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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Preface
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| A FAIR Analysis of: Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage" A work by author: George D. Smith
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Chapter 1 |
Claims made in Preface
flyleaf
Claim
- The book claims that Bishop Edwin Woolley married a plural wife without having her first divorce her legal husband.
Author's source(s) - No source provided
- Polygamy/Remarrying without civil divorce
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism
- Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
ix
Claim
- Did Joseph propose a "tryst" with his plural wife Sarah Ann Whitney?
Author's source(s) - Joseph Smith to "Brother and Sister, [Newel K.] Whitney, and &c. [Sarah Ann,] Nauvoo, Illinois, August 18, 1842, Joseph Smith Collections, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), Salt Lake City, Utah
- Full text of the letter may be viewed at Letter from Joseph Smith to the Whitneys (18 August 1842) (Wikisource)
- Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Whitney letter
- Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
ix
Claim
- The point is made that Joseph was age 36, versus Sarah Ann Whitney at age 17.
Author's source(s) - No source provided
- The author commonly exploits the presentist fallacy in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.
- Age of wives
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism
ix
Claim
- The book presents Joseph's letter to Sarah Whitney as analogous to Napoleon's passionate love letter to Josephine.
Author's source(s) - Author's opinion.
- Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Whitney letter
- Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
x
Claim
- Did Joseph have a "predilection" to "take an interest in more than one woman?"
Author's source(s) - Author's opinion.
- Joseph Smith/Polygamy
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Romance
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
x
Claim
- The author posits that Napoleon's Egyptian findings "lit a fire in Smith that inspired even the language of his religious prose."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- The author provides no evidence for this claim, aside from the Book of Mormon's use of the term "Reformed Egyptian."
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
xi
Claim
- Author's quote: "Little did Napoleon dream that by unearthing the Egyptian past, he would provide the mystery language of a new religion."
Author's source(s) - Author's opinion.
- This is simply the author's opinion.
xii
Claim
- Author's quote: "Beyond [Joseph's] quest for female companionship...."
Author's source(s) - Author's opinion.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
xii
Claim
- Author's quote: "...Smith utilized plural marriage to create a byzantine structure of relationships intended for successive worlds."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- There is no evidence that Joseph intended the relationship structure to be "byzantine." He did however, want all believers connected into one family.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
xii
Claim
- After the Nauvoo Expositor was destroyed, was Joseph arrested for "destroying a local press?"
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- History unclear or in error The destruction of the press was a decision ordered by Joseph as mayor with the approval of the Nauvoo city council. Joseph was charged with riot because of the press' destruction, released on bail, and offered to pay a fine if necessary. He was rearrested on a capital charge of treason.
- Nauvoo Expositor
xii
Claim
- The book claims that it is not known whether or not Joseph's wife Emma consented to plural marriages, and that this "remains a mystery," although she is known to have "sent away" at least five of Joseph's plural wives.
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- History unclear or in error This is not a mystery. We know Emma consented to at least four marriages.
- Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Emma Smith
xiii
Claim
- None of Joseph's plural wives are mentioned in History of the Church.
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
xiii
Claim
- Author's quote: "...today, in official Mormon circles, Smith's granting of favors to chosen followers, allowing them to take extra women into the home, is rarely mentioned."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
xiii-xiv
Claim
- Has all mention of plural marriage "been expurgated" from Church historical records?
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
xiv
Claim
- Did it become "difficult to access" Church records regarding polygamy after the 1890 Manifesto was issued?
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
xiv
Claim
- Author's quote: "The cyclical nature of this suppression of information, first in Illinois and later in Utah, left a brief window in Mormon history from which most of the documentation has been recovered."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
xiv
Claim
- Author's quote: "because the history of polygamy in Nauvoo was never officially rewritten, even during the period of openness, Joseph Smith's initiation of the practice has remained in an historical penumbra to this day."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
xiv
Claim
- Joseph "courted and eloped with his first wife."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- Nauvoo Polygamy mentions that Joseph and Emma eloped whenever their marriage is mentioned. Perhaps this is intended to demonstrate Joseph's disregard for authority or propriety in all romantic matters.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
xiv
Claim
- The author claims that the topic of polygamy was already on Joseph's mind as early as the 1820s.
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
xv
{{IndexClaim |claim=
- Author's quote: "...these same polygamists continued marrying to the point that they had acquired an average of nearly six wives per family. This model became the blueprint for forty years of Utah polygamy."
xv
Claim
- "suppressed history"
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
xv
Claim
- Nauvoo "a more or less insignificant river town"
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- History unclear or in error
- Internal contradiction: p. 2: Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants." And, ultimately only Chicago was a larger city in all of Illinois.[1]
xv
Claim
- "sources which somehow survived both neglect and contempt so that we are able to know both the facts of the matter and the behind-the-scenes human emotions"
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
xvi
Claim
- Mormon "grandparents considered [polygamy] requisite for heaven."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
Endnotes
- [note] Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-Day Saints, 2nd ed. (New York: Knopf : distributed by Random House/University of Illinois Press, [1979] 1992), 69. ISBN 0252062361. off-site
Further reading
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