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In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
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19 Reddit comments about In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith:

u/ohokyeah · 59 pointsr/IAmA

Given that people are asking about church problems, I thought I'd make a post about it.

Information deemed as "anti-Mormon" can be validated with LDS or neutral resources, the "anti" information is actually typically the truth. I make a point of verifying sources directly with LDS information. I do not assume it's trusted unless the information can be corroborated with information in BYU archives, LDS.org or other LDS-run sites.

  • Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon with his face buried in a hat. Emma (this is from RLDS/CoC history but the LDS church uses the RLDS archives for its records as well), David Whitmer (page 423 under "Manner as Follows"), Joseph Knight and others' accounts support this. A talk in 1993 called "A Treasured Testament" mentions this method. When's the last time you saw LDS artwork depicting Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon with his face in a hat?

  • Joseph Smith married fourteen and sixteen year old girls when in his mid to late thirties. Familysearch.org supports this. See Helen Mar Kimball, the fourteen year old bride. Joseph Smith also married women who were married (which has no scriptural justification), see Zina Huntington Jacobs as one example of several. More information can be found at wivesofjosephsmith.org which is based off of LDS author Todd Compton's book, "In Sacred Loneliness" which was published by Signature Books. The age of majority at the time was twenty one, and average marriage ages were not outside the early twenties, teen brides were rare. See 1890-2010, Netherlands 18th century, and Social History.

  • Joseph Smith [ordered](https://byustudies.byu.edu/hc/6/22.html#HOC (page 448) the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor and declared martial law. (Martial and law each have a link). This is what led to his incarceration at Carthage.

  • The information found in the Nauvoo Expositor (see Affadavits of Wm Law, Robert Foster, Jane Law and Austin Cowles) was not untruthful. LDS-owned Familysearch.org supports the allegations of polygamy, and the Second Anointing is a ordinance which little information can be found, but a reference of it can be found on LDS.org.


  • Second Anointing

  • See section "What is meant by having one's calling and election made sure?"

  • See History of the Church, 5:391-392.

  • Joseph Smith had several contradictory accounts of the First Vision. I find the official explanation for why there were multiple variants to be wholly unsatisfying. The singular detail which should be uniform in all of them is not uniform. Who did Joseph see?

  • There are problems with the priesthood restoration as seen on LDS-run josephsmithpapers.org. There's a six year gap in the record of the supposed event and the first time it shows up in any book or manuscript.

  • The manuscript (there's nothing there for May 1829 at all) for the time frame doesn't suggest that such an event occurred.

  • In August 1830, the manuscript for Doctrine and Covenants 27 was written, it does not match the modern version.

  • In 1831 Joseph Smith was ordained a High Priest by Lyman Wight after he ordained Lyman Wight as high priest. Why would Joseph Smith need to be ordained a high priest if he'd received this office already from Peter, James and John and isn't ordaining Lyman Wight as high priest before Lyman Wight ordained Joseph Smith a circular exercise?

  • 1833 edition of Book of Commandments CHAPTER XXVIII (predecessor to Doctrine and Covenants)

  • 1835 edition of Doctrine and Covenants Section L

    There's multiple other issues which are problematic and I've already taken up a substantial amount of space here. I wanted to illustrate issues which cause people to go from believer to non-believer. I was once a believer, I thought I had felt the Spirit, I even got married in the temple. The church is not what it represents itself to be. The Spirit may be nothing more than a normal emotional response which is exploited easily by religious organizations.

  • Elevation

  • Elevation 2

  • Elevation 3

  • Frisson

  • Frisson 2

  • Frisson 3


    I did once have a pretty strong testimony, but that is when I only knew part of the information. When allowing myself to investigate information with an eye to scientific reasoning in the case of the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham as well as the Bible, ultimately none of the scriptures hold up to scrutiny.

    There's no genetic, archaeological or linguistic support for the Book of Mormon as verified by any credible scientist. The world of science is not "out to get" Mormons, it just doesn't support Mormonism's assertions of accuracy of canonized LDS texts.

    The Book of Mormon is specific in the extent of the expansion of the civilization in Helaman 3:5-8. The limited geography explanation is directly contradicted by the Book of Mormon. A small village of perhaps a hundred people in Canada settled by the Vikings a millennia ago for a duration of maybe ten years has been found, but yet no whole cultural digs have been found to support the Book of Mormon. The items where some aspect is used to support the Book of Mormon are typically a single item or aspect of a dig and explanations given by those supportive of Mormonism are not accepted by archaeologists.

    A small cluster of Africans have had their genetic history linked to seven Semitic men dating to 2,500 years ago, and yet no genetic, archaeological, linguistic or cultural evidence in the study of Native Americans supports a cluster of Hebraic people from the same era as the progenitors of the African tribe previously mentioned. Lehi, Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, Zoram, Jacob and Joseph and Mulek are all males mentioned in the same era who supposedly left Jerusalem (or were born in the wilderness) making for at least nine male progenitors who made it to the Americas. Regardless of if all of those descending people have died out, we can now perform genetic tests on bodies of people who died multiple millennia ago. The Anzik child shares genetics with ancient Siberians (and most of the Native Americans).

    Edit:formatting

    Edit 2: grammar and minor fact adjustment
u/fkdjsa · 46 pointsr/todayilearned

This is duplicitous and unabashedly so. You make it seem like your post-modern, intellectualist approach to Mormonism is ubiquitous in the rank and file membership, which is blatantly dishonest. Quit your lying for the lord and tell the straight story.

You say:
>"I was taught about the Nauvoo Expositor, also he had a gun and fired it down the hallway"

Having been born in the church and been very active until about age 24, I've only ever met ONE member of the LDS church who knew about Joseph having carried a gun in Carthage and have NEVER heard it discussed in any church setting.

If you knew about it, then you're the exception and you know it. Most LDS faithful don't have any idea of any of the context surrounding Smith's incarceration and most are under the impression that it was entirely due to bigoted "anti mormon persecution".

>"Also, calling the Nauvoo Expositor a "newspaper" is insulting to newspapers. It was very poorly written, had no sources, and was just one large slander piece to Joseph Smith and the LDS church.

You don't get a pass to burn down a printing press because it's a crappy paper. Sorry. ([Mormon Think: Nauvoo Expositor]
(http://www.mormonthink.com/glossary/nauvoo-expositor.htm))

>"To this day there is no strong evidence that Joseph Smith Jr did or did not have more than one wife.

What the hell are you talking about? You're either LYING or are underinformed:

-Todd Compton's In Sacred Lonliness discusses in depth each of the wives of JS.

-Wikipedia: List of Joseph Smith's wives

-Mormon Think: Joseph Smith Polygamy

This isn't a controversial issue any longer. Even the LDS apologists have admitted such:
>"Joseph Smith was eternally married to what currently are argued to be between eight and eleven already married women. If we consider only those eight marriages that can be adequately documented, we find that six of the marriages occurred within an eight-month period between late October 1841 and June 1842. Two more marriages occurred early in 1843. The women ranged in age from 20 to 47, with an average age of 29. Of those eight marriages, five were to women who had Mormon husbands and three were to women married to disaffected members or non-Mormons. Three of the women's first marriages to Mormon husbands and two of the marriages to non-Mormons lasted until death. The other three remaining marriages ended later in life after Joseph's death in 1844. In all cases the women continued to live with their first husbands. Technically, a woman with more than one husband is defined as being involved in a polyandrous relationship, or practicing polyandry." (Samuel Katich, A Tale of two Marriage Systems, 2003)

He ordered the destruction of a private printing press that was exposing the fact that he was using his religious influence to coerce women into secretly marrying him and then denying it publicly. Did he deserve to be assassinated? No. Was he completely innocent (a lamb to the slaughter)? Absolutely not. The point of all this is that you will never hear anything about the Nauvoo expositor or Joseph's secret polyandry or anything leading up to his "martyrdom" in Mormon Sunday school, except that he was killed by "an angry mob".

u/amertune · 15 pointsr/latterdaysaints

> In my understanding polygamy is not officially gone from church doctrine, but rather just not currently practiced. Reading OD1 seems to confirm this as in no place does it strictly repeal it. Is this true? Will polygamy be practiced in the Celestial Kingdom and would it be practiced again should the laws of marriage in the United States change to permit it?

Yes, it is still doctrinal and does still shape sealing policies. I've been taught that it would be practiced again in the future and that it is practiced in the CK. I don't, however, believe that.

> I've heard rumors and read accounts of prominent Mormon leaders (Joseph Smith & Brigham Young in particular) marrying women who already had husbands that were still living. Is this true? What is the reasoning behind this?

Yes, it's true. I don't know the reason. It's one of the most troubling aspects of the historical practice of polygamy.

> In the afterlife, can someone marry my wife? (We are sealed in the temple)

Who really knows what exactly will happen in the afterlife?

> Brigham Young had children with multiple (like... 15ish?) wives? Why were these children not permitted to have a father they didn't share with so many others? Did Utah Territory have a significantly larger female population than male?

Brigham had children with 16 of his 55 wives. In a lot of cases, I don't really see a significant difference between growing up with Brigham Young or Heber C Kimball as your father and growing up without a father—especially when those fathers spent so much time off on missions. Utah didn't have significantly more females than males. The census actually indicates that there were more men than women. AFAIK, it was only a small number of men that were able to get a large number of wives. Elder Widstoe talks about it in his book "Evidences and Reconciliations", and concludes that they practiced polygamy not because there were surplus women but because they believed that God commanded it.

> D&C 132:62-64. Do we still believe that? Why is that still in the scripture, it seems very... ... not what I learn in Sunday School. Man owning women, man sleeping with many women - women being denied the same, if the original wife disagrees God will "destroy" her... this is a bit concerning, please tell me I'm misunderstanding this.

No, I think that you do understand these verses. I don't know whether or not "we" (the Church) believe them, but I don't accept them. They're in the canon, but any lesson that includes section 132 is usually selective about how it covers it and mostly just covers the blessings of eternal (one man and one woman) marriage.

Polygamy is difficult to understand and easy to judge. There was some good that came out of it (including me), but a lot of it was also done poorly.

If you really want to learn more about polygamy, I would recommend reading history books.

Here are some good ones you could look into:

u/kimballthenom · 10 pointsr/exmormon

Joseph Smith married 11 women who were already married to another man at the time. You can read about them here. Those aren't estranged husbands either. In some cases Joseph Smith sent the husband on a mission and then took his wife while he was gone. These women, of course, kept living with their first husbands, although in the case of Zina Jacobs she was transferred to Brigham Young after Joseph's death, and Brigham then strong-armed her first husband out of the relationship.


I recommend this book for more information.

u/notrab · 9 pointsr/exmormon

I also have it linked in the text portion of the Wives of Joseph Smith Infographic

References:
Marriage Details are from wivesofjosephsmith.org
Which has compiled genealogical research from the following sources:

[A] familysearch.org (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City)

[B] Mormon Polygamy: A History, (Van Wagoner, Signature Books, Salt Lake City, 1989)

[C] Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, (Newell & Avery, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1994)

[D] In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, (Compton, Signature Books, Salt Lake City, 1997)

[E] Doctrine and Covenants, (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City)

Additional Panel References:

[1] "Utah Struggles With a Revival of Polygamy", NY Times, 8/23/1998, James Brooke

[2] Polyandry definition at wikipedia.

[3] Henry Jacobs' mission call; "Zina and Her Men", FAIR LDS Conference, 2006

[4] David Sessions mission call, wivesofjosephsmith.org, Patty Bartlett Sessions Biography

[5] Desdemona Fullmer quote, wivesofjosephsmith.org, D. Fuller Biography

*The cameo silhouettes were created by mormoninfographics for presentation purposes.

Other Resources
Black and White version of this chart for printouts, download here.
Full Rez image from above here.

u/Necrostic · 5 pointsr/latterdaysaints
u/No_Engineering · 4 pointsr/exmormon

A thorough description of Josephs lies and deceit surrounding polygamy. ISL

u/JacquesDeMolay13 · 4 pointsr/mormon

You must be new here. There's no need for people critical of polygamy to exaggerate how shady it was. The truth, as told even by LDS scholars, it quite damning. If you read enough of it, you may leave the church or you may stay, but I guarantee your current view of your religion will not remain intact.

http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/

https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Loneliness-Plural-Wives-Joseph/dp/156085085X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475096207&sr=1-1&keywords=in+sacred+loneliness

u/PDXexmo · 3 pointsr/exmormon

So maybe a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, then . . .

Only you will know the best approach. The church has tons of weak spots. It's just that people place value on different things.

To discredit the Book of Mormon itself as a historical document, start with a couple of simple websites. I really find the Wikipedia page on BOM anachronisms to be a great starting point. It's an avalanche of evidence in short form. If this is her "one thing" have her go down the list and discuss each item on the page. How does she explain the elephants? The metal currency? The animals that shouldn't be there and the animals that should have been in a book set in the ancient US? If the Book of Mormon can be shown to be a work of fiction, the rest unravels.

To discredit Joseph Smith as a person who produced divine scripture, read By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus. It's not too long, and because we actually have the original text used to produce the Book of Abraham, it's very easy to prove that what Smith produced was a bunch of made up bullshit.

To draw attention to the fact that Joseph Smith was a serial rapist who abused his spiritual authority to have sex with women who trusted him, all the while going behind his wife's back, send her to Wives of Joseph Smith. In Sacred Loneliness is excellent and extremely thorough, but the book is also the size of a cinder block and can be off-putting to someone only willing to read one thing.

To point out historical spin on polygamy, you could discuss the following:

  • Remember that awesome story about how Smith ordered Heber C. Kimball to give his wife Vilate over to him as a plural wife, and Kimball handed her over like chattel? The church teaches this as some kind of great show of faith, completely glossing over the fact that Vilate was not property to be given away and that just a few months later Smith was fucking their 14 year old daughter instead.
  • Remember that tragic story of martyrdom where Joseph Smith was dragged out of his house to be tarred, feathered, and nearly castrated, and then one of his adopted twins died? Gee, why would they want to castrate him? Could it be because he was having sex with women he wasn't married to, putting them at risk for rejection by society? One of the mob members that night was a brother of a girl Smith had recently propositioned, so his actions were what caused the death of the baby. Chew on that for a while.
  • Remember why Joseph Smith was in jail for that last time? Yes, it was for violating the First Amendment. He ordered the destruction of a printing press because it created the papers that revealed all of the fucking around he had been doing. The publisher of that paper was William Law, his counselor in the presidency, who had spent years defending Smith against charges of polygamy and only learned the truth when his own wife was propositioned. William Law was doing nothing but telling the truth about Smith's behavior, and Smith's own lawless actions in trying to cover up polygamy are what brought him to his death.

    The polygamy issue is a rabbit hole of ugliness that nobody can unsee. It's possible your wife is genuinely unbothered by it and wouldn't care how many women and girls Smith raped, but I want to believe if she has any conscience at all that her stomach will turn once she sees what is behind the curtain.
u/beezoaram · 3 pointsr/exmormon

In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith https://www.amazon.com/dp/156085085X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_8C5LybY8TYZ4Q

The author was LDS when he wrote it.

u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/news

Read "In Sacred Lonliness" by Todd Compton if your interested. Emma hated polygamy at first. Joseph was sneaking around Emma's back. Some of the wives were 14, when he was in his mid 30's. He convinced her for a time that God had commanded it etc. It was pretty scandalous at the end of Joseph's life and resulted in the mob killing him.http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Loneliness-Plural-Wives-Joseph/dp/156085085X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415723464&sr=1-1&keywords=in+sacred+lonliness

u/parachutewoman · 2 pointsr/exmormon

She may not know about Joseph Smith's polygamy/polyandry. You might try reading this book, In Sacred Loneliness, by Todd Compton, a believing Mormon. It talks about how Joseph Smith coerced young girls (14 year olds, dude) and already-married women into marrying him. Then, discuss.

Women don't like this one bit.

u/cinepro · 1 pointr/exmormon

In that case I would suggest reading more about Nauvoo polygamy. Compton's book is a good place to start.

In Sacred Loneliness

u/kerrielou73 · 1 pointr/exmormon

You're allowed to want basically the same things the church wanted for you. You don't need Mormonism to fall in love with a great guy who's lifestyle and goals align with your own. It sounds like you may be very naturally religiously inclined and that's okay. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to believe in God in the traditional sense to have the same connection and focus on understanding God. Mormons do not have a monopoly on spirituality.

In some ways Mormons lead ascetic lives that aren't terribly dissimilar from monks or nuns. They abstain from much of the world's pleasures and concerns. They spend a great deal of time in religious worship and thought. They primarily socialize with each other. They live in a monastery of the mind, rather than a physical one. Unfortunately it's not a very good monastery, but guess what? Now you have choices.

I would recommend looking up Karen Armstrong and reading the Spiral Staircase. Armstrong was on her way to becoming a nun. Near the end of her Noviship she began to doubt, but her passion for knowledge of religion and God never left and she has spent her life studying it. You will probably be able to relate to her anguish and feeling of loss of the life she so deeply wanted to live. If you like it, read A History of God. Remarkably, Instead of remaining angry, though you certainly feel it, especially near the beginning, her intense passion for religious knowledge kept her intensely fascinated.

If you want to keep a connection to your pioneer ancestors you have to go beyond the CES letter. It's invaluable, but it's not designed or meant to take you beyond the point of disbelief. Instead or in addition to, read the works of believers who have studied the early church and it's people in great depth with both curiosity and compassion, rather than anger and nihilism. You don't have to believe what your ancestors believed to stay connected to them. Knowing Mormonism isn't true isn't the same as intimately knowing the truth of it's people and the time and place they inhabited. Put yourself in the mind of a historian who loves what and who they study and wants to get to know them, even in their flaws, beyond the faith promoting anecdotes shared at family reunions.

Start with Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, which is sourced from the RLDS archives and In Sacred Loneliness by Todd Compton, who is still a member.

edited to add: It would likely be too much for your family to handle now, but at some point you might look up the Unitarian church or the Quakers (underground railroad anyone). If you miss a religious community you can find one much more focused on actually doing good; not just self justifying busywork.

edited edited to add: Mormon Enigma and Sacred Loneliness should be okay to read in front of your mom so you also don't have to feel like you're sneaking around. Replace the fear with curiosity. It will be okay.

There's evidence even Mother Teresa seriously doubted the existence of God. It didn't stop her.

u/curious_mormon · 1 pointr/exmormon

That's good to hear. Looks like there are some cheap hardcopies (definitely cheaper than when I bought my copy!) This is a book I'd recommend picking up if you have the means and interest.

u/lejefferson · 1 pointr/IAmA

> Alright then, I'll make the same suggestion to you that I made to another user; read Nicholas L. Syrett's study, "American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States." Syrett is a professor of women, gender and sexuality studies and this particular work makes it quite clear that child marriage was an accepted practice that wasn't challenged until the mid-late 18th 19th century. In fact, the biggest outcry wasn't until 1894, when Cassius Marcellus Clay married a 15 year old girl at the ripe old age of 84, I believe. This marriage made national news.

The historian says with zero citations and zero evidence for his claim. This after having just caught lying about the laws of 19th century Nauvoo claiming that "english common law of marriage at 10 years old when effect" when in fact laws prohibited minors below the age of 17 marrying at all without parental consent.

All while you ignored citation after citation and argument after argument that you just whole heartedly failed to address.

You claim that child marriages were not seen as immoral or controversial until suddenly out of the blue and for no reason at all in 1894 one man decided to marry a 15 year old and everyone decided to get upset about it. Doesn't the fact that in 1894 a big famous controvrersial case about marrying underage girls provide evidence for the fact that well before that point it was controversial? It's like saying that because in 2017 people became outraged at Kevin Spacey assaulting underage boys it wasn't controversial until 2017. And that is what i'm talking about when I talk about mental gymanstics.

>Also, if you're going to quote Helen Marr Kimball, at least provide the sentence immediately before the quote. " I remember how I felt, but which would be a difficult matter to describe--the various thoughts, fears and temptations that flashed through my mind when the principle was first introduced to me by my father [Heber C. Kimball], who one morning in the summer of 1843, without any preliminaries, asked me if I would believe him if he told me that it was right for married men to take other wives, can be better imagined than told." And then your quote begins immediately. After that she writes about how her father taught her about plural marriage and why it was being established. Absolutely no mention of child marriage. Nice try, though.

Nice try? That's all you have to say when the founder of your religion was forcing 14 year old girls into practices they called "heinous crimes" "improper" and "unnatural". Are you listening to yourself? You're excusing the supposed prophet of the almighty God who had access to such eternal wisdom as "tea is bad for you" and "don't drink coffee" but was simply following the culture of his day in having sex with 14 year old girls. Do you think that having sex with 14 year olds is right or wrong? If you think it's wrong then why even if it was culturally acceptable at the time would excuse a supposed prophet of God doing it? Maybe for the same reason that he was moot on the cultural practice of slavery? Which God didn't bother to imform anyone was a disgusting and immoral practice?

As for your claims let's take a look at the Nauvoo City Council ordinance of 1842 which states:

>“All male persons over the age of seventeen years, and females over the age of fourteen years, may contract and be joined in marriage, provided, in all cases where either party is a minor, the consent of parents or guardians be first had.” Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy

What's mind boggling is that a professed objective historian could claim that there were no laws about marriage age's up until the early 1900's and miss that there were laws in Nauvoo itself at the time Joseph Smith was having sex with 14 year old girls in the 1840's. If that doesn't completly discredit your crediblity I don't know what does.

In additon we have here clearly stating that 14 year old girls could not marry without permission from their parents. If it's true as you say that marrying a 14 year old was seen as completly normal and unnoteworthy why then would he need the permission of the girls parents?

Even Brian Hales. A Mormon scholar admits that these marriages were at least "eybrow raising".

>Matrimonies for females who were fourteen years of age were eyebrow-raising but not scandalous in the 1840s.

http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/audio/sealings-to-young-brides/

Further revealing your "objectivity" "bias" and "well researched" historical claims.

And finally as long as we're quoting Helen Marr Kimball let's see what she said about her mothers concerns about her marrying Joseph Smith at such a young age.

>‘If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.[‘] This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward. None but God & his angels could see my mother’s bleeding heart-when Joseph asked her if she was willing...She had witnessed the sufferings of others, who were older & who better understood the step they were taking, & to see her child, who had scarcely seen her fifteenth summer, following in the same thorny path, in her mind she saw the misery which was as sure to come...

https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Loneliness-Plural-Wives-Joseph/dp/156085085X


What's clear here is your "objectivity" and desire for "historical accuracy" are disineguous misdirections from your clear bias and willingness to mislead others with false at worst and poorly researched at best information. When "by their fruits you will know them" is somehow not applied when the fruits of what you want to believe are bad. So if we're "not getting anywhere" it's because of your refusal to engage in open and honest discussio and instead attempt to mislead, misdirect and engage in all around disingeuous behavior and then refuse to acknowledge any of it on his way out. What's clear is that you're as brainwashed as Joseph Smiths' victims and just as willing to do whatever it takes to excuse his behavior to continue to justify your beliefs.

u/Fallen_Ange1 · 0 pointsr/todayilearned

The site has a long list of references. http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/References.html

It may look like a blog but it seems to be sourced well. Seems like the story I linked was drawn from this book. If you are really interested, you should see if your library has a copy