers connected into one family. Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language |
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| xii | Joseph "was arrested for destroying a local press" | * The destruction of the press was a decision ordered by Joseph as mayor with the approval of the Nauvoo city council. Joseph was charged with riot because of the press' destruction, released on bail, and offered to pay a fine if necessary. He was rearrested on a capital charge of treason. |
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| xii | "Whether Joseph's wife Emma, consented to any of these marriages remains a mystery. She was aware of at least five of her husbands wives whom she sent away..." | Joseph_Smith_and_polygamy/Emma_Smith |
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| xiii | "Smith's wives remain unacknowledged in the official History of the Church..." | Censorship and revision of LDS history Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship |
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| xiii | "...today, in official Mormon circles, Smith's granting of favors to chosen followers, allowing them to take extra women into the home, is rarely mentioned." | Censorship and revision of LDS history Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship |
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| xiii-xiv | "extant records constitute a secret chronicle, an addendum...to the carefully edited official history from which any mention of the topic has been expurgated for the early period." | Censorship and revision of LDS history Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship |
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| xiv | "After 1890, when polygamy went underground again, it became difficult to access records." | Censorship and revision of LDS history Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship |
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| xiv | "The cyclical nature of this suppression of information, first in Illinois and later in Utah, left a brief window in Mormon history from which most of the documentation has been recovered." | Censorship and revision of LDS history Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship |
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| xiv | "because the history of polygamy in Nauvoo was never officially rewritten, even during the period of openness, Joseph Smith's initiation of the practice has remained in an historical penumbra to this day." | Censorship and revision of LDS history Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship |
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| xiv | Joseph "courted and eloped with his first wife." | Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language |
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| xiv | "The topic [of polygamy] was already on Joseph's mind, even in the 1820s." | Psychobiographical analysis of Joseph Smith Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading |
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| xv | "...these same polygamists continued marrying to the point that they had acquired an average of nearly six wives per family. This model became the blueprint for forty years of Utah polygamy." | * Internal contradiction: p. 289: "the typical Utah polygamist whose roots in the principle extended back to Nauvoo, had between three and four wives." Prevalence of polygamy |
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| xv | "suppressed history" | Censorship and revision of LDS history Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship |
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| xv | Nauvoo "a more or less insignificant river town" | * Internal contradiction: p. 2: Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants." Yet, Nauvoo was ultimately largest city in the entire state except for Chicago.[1] |
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| xv | "sources which somehow survived both neglect and contempt so that we are able to know both the facts of the matter and the behind-the-scenes human emotions" | Censorship and revision of LDS history Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship |
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| xvi | Mormon "grandparents considered [polygamy] requisite for heaven." | The only men who become gods are those that practice polygamy? |
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Endnotes
- [note] Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-Day Saints, 2nd ed. (New York: Knopf : distributed by Random House/University of Illinois Press, [1979] 1992), 69. ISBN 0252062361. off-site
- [note] Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-Day Saints, 2nd ed. (New York: Knopf : distributed by Random House/University of Illinois Press, [1979] 1992), 69. ISBN 0252062361. off-site