FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 1
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." |
|
|
| 1n1 | Note: "There is some evidence that Smith might have engaged in the practice prior to this, but this is the first documented marriage." |
|
|
| 1 | Note: "Had romance blossomed between her and the charismatic...prophet." |
|
|
| 1 | Joseph 35 versus Louisa 26 |
|
|
| 2 | Nauvoo "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants." |
|
|
| 2 | The Mormons' Prophet had told them about the kingdom they would be called to adminster when Jesus returned to rule." |
NOTE |
|
| 2 | Note: "No one knew precisely when the final end would come, but they knew it was imminent." |
|
|
| 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." |
| |
| 2 | "A few years earlier, the people in Missouri had gone to war to expel Mormons from their state." |
NOTE |
|
| 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." |
|
|
| 2 | "Mormons had left their New York homes under uneasy circumstances." |
|
|
| 3 | "So plural marriage was central to the broad sweep of LDS experience..." |
|
|
| 3 | Plural marriage "was illegal on that afternoon in 1841 when the Mormon prophet married Louisa Beaman." | Joseph Smith and polygamy—Illegal? |
|
| 3-4 | Joseph "chose some thirty three men...who would join him in denying its practice." |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 5 | "Remarkably, Smith's role in introducing polygamy in Nauvoo has been largely excised from the official telling of LDS history." |
| |
| 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 |
| |
| 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." |
G.D. Smith does not explain why what President Hinckley would "not welcome" has any influence on a non-LDS journalist. Does Smith think that such an interview is the time for an accurate, in-depth discussion of a subject as complex as LDS plural marriage? |
|
| 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). |
|
|
| 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. |
|
|
| 7 | "Smith was familiar with nineteenth century writer Thomas Dick..." |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 8 | Joseph's dispensationalism had many past antecedants |
G.D. Smith here presumes that past dispensationalism had an influence on Joseph. This must be proved, not assumed. |
|
| 9 | "Joseph preached [apocalyptically] as regularly as any other apocalyptic preacher of his day…." |
How does G.D. Smith know this? How frequently did other preachers use apocalyptic imagery and themes? Was their percentage of such uses equal to or greater than Joseph's usage? |
|
| 9 | "…understandably hesitant to specify a precise date for the end of the world, Smith knew that 'our redemption draweth near.'?" | Missouri Saints' "redemption draweth near" reinterpreted to refer to refer to the "end of the world?" |
|
| 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…." | "Without objection from Smith...? |
|
| 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." | Latter-day Saint plural wives were "communal property?" |
|
| 11 | "Across the Atlantic, the communal experiment advocated by Marx and Engels appeared in London only a few years later in 1848." |
Marx and Engels have no relevance for LDS practice. Invoking Communists may unnecessarily prejudice the modern reader. |
|
| 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. |
G.D. Smith assumes that the Book of Mormon reflects Joseph's mind and preoccupations. If Joseph was the translator, it may not. |
|
| 12 | Book of Mormon was "…begun shortly after he eloped with Emma Hale in January 1827." | ||
| 12 | Joseph "completed a ritualized five-year search for the gold plates…" |
G.D. Smith assumes that Joseph's acquisition was ritualized, and he presumes that the "magick" thesis is correct in this instance.|| |
|
| 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. | He presumes that the "magick" thesis is correct in this instance. |
|
| 12n29 | "As noted by Quinn, that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…" |
Smith ignores the many problems which have been pointed out with Quinn's "magick" argument. Chief among these is that (as even Quinn admits), "according to the standard contemporary interpretations of astrology, Joseph was born under Saturn, not Jupiter." Quinn's only source for this claim is an 1870 book which used an alternative means of performing such calculation. Joseph can hardly have been aware of a method outlined nearly 50 years later.[2] Smith acknowledges or treats none of these issues. |
|
| 13 | Oliver Cowdery said Joseph wanted to "commune with some kind of messenger." |
| |
| 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." |
|
|
| 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 |
|
| 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…." | Native Americans to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage? |
|
| 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." | Native Americans to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage? |
|
| 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. | Book of Mormon textual changes/"white" changed to "pure" | Doesn't tell us dropping Joseph's change from "white" to "pure" was an accident. |
| 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). | Lamanite curse |
|
| 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. | Blacks and the priesthood |
|
| 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." | Blacks and the priesthood/The "curse of Cain" and "curse of Ham" |
|
| 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? |
|
| 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'?" |
| |
| 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 |
|
| 16-20 | "The vices and follies of youth…." |
| |
| 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 |
|
| 20 | "Joseph cut 'a sheep's throat [and] led [it] around a circle while bleeding," his former acquaintances remembered, to appease the evil spirit." |
| |
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
|
| 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." |
| |
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
|
| 22 | "There is nothing in Lucy's account about women, wives, or early struggles with chastity…." |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 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 |
|
| 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?" |
|
| 23 | "The treasure seeker presented himself as someone who had special knowledge that was beyond the woman's ken." |
| |
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
|
| 28 | "If his wife shared in his sense of triumph [for getting the plates], she was nevertheless forbidden to see the plates herself." |
| |
| 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 |
|
| 28-29 | Joseph had an affair with Eliza Winters in 1828 | Eliza Winters |
|
| 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…." |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 29 | "The same year he married Emma…Joseph also probably had met Louisa Beaman, then only twelve years old." | 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." | 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." | 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." | Age of wives |
|
| 31 | Mary Elizabeth Rollings was "an excitable and impressionable young woman…at age thirteen…had interpreted words spoken in tongues…." | 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." | 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…." | "she felt ashamed..." 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." | Age of wives |
|
| 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? |
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. |
| |
| 34 | [In Illinois Joseph] "was still hunted by law officials for old offences." | Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Loaded and prejudicial language |
|
| 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 |
|
| 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.' |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 39 | Parrish said Joseph and Fanny were discovered together "as a wife"… |
| |
| 39 | Cowdery called it a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair." |
| |
| 39–41 | William McLellin claims |
| |
| 40–41 | McLellin sometimes claims there was also a "Miss Hill." |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 42 | "There is no evidence to corroborate the claim that Fanny was pregnant." |
| |
| 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|| ||
6) Ann Eliza Webb x 2 (hostile, but thought was a marriage) 7) Chauncery Webb
| ||
| 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." |
| |
| 44 | "Lucinda Harris…[claimed] she was Joseph's 'mistress' four years before an 1842 conversation with Sarah Pratt…." |
| |
| 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” |
| |
| 45 | "Gary James Bergera….[argued that] 'Smith introduced members…to the ordinances of…eternal marriage (1841)…." |
| |
| 44–45 | "Civil marriage" was "an outdated marriage contract which, church members came to understand, was an inefficacious as an improper baptism." |
| |
| 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 |
|
| 50 | "…in 1841, Joseph Smith and Luisa Beaman participated in the first formal ceremony to legitimize a plural coupling." | Joseph Smith and polygamy |
|
| 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 |
|
| 51 | "…LDS leaders denied violating Illinois law…." | Lying about plural marriage |
|
| 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 |
|
Endnotes
- [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]