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|title=[[../../|Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage"]]

|author=George D. Smith

|noauthor=

|previous=[[../Preface|Preface]]

|next=[[../Chapter 1a|Chapter 1 (pp. 26-51)]]

=Claims made in "Chapter 1" (pp. 1-25)=

====1====

{{IndexClaim

*The author claims that Louisa Beaman "was about to become the first plural wife of Joseph Smith."

|response=

*The author ignores the Hancock testimony of a marriage ceremony with Fanny Alger.

*{{AuthorPublisherResponse}} The publisher 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.

*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|hancock1}}

*{{HistoricalError}}

}}

====1n1====

{{IndexClaim

*The author dismisses a marriage with Fanny Alder by simply stating that "[t]here is some evidence that Smith might have engaged in the practice prior to this, but this is the first documented marriage."

|authorsources=

*No source provided.

====1====

{{IndexClaim

*{{AuthorQuote|"Had romance blossomed between her and the charismatic...prophet"?}}

|response=

* The author implies that romance was a commonly expressed reason for women practicing plural marriage with Joseph.

====1====

{{IndexClaim

*It is noted that Joseph is age 35, while Louisa was 26.

|response=

*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.

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*The author claims that Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants."

*{{InternalContradiction|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|p2fn2}}}}

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*The Mormons' Prophet had told them about the kingdom they would be called to administer when Jesus returned to rule."

|authorsources=

*Dan Erickson, ''"As a Thief in the Night": The Mormon Quest for Millennial Deliverance'' (SLC: Signature Books, 1998)< 6, 46, 59, 121, 123-48.

====2====

{{IndexClaim

It is claimed that "[n]o one knew precisely when the final end would come, but they knew it was imminent."

* 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}}

|authorsources=

*No source provided.

====2====

{{IndexClaim

|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."}}

|response=

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*"A few years earlier, the people in Missouri had gone to war to expel Mormons from their state."

|authorsources=

*No source provided.

====2====

{{IndexClaim

|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."

|response=

* The author fails to tell us that  

====2====

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*The author implies that Latter-day Saints had left their homes in New York "under uneasy circumstances."

|response=

*{{HistoricalError}} 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's direction.

*No source provided.

====3====

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*The author suggests that plural marriage "was central to the broad sweep of LDS experience..."  

|response=

*{{HistoricalError}} Polygamy was unpracticed 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).

*No source provided.

====3====

{{IndexClaim

*It is claimed that plural marriage was illegal in 1841 when Joseph married Louisa Beaman.

|response=

*[[Joseph Smith/Polygamy#Illegal?|Joseph Smith and polygamy&mdash;Illegal?]]

*''Revised Laws of Illinois, 1833; Revised States of the State of Illinois, 1845,'' secs 121, 122.

====4====

{{IndexClaim

*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."

|response=

*There is no evidence that Bennett was ever sanctioned to practice plural marriage. He was never part of the Quorum of the Anointed who received the full temple endowment.

====5====

{{IndexClaim

*The author considers it remarkable that Joseph's involvement in polygamy was "largely excised from the official telling of LDS history."

|response=

|authorsources=

*No source provided.

|authorsources=

*[http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/EoM&CISOPTR=4391&CISOSHOW=4055&REC=1 "Plural Marriage"], ''Encyclopedia of Mormonism''

|authorsources=

*Gordon B. Hinckley, interviewed by Larry King, CNN broadcast, Sept 8, 1998. [Cited from secondary sources]

====6====

{{IndexClaim

*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).

|response=

*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."  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.

|authorsources=

*{{s||DC|132|52-53,54}}

{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Necessary_for_salvation}}

====6====

{{IndexClaim

*It is claimed that Joseph predicted that the Second Coming would occur in 1890.

|response=

* The author does not provide Joseph's careful caveats about his prediction, and his admitted uncertainties surrounding this issue.

*[[Joseph Smith/Prophecies/Independence temple to be built "in this generation"#Meaning_of_.22generation.22|"This generation"]]

* {{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}}

{{IndexClaim

|authorsources=

*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.

{{IndexClaim

|authorsources=

*No source provided.

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

|response=

*The author here presumes that past dispensationalism had an influence on Joseph.  This must be proved, not assumed.

====9====

{{IndexClaim

*"Joseph preached [apocalyptically] as regularly as any other apocalyptic preacher of his day…."

|response=

*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?

====9====

{{IndexClaim

*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."

|response=

*The source is referring to the redemption of the Saints in Missouri and their deliverance from persecution. The quote has nothing to do with the "end of the world."

|authorsources=

*Jesse, ''Papers of Joseph Smith'', 2:68–73, 568–69.

|authorsources=

*{{CriticalWork:Van Wagoner:Mormon Polygamy|pages=8}}

}}

====11====

{{IndexClaim

|response=

*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.

====12====

{{IndexClaim

*{{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.}}

|response=

*The author assumes that the Book of Mormon reflects Joseph's mind and preoccupations. If Joseph was the translator, it may not.

{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Early knowledge}}

 

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*The author assumes that Joseph's acquisition was ritualized, and he presumes that the "magick" thesis is correct in this instance.

====12====

{{IndexClaim

|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.

|response=

* The author presumes that the "magick" thesis is correct in this instance.  He ignores the ''religious'' significance of this date:

====12n29====

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*Quoting D. Micheal Quin, it is noted that "that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"

|response=

*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|hamblin1}}  The present author acknowledges or treats none of these issues.

====13====

{{IndexClaim

*Oliver Cowdery is claimed to have said that Joseph wanted to "commune with some kind of messenger."  

|response=

*The quote is incorrect. The correct phrase is "some kind messenger."

====13====

{{IndexClaim

*Oliver Cowdery said Joseph "had heard of the power of enchantment, and a thousand like stories, which held the hidden treasures of the earth."

|response=

*The phrase is removed from context to emphasize the words "enchantment" and "treasures of the earth."  

*[[Joseph_Smith_and_money_digging]]

|authorsources=

*[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.

{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Early knowledge}}

}}

====14====

{{IndexClaim

*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…."

|response=

* There is no evidence that married men understood that Joseph was discussing polygamy until at least three years later.{{ref|wwphelps.1}}

}}

====14====

{{IndexClaim

*{{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."}}

|response=

*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?]]

|authorsources=

*W.W. Phelps to Brigham Young, Aug. 12, 1861, LDS Archives.

====14n34====

{{IndexClaim

*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."

* 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.

*[[Book of Mormon/Textual changes/"white" changed to "pure"]]

|authorsources=

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

|response=

*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|bushman1}}

*[[../../Use_of_sources#.22Skin_color_important_in_other_LDS_scriptures.22|Skin color important in LDS scriptures?]]

====14n34====

{{IndexClaim

*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."

|response=

*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]]

====14n34====

{{IndexClaim

*{{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."}}

|response=

*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/LDS_scriptures|Scripture and race in LDS tradition]]

|authorsources=

* 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).

====15====

{{IndexClaim

*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."

|response=

*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.

|authorsources=

*''Deseret News''  (20 May 1886); Ezra Booth letter, ''Ohio Star'', (8 Dec 1831).

====15====

{{IndexClaim

|response=

*Of course, everyone ''else'' at the time probably stayed overnight on visits with families too, especially if poor and on the frontier.

|authorsources=

*No source provided.

====16-20====

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*The author refers to the "vices and follies of youth…."

|response=

* [[Polygamy book/Early womanizer#Early struggles with chastity?]]

* {{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}

|authorsources=

{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Early knowledge}}

====20====

{{IndexClaim

|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."

|response=

*The author is here using the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits uncritically, without addressing their numerous problems.

*[[Specific works/The_Hurlbut_affidavits#C.R._Stafford|The Hurlbut affidavits&mdash;C.R. Stafford]]  

====20====

{{IndexClaim

|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,'…."

|response=

*The author is here using the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits uncritically, without addressing their numerous problems.

*[[Specific works/The_Hurlbut_affidavits#Henry_Harris|The Hurlbut affidavits&mdash;Henry Harris]]

====21====

{{IndexClaim

|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."

|response=

The author again presumes that Joseph's works referred to "sinful thoughts," which he has tried to tie to chastity.

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

* 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.

====21====

{{IndexClaim

|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.'"}}

|response=

|authorsources=

*No sources provided.

|authorsources=

*Anderson, ''Lucy's Book'', 329, 345.

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*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.

====22====

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*The book notes that in 1832 Joseph had become involved with Fanny Alger.

|response=

*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.

*No source provided.

====22====

{{IndexClaim

|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."

|response=

*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.

====22====

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*{{AuthorQuote|"…it must have been a fascinating courtship, conducted as it was among unseen spirits and Joseph's unsettling conversations with angels."}}

|response=

*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.

====22====

{{IndexClaim

|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."

|response=

* There is no evidence they felt "bound" by "treasure magic."

* [[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]

|authorsources=

* No source provided

====22====

{{IndexClaim

|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."

*How does he know?  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?"]]

|authorsources=

*No source provided.

{{IndexClaim

|claim=

*How does he know?  Again, there is no evidence presented.

====25====

{{IndexClaim

|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…"}}

|response=

* 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.