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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Becoming Gods/Chapter 9
| Chapter 8 | A FAIR Analysis of: Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism A work by author: Richard Abanes
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Chapter 10 |
Claims made in "Chapter 9: More Than One Wife"
225
Claim
In Mormon theology, "creating" includes not only making a world, but peopling it through procreating, through sexual union with one's spouse.
Author's source(s)
- Melodie Moench Charles, "The Need for a New Mormon Heaven," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 21 no. 3 (Fall 1988), 77-78. The reference to "sexual union" comes from Melodie Moench Charles, who is not representative of orthodox LDS teaching.
Response
226
Claim
The statement in the 1835 D&C condemning polygamy was "perhaps in an attempt to conceal Smith's affair."
Author's source(s)
- D&C CI:4 (1835 edition), p. 251.
Response
233, 422n47
Claim
Mormons believed that plural marriage was necessary for deification in the Celestial Kingdom.
Author's source(s)
- J.W. Musser, "The New And Everlasting Covenant Of Marriage: An Interpretation Of Celestial Marriage, Plural Marriage, Polygamy."
Response
233, 422n48-49
Claim
Brigham Young said, "The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy."
Author's source(s)
- Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 11:268-269
Response
237
Claim
"Although wives continued to live with their husbands, they would receive conjugal visits from Smith whenever the need arose."
Author's source(s)
- Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 62.
- Jedediah Grant, Journal of Discourses 2:14.
Response
- The author's claim is false: The sources quoted in the endnotes do not say anything about "conjugal visits" to women to whom Joseph was sealed who already had husbands for time.
- Joseph Smith/Polygamy
237, 424n71
Claim
Zina Huntington married Brigham Young while still married to Henry Jacobs, and Henry stood as a witness.
Author's source(s)
- Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 20, 48-49. ( Index of claims )
Response
- Full details: Wyatt, "Zina and Her Men."
237, 425n73-75
Claim
"Wife swapping" was "wholly acceptable."
Author's source(s)
- Jedediah Grant, Journal of Discourses 2:14.
- Lee, Confessions of John D. Lee, p. 165
- C.F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 1, p. 73.
Response
- The author's claim is false
- This claim is also made in One Nation Under Gods: p. 295, 582n81-82 (HB) 580n81-82 (PB)
- Grant's quote (see right) is about consecrating everything to God's service: money, wives, etc. It does not sanction "wife swapping."
- See: One Nation Under Gods/Use of sources/Wife swapping
237
Claim
The Bible does not sanction or command polygamy. "Most Israelites were monogamous." Abraham's polygamy "portrays his acceptance of plural marriage as a mark of disobedience to, and a lack of faith in, God."
Author's source(s)
- Author's interpretation.
Response
239, n. 80-83
Claim
"Early Mormon leaders" believed that Jesus and his apostles were polygamists.
Author's source(s)
- Jedediah M. Grant, Journal of Discourses 1:346..
- Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses 2:210..
- Orson Pratt, "Celestial Marriage," The Seer, vol. 1, no. 11, p. 172.
Response
240
Claim
The Book of Mormon "seems to condemn polygamy," but Latter-day Saints "deny that this is the case."
Author's source(s)
- Jacob 1꞉15
- Jacob 2꞉24-27
- Jacob 3꞉5
- The author does not mention Jacob 2꞉30, which states "For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things" as the reason that Latter-day Saints "deny that this is the case."
Response
241
Claim
How could Jesus have been a god before he was born, before he had a physical body?
Author's source(s)
- No source given
Response
241
Claim
How could the Holy Ghost be a god, since he does not have a physical body?
Author's source(s)
- No source given
Response
244
Claim
"...nowhere in the Old Testament is polygamy linked with any mandates to practice it."
Author's source(s)
- No source given.
Response
- The author's claim is false: levirate marriage was mandated by the law of Moses (Deuteronomy 25:5-6).
- Even if true, this claim is immaterial. God did not condemn the practice of plural marriage in the Bible. If it was everywhere and always forbidden, God could and would have done so. Early Christian authors understood this.
- Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Not Biblical
- No biblical mandate for plural marriage?
245, n97
Claim
Plural marriages were performed after the 1890 Manifesto.
Author's source(s)
- 1911 telegram to Reed Smoot from Joseph F. Smith, Apr. 1, 1911.
Response