{"id":3851,"date":"2016-04-28T11:19:52","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T17:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/?p=3851"},"modified":"2026-07-01T12:40:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:40:22","slug":"ces-reply-even-more-polygamy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/ces-reply-even-more-polygamy\/","title":{"rendered":"CES Reply: Even More Polygamy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing my reply<\/a><\/span> to Jeremy Runnell\u2019s \u201cLetter to a CES Director,\u201d with Jeremy\u2019s original words in green:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Joseph\u2019s destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor that exposed his polygamy and which printing press destruction started the chain of events that led to Joseph\u2019s death.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes. I remember listening to Truman Madsen\u2019s hagiographic Joseph Smith tapes on my mission, where he describes this event in almost your exact words. Elder Ben B. Banks, former member of the presidency of the Seventy, told an audience at BYU Idaho<\/a> that \u201cboth friends and enemies of the Prophet now agree that the act, legal or not, was unwise and inflammatory and was the major immediate factor that culminated in the Prophet\u2019s death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elder Banks was my first mission president and a beloved mentor. He performed my wedding in the Salt Lake Temple. A more kind, faithful \u2013 and orthodox – Latter-day Saint has never lived. If Ben Banks agrees with you here, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anyone who would dispute this.<\/p>\n

Marriages to young girls living in Joseph\u2019s home as foster daughters (Lawrence sisters, Partridge sisters, Fanny Alger, Lucy Walker).<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re back to the idea of \u201cfoster children\u201d again, despite this not being a thing in America prior to 1853. None of these women would have referred to themselves as such. Fanny was a housekeeper, as were the Lawrence sisters. All of them were of marriageable age. You\u2019re putting a modern label on them that they wouldn\u2019t have recognized.<\/p>\n

Joseph\u2019s marriage to Fanny Alger was described by Oliver Cowdery as a \u201cdirty, nasty, filthy affair\u201d<\/a> \u2013 Rough Stone Rolling, p.323<\/span><\/p>\n

He did. (Actually, he said \u201cscrape\u201d instead of \u201caffair,\u201d but that\u2019s as much a quibble as saying Joseph said \u201clight\u201d instead of \u201cfire\u201d in describing the First Vision.) Although, as Rough Stone Rolling makes clear on the same page, Joseph made no effort to deny the relationship, but only to deny that the relationship was adultery.<\/p>\n

Oliver\u2019s life has always fascinated me. He was the first person baptized in this dispensation; he was indispensable in the translation of the Book of Mormon; he was one of the Three Witnesses; he saw John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John; he was side-by-side with Joseph when the Savior Himself appeared at the Kirtland Temple dedication. If all these miraculous experiences were nothing but frauds, Oliver could have profited tremendously by bringing down Joseph Smith\u2019s house of cards. Yet even when his anger at Joseph drove him out of the Church, he never denied any of this, and he came back to the Church late in his life, after Joseph was dead and despite having no position of prominence or authority. Apparently, Oliver was ultimately able to accept that Joseph Smith\u2019s character was not so soiled by plural marriage as to invalidate his prophetic role.<\/p>\n

Joseph was practicing polygamy before the sealing authority was given. LDS historian, Richard Bushman, states: \u201cThere is evidence that Joseph was a polygamist by 1835\u201d \u2013 Rough Stone Rolling, p.323. Plural marriages are rooted in the notion of \u201csealing\u201d for both time and eternity. The \u201csealing\u201d power was not restored until April 3, 1836 when Elijah appeared to Joseph in the Kirtland Temple<\/a> and conferred the sealing keys upon him. So, Joseph\u2019s marriage to Fanny Alger in 1833 was illegal under both the laws of the land and under any theory of divine authority; it was adultery.<\/span><\/p>\n

The best evidence suggests that Joseph received the revelation now recorded in Section 132 sometime in 1831 when he was engaged in his translation of the Bible. Such a revelation would have given him the authority to perform a plural marriage for time only, but not for eternity until the sealing power was restored. So in the case of Fanny Alger, we have a case of a marriage \u2013 including sex \u2013 that was not a sealing. There were several other cases where this happened even after the sealing keys were restored. In addition, we don\u2019t have a firm date on when the marriage took place, and some scholars place it after the Kirtland Temple dedication.<\/p>\n

D&C 132:63<\/a> very clearly states that the only purpose of polygamy is to \u201cmultiply and replenish the earth\u201d and \u201cbear the souls of men.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve just been over this, and you got it wrong then, too. These are two very different things. See previous.<\/p>\n

Why did Joseph marry women who were already married?<\/span><\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t. He was sealed to women who were already married, but not married to them. See previous.<\/p>\n

These women were obviously not virgins, which violated D&C 132:61.<\/span><\/p>\n

No violation. They were pure in the eyes of God. See previous.<\/p>\n

Zina Huntington had been married seven and a half months and was about six months pregnant with her first husband\u2019s baby at the time she married Joseph; clearly she didn\u2019t need any more help to \u201cbear the souls of men.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Say it with me now: sealing, not marriage, no sex. See above.<\/p>\n

Also, verse 63 states that if the new wives are with another man after the polygamous marriage, they will be destroyed. Eleven of Joseph\u2019s wives lived with their first husbands after marrying Joseph Smith. Most of them lived on to old age. Why weren\u2019t they \u201cdestroyed\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer to your question, in a manner of speaking, can be found by taking a detour into the first verse of the Book of Mormon. Unlike the first verse of the First Book of Napoleon, it starts out something like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cI, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

This has been the subject of countless sermons about how goodly it is to have goodly parents. It is virtually canonized in songs our young\u2019uns sing every Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been born, as Nephi of old, to goodly parents who love the Lord\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Mormons have all bought the idea that \u201cgoodly,\u201d therefore, is synonymous with \u201cgood.\u201d But if \u201cgoodly\u201d means \u201cgood,\u201d then why not use the word \u201cgood?\u201d Nephi, the guy who calls his parents \u201cgoodly,\u201d says it was a \u201cgood thing\u201d that the children of Israel were brought out of bondage. (1 Nephi 17:25) After he built his ship, he tells us that \u201cmy brethren beheld that it was good.\u201d According to LDS.org, the word \u201cGood\u201d appears 205 times in the Book of Mormon, and it always means what you think it would mean. The word \u201cgoodly,\u201d however, never appears in the Book of Mormon again after that first verse.<\/p>\n

Of course, you could argue that Nephi never used the words \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cgoodly,\u201d because the Book of Mormon is a translated document. But if you did that, you\u2019d be playing right into my evilly hands, because \u201cgoodly\u201d would therefore be reflective of the translator\u2019s vocabulary, not the author\u2019s. And what did the word \u201cgoodly\u201d mean to Joseph Smith in 19th Century America?<\/p>\n

The clue is in the next word after the clause in question.<\/p>\n

\u201cI, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Aha! The word \u201ctherefore\u201d establishes causality. The goodliness of Nephi\u2019s parents led to some result, which is revealed in the subsequent clause.<\/p>\n

\u201cI, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father;\u201d<\/p>\n

Nephi\u2019s parents\u2019 goodliness allowed for Nephi to receive a stellar education. How does one receive a stellar education? One pays through the nose for it using one\u2019s goods. \u201cGoodly,\u201d in the 19th Century, meant \u201claden with goods,\u201d or \u201cwealthy.\u201d But that screws everything up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been born, as Nephi of old, to wealthy parents who love the Lord\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry, but it just doesn\u2019t have the same ringly to it.<\/p>\n

So, to your point, \u201cdestroyed\u201d is a goodly example of this principle. The 1830s Webster Dictionary defines \u201cdestroyed\u201d as \u201cto cause to cease; to put an end to.\u201d Marital relationships that are not bound by the sealing power will ultimately be destroyed \u2013 i.e. ended. That\u2019s goodly enough for me.<\/p>\n

How about the consent of the first wife, which receives so much attention in D&C 132? Emma was unaware of most of Joseph\u2019s plural marriages, at least until after the fact, which violated D&C 132.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you provide me a number of marriages of which Emma was aware? No, because you don\u2019t know, and neither do I, and neither does anyone else. We know there are some marriages where she was aware and consenting. And D&C 132, as you noted earlier, makes a provision that the man is not subject to the \u201claw of Sarah,\u201d i.e. the consent of the first wife, if the first wife rejects the principle altogether. This put Joseph in the position of having to choose Emma or the Lord, and I doubt either you or I would have fared better in walking that line if placed in a similar predicament.<\/p>\n

I’ve been asked once by an LDS apologist if I would be okay with Joseph Smith’s polygamy and polyandry if I received a witness that God really did command Joseph Smith to participate in these practices. The question is not if I would \u201cbe okay with\u201d God commanding Joseph Smith to secretly steal other men\u2019s wives and to marry underage and teenage girls.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re right; that isn\u2019t the question, because Joseph Smith didn\u2019t steal other men\u2019s wives or marry underage girls. One more time: sealing, not marriage, no sex.<\/p>\n

The question is \u201cDo I believe that God did such a thing?\u201d The answer, based on comparing D&C 132 to what actually happened, along with my personal belief that there is no such thing as an insane polygamist god who demanded such sadistic, immoral, adulterous, despicable, and pedophilic behavior while threatening Joseph\u2019s life with one of his angels with a sword…is an emphatic and absolute \u201cno.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s my answer, too. The difference is that I don\u2019t think God did anything close to what you\u2019re describing. No sadism, no immorality, no adultery, strange but not despicable, and absolutely no pedophilia. Also, in many cases, sealing, not marriage, no sex.<\/p>\n

The secrecy of the marriages and the private and public denials by Joseph Smith are not congruent with honest behavior.<\/span><\/p>\n

You and Immanuel Kant have a lot in common.<\/p>\n

Kant was the philosopher who insisted that honesty was a \u201ccategorical imperative,\u201d and that it was never appropriate to tell a lie under any circumstances. The famous example to illustrate this comes from the story of \u201cKant\u2019s Axe,\u201d where Kant posits that if an axe-wielding murderer shows up on your doorstep and asks where your best friend is so he can go kill him, the \u201ccategorical imperative\u201d of honestly required you to answer him truthfully, even if it were likely to result in your friend\u2019s grisly death.<\/p>\n