Transcription
Well, the LDS church recently released a new page in their church and gospel questions website about plural marriage. Among other things, they ask, "Did Joseph Smith practice plural marriage or was it introduced by Brigham Young and others?" And of course, they have a balanced and critical overview of the complex. No, gotcha. They have a flat denunciation. Joseph Smith introduced the practice, not Brigham Young. Credible contemporary sources document Joseph's practice of plural marriage. And there's a footnote. This should be good. It reads, "Amples of contemporary sources." The word credible has been dropped, but surely it's implied, right? Include. And then there's a list of sources.
The first seven are from William Clayton's Nauvoo Journal, a source that's so credible the church won't let you see it. They've been saying they will release it for years, but as of this recording, they still have not. Even though they've released hundreds of thousands of documents of less importance. If I was a betting man, I might wager that if it is ever released, what we get will be carefully curated transcripts rather than high-resolution images. But we'll see.
The next source after that is Wilfford Woodruff's journal on 21 January 1844 where he records notes from a sermon given by Joseph Smith. A sermon where Joseph does not mention plural marriage or polygamy or any kind of marriage at all. Joseph spoke about the spirit of Elijah and baptism for the dead. He does use the word seal, but he's talking about sealing families together through generations, not sealing a husband and wife, let alone a husband and multiple wives.
The next credible contemporary source for plural marriage is a letter from Isaac and Sarah Scott to Sarah's parents, John and Abigail Hall, June 16, 1844. The church cites a book by Robert Call titled Papers from a Conflicted Family. Concerningly, an original copy of the letter does not seem to exist, but we'll proceed regardless. The book with the transcript of the letter is available on Amazon, but I've included a link in the description to a PDF version of the letters compiled by the family. This document includes some details of family history, which Colin questioned the claims of this letter being a credible source. While at Far West, Jacob and members of his family rebelled against the leadership of Joseph Smith and followed their former neighbor and close friend, Isaac Russell, in defying church authorities. On April 26, 1839, a council of church leaders met and excommunicated the Scots who adhered to Russell's teachings, including Isaac Scott. Nevertheless, Isaac Scott followed his family to Nauvoo, where he married Sarah and became close friends with William Law, a member of the church presidency who shortly turned a traitor against Joseph Smith. So, what does this ex-Mormon who tried to overthrow Joseph and who fraternizes with his enemies say? I'm sure you're not surprised to learn that it was none too flattering, including, of course, the charge of polygamy. But how do Isaac and Sarah know these things? Who taught them about polygamy? When did they see Joseph with some of his other wives? They do not say. The closest they come to a specific fact is when Isaac says that his brother-in-law knows these statements are correct, for they have been taught in the quorum to which he belongs by the highest authority in the church. Alas, he does not share what quorum or who taught it. I'm sure it's pure coincidence that each one of the Scots' accusations against Joseph, down to the language and phrasing, echoes what their close friend William Law printed in the Nauvoo Expositor a mere 9 days before this letter was written. There are additional timeline contradictions in subsequent letters. I may end up doing a video just about them. A minor but amusing one is that despite Isaac's claim that Joseph has been teaching these odious doctrines of devils, two months before Sarah had written that she loved to hear the prophet preach.
The next credible contemporary source the church cites is Brigham Young's journal January 6, 1842. This is the cipher entry that I've dealt with in my myth of Agnes Kool video. To sum up, in the first place, this journal entry does not mention marriage at all. It has to be inferred that Brigham's entry of J. Smith was Agnibuba means Joseph Smith was wedded and sealed to Agnes Smith. And second, the timing of the journal entry is suspect since Brigham also records in this entry that he was inducted into the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge, something that the lodge records show did not happen for another 4 months.
The next credible contemporary source is actually a letter written by Joseph Smith. A letter to Newell and Elizabeth Whitney inviting them to come over and visit. Marriage of no kind is mentioned, and it has to be inferred that a third unnamed person referred to is Sarah Whitney, who is inferred based on dubious evidence from decades later to have been a plural wife of Joseph Smith. I went much more in-depth on this topic in my myth of Sarah Ann video.
Then there are the Expositor affidavits, which I have also covered in previous videos, as have others. The Expositor has been a favorite topic of anti-Mormons since the day it was printed, as indeed Law and Cowdrey designed it to be. Modern anti-Mormons have said that the Expositor was a heroic effort to expose Joseph's polygamy and Joseph, desperate to keep his secret hidden, ordered the press destroyed. But the anti-Mormons not only contradict themselves by simultaneously claiming that everyone knew about Joseph's polygamy, they also overlook the actual credible contemporary sources that show that polygamy was a fraction of the Expositor's claims, most of which were detailing Joseph's alleged abuses of power and calling for a repeal of the Nauvoo Charter. Knowing that a repeal of the charter meant the dissolution of their defense militia and fearing being forced at gunpoint from Illinois as they had been from Missouri, the city council voted to declare the press a public nuisance under the city ordinances and have it destroyed. Joseph, as the mayor, signed the order. Anyway, the affidavits do accuse Joseph Smith of polygamy in language that sounds remarkably like what becomes the church's polygamy revelation, Doctrine and Covenants 132. But just because these bitter enemies of Joseph said he had a revelation authorizing polygamy doesn't make it so, any more than the Expositor's claims that he habitually prayed upon young immigrant girls or that he was plotting to overthrow the U.S. government.
But wait, the monogamy denier might say, the language in the Expositor is too similar to D&C 132 for coincidence. Doesn't that prove that they really saw Joseph's revelation? I'm glad you asked that, imaginary steelman, because the answer is no. Let's be clear. The argument is that because the Expositor used specific word combinations in 1844, and Brigham Y. Young did the same in 1852, then they must have come from Joseph Smith in 1843. But there is no credible evidence tying it to Joseph except assertions. No documents from Joseph, no sermons with anything like this, nothing. If you're tempted to cite William Clayton's journal as evidence, we can talk about that when the church actually lets us see it. If you want to cite the testimony of Joseph Kingsbury that he wrote a copy of the revelation in 1843, then you have to explain why. As Jeremy Hoop has shown, Kingsbury's document seems to be a product of several drafts made in Utah in the 1850s. More puzzling is the proposition made by some that the repetition of the Expositor's accusations in future decades is proof that they are true. But this is nothing but argumentum ad populum, the logical fallacy that many people repeating a claim means that it must be true.
So let's review these credible contemporary sources for Joseph's alleged polygamy. First, the seven entries in William Clayton's journal. Since the church will not let us examine this document, we cannot have any basis for saying that it is credible or contemporary. Then there's Wilfford Wood's journal entry, which seems to be credible and contemporary, but does not say anything about polygamy. There's the letter from Isaac and Sarah Scott. This certainly mentions polygamy, but not only does there not seem to be an original, but Isaac hated Joseph and had plotted to overthrow him and records no specifics at all. Nothing, in fact, that is not parodied from the newspaper of his good friend William Law. Brigham Y. Young's journal entry is not only dubiously contemporary, therefore calling its credibility into question, but it also does not mention polygamy unless you metaphorically tilt your head sideways and squint. The letter from Joseph Smith is undoubtedly credible and contemporary, but again, it does not mention polygamy, even obliquely. The Expositor affidavits are contemporary and discuss polygamy, but are extraordinarily biased and contradict multiple other contemporary documents and statements. So they cannot be considered credible.
The church advises that rather than deny this historical practice, we can apply the principles outlined in seeking answers to questions to help us better understand it. Note that they are suddenly conflating the assertion that Joseph was not a polygamist with denial of the historical practice of polygamy, a position maintained by precisely no one. Then they do not ask you to apply the principles to the question of Joseph Smith's polygamy, but just to try to understand the foregone conclusion that he did practice it. Why do they want you to believe that the thinking has already been done?
The contents of the "seeking answers to questions" section has the reason, almost incredibly. It has a section titled "Consult reliable sources." The first four principles of which are: evaluate the reliability of sources, learn to recognize bias, corroborate what you learn, and distinguish facts from interpretation. But if these were followed not to understand the historical practice, but to question its origin, then a rational person would have to reject most, if not all, of the sources the church cites to support the claim that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. But these people are not truly rational. Because their belief in Joseph's polygamy is ultimately based on faith, not evidence. Which is why to them, the usual process of enlightened people is reversed. And Joseph Smith is guilty until proven innocent. And to them, no evidence can prove him innocent.
In a display of almost astonishing hypocrisy, another of the pages added recently was a page extolling the character of Joseph Smith, an endeavor that I support. But the church clearly approaches peacemeal at best, for their myth of Joseph's polygamy requires him to be a liar. Although church apologists claim that Joseph only issued carefully worded denials that denounced spiritual wifery rather than celestial plural marriage, this distinction is wholly imaginary. Joseph was clear. His journal records that he gave instruction to try those teaching or preaching the doctrine of plurality of wives, not just spiritual wives, and not exempting celestial plural marriage, a phrase Joseph never uttered. On this law, Joseph forbids it and the practice thereof: "No man shall have but one wife." Of course, this was later changed by Brigham's editors of the official church history into a statement allowing polygamy.
And so, it strains credibility that this page includes a section titled, "How do I know that Joseph Smith really said the statements that are attributed to him?" which notes that in some instances people purposefully misquote or exaggerate statements that Joseph made, something that the church at large is quite guilty of. Incidentally, Joseph Smith did say in credible contemporary sources that he had a revelation on marriage, and that it did not deal with multiple wives but with marriage in view of eternity. Joseph explained, as Hyrum had preached only a couple months earlier, that people were mistaking Hyrum's marriage in view of eternity to his dead wife as polygamy, and that in the Expositor, the truth of God was transformed into a lie. A lie that the modern LDS church seems anxious to believe.
I think that the inclusion of the biased, inflammatory, sensationalist Nauvoo Expositor on the credible sources list may be more significant than I first thought. To bolster their myth of Joseph's polygamy, the LDS church is now using the accusations of those who hated and betrayed Joseph Smith, who Joseph explicitly said were lying about polygamy. The anti-Mormons are telling us to believe the church, while the church is telling us to believe the anti-Mormons. Both sides have converged against Joseph Smith. As God told Joseph, "Fools shall have thee in derision, and hell shall rage against thee, while thy people shall never be turned against thee by the testimony of traitors." I believe, Joseph. Why doesn't the church that claims him as their prophet?