Transcription
Hello friends. Is that my voice? Yes, that is my voice today. Not so great, but lots better than it was three days ago. I'll tell you that.
So, it's been a busy month. We host an annual Halloween party for our whole neighborhood. And so, we had, I don't know, we had 85 people or so come. It's so fun every year. So, that's a blast. And then the week after that, we had a Joseph believers potluck party. So that was super fun. We had over 130 people come to that. So there was just fantastic to be able to meet together and have some community, be able to talk and just meet new friends from all over.
I have to say that there was one couple that we kind of planned around their visit to Utah, but they're from Illinois, so they were there. And then there was another family from Washington State who came for this. They drove nine hours. Um, they had relatives in Logan. So they all came and it was just great. So that was super fun. And people from all over. I had a dear friend drive five hours from Blanding just to come up for this. That was just incredibly sweet of her. I'll I'll never forget it. So anyway, these people are wonderful and it's just a blast.
Then um, as I started to get ready to record, my hard drive, my two terabyte hard drive was maxed out to the point of not being able to download anything or save anything of a significant size and things were malfunctioning. It was bad. So my awesome tech husband fixed that and by the time that got fixed, this happened. So I had no voice for a few days there. So we're doing our best over here.
So I wanted to talk about a few things. It's it it was a shame to miss out on some of the things that would have been um addressed in a more timely manner or some of the videos that were out and things because there was a bunch. And you guys, I am taking that as I just always see that as the best news. They keep saying, "Oh, this movement, it's this fringe group or whatever." And they keep posting videos about it. So, you know, it's not small. You know, it's growing and they're having to address it. And I love it.
Now, that's not to say that they address our actual questions or concerns. That almost never happens. So, for instance, this one with um Christopher Bllythe and Selene Anderson, it was just a, you know, it was an echo chamber. They just talked to each other about polygamy deniers. You know, instead of asking us what we think or how we feel, they just kept telling each other what we think and what we feel.
"I do think that this debate does come down to how we feel about plural marriage. That's really what this this comes down to."
So, it kind of reminded me of, you know, when you're in a room and there's the childless couple that's kind of telling everyone how to parent. It It kind of reminded me of that. Or when anti-Mormons get together to talk about Mormon beliefs, you know, and there's not an active member in the bunch to actually tell them, you know, how things really are. And no receipts. I mean, they had no documentation for any of the things that they were saying. They were just giving their opinions. So anyway, I didn't You didn't miss much. It's all good. You can go watch it if you feel like it.
Um, oh boy, there was um one episode with the Rapleasley's and Steven Smoot that was um that got of a lot of attention. So Stephen on his personal Facebook page just posted this vitriolic rant about polygamy deniers and how terrible they were. And it was just it just kind of went off the rails talking about QAnon and I was like, what in the world is this about? And he talked about how saying Joseph was a monogamous just a Trojan horse for people to sneak in their other ideas. And he lists a bunch of those and I'm like, what the heck? Like it is amazing that we can't just address the documents that support the idea that Joseph was telling the truth when he said he didn't practice polygamy. Would that be not the most refreshing episode on anyone's channel if they just said, "Today we're going to just go through these documents that the poly go ahead and call us polygamy deniers. Really don't care what you call us, but could we look at the documents instead of just going off on emotional rampages?"
So, I looked at uh Steven's post and I was like, "Wow." So, I thought, you know, let's let's try to meet him in person. So, it's always better one-on-one in person. People just tend to be um a little calmer and not so ready to, you know, be the keyboard warrior or whatever. So I drove to BYU. I didn't have a lot of time and a lot of choices of when to go and I just knew he had a class on a certain day. So I went there at the time that I hoped he would be in his office. And God being the amazing choreographer that he is. Um, I walked into the building and found his office right when he walked in uh the door from outside ready to go into his office. So I got to talk to him um for an hour and it was very very nice and gracious of him to give me an hour.
So we talked about um some of the things that were bothering him like I I addressed this idea of a Trojan horse and I said the reason that I don't think that has any merit is that the idea of Joseph's monogamy is well supported by the documentation. And I gave him one of my books so that he could see for himself that this is not for us a an emotional issue at its core. Obviously, we hate polygamy. Obviously, 99% of normal people hate polygamy. Of course, it's emotional. That doesn't have anything to do with it. Um, this is not my emotions. This is uh documentation and it's got like 80 plus references to documents that support what we're saying and why we believe the things that we do. So I just wanted him to understand that we're not coming at this from anger or, you know, we just can't handle polygamy so suddenly we're we're up in arms about it. It's the Joseph Smith Papers Project and the other online resources that have led us to be able to see these documents for ourselves and realize that the story that we've been told is full of holes.
So, we talked about that and I said, you know, the Trojan horse argument, if all these other things that you mention were that well supported by the documentation, then yeah, you would have to look into all of those as well. But if they're not, then you don't have to accept them as part of the paradigm, even if you accept that Joseph was telling the truth. And so he seemed to kind of understand that, but he kept talking about uh Denver Snuffer and Michelle Stone, and he would just sort of work himself up into a lather. And I I said, "Why do you keep mentioning them? I I've never even met Denver Snuffer, and Michelle took her stuff down half a year ago. Like, why why do we keep talking about them? Why are you so upset?" And he finally he apologized for sort of I guess lumping us all together, which wasn't really the issue. But anyway, I asked him to to just look at this and he thanked me for the book. He said he'd prefer reading to watching. So, um, anyway, we'll see how that goes. But I went back to that post and, you know, thanked him for meeting with me and invited him to take the post down if he could now see that our argument, you know, wasn't based on the things he thought it was, but it's still up. So anyway, that's unfortunate.
So the episode that Stephen had been advertising with that post um was published and I watched that and oh my goodness. So it was um Jasmine and Neil Rapley. H I can't even talk. It was Jasmine, Neil Rapley, and Steven Smoot all talking again about polygamy deniers, but not with polygamy with deniers. So, the crazy part is that the title of their episode was "Polygamy Denial Debunked: A Look at the Primary Sources." So, of course, that's pretty good clickbait. You're like, "Oh boy, we're going to get to see primary sources and why these polygamy deniialists are full of crud." And those of you who have been in this space for a while can probably guess how many original sources or um primary sources they showed on the screen. It was zero. You could argue that it was one because they did show the typewritten transcript of a page from William Clayton's journal that has not been published to the world. So that's not available to the rest of us. But they showed the typewritten a transcript of that one page from his supposed journals. So anyway, one tops, I would argue zero. But that was I mean, even not expecting a whole lot, that was super disappointing to have zero documents shown on the screen or for us to to even look at. So they just kept saying the same old things over and over and over.
Oh, and yes, I would like to play you maybe a couple clips from that just to give you an idea of what it was like. Here's one.
"We need to challenge the notion that late evidence is inherently fabricated or unreliable. Uh, certainly historians as a general rule, they prefer contemporary to late."
"Yeah. Yeah. That that's usually the preference and incredibly, it's just not the case with Joseph's polygamy. The contemporaneous firsthand accounts are the ones least looked at. And the second or third or even worse fourth or fifth-hand accounts, sometimes from 40 years later, some sometimes from there's some from 60 years later that they turn to to uh bolster their their case that Joseph was a polygamist even though he said he wasn't. And it is that's incredible to me."
Anyway, I just thought you'd think that was interesting that he would say that out loud, but then it's absolutely not the case here with Joseph. Um, then they cite Brian Hales's article. He has an article called "Eyewitnesses of Joseph's Polygamy," which conjures up images of peeping toms, but that's okay. Um, I I think we understand what he means. But I highly recommend this article from Brian Hales. It's not an article. It's kind of a compilation of quotes from just dozens and dozens of eyewitnesses to Joseph Smith's polygamy. And it is awesome because it's a perfect demonstration of how shoddy the work is on this subject. They gather these testimonies and accounts and then they they don't question them. They don't see if they corroborate each other and it is just a hot mess. Okay. So, let me just share a few of these with you.
So, we have Jane Law is on the list. And if you know anything about that, she was by no means an eyewitness of Joseph Smith's polygamy. Her claim is that her husband was given a copy of the polygamy revelation by Hyram and that William Law took it home and showed Jane the revelation and they read it and they were appalled and it was awful. So that that is as close as we get to calling Jane Law an eyewitness to Joseph's polygamy. Um, Joseph isn't even in Jane's story at all in her little affidavit. She says zero about Joseph Smith. So, um, and then even William Law himself, uh, you can barely even claim that because he says that after they read this awful revelation and they were just appalled at it that he said, "I'm going to go find out from Joseph if this is real." And so, here's what he says.
"When I came to Joseph and showed him the paper, he said, 'Yes, that is a genuine revelation,' which is almost how a human would talk, but we'll overlook that. I said to the prophet, 'But in the book of Doctrine and Covenants, there is a revelation just the contrary of this.' Oh, said Joseph, 'That was given when the church was in its infancy. Then it was all right to feed the people on milk, but now it is necessary to give them strong meat.'"
So does that mesh with Joseph's never ever teaching this publicly supposedly sharing it with a tiny group of quote polygamy insiders as Brian Hales and other historians call it? Does that make any sense that Joseph would say, "Well, DNC 42 was when people just could only have milk and now they all need meat. That's why we're doing this." Wouldn't it make sense that if that's the case, he'd be teaching it and teaching it openly. So anyway, I think again these are valuable. Not for the reasons that the historians think, but they're extremely valuable.
Let me read you another one. Uh, this is Charles Smith. "Patriarch Hyram Smith met with the elders at Nauvoo in the winter of 1843-44 and there told them that the doctrine of plurality of wives had bothered him considerably and he felt constrained to ask wherein Abraham, Moses, David, and others could be justified before God in practicing this to him repugnant doctrine. He asked his brother, the prophet Joseph, to ask this question of the Lord. Joseph did so and the revelation given July 12th, 1843 was the answer."
So there you've got a completely different um story about how Joseph was motivated to ask this of God. Supposedly the story that we usually get is that oh he had been translating um the Bible at that time and when he read these accounts of in in Genesis um that's what motivated him to ask the Lord and then we've got no, it was Hyram who had the question and said, "Joseph, you need to ask the Lord about this," which is nothing we've ever heard. Okay.
This is one of my favorites. This is Joseph Cingsberry who says, "Bishop Nu K Whitney handed me the revelation, the day it was written or the day following. Now, incidentally, Brian Hails has inserted the word 'after' so that it's 'the day after it was written or the day following that,' which is not what Kingsbury said, but apparently there's some reason that what Kingsbury said doesn't work with the history. So Brian has bracketed the word 'after' the day after it was written or the day following and stating what it was. Asked me to make a copy of it. I did so and then read my copy of it to Bishop Whitney, who compared it with the original, which he held in his hand while I read to him. When I had finished reading, Bishop Whitney pronounced the copy correct, and Hyram Smith came into the room at the time to fetch the original. Bishop Whitney handed it to him. All right."
And in contrast to that, we've got Maryanne West, who is also supposed to be an eyewitness of Joseph's polygamy. And her story is, "Hyram Smith came into our house and he said that there was a revelation and I told him that I would very much like to read the revelation that Joseph had received on plural marriage. And he said he would go over and get it for us to read. And he went over and came back in a little while and he looked very sober. And I asked him, said I, 'What is the matter? What is the matter? Can't you get it?' and he said, 'No, Emma took it out of Joseph's pocket last night and burned it.' And so I did not get to read the revelation, although I was very anxious to do so."
So that's completely completely in opposition to the story that we just read from Kingsbury that he copied it and then gave Hyram the original. And now Hyram can't get the original because it's been burned and apparently he couldn't even get a hold of the copy to show poor Mary. So anyway, yes, I highly recommend um this collection of reminiscences from people who were eyewitnesses to Joseph's Polygamy. They're awesome.
Then they go on to recommend to highly recommend Brian Hales's three-volume set called "Joseph Smith's Polygamy."
"I mentioned earlier Mormonpilgamyd documents.org which is run by Brian Hales. He wrote a three-volume set on Joseph Smith polygamy. Uh that is the absolute gold standard as as far as..."
"It's top shelf."
"Okay. So I would like to read you a little bit of this so that you can see what passes for the gold standard around here. Um, I apologize. My voice is not holding out, is it? So it's probably driving you guys nuts. Um, Brian has just finished quoting an Eliza Webb um talking about Fanny Alger and explaining some things. It's interesting because Ann Eliza Webb was not born until three months after Joseph Smith died. So that gives you an idea of what kind of a reliable source she might be for for the story about Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger. So she starts out saying that Mrs. Smith had an adopted daughter uh who was Fanny Alger, according to Annie Eliza. And there's a little footnote from Brian that says that Ann Eliza was mistaken because they had never adopted Fanny Alger as a daughter. So that's nice that you know, we acknowledge that she's not correct on that. But by golly, she's going to be in here and quoted for the rest of it. So anyway, she tells about how Emma kicked Fanny out of the house. All right. So that's where we get that story.
So then he talks about William McLellan and he's going to give us some excerpts from uh William McLellan's testimony and he starts out and says, "William McLellan, who was..." Now, what do you think he's going to say? Uh, William McLellan had been excommunicated twice. He was an apostate. He robbed Joseph and Emma's home while Joseph was imprisoned. According to the history of the church, William McLellan asked the sheriff for permission to flog Joseph while he was in chains in jail. So this is William McLellan. So let's see what Brian says.
"William McLellan, who was briefly an apostle during the Kirtland period." Okay, so that's that's the creds that he's going to give William McLellan because he wants to quote him in a late report. I'll say it was the 1880s. We get this from the 1880s, 40 years after Joseph's death. In a late report stated that Joseph confessed humbly to the Fanny Alger incident and begged forgiveness, adding that Emma and all forgave him. Additional details of Emma's reaction to her husband's first plural marriage are unavailable. However, two letters that she wrote to Joseph in 1837 contain references that might have referred to the Alger incident. What are those? Have you ever heard of that? Have you ever heard of Emma actually making reference to the Fanny Alger incident? Well, here are the references.
While Joseph was in hiding on April 25th, Emma closed her letter with, "I pray that God will keep you in purity and safety till we all meet again." Huh? You see, she used the word purity. That is telegraphing that she is upset with his impure actions with Fanny. And here's the other citation. A week later, she similarly signed a second letter. "I hope that we shall be so humble and pure before God that he will set us at liberty to be our own masters." So there you go. She said pure again, possibly a reference to how upset she was about Joseph's behavior with Fanny. That's the gold standard. I just want you to know. All right, enough of that. We're not here to to keep on slamming Brian Hales. Just his work speaks for itself. Please go look at it by all means.
Speaking of Emma, what is happening, you guys? What in the world? This, if you have not seen this yet, it's going to blow your mind. The church uh website has little supplementary I guess lessons or articles you might say in between the Come Follow Me lessons. So, if you look at one of the ones for November, you will see that there's one called "Voices of the Restoration: The Relief Society." And if you look at that article about the founding of the Relief Society in 1842, do you want to guess who's not mentioned in the whole article? Emma's not mentioned in the entire article about the founding of the Relief Society. She was the first president of the Relief Society. She wanted to start the Relief Society in order to encourage the sisters to be more virtuous and strong. Partly because men were propositioning them and telling them that sleeping with them would be okay if they didn't tell anyone about it. These guys were telling the sisters that Joseph approved of it. And no matter how many times Joseph would deny that and Hyram would condemn polygamy and Emma would condemn it, they were getting tricked. That was part of the reason that the Relief Society was formed. Anyway, this just blows my mind that the elect lady is not mentioned in the article about the founding of the Relief Society. I don't get it. I don't know what's happening. Okay, so that kind of took my breath away.
And speaking of taking my breath away, I think we maybe will leave it here for this time. Um, there was I have to talk about the stylometric analysis. You guys have probably heard about it. Let's talk about this real quick and we'll end on this. So, there's an apologist journal called The Interpreter that did a stylometric analysis on Doctrine and Covenants 132 to try to figure out whether it sounded like Joseph's voice or not. And so for those of you who don't know, a stylometric analysis measures the style of the document in question to see if it matches the author's other documents and make sure it's the same author. I didn't say that very well, but you get the idea.
So Stephen Jones has a YouTube channel and he had one of the authors of this stylometric analysis on his show the other day and you have to go and look at this. Stephen did a great job of interviewing this guy in my opinion. His uh the man's name is Paul Fields and he explained that the this particular analysis focused on what he called function words, which are like "and," "the," "of," "any," "just," kind of small words that sort of carry a fingerprint for the author in a way. So according to the four authors of this study, the grammatical structure of 132 totally supports the long-standing narrative that we've been given from the historians all this time. So, case closed, right? It matches these little words. They they show up in this in the right numbers and and all these things and their structure is similar. Okay.
Um, there have been other stylometric analyses over the years, over the decades, and the three that I know of all concluded that Joseph Smith was not the author of 132. But you'll notice I did not put that in my presentation. That's not in my video. That's not in my book because stylometry is not an exact science by any stretch. There's a ton of bias baked into the process. So that depending on what you decide to look for, your results will vary wildly. So um, two people looking for different things and plugging different words and patterns in for the computer to look for, they're going to come up with completely different results. That's what's happened. So in this case, these function words, and there were a couple hundred, I think, that they were looking for. So that's why they feel very confident because they feel like they used a lot of words to to try to figure this out. So, um, they they support the idea that this came from Joseph Smith.
So, I just kind of have to laugh because, um, do we care at all that Emma in section 25 is called the elect lady and God is just extremely pleased with her, but that later in 132, he threatens to destroy her? Um, does that bother anyone that that doesn't seem to match? Does it bother anyone that the Lord in section 132 uses the word "destroy" or a form of the word "destroy" 11 times and that that doesn't show up anywhere else in any scripture that Joseph produced? Did they check for that word? I guess "destroy" is not a function word, so it didn't count, but that's certainly an anomaly as far as scriptures go. Um, do we care that 132 tells us that David and Solomon were totally cool having all those wives and concubines? It's only Bathsheba that was the problem. That that all the other wives were fine. Um, when the Book of Mormon says, "Behold, David and Solomon had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord." Period. Like, did anyone check and see if that matched or do we care about that at all? I guess that wasn't part of the analysis. Um, and I mean worst of all, do we care that 132 tells Emma that she's going to be destroyed if she doesn't allow her husband to cleave unto any number of other women while she herself is told to cleave to him and none else? Do we care that that's in complete contradiction to the law that the Lord gives in DNC 42 where he says to Joseph and every man, "Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart and shalt cleave to her and none else"? It this didn't this didn't bother anybody and seem like maybe it should be incorporated into this stylometric analysis. I kind of can't get over it. This is not an unbiased study by any means. And the reason I say that The Interpreter is an apologist journal, if anyone balked at when I said that or that I'm calling um these authors apologists, I think that Paul Fields made that very clear himself when he said this.
"But my contention is, well, you know, it's the doctrine of the church and Brigham Young was a prophet. Joseph Smith was a prophet. So where it came from, whether it was one prophet or the other, is not relevant."
I don't know how anyone could say that it's not relevant, that it doesn't matter. This is incredible to me. I was super proud of Stephen Jones. I was very glad that he pushed back on that and he said, "Well, yeah, I think it matters a lot." So good for him. I was very, very happy to hear him say that. But wow, um, don't you have to care when you read verse one of 132 that literally says, "Thus saith the Lord, unto you, my servant Joseph." I mean, if Joseph didn't write that, I feel like we have a pretty big problem. So, no, it's completely relevant. Uh, I Anyway, what can I say? I'm sorry, you guys. I am without words in more ways than one this week. I just can't believe it. It blows my mind.
So, um, there is some good news on the horizon and I think I think it looked like really good news. If any of you saw the Faith Matters series this last week, they did five episodes um specifically about polygamy and they had Laurel Ulrich, they had um oh my goodness, they had Carolyn Pearson. That was awesome. They had Bethany Spalding and Bill Turnbull and some of these people. I didn't I didn't know who those last two were until I saw it. So, um, I was really happy with their remarks as well. Now, they're still laying this at the feet of Joseph, but they are very clear that they do not believe that polygamy was from God. And I can't I'm not going to speak for all those people that I just named. Um, Carolyn Pearson for sure. Um, Spalding, uh, Turnbull for sure. Them they do not believe that polygamy was from God and they're kind of wrestling with how how it came to be and and how can we best distance ourselves from it, which is great. It's a step in the right direction and we're going to be really patient and just help share the documentation for this because I didn't get the impression that any of them are aware of how much documentation supports um the idea that Joseph actually did not introduce it.
So, here's hoping it may not change their minds at all. That's okay. I think it's a great step forward to just say, "This doesn't look like it was ever of God," and I'm super happy with that. I'll I'll link to those um episodes so that you guys can go watch them. All right, I'm done.
Um, looking forward to this Sunday. This Sunday the all over the world we're going to be addressing section 132 and our Sunday school classes. And I pray I will be fasting and praying with the hope that we can be filled with charity. That's my main prayer. And hope is that we will be filled with love for the people in our classes, for even the the scholars that have got these things wrong. Try really hard to have love in our hearts. And I pray that we'll be able to share the things that we want to share from a place of love in ways that will help others want to look into it. So many good things that we can share in a positive way that will pique someone's interest who is wondering, "How could this have come from Joseph?" If we can softly and gently and compassionately introduce this idea so that they realize that there might be another narrative that they're not aware of. Even if even if we get shot down in class or people are, "Well, I know he did this and I know polygamy is of whatever is said." If we can meekly and kindly share our views and our happiness and how happy this has made us to find this out, the burden that's lifted off our shoulders. Oh, I promise you that this will resonate with others who are looking for relief from this awful doctrine that makes them feel so bad. If we can direct them to Alma 32, draw their attention to what true doctrine looks like, how it makes us feel. Yes, our feelings have a lot to do with it because Alma has told us how we will feel about true doctrine. It will be delicious. It will be enlightening. Polygamy is not that for anyone. So testifying of how delicious and enlightening it's been to find out that it didn't come from Joseph is going to go a long way. We don't have to be combative. We don't have to be dogmatic. We can be loving and kind and just share our own experiences and I think those will have the most impact. So be inspired, you guys. Follow the spirit. Pray for charity and let's make this a beautiful Sunday that will be memorable and helpful to a lot of people. I love you guys and I will see you next time.