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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 1
- REDIRECTTemplate:Test3
Contents
- 1 Response to claims made in "Chapter 1" (pp. 1-25)
- 1.3 Claim
- 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."
- Author's quote: "Had romance blossomed between her and the charismatic...prophet"?
- It is noted that Joseph is age 35, while Louisa was 26.
- The author claims that Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants."
- Author's quote: "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."
- "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."
- The author implies that Latter-day Saints had left their homes in New York "under uneasy circumstances."
- The author suggests that plural marriage "was central to the broad sweep of LDS experience..."
- It is claimed that plural marriage was illegal in 1841 when Joseph married Louisa Beaman.
- The author claims that Joseph "chose some thirty three men...who would join him in denying its practice."
- 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."
- The author considers it remarkable that Joseph's involvement in polygamy was "largely excised from the official telling of LDS history."
- 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."
- 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).
- It is claimed that Joseph predicted that the Second Coming would occur in 1890.
- It is claimed that Joseph "was familiar with nineteenth century writer Thomas Dick..."
- 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."
- It is claimed that Joseph's "dispensationalism had many past antecedents."
- "Joseph preached [apocalyptically] as regularly as any other apocalyptic preacher of his day…."
- 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."
- 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…."
- 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."
- Author's quote: "Across the Atlantic, the communal experiment advocated by Marx and Engels appeared in London only a few years later in 1848."
- Author's quote: 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.
- 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."
- Joseph is claimed to have performed a "ritualized five-year search for the gold plates…"
- 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.
- Quoting D. Michael Quinn, it is noted that "that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"
- Oliver Cowdery is claimed to have said that Joseph wanted to "commune with some kind of messenger."
- Oliver Cowdery said Joseph "had heard of the power of enchantment, and a thousand like stories, which held the hidden treasures of the earth."
- Author's quote: "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….
- 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…."
- Author's quote: …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."
- 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 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)."
- 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."
- Author's quote: "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."
- 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."
- 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?"
- Author's quote: "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'?"
- Author's quote: "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."
- The author refers to the "vices and follies of youth…."
- William Stafford is quoted as remembering "Joseph…looking in his glass" and seeing "spirits…clothed in ancient dress" standing guard over treasures."
- 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."
- It is claimed that Joseph "'professed to tell people's fortunes' by gazing at a 'stone which he used to put in his hat,'…."
- 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."
- 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."
- Author's quote: "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.'"
- 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."
- It is noted that there is nothing in Lucy Mack Smith's history about "women, wives, or early struggles with chastity…."
- The book notes that in 1832 Joseph had become involved with Fanny Alger.
- 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."
- Author's quote: "…it must have been a fascinating courtship, conducted as it was among unseen spirits and Joseph's unsettling conversations with angels."
- 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."
- 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."
- The author speculates that "[t]he treasure seeker presented himself as someone who had special knowledge that was beyond the woman's ken."
- Author's quote: "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…"
- Author's quote: "It is also true that Joseph's career in money digging was much more extensive than he intimated in his 1838 narrative."
- The Bainbridge "glass-looking" appearance is called "a trial"
Response to claims made in "Chapter 1" (pp. 1-25)
| Preface | A FAIR Analysis of: Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage" A work by author: George D. Smith
|
Chapter 1 (pp. 26-51) |
1
Claim
- The author claims that Louisa Beaman "was about to become the first plural wife of Joseph Smith."
Author's source(s) - History unclear or in error
- No source provided.
- The author ignores the Hancock testimony of a marriage ceremony with Fanny Alger.
- Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Initiation of the practice
- The author or publisher responds: 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: 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." [1]
1n1
Claim
- 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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- History unclear or in error
- The author ignores the Hancock testimony of a marriage ceremony with Fanny Alger.
- Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Initiation of the practice
- Fanny Alger—affair or marriage?
1
Claim
- Author's quote: "Had romance blossomed between her and the charismatic...prophet"?
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- The author implies that romance was a commonly expressed reason for women practicing plural marriage with Joseph.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Romance
- Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Lustful motives
1
Claim
- It is noted that Joseph is age 35, while Louisa was 26.
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
2
Claim
- The author claims that Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- Internal contradiction: p. xv: Nauvoo was "a more or less insignificant river town". Yet, Nauvoo was ultimately largest city in the entire state except for Chicago.[2]
2
Claim
It is claimed that "[n]o one knew precisely when the final end would come, but they knew it was imminent."
Author's source(s)
- No source provided.
Response
- 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: Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Joseph Smith and the Millenarian Time Table," Brigham Young University Studies 3 no. 3 (1961), 55–66. off-site
2
Claim
- Author's quote: "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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
2
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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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.
- City of Nauvoo/City charter
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
2
Claim
- The author implies that Latter-day Saints had left their homes in New York "under uneasy circumstances."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- History unclear or in error 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.
3
Claim
- The author suggests that plural marriage "was central to the broad sweep of LDS experience..."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- History unclear or in error 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).
3
Claim
- It is claimed that plural marriage was illegal in 1841 when Joseph married Louisa Beaman.
Author's source(s) - Revised Laws of Illinois, 1833; Revised States of the State of Illinois, 1845, secs 121, 122.
3-4
Claim
- The author claims that Joseph "chose some thirty three men...who would join him in denying its practice."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
4
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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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.
- John C. Bennett
5
Claim
- The author considers it remarkable that Joseph's involvement in polygamy was "largely excised from the official telling of LDS history."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
5
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."
Author's source(s) - "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.
6
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).
Author's source(s) Necessary for salvation? (edit)
- The actual text reads: "I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; 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.
- Polygamy/Requirement for exaltation
- Polygamy/The only men who become gods are those that practice polygamy
6
Claim
- It is claimed that Joseph predicted that the Second Coming would occur in 1890.
Author's source(s) - No source provided
- The author does not provide Joseph's careful caveats about his prediction, and his admitted uncertainties surrounding this issue.
- Joseph Smith/Prophecies/Second Coming to be in 1890
- "This generation"
- Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Joseph Smith and the Millenarian Time Table," Brigham Young University Studies 3 no. 3 (1961), 55–66. off-site
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Use of sources
7
Claim
- It is claimed that Joseph "was familiar with nineteenth century writer Thomas Dick..."
Author's source(s) - 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.
- Book of Abraham/Plagiarism accusations/Thomas Dick
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
7
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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- Joseph Smith/Seer stones
- Joseph Smith and "magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/"Magick"
8
Claim
- It is claimed that Joseph's "dispensationalism had many past antecedents."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- The author here presumes that past dispensationalism had an influence on Joseph. This must be proved, not assumed.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
9
Claim
- "Joseph preached [apocalyptically] as regularly as any other apocalyptic preacher of his day…."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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?
- Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Joseph Smith and the Millenarian Time Table," Brigham Young University Studies 3 no. 3 (1961), 55–66. off-site (Discusses many contrasts between Joseph and the millenialist sects of his day, from both LDS and non-LDS historians of religion.)
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
9
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."
Author's source(s) - Jesse, 306
- 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."
- Missouri Saints' "redemption draweth near" reinterpreted to refer to refer to the "end of the world?"
10
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…."
Author's source(s) - Jesse, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:68–73, 568–69.
11
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."
Author's source(s) - Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 8.
11
Claim
- Author's quote: "Across the Atlantic, the communal experiment advocated by Marx and Engels appeared in London only a few years later in 1848."
Author's source(s) - Communist Manifesto (1848; New York: Bantam, 1992).
- 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.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
12
Claim
- Author's quote: 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.
Author's source(s) - No source provided
- The author assumes that the Book of Mormon reflects Joseph's mind and preoccupations. If Joseph was the translator, it may not.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
12
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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
12
Claim
- Joseph is claimed to have performed a "ritualized five-year search for the gold plates…"
Author's source(s) - No source provided
- The author assumes that Joseph's acquisition was ritualized, and he presumes that the "magick" thesis is correct in this instance.
- Joseph Smith and "magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/"Magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
12
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.
Author's source(s) - No source provided
- The author presumes that the "magick" thesis is correct in this instance. He ignores the religious significance of this date:
- Book of Mormon recovered on autumnal equinox
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/"Magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
12n29
Claim
- Quoting D. Michael Quinn, it is noted that "that day in September 1823 was ruled by Jupiter, Smith's ruling planet…"
Author's source(s) - D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 120–121 ( Index of claims )
- History unclear or in error.
- 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.[3] The present author acknowledges or treats none of these issues.
- Joseph Smith and "magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/"Magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
13
Claim
- Oliver Cowdery is claimed to have said that Joseph wanted to "commune with some kind of messenger."
Author's source(s) - 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.
- The quote is incorrect. The correct phrase is "some kind messenger."
- "Some kind [of] messenger..."
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/"Magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
13
Author's source(s)
- 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: Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps, LDS Messenger and Advocate 2/1 (October 1835): 197.
- The phrase is removed from context to emphasize the words "enchantment" and "treasures of the earth."
- The "power of enchantment" and "hidden treasures of the earth"
- Joseph_Smith_and_money_digging
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/"Magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
13-14
Claim
- Author's quote: "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….
Author's source(s) - No source provided
- The author again presumes that Joseph is the author of the Book of Mormon.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
14
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…."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- There is no evidence that married men understood that Joseph was discussing polygamy until at least three years later.[4]
- Polygamy/Lamanites to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
14
Claim
- Author's quote: …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."
Author's source(s) - W.W. Phelps to Brigham Young, Aug. 12, 1861, LDS Archives.
- 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.)
- Skin color important in LDS scriptures?
- Polygamy/Lamanites to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
14n34
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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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"
14n34
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)."
Author's source(s) - N/A
- 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." (Alma 23꞉18) In the end, the Lamanites triumph. The white Nephites perish, and the dark Lamanites remain. [5]
- Skin color important in LDS scriptures?
- Lamanite curse
- John A. Tvedtnes, "The Charge of 'Racism' in the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 183–198. off-site
14n34
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."
Author's source(s) - N/A
- 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.)
- Skin color important in LDS scriptures?
- Scripture and race in LDS tradition
- Blacks and the priesthood
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
14n34
Claim
- Author's quote: "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."
Author's source(s) - Campbell, "'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).
- The author avoids drawing the obvious conclusion—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.
- 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"
- Scripture and race in LDS tradition
- Blacks and the priesthood
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
15
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."
Author's source(s) - Deseret News (20 May 1886); Ezra Booth letter, Ohio Star, (8 Dec 1831).
- 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.
- Polygamy/Lamanites to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage
15
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?"
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- The author again presumes that Joseph's "youthful experiences" presaged plural marriage. He has not demonstrated this.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
15
Claim
- Author's quote: "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'?"
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- Of course, everyone else at the time probably stayed overnight on visits with families too, especially if poor and on the frontier.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
15-16
Claim
- Author's quote: "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."
Author's source(s) Early preoccupation with polygamy (edit)
Or, it might not. As it turns out, it isn't.
- Joseph Smith/Psychobiographical analysis of
- Polygamy book/Early womanizer
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Use of sources
- 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)
16-20
Claim
- The author refers to the "vices and follies of youth…."
Author's source(s) Early preoccupation with polygamy (edit)
- Polygamy book/Early womanizer#Early struggles with chastity?
- 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)
19-20
Claim
- William Stafford is quoted as remembering "Joseph…looking in his glass" and seeing "spirits…clothed in ancient dress" standing guard over treasures."
Author's source(s) - Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, OH, 1834), 234–35. (Affidavits examined)
The author is here using the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits uncritically, without addressing their numerous problems.
- The Hurlbut affidavits—Williams Stafford
- Mark Ashurst-McGee, "Moroni as Angel and as Treasure Guardian," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 34–100. [{{{url}}} off-site] wiki
- Larry E. Morris, "'I Should Have an Eye Single to the Glory of God’: Joseph Smith’s Account of the Angel and the Plates (Review of: "From Captain Kidd’s Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism")," FARMS Review 17/1 (2005): 11–82. off-site
20
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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided, but is from William Stafford affidavit in Howe.
- The author is here using the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits uncritically, without addressing their numerous problems.
- The Hurlbut affidavits—Williams Stafford
- The Hurlbut affidavits—C.R. Stafford
20
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,'…."
Author's source(s) - No source provided, but is from Henry Harris affidavit in Howe.
- The author is here using the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits uncritically, without addressing their numerous problems.
- Joseph Smith/Occultism and magic
- Joseph Smith/Seer stones
- The Hurlbut affidavits—Henry Harris
21
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."
Author's source(s) - History of the Church 4:535–41
- Jesse, Writings of Joseph Smith, 241–248.
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?
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- 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)
21
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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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?
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- 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)
21
Claim
- Author's quote: "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.'"
Author's source(s) - No sources provided.
22
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."
Author's source(s) - Anderson, Lucy's Book, 329, 345.
22
Claim
- It is noted that there is nothing in Lucy Mack Smith's history about "women, wives, or early struggles with chastity…."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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?
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- 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)
22
Claim
- The book notes that in 1832 Joseph had become involved with Fanny Alger.
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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.
22
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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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?
- 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)
22
Claim
- Author's quote: "…it must have been a fascinating courtship, conducted as it was among unseen spirits and Joseph's unsettling conversations with angels."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- This claim (besides mind reading) also distorts the textual record, since Cowdery's account (cited above) made it clear that there was nothing unsettling at all about it.
- Joseph Smith/Psychobiographical analysis of
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
22
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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided
- There is no evidence they felt "bound" by "treasure magic."
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/"Magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
22
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."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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.
- Joseph and Emma eloped in an atmosphere of "imaginative lore and mix of theology and magic?"
23
Claim
- The author speculates that "[t]he treasure seeker presented himself as someone who had special knowledge that was beyond the woman's ken."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- How does he know? Again, there is no evidence presented.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/"Magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
25
Claim
- Author's quote: "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…"
Author's source(s) - 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.
- 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
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Assumptions and presumptions
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/"Magick"
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
25
Claim
- Author's quote: "It is also true that Joseph's career in money digging was much more extensive than he intimated in his 1838 narrative."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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
25
Claim
- The Bainbridge "glass-looking" appearance is called "a trial"
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- History unclear or in error
- This event was not a trial—current scholarship suggests that it was a hearing only.
- Joseph Smith/Legal trials/1826 glasslooking trial
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
- [note] Mosiah F. Hancock, Autobiography, MS 570, LDS 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).
- [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
- [note] William J. Hamblin, "That Old Black Magic (Review of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, by D. Michael Quinn)," FARMS Review of Books 12/2 (2000): 225–394. [{{{url}}} off-site]
- [note] 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.
- [note] Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 99.
Further reading
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