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{{H1
|L=Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 1
|H=Response to claims made in "Chapter 1" (pp. 1-25)
|T=[[../../|Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage"]]
|A=George D. Smith
|<=[[../Preface|Preface]]
|>=[[../Chapter 1a|Chapter 1 (pp. 26-51)]]
}}
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<onlyinclude>
{{H2
|L=Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 1
|H=Response to claims made in Nauvoo Polygamy, "Chapter 1" (pp. 1-25)
|S=
|L1=Response to claim: 1 - The author claims that Louisa Beaman "was about to become the first plural wife of Joseph Smith"
|L2=Response to claim: 1n1 - The author dismisses a marriage with Fanny Alger by simply stating: "There is some evidence that Smith might have engaged in the practice prior to this, but this is the first documented marriage"
|L3=Response to claim: 1 - "Had romance blossomed between" Fanny Alger "and the charismatic...prophet"?
|L4=Response to claim: 1 - It is noted that Joseph is age 35, while Louisa was 26
|L5=Response to claim: 2 - The author claims that Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants"
|L6=Response to claim: 2 - "No one knew precisely when the final end would come, but they knew it was imminent"
|L7=Response to claim: 2 - "With an acquisitive eye on neighboring lands and the will to triumph over older settlers through political bloc voting, Joseph's behavior concerned some of the longtime Illinoisans"
|L8=Response to claim: 2 - "Now fear of...city-wide militia, use of local petitions of habeas corpus to dismiss state warrants, and rumors of a 'plurality of wives' had put citizens on edge"
|L9=Response to claim: 2 - The author implies that Latter-day Saints had left their homes in New York "under uneasy circumstances"
|L10=Response to claim: 3 - The author suggests that plural marriage "was central to the broad sweep of LDS experience..."
|L11=Response to claim: 3-4 - The author claims that Joseph "chose some thirty three men...who would join him in denying its practice"
|L12=Response to claim: 4 - The inner circle of plural marriage "would lose one of its key members in 1842 when John C. Bennett quarreled with Smith and then left"
|L13=Response to claim: 5 - The author considers it remarkable that Joseph's involvement in polygamy was "largely excised from the official telling of LDS history"
|L14=Response to claim: 6 - It is claimed that Joseph revealed "God's rule" that "no one can reject" polygamy "and enter into my glory"
|L15=Response to claim: 6 - It is claimed that Joseph predicted that the Second Coming would occur in 1890
|L16=Response to claim: 7 - It is claimed that Joseph "was familiar with nineteenth century writer Thomas Dick"
|L17=Response to claim: 7 - The author states that Joseph "had already proven his own mettle among God's elect when he mastered the use of magic stones and 'translated' the Book of Mormon"
|L18=Response to claim: 8 - It is claimed that Joseph's "dispensationalism had many past antecedents"
|L19=Response to claim: 9 - "Joseph preached as regularly as any other apocalyptic preacher of his day…"
|L20=Response to claim: 9 - The author speculates that Joseph was "understandably hesitant to specify a precise date for the end of the world," but that he knew that "our redemption draweth near"
|L21=Response to claim: 10 - "Without objection from Smith, Matthias asserted: 'The silence spoken of by John the Revelator…is between 1830 & 1851…"
|L22=Response to claim: 11 - "Across the Atlantic, the communal experiment advocated by Marx and Engels appeared in London only a few years later in 1848"
|L23=Response to claim: 12 - "Polygamy was evidently on Smith's mind even before founding the Mormon Church, if that can be deduced from the marriage formula inscribed in the Book of Mormon"
|L24=Response to claim: 12 - Yet again the author mentions "elopement," when he notes that the Book of Mormon was "…begun shortly after he eloped with Emma Hale in January 1827"
|L25=Response to claim: 12 - Joseph is claimed to have performed a "ritualized five-year search for the gold plates…"
|L26=Response to claim: 12 - "the autumnal equinox, which according to rodsmen and seers was a favourable time to approach the spirits guarding buried treasures, Smith had gone to the hill where he sought after the plates"
|L27=Response to claim: 12n29 - "that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"
|L28=Response to claim: 13 - Oliver Cowdery is claimed to have said that Joseph wanted to "commune with some kind of messenger"
|L29=Response to claim: 13 - Oliver Cowdery said Joseph "had heard of the power of enchantment, and a thousand like stories, which held the hidden treasures of the earth"
|L30=Response to claim: 13-14 - "Smith elaborated this idea to 'raise up seed'...and polygamy would be re-introduced"
|L31=Response to claim: 14 - Smith's charge to missionaries to the Indians when he told single and married men alike that they should marry native women
|L32=Response to claim: 14 - "Through intermarriage, Smith said, the Indians would become white, delightsome, and just"
|L33=Response to claim: 14n34 - The 1840 Book of Mormon substituted the word 'pure' for 'white'
|L34=Response to claim: 14n34 - "other passages in the Book of Mormon still refer to 'white' as 'delightsome' and a 'skin of blackness' as a 'curse'"
|L35=Response to claim; 14n34 - The author claims that skin color was important in LDS scriptures, and notes that "blacks of African ancestry were denied full participation in the church until 1978"
|L36=Response to claim: 14n34 - "Interestingly, the rhetoric underlying the theology may have resulted from 1830s Mormons trying to convince their neighbors in the slave state of Missouri that they were not abolitionists"
|L37=Response to claim: 15 - Ezra Booth claimed that the mission to the Lamanites was to secure a "matrimonial alliance with the natives"
|L38=Response to claim; 15 - "As Emma regarded her handsome spouse, what in Joseph's youthful experiences may have suggested the unusual family arrangements that were to follow?"
|L39=Response to claim: 15 - "We know Joseph often stayed overnight on visits with other families.  Was Emma aware that later marriages would develop out of these family visits among their close friends?"
|L40=Response to claim: 15-16 - "An examination of Smith's adolescence from his personal writings reveals some patterns and events that might be significant in understanding what precipitated his polygamous inclination"
|L41=Response to claim: 19-20 - William Stafford is quoted as remembering "Joseph…looking in his glass" and seeing "spirits…clothed in ancient dress" standing guard over treasures"
|L42=Response to claim: 20 - Joseph is claimed to have cut "a sheep's throat" and led it "around a circle while bleeding," in order to "appease the evil spirit"
|L43=Response to claim: 20 - It is claimed that Joseph "'professed to tell people's fortunes' by gazing at a 'stone which he used to put in his hat'"
|L44=Response to claim: 21 - Joseph's 1842 letter to John Wentworth "left out any reference to the sinful thoughts he had previously mentioned"
|L45=Response to claim: 21 - Joseph "took an interest in polygamy at an early period, beyond what we read in his autobiographies or in the Book of Mormon"
|L46=Response to claim: 21 - What was new about this 1838 account of Moroni's visit "was that this time the 1823 angelic announcement was preceded by an 1820 'First Vision'"
|L47=Response to claim: 22 - "Joseph would give us some of the most amusing recitals"
|L48=Response to claim: 22 - It is noted that there is nothing in Lucy Mack Smith's history about "women, wives, or early struggles with chastity"
|L49=Response to claim: 22 - in 1832 Joseph had become involved with Fanny Alger
|L50=Response to claim: 22 - "Emma never indicated that her husband had told her anything specifically about his experiences prior to their marriage or the details of his involvement with other women"
|L51=Response to claim: 22 - "…it must have been a fascinating courtship, conducted as it was among unseen spirits and Joseph's unsettling conversations with angels"
|L52=Response to claim: 22 - "Joseph and Emma had been bound by treasure magic from their first meeting in 1825"
|L53=Response to claim: 22 - "It was in a mysterious atmosphere of imaginative lore and a mix of theology and magic that Joseph and Emma eloped"
|L54=Response to claim: 23 - "The treasure seeker presented himself as someone who had special knowledge that was beyond the woman's ken"
|L55=Response to claim: 25 -  "the apparent continuum from treasure seeking to finding gold plates or the similar modus operandi in placing a 'seer stone' in a hat"
|L56=Response to claim: 25 - "Joseph's career in money digging was much more extensive than he intimated in his 1838 narrative"
|L57=Response to claim: 25 - The South Bainbridge "glass-looking" appearance is called "a trial"
}}
</onlyinclude>

==Response to claim: 1 - The author claims that Louisa Beaman "was about to become the first plural wife of Joseph Smith"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author claims that Louisa Beaman "was about to become the first plural wife of Joseph Smith."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The author ignores the Hancock testimony of a marriage ceremony with Fanny Alger. The author responded by claiming that the reviewer of ''Nauvoo Polygamy'' offers no documentation for evidence of a marriage between Joseph and Fanny Alger in Kirtland. See: [http://www.signaturebooks.com/pluralmarriage.htm?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234200952&sr=1-1 Joseph Smith Had "Conjugal Relations" with Eight Plural Wives, Says FARMS], ''Signature Books'' web site, March 25, 2009. 
|facts=The publisher's response continues to ignore the Hancock testimony. The review states that the book's author "virtually ignores, however, the data that [Todd] Compton clearly considers the most important—the Mosiah Hancock autobiography, in which Hancock reports that "Father gave her [Fanny] to Joseph repeating the Ceremony as Joseph repeated to him." <ref>Mosiah F. Hancock, Autobiography, MS 570, Church Archives, 61–62; Todd Compton, "Fanny Alger Smith Custer: Mormonism's First Plural Wife?" Journal of Mormon History 22/1 (Spring 1996): 189–90. The author of ''Nauvoo Polygamy'' says only (in a footnote) that "Compton, Sacred Loneliness, 33, 646, draws from a late reminiscence by Mosiah Hancock to suggest that Smith married Alger in early 1833" (p. 41 n. 90).</ref>
}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Hancock_ignored}}
{{:Question: When and how did plural marriage begin in the Church?}}

==Response to claim: 1n1 - The author dismisses a marriage with Fanny Alger by simply stating: "There is some evidence that Smith might have engaged in the practice prior to this, but this is the first documented marriage"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author dismisses a marriage with Fanny Alger by simply stating: "There is some evidence that Smith might have engaged in the practice prior to this, but this is the first documented marriage."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Hancock_ignored}}
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The author ignores the Hancock testimony of a marriage ceremony with Fanny Alger.
}}
{{:Question: Was Joseph Smith's relationship with Fanny Alger an affair, or was it actually his first plural marriage?}}

==Response to claim: 1 - "Had romance blossomed between" Fanny Alger "and the charismatic...prophet"?==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
{{AuthorQuote|"Had romance blossomed between her and the charismatic...prophet"?}}
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|
The author implies that romance was a commonly expressed reason for women practicing plural marriage with Joseph.
}}
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*[[../../Romance]]
*[[Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Lustful motives]]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Womanizing and romance}}

==Response to claim: 1 - It is noted that Joseph is age 35, while Louisa was 26==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
It is noted that Joseph is age 35, while Louisa was 26.
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|
|spin=The author commonly exploits the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) presentist fallacy] in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
}}
*[[Polygamy book/Age of wives|Age of wives]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Age_wives}}

==Response to claim: 2 - The author claims that Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author claims that Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{information|
This may be true, but the author contradicts himself elsewhere: p. xv: Nauvoo was "a more or less insignificant river town".  Yet, Nauvoo was ultimately largest city in the entire state except for Chicago.<ref>{{MormonExperience|pages=69}}</ref>
}}

<!--====2====
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The Mormons' Prophet had told them about the kingdom they would be called to administer when Jesus returned to rule."
}}
NOTE
|authorsources=<br>
#Dan Erickson, ''"As a Thief in the Night": The Mormon Quest for Millennial Deliverance'' (SLC: Signature Books, 1998)< 6, 46, 59, 121, 123-48.
}}-->

==Response to claim: 2 - "No one knew precisely when the final end would come, but they knew it was imminent"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
{{AuthorQuote|"No one knew precisely when the final end would come, but they knew it was imminent."}}
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The author leaves unmentioned that many Christians have always seen the end as imminent, and that Joseph's view was more restrained and pragmatic than most of the sects of the day.  See: {{BYUS | author=Richard Lloyd Anderson | article=Joseph Smith and the Millenarian Time Table|vol=3|num=3|date=1961|start=55|end=66 }} {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Shop/PDFSRC/3.3-4Anderson.pdf}}
}}

==Response to claim: 2 - "With an acquisitive eye on neighboring lands and the will to triumph over older settlers through political bloc voting, Joseph's behavior concerned some of the longtime Illinoisans"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim={{AuthorQuote|"With an acquisitive eye on neighboring lands and the will to triumph over older settlers through political bloc voting, Joseph's behavior concerned some of the longtime Illinoisans who lived around the Saints."}}
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|
* [[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Bloc voting}}
}}

<!--====2====
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim="A few years earlier, the people in Missouri had gone to war to expel Mormons from their state."
}}
NOTE
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}-->

==Response to claim: 2 - "Now fear of...city-wide militia, use of local petitions of habeas corpus to dismiss state warrants, and rumors of a 'plurality of wives' had put citizens on edge"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim="Now fear of [the Mormons'] city-wide militia, use of local petitions of habeas corpus to dismiss state warrants, and rumors of a 'plurality of wives' had put citizens on edge."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|The author fails to tell us that 
#the Mormons were equally (or more) afraid, having been driven by state militias from two states;
#their use of ''habeas corpus'' had contemporary case law and legal theory on their side;
#dislike for the Mormons was also a strong political motivation in their enemies.
*[[../../Presentism]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Nauvoo city charter}}
}}

==Response to claim: 2 - The author implies that Latter-day Saints had left their homes in New York "under uneasy circumstances"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author implies that Latter-day Saints had left their homes in New York "under uneasy circumstances."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
*{{misinformation| It is not clear what "uneasy circumstances" the author refers to.  The Mormons were not driven from New York, but immigrated to Kirtland, Ohio at Joseph Smith's direction.
}}

==Response to claim: 3 - The author suggests that plural marriage "was central to the broad sweep of LDS experience..."==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author suggests that plural marriage "was central to the broad sweep of LDS experience..." 
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
*{{misinformation| Polygamy was not practiced by anyone but Joseph Smith prior to Nauvoo.  Polygamy had nothing to do with Mormons moving from New York.  The need to flee Missouri likewise had little to do with plural marriage.  Joseph's marriage to Fanny Alger was one factor among many causing problems in Ohio (though the financial problems and collapse of the [[Kirtland Safety Society]] were probably more significant).
}}

<!-- ==Response to claim: 3 - It is claimed that plural marriage was illegal in 1841 when Joseph married Louisa Beaman==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
It is claimed that plural marriage was illegal in 1841 when Joseph married Louisa Beaman.
|authorsources=<br>
#''Revised Laws of Illinois, 1833; Revised States of the State of Illinois, 1845,'' secs 121, 122.
}} -->

==Response to claim: 3-4 - The author claims that Joseph "chose some thirty three men...who would join him in denying its practice"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author claims that Joseph "chose some thirty three men...who would join him in denying its practice."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
*[[Joseph Smith/Polygamy#Hiding the Truth?|Joseph Smith and polygamy&mdash;Hiding the truth?]]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Lying}}

==Response to claim: 4 - The inner circle of plural marriage "would lose one of its key members in 1842 when John C. Bennett quarreled with Smith and then left"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The inner circle of plural marriage "would lose one of its key members in 1842 when John C. Bennett quarreled with Smith and then left."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{misinformation|John C. Bennett was never part of the "inner circle" of plural marriage. There is no evidence that John C. Bennett was ever sanctioned to practice plural marriage. Bennett was never part of the Quorum of the Anointed who received the full temple endowment.
}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:John_C._Bennett}}
*[[John C. Bennett]]

==Response to claim: 5 - The author considers it remarkable that Joseph's involvement in polygamy was "largely excised from the official telling of LDS history"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author considers it remarkable that Joseph's involvement in polygamy was "largely excised from the official telling of LDS history."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Censorship}}
*[[Church history/Censorship and revision]]
*[[../../Censorship]]

<!-- ====5====
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author claims that Danel Bachman and Ron Esplin's Encyclopedia of Mormonism entry on plural marriage only "briefly mention[s] the 'rumors' of plural marriage in the 1830s and 1840s but only obliquely refer[s] to the teaching [of] new marriage and family arrangements."
}}
*[[../../Use of sources#Items "briefly" and "obliquely" mentioned?|Items "briefly" and "obliquely" mentioned?]]
|authorsources=<br>
#[http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/EoM&CISOPTR=4391&CISOSHOW=4055&REC=1 "Plural Marriage"], ''Encyclopedia of Mormonism''
*Text: "Rumors of plural marriage among the members of the Church in the 1830's and 1840's led to persecution, and the public announcement of the practice after August 29, 1852, in Utah gave enemies a potent weapon to fan public hostility against the Church.
}} -->

<!--====5====
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim={{AuthorQuote|"Such revisionism continues today.  When asked about polygamy on national television in 1998 LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley dismissed its historical importance, positing that 'when our people came west [in 1846-47], they permitted [polygamy] on a restricted scale.'  He failed to acknowledge how important the 'law of celestial marriage' had been for the church's founder and his followers.  Particularly revealing was how the church president phrased his answer to exclude the entire pre-Utah period of church history.  He made it clear he would not welcome any probing into the life of Joseph Smith and his wives or of Smith's requirement that others embrace the practice."}}
}}
*The author does not explain why what President Hinckley would "not welcome" had any influence on a non-LDS journalist.  Does Smith think that such an interview is the time for an accurate, in-depth discussion of a subject as complex as LDS plural marriage?{{nw}}
* [[Church history/Censorship and revision]]
* [[../../Censorship]]
* [[../../Use of sources]]
|authorsources=<br>
#Gordon B. Hinckley, interviewed by Larry King, CNN broadcast, Sept 8, 1998. [Cited from secondary sources]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Censorship}}
}}-->

==Response to claim: 6 - It is claimed that Joseph revealed "God's rule" that "no one can reject" polygamy "and enter into my glory"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
It is claimed that Joseph revealed "God's rule" that "no one can reject [polygamy] and enter into my glory" (D&C 132, 51, 52, 54).
|authorsources=<br>
#{{s||D&C|132|52-53,54}}
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The actual text reads: "I reveal unto you a <u>'''new and an everlasting covenant'''</u>; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory."  
|facts=Plural marriage was at times a manifestation of the new and everlasting covenant, but even during the polygamous era leaders were clear that one did not necessarily have to practice polygamy to be saved.
}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Necessary_for_salvation}}
* [[Polygamy/Requirement for exaltation]]
* [[Polygamy/The only men who become gods are those that practice polygamy]]

==Response to claim: 6 - It is claimed that Joseph predicted that the Second Coming would occur in 1890==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
It is claimed that Joseph predicted that the Second Coming would occur in 1890.
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The author does not provide Joseph's careful caveats about his prediction, and his admitted uncertainties surrounding this issue.
}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo Polygamy:See also:Second coming}}
{{:Question: Did Joseph Smith prophesy that Jesus Christ would return in 1890?}}

==Response to claim: 7 - It is claimed that Joseph "was familiar with nineteenth century writer Thomas Dick"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
It is claimed that Joseph "was familiar with nineteenth century writer Thomas Dick."
|authorsources=<br>
#Thomas Dick, ''The Philosophy of a Future State'', 2d. American ed. (Brookfield, Mass: n.p., 1830); quoted in ''LDS Messenger and Advocate'' 3 (Dec 1836): 423-25.
}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo Polygamy:See also:Environmentalism}}
*[[Book of Abraham/Plagiarism accusations/Thomas Dick]]
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]

==Response to claim: 7 - The author states that Joseph "had already proven his own mettle among God's elect when he mastered the use of magic stones and 'translated' the Book of Mormon"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author states that Joseph "had already proven his own mettle among God's elect when he mastered the use of magic stones and 'translated' the Book of Mormon."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda}}
*[[Joseph Smith/Seer stones]] 
*[[Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic|Joseph Smith and "magick"]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
*[[../../"Magick"]]

==Response to claim: 8 - It is claimed that Joseph's "dispensationalism had many past antecedents"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
It is claimed that Joseph's "dispensationalism had many past antecedents."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|
|spin=The author here presumes that past dispensationalism had an influence on Joseph.  This must be proved, not assumed.
}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo Polygamy:See also:Environmentalism}}
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]

==Response to claim: 9 - "Joseph preached as regularly as any other apocalyptic preacher of his day…"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
"Joseph preached [apocalyptically] as regularly as any other apocalyptic preacher of his day…."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|
|spin=How does The author know this?  How frequently did other preachers use apocalyptic imagery and themes?  Was their percentage of such uses equal to or greater than Joseph's usage?
}}
* {{BYUS | author=Richard Lloyd Anderson | article=Joseph Smith and the Millenarian Time Table|vol=3|num=3|date=1961|start=55|end=66 }} {{link|url=http://byustudies.byu.edu/Shop/PDFSRC/3.3-4Anderson.pdf}} (Discusses many contrasts between Joseph and the millenialist sects of his day, from both LDS and non-LDS historians of religion.)
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]

==Response to claim: 9 - The author speculates that Joseph was "understandably hesitant to specify a precise date for the end of the world," but that he knew that "our redemption draweth near"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author speculates that Joseph was "understandably hesitant to specify a precise date for the end of the world," but that he knew that "our redemption draweth near."
|authorsources=<br>
#Jesse, 306
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The source is referring to the redemption of the Saints in Missouri and their deliverance from persecution. 
|facts=The quote has nothing to do with the "end of the world."
}}
*[[../../Use of sources#Missouri Saints' "redemption draweth near" reinterpreted to refer to refer to the "end of the world?"|Missouri Saints' "redemption draweth near" reinterpreted to refer to refer to the "end of the world?"]]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo Polygamy:See also:Second coming}}

==Response to claim: 10 - "Without objection from Smith, Matthias asserted: 'The silence spoken of by John the Revelator…is between 1830 & 1851…"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
On Joshua the Jewish minister [Robert Matthews]:  "Smith found him credible enough to converse with from 11:00 a.m. until evening when Smith invited him to stay for dinner." "Without objection from Smith, Matthias asserted: 'The silence spoken of by John the Revelator…is between 1830 & 1851…."
|authorsources=<br>
#Jesse, ''Papers of Joseph Smith'', 2:68–73, 568–69.
}}
{{propaganda|"Without objection from Smith" is an argument from silence. No conclusions can be drawn from it.
}}
*[[../../Use of sources#"Without objection from Smith...?|"Without objection from Smith...?]]

<!-- ====11====
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=Robert Matthews (see above) "advocated what he called a 'community of property and of wives,' in a more 'spiritual generation.'  Mormons avoided the idiom but not the practice." "…Mormon communal practices extended to property as well as to marriage."
}}
*[[../../Use of sources#Latter-day Saint plural wives were "communal property?"|Latter-day Saint plural wives were "communal property?"]]
|authorsources=<br>
#{{CriticalWork:Van Wagoner:Mormon Polygamy|pages=8}}
}} -->

==Response to claim: 11 - "Across the Atlantic, the communal experiment advocated by Marx and Engels appeared in London only a few years later in 1848"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
*{{AuthorQuote|"Across the Atlantic, the communal experiment advocated by Marx and Engels appeared in London only a few years later in 1848."}}
|authorsources=<br>
#''Communist Manifesto'' (1848; New York: Bantam, 1992).
}}
{{propaganda|
|spin=Marx and Engels have no relevance for LDS practice, and are unlikely to have been influenced by Joseph Smith.  Invoking Communists may unnecessarily prejudice the modern reader.
}}
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]

==Response to claim: 12 - "Polygamy was evidently on Smith's mind even before founding the Mormon Church, if that can be deduced from the marriage formula inscribed in the Book of Mormon"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
{{AuthorQuote|"Polygamy was evidently on Smith's mind even before founding the Mormon Church, if that can be deduced from the marriage formula inscribed in the Book of Mormon."}}
|authorsources=<br>
# No source provided		
}}
{{misinformation|
The author assumes that the Book of Mormon reflects Joseph's mind and preoccupations. If Joseph was the translator, it may not.
}}
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Early knowledge}}

==Response to claim: 12 - Yet again the author mentions "elopement," when he notes that the Book of Mormon was "…begun shortly after he eloped with Emma Hale in January 1827"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Mormon Polygamy
|claim=
Yet again the author mentions "elopement," when he notes that the Book of Mormon was "…begun shortly after he eloped with Emma Hale in January 1827."
|authorsources=<br>
# No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|
|spin=''Nauvoo Polygamy'' reminds us that Joseph and Emma eloped ''whenever'' their marriage is discussed.  Perhaps this is intended to demonstrate Joseph's disregard for authority or propriety in all romantic matters.
}}
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Eloped}}

==Response to claim: 12 - Joseph is claimed to have performed a "ritualized five-year search for the gold plates…"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=Joseph is claimed to have performed a "ritualized five-year search for the gold plates…"
|authorsources=<br>
# No source provided	
}}
{{propaganda|The author assumes that Joseph's acquisition was ritualized, and he presumes that the "magick" thesis is correct in this instance.
*[[Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic|Joseph Smith and "magick"]]
*[[../../"Magick"]]
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
}}

==Response to claim: 12 - "the autumnal equinox, which according to rodsmen and seers was a favourable time to approach the spirits guarding buried treasures, Smith had gone to the hill where he sought after the plates"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=It is noted that "[e]ach year at the autumnal equinox, which according to rodsmen and seers was a favourable time to approach the spirits guarding buried treasures, Smith had gone to the hill where he sought after the plates.
|authorsources=<br>
# No source provided
}}
{{propaganda|The author presumes that the "magick" thesis is correct in this instance.  He ignores the ''religious'' significance of this date:
*[[../../"Magick"]]
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
}}
*[[Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic/Book of Mormon recovered on autumnal equinox|Book of Mormon recovered on autumnal equinox]]

==Response to claim: 12n29 - "that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=Quoting D. Michael Quinn, it is noted that "that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"
|authorsources=<br>
#{{CriticalWork:Quinn:Magic World View|pages=120–121}}
}}
{{misinformation|The author ignores the many problems which have been pointed out with Quinn's "magick" argument.  Chief among these is that (as even Quinn admits), "according to the standard contemporary interpretations of astrology, Joseph was born under Saturn, not Jupiter."  Quinn's only source for this claim is an 1870 book which used an alternative means of performing such calculation.  Joseph can hardly have been aware of a method outlined nearly 50 years later.<ref>{{FR-12-2-16}}</ref>  The present author acknowledges or treats none of these issues.
}}
*[[Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic|Joseph Smith and "magick"]]
*[[../../"Magick"]]
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]] 

==Response to claim: 13 - Oliver Cowdery is claimed to have said that Joseph wanted to "commune with some kind of messenger"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
Oliver Cowdery is claimed to have said that Joseph wanted to "commune with some kind of messenger." 
|authorsources=<br>
#[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Latter_Day_Saints%27_Messenger_and_Advocate/Volume_1/Number_5/Letter_to_W._W._Phelps_from_Oliver_Cowdery_(Feb._27,1835) Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps], ''LDS Messenger and Advocate'' 1 [No. 5] (Feb 1835): 79.
*The quote is incorrect in Quinn, ''Early Mormonism and the Magic World View'', 125, 134, which the author appears to be quoting without checking Quinn's primary source for accuracy.
}}
{{misinformation|The quote is incorrect. The correct phrase is "some kind messenger."
}}
*[[../../Use of sources#"Some kind of messenger..."|"Some kind [of] messenger..."]] 
*[[../../"Magick"]]
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]

==Response to claim: 13 - Oliver Cowdery said Joseph "had heard of the power of enchantment, and a thousand like stories, which held the hidden treasures of the earth"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
Oliver Cowdery said Joseph "had heard of the power of enchantment, and a thousand like stories, which held the hidden treasures of the earth."
|authorsources=<br>
#[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Latter_Day_Saints%27_Messenger_and_Advocate/Volume_1/Number_5/Letter_to_W._W._Phelps_from_Oliver_Cowdery_(Feb._27,1835) Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps], ''LDS Messenger and Advocate'' 1 (Feb 1835): 79.
*CITATION is in ERROR.  He is quoting from Quinn, ''Early Mormonism'', 125, 134 & Vogel, ''Indian Origins'', 14–15. 
*Actual quote is found in: [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Latter_Day_Saints%27_Messenger_and_Advocate/Volume_2/Number_1/Letter_VIII Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps], ''LDS Messenger and Advocate'' 2/1 (October 1835): 197.
}}
{{propaganda|
|spin=The phrase is removed from context to emphasize the words "enchantment" and "treasures of the earth." 
}}
*[[../../Use of sources#The "power of enchantment" and "hidden treasures of the earth"|The "power of enchantment" and "hidden treasures of the earth"]]
*[[Joseph Smith and money digging]]
*[[../../"Magick"]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]

==Response to claim: 13-14 - "Smith elaborated this idea to 'raise up seed'...and polygamy would be re-introduced"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
{{AuthorQuote|"Smith elaborated this idea to 'raise up seed' [in Jacob 2:30] with the signal might [sic] be given again and polygamy would be re-introduced…."}}
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided
}}
{{propaganda|The author again presumes that Joseph is the author of the Book of Mormon.
}}
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Early knowledge}}

==Response to claim: 14 - Smith's charge to missionaries to the Indians when he told single and married men alike that they should marry native women==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author states that in 1831 Joseph Smith "sanctioned the first breach in marriage mores. It occurred in Smith's charge to missionaries to the Indians when he told single and married men alike that they should marry native women. Polygamy may have been on his mind….
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=There is no evidence that married men understood that Joseph was discussing polygamy until at least three years later.<ref>W.W. Phelps, Letter to Brigham Young, 1861, original in Church Archives, emphasis in original; cited by B. Carmon Hardy, ''Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise'', Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier (Norman, Okla.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 2007), 36–37.</ref>  
}}
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*[[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
{{:Question: Did the Church suppress a revelation given to Joseph Smith in 1831 which encouraged the implementation of polygamy by intermarriage with the Indians in order to make them a “white and delightsome” people?}}
{{:Question: Was Ezra Booth commanded to take a wife from among the Indians?}}

==Response to claim: 14 - "Through intermarriage, Smith said, the Indians would become white, delightsome, and just"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
{{AuthorQuote|…W.W. Phelps reported on the prophet's instructions in all their antebellum racism.  Through intermarriage, Smith said, the Indians would become white, delightsome, and just" and fulfill the Book of Mormon prophecy that 'the scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white [pure] and delightsome people."}}
|authorsources=<br>
#W.W. Phelps to Brigham Young, Aug. 12, 1861, LDS Archives.
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The author presumes that Joseph's expression was about race, rather than behavior.  (The expression is the Book of Mormon's, but for The author its views are always the same as Joseph Smith's because he is presumed to be the author.)
}}
*[[../../Use of sources#.22Skin color imporant in other LDS scriptures.22.3F|Skin color important in LDS scriptures?]]
*[[Polygamy/Lamanites to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage]]
* [[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
* [[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]

==Response to claim: 14n34 - The 1840 Book of Mormon substituted the word 'pure' for 'white'==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
It is noted that the 1840 Book of Mormon substituted the word 'pure' for 'white,' and that the wording "reverted back to "white" again in the English 1841 and later foreign editions, then became 'pure' again in 1981."
|authorsources=<br>
# No source provided.
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The author doesn't tell us dropping Joseph's change from "white" to "pure" was an accident, and intended to be permanent from 1837 onward.
}}
{{:Question: Why was the phrase "white and delightsome" changed to "pure and delightsome" in the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon?}}

==Response to claim: 14n34 - "other passages in the Book of Mormon still refer to 'white' as 'delightsome' and a 'skin of blackness' as a 'curse'"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author states that "other passages in the Book of Mormon still refer to 'white' as 'delightsome' and a 'skin of blackness' as a 'curse' (2 Ne. 5; Jacob 3:5, 8-10; Alma 3-6-9; 3 Ne. 2:14-15; Morm. 5:15)."
|authorsources=<br>
#N/A
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The author ignores that many (if not most/all) of these scriptures have a symbolic role, as illustrated in Joseph's change discussed above (though the author apparently tries to undercut that impression).  Richard L. Bushman, LDS author of a recent biography of Joseph Smith, writes:

:...[T]he fact that [the Lamanites] are Israel, the chosen of God, adds a level of complexity to the Book of Mormon that simple racism does not explain. Incongruously, the book champions the Indians' place in world history, assigning them to a more glorious future than modern American whites.... Lamanite degradation is not ingrained in their natures, ineluctably bonded to their dark skins. Their wickedness is wholly cultural and frequently reversed. During one period, "they began to be a very industrious people; yea, and they were friendly with the Nephites; therefore, they did open a correspondence with them, and the curse of God did no more follow them." ({{s||Alma|23|18}}) In the end, the Lamanites triumph. The white Nephites perish, and the dark Lamanites remain.<ref>{{RSR1|start=99}}</ref>
}}
[[../../Use of sources#.22Skin color important in other LDS scriptures.22|Skin color important in LDS scriptures?]]
{{:Question: What was the Lamanite curse?}}
{{:Question: Did some Church leaders believe that the skin of the Lamanites would turn white?}}
{{:Question: Why were the chapter headings in the Book of Mormon modified to remove "skin of blackness"?}}

==Response to claim; 14n34 - The author claims that skin color was important in LDS scriptures, and notes that "blacks of African ancestry were denied full participation in the church until 1978"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author claims that skin color was important in LDS scriptures, and notes that "blacks of African ancestry were denied full participation in the church until 1978."
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The author ignores that issues of race and skin color may well have been read into these scriptures in a ''post hoc'' manner.  His brief treatment of these volatile issues is inadequate, and serves only to prejudice the reader against the early Saints and their later religious heirs. (See next entry below.)
}}
*[[../../Use of sources#.22Skin color imporant in other LDS scriptures.22.3F|Skin color important in LDS scriptures?]]
*[[Blacks and the priesthood/LDS scriptures|Scripture and race in LDS tradition]]
*[[Blacks and the priesthood]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]

==Response to claim: 14n34 - "Interestingly, the rhetoric underlying the theology may have resulted from 1830s Mormons trying to convince their neighbors in the slave state of Missouri that they were not abolitionists"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
{{AuthorQuote|"Interestingly, the rhetoric underlying the theology may have resulted from 1830s Mormons trying to convince their neighbors in the slave state of Missouri that they were not abolitionists."}}
|authorsources=<br>
# Campbell, "[http://www.geocities.com/marcschindler1/vignette.htm 'White' or 'Pure': Five Vignettes]," ''Dialogue'' 29 (Winter 1996) 119-120
*Lester E. Bush Jr. and Armand L. Mauss, ''Neither White nor Black'' (SLC, Signature Books, 1994).
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=The author avoids drawing the obvious conclusion&mdash;the "importance" of skin color "in other LDS scriptures" as it applied to race may have been read in as justification for the rhetoric.  Thus, the scripture reading followed the rhetoric; the theology did not derive from the scriptures.
}}
*[[../../Use of sources#.22Skin color important in other LDS scriptures.22.3F|Skin color important in LDS scriptures?]] (note that The author completely inverts his cited source's intent).
*[[Blacks and the priesthood/The "curse of Cain" and "curse of Ham"]]
*[[Blacks and the priesthood/LDS scriptures|Scripture and race in LDS tradition]]
*[[Blacks and the priesthood]]
*[[../../Presentism]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]

==Response to claim: 15 - Ezra Booth claimed that the mission to the Lamanites was to secure a "matrimonial alliance with the natives"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
Ezra Booth claimed that the mission to the Lamanites was to secure a "matrimonial alliance with the natives."  The author notes that the missionaries "did not seem successful in this area."	
|authorsources=<br>
#''Deseret News''  (20 May 1886); Ezra Booth letter, ''Ohio Star'', (8 Dec 1831).
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=Booth is probably wrong; the accounts say Joseph didn't explain the plural marriage issue until 3 years later, so married men could hardly be out looking for Indian wives in 1831.
}}
{{:Question: Did the Church suppress a revelation given to Joseph Smith in 1831 which encouraged the implementation of polygamy by intermarriage with the Indians in order to make them a “white and delightsome” people?}}
{{:Question: Was Ezra Booth commanded to take a wife from among the Indians?}}

==Response to claim; 15 - "As Emma regarded her handsome spouse, what in Joseph's youthful experiences may have suggested the unusual family arrangements that were to follow?"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author speculates that "One wonders when Emma Smith might have first suspected that her husband was contemplating plural marriage…As Emma regarded her handsome spouse, what in Joseph's youthful experiences may have suggested the unusual family arrangements that were to follow?"
|authorsources=<br>
#		
No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|
|spin=The author again presumes that Joseph's "youthful experiences" presaged plural marriage.  He has not demonstrated this.
}}
* [[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
* [[../../Mind reading]]


==Response to claim: 15 - "We know Joseph often stayed overnight on visits with other families.  Was Emma aware that later marriages would develop out of these family visits among their close friends?"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
*{{AuthorQuote|"We know Joseph often stayed overnight on visits with other families.  Was Emma aware that later marriages would develop out of these family visits among their close friends?  Could she have seen this coming—the injunction to enter into 'celestial marriage'?"}}
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.	
}}
{{propaganda|
|spin=Of course, everyone ''else'' at the time probably stayed overnight on visits with families too, especially if poor and on the frontier.
}}
*[[../../Presentism]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
* [[../../Mind reading]]

==Response to claim: 15-16 - "An examination of Smith's adolescence from his personal writings reveals some patterns and events that might be significant in understanding what precipitated his polygamous inclination"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
{{AuthorQuote|"An examination of Smith's adolescence from his personal writings reveals some patterns and events that might be significant in understanding what precipitated his polygamous inclination."}}
|authorsources=<br>
#{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Early knowledge}}
}}
{{propaganda|
|spin=Or, it might not.  As it turns out, it isn't.
}}
*[[Joseph Smith/Psychobiographical analysis of]]
*[[Polygamy book/Early womanizer]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*[[../../Use of sources]]
* {{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}

==Response to claim: 19-20 - William Stafford is quoted as remembering "Joseph…looking in his glass" and seeing "spirits…clothed in ancient dress" standing guard over treasures"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=William Stafford is quoted as remembering "Joseph…looking in his glass" and seeing "spirits…clothed in ancient dress" standing guard over treasures."
|authorsources=<br>
#{{CriticalWork:Howe:Mormonism Unvailed|pages=234–35}}
}}
The author is here using the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits uncritically, without addressing their numerous problems.
*[[Specific works/The Hurlbut affidavits#William Stafford|The Hurlbut affidavits&mdash;Williams Stafford]]
*{{FR-18-1-5}}
*{{FR-17-1-4}}
}}

==Response to claim: 20 - Joseph is claimed to have cut "a sheep's throat" and led it "around a circle while bleeding," in order to "appease the evil spirit"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=Joseph is claimed to have cut "a sheep's throat [and] led [it] around a circle while bleeding," in order to "appease the evil spirit."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided, but is from William Stafford affidavit in Howe.
}}
{{propaganda|The author is here using the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits uncritically, without addressing their numerous problems.
*[[Specific works/The Hurlbut affidavits#William Stafford|The Hurlbut affidavits&mdash;Williams Stafford]]
*[[Specific works/The Hurlbut affidavits#C.R. Stafford|The Hurlbut affidavits&mdash;C.R. Stafford]] 
}}

==Response to claim: 20 - It is claimed that Joseph "'professed to tell people's fortunes' by gazing at a 'stone which he used to put in his hat'"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=It is claimed that Joseph "'professed to tell people's fortunes' by gazing at a 'stone which he used to put in his hat,'…."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided, but is from Henry Harris affidavit in Howe.
}}
{{propaganda|The author is here using the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits uncritically, without addressing their numerous problems.
*[[Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic]]
*[[Joseph Smith/Seer stones]]
*[[Specific works/The Hurlbut affidavits#Henry Harris|The Hurlbut affidavits&mdash;Henry Harris]]
}}

==Response to claim: 21 - Joseph's 1842 letter to John Wentworth "left out any reference to the sinful thoughts he had previously mentioned"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author states that Joseph's 1842 letter to John Wentworth "left out any reference to the sinful thoughts he had previously mentioned.  He had come effectively to de-emphasize the feelings of sin and guilt he had once experienced."
|authorsources=<br>
#''History of the Church'' 4:535–41
#Jesse, ''Writings of Joseph Smith'', 241–248.
}}
{{propaganda|The author again presumes that Joseph's works referred to "sinful thoughts," which he has tried to tie to chastity.
* [[Polygamy book/Early womanizer#Early struggles with chastity?]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
* {{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Womanizing and romance}}

==Response to claim: 21 - Joseph "took an interest in polygamy at an early period, beyond what we read in his autobiographies or in the Book of Mormon"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author implies that Joseph "took an interest in polygamy at an early period, beyond what we read in his autobiographies or in the Book of Mormon."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|There is ''no indication'' that Joseph took this early interest in polygamy, unless one presumes Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon ''and'' follows the author's sexualized misreading of Joseph's early histories.
* [[Polygamy book/Early womanizer#Early struggles with chastity?]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
* {{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Womanizing and romance}}	
}}

==Response to claim: 21 - What was new about this 1838 account of Moroni's visit "was that this time the 1823 angelic announcement was preceded by an 1820 'First Vision'"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim={{AuthorQuote|"What was new about this [1838] account [of Moroni's visit] was that this time the 1823 angelic announcement was preceded by an 1820 'First Vision,' which included not just 'personages' or 'angels' but a visitation by the God of heaven—'The Father and The Son.'"}}
|authorsources=<br>
#No sources provided.
}}
*[[First Vision/Accounts]]

==Response to claim: 22 - "Joseph would give us some of the most amusing recitals"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=Lucy Mack Smith said in her history that "in the course of our evening conversation[,] Joseph would give us some of the most ammusing [sic in Smith] recitals…[and] describe the ancient inhabitants of this [American] continent their dress their manner of traveling the animals which they rode."
|authorsources=<br>
#Anderson, ''Lucy's Book'', 329, 345.
}}
*[[Joseph Smith/"Amusing recitals" of ancient American inhabitants]] 

==Response to claim: 22 - It is noted that there is nothing in Lucy Mack Smith's history about "women, wives, or early struggles with chastity"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=It is noted that there is nothing in Lucy Mack Smith's history about "women, wives, or early struggles with chastity…."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|The author is again presuming that he has demonstrated his claims about early struggles with chastity.  He has not, but takes it as a given here.
* [[Polygamy book/Early womanizer#Early struggles with chastity?]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Womanizing and romance}}	
}}

==Response to claim: 22 - in 1832 Joseph had become involved with Fanny Alger==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The book notes that in 1832 Joseph had become involved with Fanny Alger.
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{misinformation|The date is not at all sure.  The evidence dates it to either 1833 or 1835; others have not argued for 1832 specifically, and the author provides no evidence or argument for this early date.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Fanny Alger}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Age_wives}}	
}}

==Response to claim: 22 - "Emma never indicated that her husband had told her anything specifically about his experiences prior to their marriage or the details of his involvement with other women"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author states that "Emma never indicated that her husband had told her anything specifically about his experiences prior to their marriage or the details of his involvement with other women, although she did know about Fanny Alger."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|Despite the author's efforts, there is no good evidence of Joseph's involvement with any other women besides Emma before his plural marriage to Fanny Alger.
*[[Polygamy book/Early womanizer#Early struggles with chastity?]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Fanny Alger}}	
}}

==Response to claim: 22 - "…it must have been a fascinating courtship, conducted as it was among unseen spirits and Joseph's unsettling conversations with angels"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim={{AuthorQuote|"…it must have been a fascinating courtship, conducted as it was among unseen spirits and Joseph's unsettling conversations with angels."}}
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.	
}}
{{propaganda|This claim (besides mind reading) also distorts the textual record, since Cowdery's account ([[../Chapter 1#13|cited above]]) made it clear that there was nothing unsettling at all about it.
*[[Joseph Smith/Psychobiographical analysis of]]
*[[../../Mind reading]]
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
}}
==Response to claim: 22 - "Joseph and Emma had been bound by treasure magic from their first meeting in 1825"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author speculates that "Joseph and Emma had been bound by treasure magic from their first meeting in 1825, because Joseph…[came] to help Josiah Stowell located buried treasure [and] boarded with Emma's father."
|authorsources=<br>
# No source provided	
}}
{{propganda|There is no evidence they felt "bound" by "treasure magic."
* [[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
* [[../../"Magick"]]
* [[../../Mind reading]]
* [[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]	
}}

==Response to claim: 22 - "It was in a mysterious atmosphere of imaginative lore and a mix of theology and magic that Joseph and Emma eloped"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author speculates that "[i]t was in a mysterious atmosphere of imaginative lore and a mix of theology and magic that Joseph and Emma eloped."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.
}}
{{propaganda|How does the author know this?  A page earlier we are told, "Emma did not leave a diary, and her letters do not mention anything about Joseph's adolescence or later experiences with women." (p. 22)  This is all supposition—invented out of thin air.
*[[../../Use of sources#Joseph and Emma eloped in an atmosphere of "imaginative lore and mix of theology and magic?"|Joseph and Emma eloped in an atmosphere of "imaginative lore and mix of theology and magic?"]] 	
}}

==Response to claim: 23 - "The treasure seeker presented himself as someone who had special knowledge that was beyond the woman's ken"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author speculates that "[t]he treasure seeker presented himself as someone who had special knowledge that was beyond the woman's ken."
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.	
}}
{{propaganda|How does he know?  Again, there is no evidence presented.
* [[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
* [[../../"Magick"]]
* [[../../Mind reading]]
* [[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
}}

==Response to claim: 25 -  "the apparent continuum from treasure seeking to finding gold plates or the similar modus operandi in placing a 'seer stone' in a hat"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim={{AuthorQuote|"What Joseph failed to explain in this [1838] version [of his history of money digging] was the apparent continuum from treasure seeking to finding gold plates or the similar modus operandi in placing a 'seer stone' in a hat…"}}
|authorsources=<br>
#Van Wagoner and Walker, "Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing,' ''Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought'' 15 (Summer 1982): 2:50 [sic]; 
#George D. Smith, "Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon," ''Free Inquiry'' 4 (Winter 1983-84): 27n2.
}}
{{propaganda|Joseph may not have seen it as a continuum, since he always insisted that the Book of Mormon was both revealed and translated "by the gift and power of God."  God made him capable of things he was not otherwise able to do.  The author is again presuming and assuming that Quinn's magic thesis is correct and applicable in this case.
*[[Joseph Smith/Seer stones]]
* [[../../Assumptions and presumptions]]
* [[../../"Magick"]]
* [[../../Mind reading]]
}}

==Response to claim: 25 - "Joseph's career in money digging was much more extensive than he intimated in his 1838 narrative"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim={{AuthorQuote|"It is also true that Joseph's career in money digging was much more extensive than he intimated in his 1838 narrative."}}
|authorsources=<br>
# No source provided.	
}}
{{misinformation|The point of Joseph's 1838 account was not to give extensive details on his youth or past, but to provide the key events of the restoration as he understood them.
}}
* [[Joseph Smith/Money digging]] 	

==Response to claim: 25 - The South Bainbridge "glass-looking" appearance is called "a trial"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The South Bainbridge "glass-looking" appearance is called "a trial"
|authorsources=<br>
#No source provided.	
}}
{{misinformation|
|mistake=|This event was not a trial, and no verdict was issued.
|facts=Current scholarship suggests that it was a hearing only.
}}
* [[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]
{{:Question: What is Joseph Smith's 1826 Bainbridge "trial" for "glasslooking"?}}
{{:Question: What events resulted in Joseph Smith's 1826 court appearance in Bainbridge?}}

{{endnotes sources}}