How old were you when you first learned JS practiced polyandry?
 

This is informatio was never disclosed through official channels for me. It was discovered through a BYU research assistant in my mid twenties, after having served a mission.

Here is a website fairly detailed.

http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/

Can you be more specific? I'm confused. I thought you were using polyandry to describe JS having sexual relationship with more than one woman. But polyandry means a woman having more than one man. Are you referring to that JS taught and encouraged polyandry?

I remember asking my dad about polygamy when I was around deacon age. He went into pretty specific detail about Brigham Young, Joseph Smith and even Fanny Alger. I've always thought that everybody knew about it.

I think I was about 10 when my older brother found out and interrogated my dad over the dinner table about it. So it was never a big mystery. That coupled with the fact that our family history is a little heavy on the polygamy side made it a pretty open topic of conversation at our house.

I think that may be his point. Some of Josephs wives were already married.

Same here. Polygamy was part of my family history, so when I learned that church leaders practiced it, I was neither shocked nor concerned.

Well, we know now Joseph Smith had 33 wives. Some of these wives were married when they also married JS, and he had sexual relations with them.

Fanny Alger was his first plural wife. And she was the cute Laurel that Emma got ticked over.

I knew by the time I was 12 (if not earlier) that Joseph Smith and other church leaders practiced polygamy.

As for the claim that Joseph Smith was having intimate relations with women that were simultaneously married to someone else, I hadn't heard that claim until a few years ago.

Well, as a nonMormon I had heard about Brigham Young and his wives, but the Chuch didn't tell much about JS's 33 wives. And no mention was ever made of the eleven husbands, who shared Joseph's wives.

I doubt that was much of a dinner topic.

Bushman confirms that sexual relations probably occurred with several of the polyandrous wives.

Meaning to read Bushman's bio but failing to do so, what does Bushman offer in the way of commentary on this?

Very nondescript. Just yes, pretty good evidence that in at least two or three of the situations a fully functioning polyandrous relationship existed.

I still scratch my head on those. That's why I believe some permission may have been given to institute polygamy and Joseph was left to figure it out for himself. He may have gone too far, who knows. It's an oddity. Oliver Cowdery is rumored to have been pissed when he didn't get the same permission.

Again, I don't worship Joseph Smith, but admire his courage in trying times and the fact that he overcame difficult circumstances. But he was human, with frailties and strengths. People with great strengths often have very strong frailties.

Wasn't Joseph's example the basis for the weekend Vegas marriage / sexapalooza / annulment, the logic being hey so long as you are married, it is not adultery?

No I think it's okay have sex with other women so long as they are also married. Huge note of sarcasm for the humor impaired.

Assuming Joseph Smith indeed "committed" polyandry, was his polyandry not acceptable to God? I think God has made it abundantly clear how severe a sin unchaste behavior is. Do you think he would let this slide, given that Joseph was His prophet?

Perhaps, he paid for it in other ways. I will not be Joseph's judge. It is simply strange and doesn't fit on a nice polished platter. And it is reality.

Is it also possible that although a prophet, it was not acceptable? Why else did others not practice it to our knowledge? But that God has a different plan for Joseph in light of that? I think you limit the possibilities too much, wanting to force a round peg into a square hole. A man can be a prophet and still sin. I can accept the prophetic role and that he did things not becoming a prophet. Perhaps this is why the Church is loathe to disclose it, because there is no nice pre-packaged answer that explains it.

We like our lives and presentations to be power point ready, complete without deviations. Examination of any soul's life will show anything but the Truman Show.

That statement only goes so far. When prophets have sinned egregiously enough in the past, (David, Moses, Joseph Smith and the 116 pages) this has resulted in documented discipline from God.

I'm willing to bet that IF

1. Joseph Smith engaged in the polyandry documented by Bushman
2. It was not endorsed by God

There would have been serious repercussions.

Joseph Smth was incarcerated, tarred and feathered, beaten and murdered. (In fact, some speculate that the reason he was hated by at least some groups was his marriage to young girls and the wives of other men). His life is replete with repercussions.

I don't believe immediate consequences always follow every sin, even serious ones. God had so much invested in Joseph by that time, letting him fall may not have been allowable.

Was the kingship removed from David?

I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts if what Joseph Smith did was wrong and he continued to do it over a lengthy period of time and with multiple women, that God wasn't going to all of the sudden go laissez-faire with him and take him to task about it in the Hereafter.

Kingship <> Prophet

http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOr...004d82620a____

Polygamy's obviously not a secret in the church. I was very young when I learned of it. I have ancestors that were polygamous. It was taught to me in a way that was more of something to be proud of than be ashamed of. (and yeah i ended that with a preposition--who was that did that last week? that was pretty funny. i always feel like doing the same thing)

As a college student at BYU I started getting more interested in church history and learned more.

The JS involved in polygamy thing or involved in it, sexually, has always been a strange issue. I was taught by some people (maybe not necessarily taught but this was the view of others when it came up in discussions), that JS married many women but only had sex with Emma. And that was important to them, even though other church leaders obviously participated i polygamy in the full blown way including sexually. So during this time period (post mission/student) when I came across beliefs of people that JS had more than one sexual partner, it was presented to me as shocking but it didn't feel shocking--that's the whole point of polygamy, right?

Then over time I became exposed to more theories some just in the last five years: that JS had possibly a non-polygamous affair that he may or may not have used polygamy as the cover up, that JS taught polyandry as well as polygamy and may have encouraged Emma to enter into this, that JS approached certain men's wives to become his wife as well, etc.

My view of it now is: things were seriously messed up and that the teaching and doctrine on polygamy changed and evolved so much and has since been eliminated, that I'm comfortable with my belief that the whole thing was a series of misforunate events, and that God did not intend for any of it to happen at all. But also it doesn't take away from JS and BY being great men and great prophets and receiving other important revelations.

Good post, jay.

There are a few weirder things that I'm certain should be posted. It does appear to have been a messed up situation that took a while to clean up.

What if...

JS committed a sexual sin relating to polygamy/polyandry that was not acceptable to God but JS believed it was right? What then?

Yes, I'm aware of that perspective, promoted by leadership, but in this instance, I don't believe it was followed. That doesn't make me a disbeliever, only that I don't believe the explanation or lack of explanation.

I can accept the fact that people may not be held responsible for the actions of their leaders.

Then God taps him on the shoulder and tells him to knock it off. How long was the Brother of Jared chewed out for not praying to God?

[EDIT]Never mind, I forgot the Book of Mormon was allegory and that it's likely a Brother of Jared never existed, so the chewing out was merely the symbolic consequence of a symbolic transgression.[/EDIT]

I was a Salt Lake City missionary at age 19, and encountered the idea then (as did many in my mission).

And your response was?

I remember the first time I discussed it with leadership, it was, this, 'hum, hah,"

Well he didn't have sex. Well maybe he did. Well ...

no good answers.

Maybe God tapped him and the next couple guys on the shoulder and it took the fourth guy to pay attention. I just think there's so much we don't know about God and how and when and why he reveals things to us, that we can't say definitively how things really went down re: the whole polygamy fiasco.

Is God really that impotent?

Absolutely not.

1. Agency is a really important concept that we probably don't understand well and how it might play it out in situations like this.

2. Since God obviously knows the world beginning to the end, the polygamy fiasco, while resulting from a mistake or blunder by man might have been the exact thing to further God's will in how the restoration of His church would go.

I don't remember exactly what I said, but I do remember that I argued that prophets can be very, very flawed. I might have mentioned Paul's involvement with the stoning of Steven.

On P-day, though, I went to a bookstore (either Sam Wellers or Benchmark Books) and I asked somebody there to steer me to books on J.S. and polygamy/polyandry. I bought Carmen Hardy's book. Most missionaries don't have easy access to those resources...

I'm not buying it. There just isn't any recorded history of God allowing something of this magnitude going on against His will without subsequent Divine intervention/correction; whereas there are several examples that show God steps in when His prophets stray off the straight and narrow.

And why would people record such instances? Wouldn't a record of such instances give people an excuse to go do whatever they wished? The logic doesn't appear sound.

I'm just curious how you, Santos and whomever else can feel so certain that God just threw up his hands and let Joseph Smith et al commit what has been termed in scripture the most grevious sin next to murder without direct intervention for so long when there is no recorded precedent for God doing so in the past?

There is no historical/scriptural precedent.

We have ample historical/scriptural precedent indicating the exact opposite, however. We have the story of Joseph Smith pleading with God to let Martin Harris have the 116 pages, despite being told "no" twice and when Martin Harris lost the pages, Joseph Smith lost his ability to translate the plates for a season. That incident is a mere trifle compared to mass adultery in the grand scheme of things.

The assertion that God somehow just let 'Joseph do what Joseph got to do' is unfathomably intellectually and scripturally incongruous.

Here is an idea:

Years ago, God commanded that the saints live the law of consecration, but it was later recanted because the saints were not ready for it.

Perhaps the law of polygamy is the same way, being more profound than we realize, insomuch that even our mortal prophets struggle with certain, um, side effects. As much as we tend to deify our prophets while still in mortality, the reality is they are subject to the same temptations and weaknesses as the rest of us.

And the Israelites were given a lower law when they were a-whorin' while Moses was getting the original stone etch-a-sketch on Sinai. I accept that members of the church and its leaders fail to fully live according to the commandments of God.

When they do, they are punished for their lack of faithfulness and sometimes they are also given a lower law that will enable them to have a greater measure of obedience, but a corresponding diminished capacity to be blessed for their obedience.

I'm not willing to accept that God is going to passively stand by while His prophets are engaging in repeated gross sexual improprieties.

Oliver Cowdery, in an 1835 letter to W.W. Phelps, describes Joseph Smith:

"I do not pretend that he is not a man subject to passion like other men, beset with infirmities and compassed with weaknesses; but if he is, all men were so before him, and a pretence to the contrary would argue a more than mortal, which would at once destroy the whole system of the religion of the Lord Jesus"

Accounts of Joseph Smith's personal weaknesses:

D&C 1:24 "These commandments…were given unto my servants in their weakness."

D&C 3:6-11,15 "how oft you have transgressed…you should have been faithful."

D&C 5:21 "repent and walk more uprightly…yield to the persuasions of men no more."

D&C 6:19 Oliver Cowdery is directed to "admonish him in his faults."

D&C 20:5 "was entangled again in the vanities of the world."

D&C 24:2 "thou art not excusable in thy trangressions."

D&C 67:5 "he has sinned."

D&C 67:5 "he has sinned."

D&C 67:5 "his imperfections you have known."

D&C 90:17 "be admonished in all your high-mindedness and pride."

D&C 93:47 "have not kept the commandments and must needs stand rebuked."

D&C 111:1 The treasure hunting purposes of the trip to Salem are called "follies."

D&C 132:50 "I…will forgive all your sins."



And from Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith:

Teachings, 89 "a man subject to like passions…"

Teachings, 90 "I may do many things inadvertently that are not right in the sight of God."

Teachings, 216 "I…feel to repent of all my sins."

Teachings, 158 "the wrong that I do is through the frailty of human nature."

Teachings, 268 "I was but a man…must not expect me to be perfect."

Teachings, 303 "I do not want you to think that I am very righteous."

Teachings, 315 "I am subject to like passions as other men."

Teachings, 368 "I never told you I was perfect."


From The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, p. 238:

"Shed tears of sorrow for my folly in Sufering the adversary of my Soul to have so much power over me as he has had in times past." (letter of Joseph to Emma)


Messenger and Advocate 1 (December, 1834) p. 40

"never have pretended to be any other than a man."



Times and Seasons 4 (May 15, 1843) p. 200

"Did not profess to be a very good man…a sinner like other men."

Where is the part that says something to the effect of 'and yet He has allowed me to continue to sleep with other men's wives even though it was evil in His sight'?

God does not intervene as much as many would like, it would otherwise destroy free agency.

If we accept the concept that polygamy is ever proper, then perhaps God's eternal view of sexuality is not so prudish as many would have us believe. Thus God did not destroy Joseph for what might be seen as improprieties.

Sometimes you can receive forgiveness for things you can't receive permission.

Adam and Eve's offspring committed incest.

Abraham was commanded by God to take Hagar, even though Ishmael didn't receive his birthright.

I think there is ample precedent to show that God has shown more flexibility in what is and isn't sexually permissible, but that 'permissiveness' was not due to individual initiative, but due FIRST to His divine decree. There is ample precedent to show that those that chose to act outside the bounds of what was deemed acceptable by God were condemned for their actions.

I am led to conclude one of two things about the issue of Joseph Smith and polyandry.

1. It didn't happen in the way protrayed by those that wrote about it.
2. God, for whatever reason, signed off on Joseph Smith's polyandric ways, and as such was not sinful, even though that conduct is radically different than the accepted norm in most societies.