Transcription
In our search for truth, we rely on trustworthy sources. That reliance makes life easier, lets us build on others' work instead of starting from scratch. But over time, something subtle happens. The longer we hold a belief we've borrowed, especially if nothing challenges it, the more it begins to solidify into a feeling of certainty. Familiarity starts to masquerade as truth. And that feeling of certainty can persist whether the belief is actually true or not.
If you feel the underfoot rumblings of an LDS historical revolution, it may be because long-trusted narratives are being re-examined in light of historical documents that until recently were unavailable to the average person. For many, that process has unsettled assumptions that once felt secure. For me, however, these findings have not weakened my conviction that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. Instead, they've led me to more carefully question the legitimacy of certain doctrines introduced after his death.
Over the last 20 years, the church has been publicly releasing important early historical documents. This is a revolution driven by access to original documents, and our understanding of church history can never be the same. That's why this revolution is happening now. The documents reveal a pattern of historical deception orchestrated by Brigham Young after the prophet Joseph Smith's death to suppress Joseph's consistent opposition to polygamy. In the undisputed contemporaneous record of Joseph's teachings, he always condemned plural marriage as immoral. The pattern's clear. Under Brigham Young's direction, deceptive changes were made to church historical documents to make it appear that Joseph had secretly supported plural marriage. This historical deception has been exposed by these now-available original documents. This revolution in our understanding of church history undercuts the legitimacy of plural marriage. Some church historical documents, which many have considered legitimate, are undermined by historical evidence that's far more compelling. When independent facts consistently point in the same direction, they begin to form a pattern. And those patterns can reveal underlying structure that isolated documents can't. That's why patterns matter.
After Joseph and Hyram died, Brigham and those under his direction began systematically revising church history. I'll show you how they removed, changed, and obscured Joseph and Hyram's consistent denunciations of polygamy by highlighting these seven examples from the history of the church taken from the last year of Joseph's life. The creation of the documented history of the church began with a compilation of original documents from a variety of sources. But at that point, a subtle process of revision was introduced. Content from those original source documents was selectively copied into a draft of the history, where abundant evidence of revision is clear. Then, content from the draft history was selectively copied into the manuscript history, which was eventually published as the history of the church. Evidence of revision is obvious in the evolution of content that passed through this process. Pro-polygamy revisions of sources that originally denounced polygamy were published as the authoritative history of the church. These abundant revisions illustrate a striking pattern of deception.
Revisions to an entry for October 5th, 1843, in what's called Joseph's journal, eliminated Joseph's clear denunciation of polygamy. Three months after Joseph supposedly recorded Doctrine and Covenants section 132, which commands the adoption of polygamy, we find this entry in Joseph's journal regarding "the doctrine of plurality of wives." On this law, Joseph forbids it and the practice thereof. No man shall have but one wife. This quote in Joseph's personal journal greatly undermines the legitimacy of Doctrine and Covenants section 132. So, a draft version of the entry, created years after Joseph's death, was revised to reverse the original meaning. The key phrase representing Joseph's view on a plurality of wives, "Joseph forbids it," and the practice thereof, was simply crossed out. Starting with 33 original words condemning polygamy in Joseph's journal, 10 words were removed, 49 new words were added, and a revised entry, now supportive of polygamy, was published as official church history.
The draft version evidence of this textual manipulation is fascinating in and of itself. Not only was the original draft entry here, underlined in red, created with large gaps in between lines of text, indicating an expectation that new verbiage would need to be added, but to make sure the necessary revision occurred, the words to be revised were written in the lower left-hand corner of the page, just to the left of the crossed-out words "Joseph forbids it and the practice thereof." This evidence of historical manipulation demonstrates why the church's version of history should be considered cautiously. When I refer to the history of the church, I mean this publication, attributed inaccurately to the prophet Joseph himself. If you're curious, this is the entry that replaced Joseph's original 33-word denunciation of plural marriage with one that supports a plurality of wives.
Nauvoo City Council minutes for January 3rd, 1844, were included in the history of the church, which we see here, "At noon, met with the city council." The following is a copy of the minutes, which is misleading because a specific topic in the minutes was edited out. William Law, a member of the First Presidency, had heard a rumor that Joseph Smith had directed Nauvoo policemen to secretly put Law out of the way or kill him. During testimony indicating that Law's allegation was unfounded, one witness cited a conversation he'd had with William Law that specifically referenced Joseph and Hyram's condemnations of spiritual wives, which was edited out of this version of the meeting minutes published in the history of the church. Spiritual wives was a term used to describe polygamy in this time frame. Heber Kimball's daughter Helen explained in this 1882 church publication that "at that time, spiritual wife was the title by which every woman who entered into this order, meaning plural marriage, was called."
In the actual minutes from the meeting, two phrases of interest dohead, which appears to mean fool or idiot, appears 11 times, and spiritual wife or wives appears six times. In the history of the church version, "dohead" gets reduced from 11 instances down to eight, while every single instance of "spiritual wives" was removed in the history of the church version of the meeting minutes. In the original minutes, the witness, Eli Norton, said, "Brother Law knew about the spiritual wife system. I never intimated that Brother Law's life was in danger. I intimated that Brother Law might be the doughhead. Previously, Brother Law and me had a conversation about stories afloat on spiritual wives. He, meaning Law, thought it was from the devil, and we must put it down that he knew such a thing was in existence and was breaking up of families, etc." William Law then responded, "Did I not say we have a good foundation for believing so, meaning that spiritual wives was of the devil, because Joseph blowed it all up before the Nauvoo stake high council and Hyram before the elders quorum?" So here we have William Law claiming that both Joseph and Hyram had "blowed up" or condemned the doctrine of spiritual wives in front of different priesthood groups. I haven't been able to identify notes or records from priesthood meetings documenting Joseph and Hyram's "blowing up" or condemning spiritual wives, implying that none were kept or that they'd been destroyed or withheld from public disclosure. Regardless, Law, who would later accuse Joseph of polygamy in the Nauvoo Expositor, testified that Joseph and Hyram had both condemned the practice. Yet, all testimony regarding their condemnations of spiritual wives was eliminated in the final version of the minutes published in the history of the church. It's fair to wonder how much evidence condemning plural wives has simply been destroyed or withheld.
On February 1st, 1844, Joseph and Hyram together published a notice in the Nauvoo Times and Seasons newspaper, excommunicating an elder for teaching polygamy that was omitted from the history of the church. The notice accused the elder of "preaching polygamy and other false and corrupt doctrines." There's no wiggle room in those words to try to claim that the Smith brothers were somehow addressing only unauthorized polygamy. They clearly include polygamy as a false and corrupt doctrine. Remember that this is six months after DNC 132 was supposedly dictated by Joseph. This published announcement wasn't mentioned in the history of the church. To appreciate the significance of its exclusion, it helps to understand the types of things that were included in the history in this time frame. The history of the church for that same day reported the publication of a "thrilling appeal" by an otherwise unknown member of the church, Phineas Richards, as well as a summary of the contents of a financial letter written by an elder, Reuben Hedlock, to Brigham Young, but nothing about the public notification authored by the prophet Joseph and his brother Hyram, both presidents of said church. The next day, Friday the 2nd, the history included that Dr. Willard Richards read the Phineas Richards appeal, while the day before, the history includes almost two pages of an expressive essay entitled "Missouri," authored by Eliza R. Snow sometime in the prior month. This excluded notice in the Times and Seasons, authored by Joseph and Hyram, that was left out of the history of the church, seems to be much more noteworthy than any of the other communications selected for inclusion over that three-day period. One last curious entry in the history for less than a week before the excluded publication from Joseph and Hyram reiterates this point. It reads, "Saturday, 27th. Weather extremely cold and clear. Prayer meeting in the assembly room. High council met, but having no business, adjourned." A high council meeting that was adjourned because they didn't have anything to talk about was deemed more historically valuable than a published announcement authored by both Joseph and Hyram. Or their announcement was excluded because it undermined the polygamy narrative Brigham appears to have manufactured after Joseph's death.
An entry in Joseph's journal for February 28th, 1844, was revised to obscure Joseph's likely involvement in the authorship of an anti-polygamy document entitled "The Voice of Innocence." Joseph's journal for that day records, "Phelps writing on O.F. Bostwick for women." As context, W.W. Phelps often wrote for Joseph in this time frame. For example, this journal entry from two weeks before reads, "This eve spent two hours in my office in conversation with Bro. Phelps, directed him to write a communication on Governor Ford's letter in the Warsaw Signal." And this one a few days later that reads, "Dr. Burnheisle, who proposed some alterations to a document Joseph had been working on. Phelps read the same, and the doctor seemed better pleased with it than before." These entries describe Phelps acting as a scribe for Joseph. So, what resulted from Phelps writing on O.F. Bostwick for women on February 28th was a document entitled "The Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo" that ends with these words: "Let polygamy, bigamy, fornication, adultery, and prostitution be frowned out of the hearts of honest men to drop in the gulf of fallen nature, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And let all the saints say, 'Amen.'" Perhaps because classifying polygamy with adultery and prostitution undermined the new polygamy narrative after Joseph's death, it appears an effort was made to distance the "Voice of Innocence" document from Joseph by attributing authorship solely to W.W. Phelps. This was done by removing from the history of the church the line in Joseph's journal about Phelps writing on O.F. Bostwick for women with Joseph. Without the indication in Joseph's journal that Phelps was writing with Joseph, all that's left is a manuscript of the "Voice of Innocence" document in Phelps' handwriting, allowing the church to attribute authorship of the content to Phelps. Removing that one line from Joseph's original journal is subtle but helpful if you want to obscure the truth about Joseph classifying polygamy with adultery and prostitution.
On March 15th, 1844, Hyram published a letter to church members reinforcing that the doctrine of plural wives was false and that there was no such doctrine taught or practiced in Nauvoo. Hyram's letter condemning polygamy made it all the way to the manuscript history of the church before it was edited completely out of the document, as seen here. It reads, "Whereas Brother Richard Huitt has called on me today to know my views concerning some doctrines that are preached in your place and states to me that some of your elders say that a man having a certain priesthood may have as many wives as he pleases, and that doctrine is taught here. I say unto you that that man teaches false doctrine. For there is no such doctrine taught here, neither is there any such thing practiced here. And any man that is found teaching privately or publicly any such doctrine is culpable and will stand a chance to be brought before the high council and lose his license and membership also. Therefore, he had better beware what he is about." As the source note indicates, this volume of the manuscript history was created in the 1855 to 1856 time frame, meaning this letter condemning plural marriage was removed at least 10 years after Joseph's death. The process of revising out of the history problematic entries happened over a long period of time.
On three separate days in March of 1844, the "Voice of Innocence" document condemning polygamy, bigamy, fornication, adultery, and prostitution was read and heartily accepted in a meeting of 8,000 saints and in four separate meetings of the Relief Society. Yet, its anti-polygamy contents weren't included in the history of the church. On March 7th, the history of the church records that at a meeting of 8,000 members, "an article was also read by W.W. Phelps entitled, 'A Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo,' and all the assembly said amen twice." And that two days later on March 9th, "The Female Relief Society met twice in the Assembly Room and sanctioned the 'Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo.'" And again a week later on March 16th, "The Female Relief Society had two meetings in the assembly room, as it would not hold all at once, and sanctioned the 'Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo.'" And yet the actual content or text of the "Voice of Innocence" document wasn't included in the history. As I explained earlier, I assume that's because the "Voice of Innocence" document included the statement, "Let polygamy, bigamy, fornication, adultery, and prostitution be frowned out of the hearts of honest men and drop in the gulf of fallen nature."
To appreciate the significance of the exclusion of the "Voice of Innocence" content from the history of the church, it helps to understand the frequently mundane and exhaustive content that was included in the same time frame. As mentioned on the previous slide, the contents of the "Voice of Innocence" weren't included in the March 7th, 9th, or 16th entries in the history of the church. In the March 8th entry in the history of the church, the contents of a three-page article written by Joseph Smith entitled "A Friendly Hint to Missouri" were included in the history. The entry, presented as the words of Joseph Smith himself, read, "At 7 p.m. the First Presidency, the 12, Bishop Miller, Levi Richards, W.W. Phelps, and Lucian Woodworth assembled in the mayor's office, when W.W. Phelps read the following pacific communication, which I had previously dictated to him to write." W.W. Phelps' role in both documents is similar, but the contents of this one were included while the contents of the "Voice of Innocence" were not. In the March 10th entry in the history of the church, the contents of two letters written by Lyman White were included: a two-page letter to the First Presidency and a three-page letter to President Joseph Smith. In the March 12th entry in the history of the church, the contents of a short letter of recommendation for Orson Pratt, signed by the prophet Joseph, were included. In the March 13th entry in the history of the church, the contents of a short authorization letter for Amos Fielding, signed by Joseph and Hyram, were included. In the March 14th entry in the history of the church, the contents of a blessing given to member John Wilkey by Joseph were included. And in the March 15th entry in the history of the church, the contents of a one-page editorial in the Times and Seasons entitled "Our City and a Present Aspect of Our Affairs" were published. Including content referenced in the history of the church was common practice, and the "Voice of Innocence" document, sanctioned by thousands of members and four separate groups of Relief Society sisters, certainly seems worthy of inclusion in the history of the church, except it clearly undermines the pro-polygamy narrative Brigham presented after Joseph's death. And so, like many others, the contents were omitted from the published history.
One additional observation about the March 16th Relief Society meetings deserves attention. This is a transcript of the minutes from the two March 16th, 1844, Relief Society meetings. Unlike the city council meeting minutes we reviewed previously, these minutes were not included in the history of the church. As I read a few selections from these minutes, I think you'll understand why. In the morning meeting, Relief Society President Emma Smith spoke of J.C. Bennett's spiritual wife system, that some taught it as the doctrine of Brother Joseph. She advised all to abide the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and then read the Epistle of President J. Smith. The Book of Mormon admonishes, "For there shall not any man among you have save that to be one wife." The Doctrine and Covenants was clear: "Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife and one woman but one husband, except in the case of death, where either is at liberty to marry again." The epistle mentioned was a letter written two years earlier by the prophet Joseph warning women to beware of male members that would try to trick them into having sex by claiming that Joseph secretly approved of such behavior. Joseph warned, "We therefore warn you and forewarn you in the name of the Lord to check and destroy any faith that any innocent person may have in any such character. For we do not want anyone to believe anything as coming from us contrary to the oldest established morals and virtues and scriptural laws regulating the habits, customs, and conduct of society. And all persons pretending to be authorized by us or having any permit or sanction from us are and will be liars and base impostors. And you are authorized on the very first intimation of the kind to denounce them as such and shun them as the fiery flying serpent, whether they are prophets, seers, or revelators, patriarchs, 12 apostles, elders, priests, mayors, generals, city counselors, aldermen, marshals, police, lord mayors, or the devil, are all alike culpable and shall be damned for such evil practices."
There's something else about this 1842 letter from the prophet Joseph that you should understand. Four different times, in four slightly different ways, Joseph reinforces the idea that it doesn't matter who in the church might claim to have authority to authorize sex outside monogamous marriage. They should never be believed because no such authority ever has, can, or will be given to man, including to prophets, seers, revelators, and apostles. Even though that's exactly what the apostles would claim after Joseph's death. Joseph specifically undermines the false claim that anyone could be authorized to permit such behavior. First quote: "They say they have authority from Joseph or the First Presidency or any other presidency of the church, and thus with a lie in their mouth deceive and debauch the innocent under the assumption that they are authorized from these sources. May God forbid." This second excerpt is really the core of his message: "No such authority ever has, ever can, or ever will be given to any man." Third quote: "For we do not want anyone to believe anything is coming from us contrary to the old established morals and virtues and scriptural laws regulating the habits, customs, and conduct of society." And fourth quote: "And all persons pretending to be authorized by us or having any permit or sanction from us, are and will be liars and base imposters, whether they are prophets, seers, or revelators, patriarchs, 12 apostles, and so on."
So, the source for the contents of Joseph's 1842 letter is the minutes from the Relief Society meeting where this letter was read. But another version of this letter was also found in the Church History Archives that has an added sentence that attempts to completely contradict the spirit of the entire document. The sentence added by Willard Richards reads, "Unless it be by message delivered to you by our own mouth by actual revelation and commandment." This insertion doesn't make any sense given the context of the letter, as it completely contradicts the main point Joseph labored four separate times to reinforce. The church interprets Richards' insertion of this ill-fitting, contradictory phrase by concluding that Richards' undated document must have been a draft copy and that Joseph must have edited out Richards' contradictory insertion because it was not part of the letter read to the Relief Society. Given the clear contextual intent of the letter, the most likely conclusion is that Richards created this subtly altered document after Joseph's death to try to weaken Joseph's clear condemnation of plural marriage in the original letter. This would not have been the only time that Willard Richards, pictured here, falsified historical documents to promote polygamy. Richards had abundant motive to promote a pro-polygamy narrative, having reportedly taken multiple teenage plural wives six months before DNC section 132 was purportedly received. He was at the center of the editorial process responsible for corrupting the LDS historical record. LDS historian Richard Van Wagoner explains it like this: "The official history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was published in book form under the direction of the First Presidency in 1902. The introductory assurance that no historical or doctrinal statement has been changed is demonstrably wrong. Overshadowed by editorial censorship, hundreds of deletions, additions, and alterations, these seven volumes are not always reliable. The 19th-century propaganda mill was so adroit that few outside Brigham Young's inner circle were aware of the behind-the-scenes alterations so seamlessly stitched into church history." Charles Wesley Wandell, an assistant church historian, was aghast or shocked at these amendations or alterations. Commenting on the many changes made in the historical work as it was being serialized in the Desert News, Wandell noted in his diary, "I noticed the interpolations or insertions because having been employed in the historian's office at Nauvoo by Dr. Richards and employed to in 1845 in compiling his very autobiography, I know that after Joseph's death his memoir was doctored to suit the new order of things, and this too by the direct order of Brigham Y. Young to Dr. Willard Richards and systematically by Richards." The Quorum of the Twelve under Brigham Young's leadership began altering the historical record shortly after Smith's death. Contrary to the introduction's claim from the title page of the history of the church, Smith did not author the history of the church. At the time of Joseph Smith's 1844 death, the narrative had been written up to August 5th, 1838.
Back to Emma's address to the Relief Society. In the second Relief Society address on March 16th, 1844, "President Emma Smith again addressed the society, read both the former epistles." By "both," she means Joseph's 1842 letter that we just reviewed, as well as the second epistle, which was the "Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo," also covered previously, that reads, "Let polygamy, bigamy, fornication, adultery, and prostitution be frowned out of the hearts of honest men." Emma "again exhorted to follow the teachings of President J. Smith from the stand," which meant focusing on the prophet's public statements, as the secret polygamists in Nauvoo were claiming Joseph authorized their wickedness in private meetings. She said there "could not be stronger language used than that just read, and that these are the words of Brother Joseph, her husband." Emma's declaration that these were the words of Brother Joseph, her husband, after reading both epistles, supports Joseph Smith as the author of "The Voice of Innocence," and makes Joseph's repeated condemnations of plural marriage, in this case, eight months after DNC section 132 was supposedly recorded, clearly problematic for Brigham's later polygamy claims. Can you see why the altered minutes of a city council meeting might be included in the official history of the church, but these minutes of the Relief Society were not? Joseph and Emma consistently worked together to abolish the abomination of plural wives from the church. Deception by omission is subtle, but thanks to these minutes, we know exactly how Joseph and Emma both felt about polygamy.
The historical misrepresentations didn't end with Brigham Young. The church's 2018 publication, Saints, asserts, "Because neither Joseph nor Emma wrote down how they felt about plural marriage, many questions are left unanswered." The minutes we just reviewed from the Relief Society meetings, recorded three months before Joseph's death, in which Emma reinforced that her condemnations of plural marriage were the words of Brother Joseph, her husband, make it clear where they both stood. Discovering deception destroys trust, and we're the first generation of church members with the ability to begin to understand the extent of the deception embedded in church historical documents regarding polygamy.
The next month, in general conference of 1844, Hyram delivered a scathing rebuke against polygamy. The talk was first revised by Brigham to change Hyram's message into one approving plural wives, and then later the entire talk was removed and replaced with a deceptive summary devoid of the original condemnations of polygamy. The essence of Hyram's original talk preaching against plural wives is captured in this quote: "I wish the elders of Israel to understand it is lawful for a man to marry a wife, but it is unlawful to have more, and God has not commanded anyone to have more." This talk created a problem for Brigham because DNC 132, the purported revelation that claims God commands men in the church to take more than one wife, was supposedly received nine months before Hyram gave this talk. So, Brigham revised the talk to make it pro-polygamy. This paragraph from the original talk, made up of 89 words, illustrates the invasive nature of the revisions. Brigham's revision removed 10 words while adding 78 new ones, the ones in red, for a new total of 157 words, which transformed it into a pro-polygamy message. Eventually, Brigham gave up and replaced the entire talk with a short summary that doesn't mention plural wives at all. The revised talk made it all the way into the manuscript history before it was entirely redacted, as we see here.
So, what indications do we have that Brigham was involved in these revisions? In the margin for the previous day in the manuscript history, we find two annotations of interest. The first reads, "Compiled from the four reports by Jonathan Grimshaw, carefully revised and compared by George A. Smith and Thomas Bullock, read in council, Sunday, 18th November 1855, and carefully revised by President Brigham Young." That happened over 10 years after Joseph and Hyram died. The second shows Brigham's initials by below a date of August 9th, 1856, in pencil, implying an incremental review nine months later. So many clear and irrefutable condemnations of polygamy, some of which are highlighted in red on the left, were simply removed and replaced by a misleading summary containing the statement, "Many other remarks were made by the speaker." This is historical fraud. The implication is clear. Brigham Young wouldn't need to orchestrate misleading revisions if he had the truth on his side.
It's important to note that the revisions were always pro-polygamy. There isn't a single instance of Joseph making a pro-polygamy statement that Brigham subsequently revised to favor monogamy. That's because Joseph never made even one documented contemporaneous statement in favor of polygamy. Joseph always, without exception, condemned it. This second pattern of Joseph's consistent condemnations takes on significantly greater meaning once we understand the first pattern involving Brigham's deceptive revisions. Joseph consistently acted like someone who honestly opposed polygamy. Brigham consistently acted like someone willing to lie to trick people into believing that Joseph secretly had practiced polygamy.
Some may be skeptical about the assertion that Joseph never made even one documented contemporaneous statement in favor of polygamy, but those skeptics would likely be surprised by who also made a similar claim. In an 1875 letter from Joseph F. Smith to Apostle Orson Pratt, Apostle Smith lays out the evidentiary landscape he encountered when he first began looking for proof of Joseph's involvement in polygamy. Quote, "Respecting the subject of celestial marriage, which at the time was an explicit reference to polygamy, when the subject at first came before my mind, I must say I was astonished at the scarcity of evidence. I might say almost total absence of strict evidence upon the subject as connected with the prophet Joseph himself. There was nothing written and but few living who were personally knowing to the fact that Joseph taught the principle. True, much had been written in support of the doctrine bearing upon scriptural and rational evidences, but not a word except the revelation itself, showing that the prophet was the author under God." The purported revelation itself, DNC 132, didn't emerge until eight years after Joseph's death and contradicted what Joseph specifically claimed was included in an actual revelation he said he received on the possibility of eternal monogamous marriage in 1843. That's what I mean by no contemporaneous evidence. My video "Joseph Smith was not the author of DNC 132" covers this topic in more detail. In other videos, I've documented how this same Joseph F. Smith architected misleading and dishonest affidavits to implicate the prophet Joseph in polygamy, as well as his willingness to consistently lie to protect the practice. The pattern of documented historical fraud may have begun with Brigham Young, but the norm of distorting the truth to protect polygamy continued with Joseph F. Smith from the time that he was an apostle through his tenure as president of the church.
Recognizing the pattern of deception shifts the burden of proof we should apply to historical claims accusing Joseph of polygamy. Given the pattern of deception manifested at the highest levels of church leadership after Joseph's death, it's not hard to understand why many of the subsequent claims made by members, typically created decades after Joseph died, accusing him of secret participation in polygamy, can be proven to be fabrications. Much of the content of my videos is dedicated to documenting such fabrications. But because we're engaging in historical detective work nearly 200 years after the fact, sometimes evidence of fraud for specific claims isn't readily available, and all we're left with is member testimony that directly contradicts the verifiable testimonies of Joseph, Emma, and Hyram. To be clear, not one of the remaining member claims contradicting the prophet Joseph can definitively be proven true, but the many provably false member claims add to the pattern of documented historical fraud. It's noteworthy that the church currently accepts hotly contested member accusations as legitimate while categorizing the consistent testimonies of the founding prophet of the church, his wife, the first president of the Relief Society, and his brother, the church patriarch, as lies.
Some members refuse to even consider the evidence of this pattern of historical fraud because doing so allows them to argue that any single outstanding accusation that hasn't yet been proven false necessarily proves that Joseph was a polygamist, which essentially claims you're dishonest for ignoring this while at the same time ignoring all of this evidence of a pattern of deception. I recently encountered an example of this. A member who refuses to evaluate the evidence of the pattern of deceit presented this account as definitive contemporaneous proof of Joseph's involvement in polygamy. The author of this account was an elder named Charles Lambert, whose journal was passed down to his descendants. Lambert claimed, "The prophet used to hold meetings in a log cabin sometimes, a couple of times a week. I never missed one if I had a chance to go. Once the prophet came up to the temple where I was working and closing his arms around me, lifted me off my feet, then said, 'The Lord bless thee in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.' It went through my whole system like fire. Then he turned to those around and said, 'The Lord bless the whole of you and peace be with you.' A day or two after that, when word was sent to me by Brother Dimick Huntington that the prophet wished to speak with me, he said it was a private matter and that I was to come to the temple the following evening and meet him below in the basement after the workmen had cleared out and the light had faded. I made my way there just before sundown. I sat alone for a short while in the unfinished temple, making every sound carry. At length, I heard his step, steady and familiar, and Joseph came in with a lantern and two brethren whose faces I knew, though no words were spoken just then. He placed the lantern on the stone ledge and turned to me. His voice was soft, but it held weight. Brother Lambert, he said, 'The Lord has called you to do a hard thing, a burden that you and I must share together, brother.' He laid his hand on my shoulder. The principle of plural marriage has been revealed, and the time is now come that certain brethren are to enter into this covenant, even as Abraham did. You are one of them.' I said nothing. My heart burned within me. I had prayed for the faith of the ancients and longed to walk in the ways of the prophets, but I had not expected the path to rise so steeply. I thought of Mary Alice, his wife, of the quiet joy in our home, and of the sacrifices already laid upon her shoulders. Joseph spoke again, 'The Lord will make you equal to the task. This is not for pleasure nor ease, but to fulfill the covenants of the fathers. If you are willing, we will proceed in order.' I told him I would obey. I had given my life to this work and had seen the Lord's hand too many times to draw back now. We knelt there on the stone floor, and he blessed me. I felt the same fire pass through me as that day upon the temple mount when he lifted me in his arms. It was as though the foundation of the temple itself bore witness, and I left with a full heart, though much weight upon my mind. I spoke with Mary Alice the next evening. She wept as I had known she would. But then she looked at me with that calm strength I had seen in her from the beginning. 'If this is of God,' she said, 'then I will not stand in the way of it, but you must be sure that it is of God.'"
Two other documents written by Charles Lambert and published by the church suggest that this account of Lambert's introduction to polygamy is not true. On the right, with the gray background, is a typescript record, also authored by Charles Lambert, that the church entitles "Autobiography, circa 1885." It presents a very different account of his introduction to plural marriage. It reads, "The prophet used to hold meetings in a log house of his sometimes twice a week. I do not remember missing one when I had a chance. At one of these, he said he wished he had a people that he could reveal to them what the Lord had shown to him. But one thing I will say, there are thousands of spirits that have been waiting to come forth in this day and generation. Their proper channel is through the priesthood. A way has to be provided, but the time has come and they have got to come anyway. And thus left me in a fix. Sometime after this, William Clayton told me if I would come down into the basement of the temple, he wanted to show me something that I might bring Stephen Hales with me. We went into a little place boxed off for a paint shop for William Pitt, he being present there. Brother William Clayton read unto us the revelation on plural marriage. This explained the above. I believed it, yet did not obey the same until 1872. I think it was on or about the 6th of May 1844, the prophet Joseph came up to the temple and clasping his arms around me and lifted me off my feet, then said, 'The Lord bless thee and I bless thee.'"
Lambert created two very different versions of his purported introduction to polygamy. Some of the differences were simply different word choices to communicate the same ideas, but it's the significant differences that are revealing. The family journal says that Dimick Huntington told Lambert that the prophet Joseph wanted to talk to him in the temple basement. While the church's version of the story says that William Clayton told Lambert that he, Clayton himself, wanted to show Lambert something in the basement. The family version claims Joseph arrived with two others whose faces Lambert knew but didn't identify, which seems strange for a personal journal entry, whereas the church version identified those two men as Stephen Hales and William Pitt. Most significantly, the family journal describes Joseph giving a verbal disclosure and a charge to live the principle of polygamy, while the church version has William Clayton reading a revelation on plural marriage to Lambert. So, which version, if any, is true?
A second Charles Lambert document, an 1885 autobiography also published by the church, makes it clear that Lambert's assertion about Joseph's involvement in polygamy is at least largely a fabrication. Lambert's manuscript reads, "On the 28th of November, 1844, was married to Mary Alice Cannon." This is the issue. The 28-year-old Lambert married the 15-year-old Mary Alice Cannon five months after Joseph died. Lambert's claim that Joseph revealed to him the principle of plural marriage and that while considering the prophet's charge, "I thought of Mary Alice, of the quiet joy in our home, and of the sacrifices already laid upon her shoulders," could not possibly have occurred because Lambert wasn't married to Mary Alice during the lifetime of the prophet Joseph Smith. Interestingly, the phrase "plural marriage," which Lambert claims Joseph used, doesn't appear in the purported revelation now known as DNC 132. So why would Charles Lambert take an encounter with William Clayton and transform it into an elaborate false account implicating the prophet Joseph? His fictional account included gratuitous details like "At length, I heard his step, steady and familiar," implying he was familiar enough with the sound signature of Joseph's footsteps to recognize the prophet's approach, even though two other men supposedly walked with him. We don't have to know why Lambert manufactured this fictitious account, but knowing that he did fits precisely the same fraudulent pattern we see with so much of the evidence used to accuse Joseph of involvement in polygamy.
Some members become defensive when they encounter such evidence of deception, which can result in attempts to discredit or write off all historical research investigating this pattern of historical fraud as amateur or outlandish, rather than objectively considering the merits and implications of the evidence. The member who presented Lambert's family journal as definitive proof of contemporary evidence of Joseph's polygamy made no effort to objectively counter the compelling evidence that Lambert wasn't being truthful and displayed no intellectual curiosity about why Lambert might have engaged in this elaborate storytelling. Instead, he simply jumped to another supposed smoking gun from Benjamin F. Johnson.
In Benjamin F. Johnson's autobiography, written 40 years after Joseph's death, Johnson alleges that in 1843, Joseph Smith confided in him regarding a revelation on polygamy and that the prophet married Johnson's sister, Almyra, and other women polygamously. Johnson also claimed that he was present when Brigham Young was transfigured to look like Joseph Smith during a pivotal church meeting in Nauvoo in August of 1844. While it's possible that Johnson was being truthful about his claimed encounter with Joseph, Johnson's credibility is undermined by the growing consensus that the so-called transfiguration of Brigham Young never occurred. Johnson claimed, "President Brigham Young arose and spoke. I saw him arise, but as soon as he spoke, I jumped on my feet. For in every possible degree it was Joseph's voice and his person in look, attitude, dress, and appearance was Joseph himself personified. And I knew in a moment the spirit and mantle of Joseph was upon him."
Let me briefly present evidence that the transfiguration of Brigham didn't occur because it's another example of historical inaccuracy seeping into accepted church history based on well-meaning but dishonest member testimony likely intended as a demonstration of allegiance to the church and its leaders. A well-documented paper written by the LDS historian Richard Van Wagoner makes the compelling argument that the later reminiscences of the transfiguration of Brigham Y. Young in August 1844 were fabrications. Let me share a few of Van Wagoner's more salient observations. Quote, "The earliest detailed accounts of a purported transfiguration do not begin to surface until long after the saints were settled in the Great Basin. The fact that no account was included in Joseph Smith's history, completed in August 1856, or in the autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, completed before his 1857 death, suggests that the myth was not fully developed by this period. Retrospective retellings of a transfiguration in a variety of forms can be found in dozens of sources, yet no two seem to agree on precise details. Several sets of minutes, each in the hand of a different scribe, make it clear that they saw no mystical occurrences during the gathering on August 8th, 1844, when both Sidney Rigdon and Brigham Y. Young, arguing on behalf of the 12 as a group, made their arguments to the assembled members regarding who should lead the church in the aftermath of Joseph's death."
Van Wagoner points out that apostles Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, and Wilford Woodruff all made personal diary entries for August 8th, 1844, and none of them mention anything about a transfiguration. Brigham's talks on August 8th, 1844, claimed the Twelve Apostles as a group were to take Joseph's place, and that no single person could fill the void left by Joseph's death. We'll look at some of those quotes in a second. Contemporary newspaper accounts repeat the same assertion about the 12 collectively replacing Joseph and make no reference to any type of transfiguration. Neither of the 1844 or 1845 accounts of Jedediah Grant and Apostle Orson Pratt, specifically written to refute Sidney Rigdon's challenge to the Quorum of the Twelve succession claims, make any mention of a transfiguration. While some member references to the mantle of Joseph descending on Brigham after the August 8th meeting have been found, it wasn't until the late 1850s, specifically 1857, that a narrative began to emerge about Brigham miraculously taking on the voice, appearance, and stature of Joseph Smith during the meeting. Many years later, dozens of members would claim to have witnessed the transfiguration. Benjamin F. Johnson was one of them. He created his account 40 years after Joseph's death. There are no contemporaneous journal entries or meeting minutes that corroborate the transfiguration claims, and some of the claims are obvious fabrications.
One of those who claimed to have witnessed Brigham's transfiguration on August 8th, 1844, was Apostle Orson Hyde. He testified, "President Young spoke, and his words went through me like electricity. This is my testimony. It was not only the voice of Joseph, but there were the features, the gestures, and even the stature of Joseph before us in the person of Brigham." Apostle Hyde's testimony is particularly astonishing because he wasn't even in Nauvoo on August 8th. He didn't arrive in Nauvoo until five days later. And Apostle Hyde wasn't the only one to fabricate a provably false testimony about the transfiguration. Another member, John D. Lee, claimed, "Just then, Brigham Young arose and roared like a young lion, imitating the style and voice of Joseph the prophet. Many of the brethren declared that they saw the mantle of Joseph fall upon him. I myself at the time imagined that I saw and heard a strong resemblance to the prophet in him and felt that he was the man to lead us until Joseph's legal successor should grow up to manhood." Like Apostle Hyde, this member wasn't in Nauvoo on August 8th, 1844. His personal diary makes it clear that he didn't return to Nauvoo until August 20th, nearly two weeks later.
Not only did Apostle Hyde manufacture a false claim about witnessing the purported transfiguration, he turned belief in his manufactured supernatural event into a test of fellowship to explain the subsequent apostasy of one of his plural wives. Quote, "I sat myself down in the midst of the congregation with my two wives whom Joseph had given and sealed to me. When President Young began to speak, one of them said, 'It is the voice of Joseph. It is Joseph Smith.' Then the exclamation on the other was, 'I do not see him. Where is he?' Well, the thought occurred to my mind respecting the scripture which President Young has just quoted, 'My sheep know my voice and follow me.' Where is the one that recognized the voice of Joseph and President Young? Where is she? She is in the line of her duty. But where is the other? Gone where I wish she would not." All of Apostle Hyde's story is completely made up. It seems the transfiguration myth propagated in the 1860s in response to the belief that some members held that Joseph and Emma's adult son was considered the rightful heir to Joseph's position at the head of the church, and that in response, some members subsequently echoed the transfiguration story as proof of their dedication to Brigham and the church. I think this explanation from Apostle Hyde provides a clue as to the origins of the transfiguration myth. Quote, "And though it may be said that President Young is a complete mimic and can mimic anybody, I would like to see the man who could mimic another in stature who was about four or five inches higher than himself." Apostle Hyde delivered a second false testimony of the transfiguration in general conference seven years later. He claimed that when Brigham opened his mouth on August 8th, 1844, "I heard the voice of Joseph through him, and it was as familiar to me as the voice of my wife, the voice of my child, or the voice of my father. And not only the voice of Joseph did I distinctly and unmistakably hear, but I saw the very gestures of his person, the very features of his countenance, and if I mistake not, the very size of his person appeared on the stand. And it went through me with the thrill of conviction that Brigham was the man to lead this people. And from that day to the present,"
There has not been a query or doubt upon my mind with regard to the divinity of his appointment. I know that he was the man selected of God to fill the position he now holds.
Apostle Hyde's seemingly remarkable general conference testimony is a total lie. In a 2017 BYU publication, a researcher claimed that at least 95 people have declared through their own or others records that Brigham Y. Young took on the appearance, voice, and/or mannerisms of the prophet Joseph Smith. Why did this purported miracle only emerge in attestations produced years after the supposed event? Why did members who were not there make up completely false stories to claim they were? Why do none of the contemporaneous journal entries of those who attended the meetings mention it?
Lying about events that didn't occur was a part of early Mormonism that's hard to understand today. But it's clear that pervasive dishonesty occurred and that lying to bolster the church's claims was likely a demonstration of member faithfulness. The patterns of dishonesty regarding the purported transfiguration follow the same pattern as the dishonesty regarding Joseph's purported involvement in polygamy.
Apostle Orson Hyde was also the source for a much referenced church history document about a purported last charge given by the prophet Joseph to the apostles 3 months before his death. When the actual meeting minutes were published in 2016, it became evident that Apostle Hyde likely fabricated that claim, too. I'll link a well-documented paper in the description that makes that case.
Ignoring the pattern of documented historical deception to protect borrowed false beliefs will keep us from the truth the Lord promises will make us free. Explaining the many dubious claims about Joseph and polygamy does not require a coordinated conspiracy among church members. All it took was a deeply held belief that Joseph actually had practiced polygamy combined with a willingness to defend the belief at all costs, even if doing so meant being dishonest.
Throughout his life, Joseph Smith had to defend himself 48 times against criminal charges. Sometimes against accusations like disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct for things like pretended angelic visitations, casting out a devil, or setting the country in an uproar by preaching the Book of Mormon. Those of us that believe Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God believe Joseph courageously preached the restored gospel that God revealed through him.
In Joseph's own words, "So it was with me. I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light, I saw two personages, and they did in reality speak to me. And though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true." And while they were persecuting me, reviling me and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my heart, "Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision. And who am I that I can withstand God? Or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision. I knew it and I knew that God knew it and I could not deny it. Neither dared I do it. At least I knew that by so doing I would offend God and come under condemnation."
If God had revealed polygamy to Joseph, he wouldn't have been afraid to preach it as truth. Joseph wasn't a coward and he wasn't a liar. If God had given Joseph Smith a revelation on polygamy, he wouldn't have been afraid to share it.
The pattern of deception echoes throughout our history. Elaborate false testimonies emerge decades after claimed events, while contemporaneous evidence refutes those same claims. While not all member claims that are contradicted by Joseph Smith himself can definitively be proven false, none can definitively be proven true. The Brigham Young Transfiguration and accusations of Joseph Smith's involvement in polygamy exhibit the same evidentiary pattern of deceit.
A strange, faithful dishonesty is repeatedly observed in early Mormon culture, particularly during Brigham Young's church presidency when polygamy was publicly introduced, doctrinally developed, and imposed on faithful members. The deeper we dig, the more the pattern solidifies. New information justifies new conclusions. The truth continues to emerge.