(Part 2) Top products from r/latterdaysaints

Oooo this is my wheelhouse!

First, I would recommend looking at the Mormon History Association Best Book awards going back to 1966. Quality scholarship, research, and writing are a mainstay with them.

Required reading:

Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet by John Turner / Brigham Young: American Moses by Leonard Arrington

Considered two of the best books about early Utah and the Brigham Young years. Arrington's book was considered groundbreaking when he wrote it, and Turner's book brings in the valuable perspective of the non-Mormon writing about Young. For many Mormons, Turner's book will be less sympathetic to Young than Arrington's, but Turner also worked closely with the Church Archives (and spoke glowingly about them and that process), so his research had access to some better sources. If you need a primer for Brigham Young, I recommend Arrington's book. For a Brigham Young graduate level course, I recommend Turner.

Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview by Michael Quinn

To understand much of what happened in early Mormonism, you must understand the role that folk magic played in the lives of Americans in the 1800s. Quinn's research at this time was top notch, and he was a quickly rising star among Mormon historians. Considered one of his best works, and foundational to the understanding things like seer stones, divining rods, visions, and everything else that happened in the early church days.

David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Greg Prince

Covers late 1940s - 1960s Mormonism, one of the "rising moments" of Mormonism when we went from a Utah-church to a worldwide church. Prince had amazing access to the journals of President McKay's secretary, which led to some candid discussions about things like the publishing of Mormon Doctrine by McConkie, blacks and the priesthood, ecumenical outreach, and politics.

Spencer W. Kimball by Edward Kimball / Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball by Edward Kimball

Ed was Pres. Kimball's son, and the books cover both the apostle years and presidency years of Spencer W. Kimball. If you had to choose one, get Lengthen Your Stride, but make sure it has the CD that comes with the book. This has the unabridged manuscript prior to the Deseret Book edits, which is much more interesting.

By the Hand of Mormon by Terryl Givens (heck...anything by Terryl Givens!)

I'll admit - I'm a Terryl Givens fanboy. By the Hand of Mormon was the one that first got me in to him, mostly because he took the Book of Mormon as a serious work of literature to examine it's merits. It's not as devotional as many traditional LDS books about the Book of Mormon (it was put out by Oxford University Press), but it really gave me a deeper appreciation for the Book of Mormon as contemporary literature. Also check out Viper on the Hearth (Mormons on myth and heresy), People of Paradox (Mormon culture), When Souls had Wings (the pre-existence in Western thought), and so many others.

And just because I'm a big book nerd, here's the list of books that are on my desk right now that I can give you quick reviews if you want:

• Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History by Greg Prince
  
• The Mormon Jesus: A Biography by John Turner
  
• Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings, edited by Brooks, Steenblik and Wheelwright
  
• Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness by W. Paul Reeve
  
• Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority and Equal Rights by Martha Sonntag Bradley
  
• A Reason for Faith: Navigating LDS Doctrine & Church History, edited by Laura Harris Hales
  
• Glorious in Persecution: Joseph Smith, American Prophet 1839-1844 by Martha Bradley Evans
  
• The Mormon Church & Blacks: A Documentary History, edited by Harris & Bringhurst
  
• From the Outside Looking In: Essays on Mormon History, Theology and Culture, edited by Neilson & Grow
  
• Out of Obscurity: Mormonism since 1945, edited by Mason & Turner
  
• Mormonism & American Politics, edited by Balmer & Riess
  
• Seeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics by Campbell, Green & Monson
  
• A Book of Mormons: Latter-day Saints on a Modern-Day Zion, edited by Jensen & McKay-Lamb
  
• Revelations in Context: The Stories Behind the Sections of the Doctrine & Covenants by the LDS Church
  
• Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805-1830 by Richard S. Van Wagoner
  
• Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths by Ann Taves (looking at Mormonism, Alcoholics Anonymous and A Course in Miracles)
  
• A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
  
• Baring Witness: 36 Mormon Women Talk Candidly about Love, Sex, and Marriage edited by Holly Welker

It does feel late. Especially when our history seems to be such a big part of our identity and even our Sunday school curriculum. There are a lot of reasons why it's taken us this long to get to where we're at. (I'm gonna get reeeeeeally long-winded here, so prepare yourself!)

Whenever this conversation comes up, I'm reminded of a story that I've now heard told several times by an older friend of mine. Back in the 1960s-early 70s, a student or a researcher could visit the church historian's office, but before they left one staff member in particular would always ask to see their notes and would confiscate them on the spot! (Evidently this wasn't a huge issue, because a smart researcher would use carbon paper, dutifully surrender the originals, and keep the copy hidden away!) I often think of that pharisaically diligent staff member who tried so hard to "protect" the church's reputation. What he did sounds ridiculous now, but I can understand the instinct. A well-researched article on any aspect of Mormon history will use the exact same primary sources as the most fire-breathing anti-Mormon piece out there on the same historical topic. So by carefully restricting access to the originals you guarantee that the information won't be used for evil purposes, right? (There's heavy sarcasm in that last sentence, btw.)

Frankly, that's been the instinct within the church for a long time now (I mean the church as an institution or a bureaucracy). It seemed easier to "protect" the church by restricting access to information. But that's not a tenable strategy anymore—not with the internet.

In the 1970s, there was a push to professionalize the church's archives. They began to hire staff with archival and librarian training. They modernized their cataloging and began to create professional inventories for their collections. They created collecting strategies and began to purchase books to create an up-to-date research library. The historian's office turned from being a back room where we stored old stuff to an actual research institution with a staffed research room where approved students and historians came to do research.

With increased staff and visibility, the church’s old historian's office/archives was renamed as the historical department and Leonard Arrington was hired as director. Nowadays, the time that Arrington was director is referred to as "Camelot" because it was a supposed golden age. Arrington was a prolific writer, and he was a mover and a shaker. Among other things he hired a bunch of bright college kids/young historians as part of an ambitious project to write a series of monographs on church history.

This was a huge step away from the old, strictly devotional, Daughters of the Utah Pioneers type of history (not to bash the DUP—it’s just that they’re not known for their academic rigor). These were college-trained historians and they essentially had free access to the archives. I believe that some in the church (again, I’m talking the bureaucracy/institutional church throughout this entire comment) wanted to be progressive and professional, but some were anxious to “protect” the church too, and so having in-house historians write history was the best compromise—it disseminated information from the church’s collections to church membership, but restricted access to the originals to historians who were trusted members of the church in good standing. The projected series was never published in the way Arrington envisioned, but most of the proposed books were eventually published (for example, Heavens Resound, Nauvoo, Brigham Young: American Moses). Arrington fostered and encouraged an entire generation of historians. The field of Mormon history would not be half as rich or diverse today without Arrington’s support 20-30 years ago. Nor would we have the Joseph Smith Papers without Arrington (I’ll get to that in a moment).

In some respects, the 1980s-90s were bad decades for church history. Mark Hofmann started selling documents to the church in the early 1980s. Stuff like the Salamander letter (that obviously we later learned was forged) placed a lot of scrutiny on our history—and our historians. I don’t know a lot of details about the whys and wherefores, but I suspect that the “new” material Hofmann presented created enough of a controversy that those who were always anxious about protecting the church’s reputation then had the momentum to transition Arrington out the historical department. The compromise was the creation of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History at BYU where Arrington and many of the historians under him moved around 1981 and continued to write history. (It was probably better that way in the end.) The Hofmann murders in 1985 were awful and tragic in and of themselves, but they also put the church on the defensive. Gone were the days of the open archives, and the pendulum swung to the other side to safe conservatism. Access to church materials became more restricted as a general policy, and some would say that something of an anti-intellectual bent developed in the church as shown in matters such as the September Six that included the excommunication of historians in the early 1990s. I’ve been told that historical department staff were even discouraged by their bosses from membership in the Mormon History Association (an organization that Arrington helped to found). During these years, good articles and books were still written on church history and the archives were used by researchers both Mormon and non-Mormon--but it wasn’t Camelot anymore. It seemed that the atmosphere wasn’t as optimistic as it used to be.

In a way, the Joseph Smith Papers were first published in the 1980s. Dean Jessee, a historical department employee, was given the church’s blessing to publish a volume of Joseph Smith’s writings in 1984. A second volume followed in 1989, and he had a third ready for the press when he was told by higher ups to shelve the project. He did. Fast forward to the late 1990s and Larry and Gail Miller. The Millers are fairly famous in northern Utah—they own the Salt Lake Jazz and a bunch of car dealerships and other properties. The Millers had a friend who had a friend who worked in the church archives, and long story short the Millers asked if there was an interesting history project somewhere that could benefit from funding. This fellow thought of Jessee’s shelved project, got together with the Millers and some other researchers and they decided to revive the project as the Joseph Smith Papers.

(cont.)

If you have any interest in books (sorry--that's my jam), Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings is a fantastic collection of essays, sermons, some blog posts, and other writings by Mormon women about feminism. It has the benefit of being easily digested in small chunks that stand alone pretty well, so you can skip sections that don't interest you as much or jump to some areas that really speak to you.

I actually think the book Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women's Local Impact might be another great option for what you're looking for. It's by a very believing Mormon woman who until a few years before writing the book had worked for the church (I think in PR if I remember right) and it basically has two halves: first, explaining to Mormon men (and many women) who don't see any problems with sexism in the church why faithful members feel that there really is (and they're not crazy); and second, laying out suggestions that could be implemented at the local level that wouldn't be against any church policies but which could alleviate some of the problematic aspects of Mormon culture w/r/t sexism.

A few other book options to consider: Mormon Women Have Their Say Essays from the Claremont Oral History Collection; Mormon Women: Portraits and Conversations (covers everyone from a Utah housewife who started a major charity to a woman who fought the Marcos regime as a communist guerrilla in the Philippines!); Educated: A Memoir (a memoir about growing up in a seriously dysfunctional Mormon family but going on to achieve awesome stuff); literally anything written by Chieko Okazaki (or even listen to some of her talks in General Conference to the worldwide church)--she is beloved by literally every Mormon woman I've ever met, liberal or conservative; and Carol Lynn Pearson has written some great stuff about women and Mormonism, like The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy: Haunting the Hearts and Heaven of Mormon Women and Men and (if you're into one-woman plays) Mother Wove the Morning. Many of these have Kindle editions if you don't like hard copies.

Anyway, hope some of that might sound interesting to you. Good luck!

Edit: downvotes, eh? I'm not sure how to take that! :) I didn't expect it from this community. The gist of what I was trying to say is said better by Pres. Hinckley in a different talk.

>"Women who make a house a home make a far greater contribution to society than those who command large armies or stand at the head of impressive corporations."
-Gordon B. Hinckley


--------------------------
My original comment:

The talk is beautiful; though I think you're confusing what he's saying with the modern dogma of "equality" that has become so popular.

The modern equality movement argues for equal roles that assumes that individuals are the most important players in society; this line of thinking typically leads to calls to get more women into traditionally male roles. While I personally will encourage my daughters to pursue their goals, whatever they may be, I'm hesitant to argue for equality in the way it's currently understood: equality of roles in one's career.

The reality is that the family unit is much more important, for society as a whole, as well as for the individuals who are influenced and raised by said families.

Often, having a strong family unit means having (at least) one person responsible for full-time teaching/training/loving of the little people in the home. My personal opinion is that it can be a man or a woman (though typically women are more willing and more able to fulfill this vital role).

American individualism can make this all seem very cloudy; I was recently reminded of this when I read this book, The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt, which I highly recommend.

Read the book if you haven't; I'm not sure I can do it justice. The basic idea is that there are three moral categories: the divinity ethic, the autonomy ethic, and the family ethic.

For many secular Americans, the only kind of morality that is "allowed" is the ethic of autonomy, which asks "is it fair? Does it harm any individual?"

But there is a much richer moral fabric, that includes divinity (ie allowing some things to be sacred) and family (ie putting the needs of the family/tribe before individual needs).

Also see a TLDR slideshare on the book edit: removed the Colbert video because it doesn't touch on the ideas from the book that were relevant.

> 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:

• Mormon Polygamy
  
• Mormon Enigma
  
• In Sacred Loneliness
  
• Rough Stone Rolling
  
• Joseph Smith's Polygamy
  
  I would also recommend reading what Parley P Pratt wrote about polygamy in his autobiography, as well as this essay that the church recently put out.

My personal take, derived from experience, is that God reveals to us what is necessary to get us to act, at that time, for the benefit of others and ourselves. Frequently that means that the impressions we initially receive seem false, or misleading, 'from a certain point of view'. But from God's point of view, we are given what is needed to act appropriately at the time; building to further revealed truths. And that is the greater truth.

Back to Joseph Smith then. Were his visions of the modern church incorrect? If your definition of incorrect is that his vision matched modern day reality, then yes, his visions were incorrect. But if your definition of incorrect is that his visions led him to do the wrong thing, then I don't at all believe that they were incorrect. I think he lived and died doing pretty much exactly what God had planned for him to do.

For example, I don't pretend to understand everything about polygamy. And I don't think Joseph Smith had an accurate view of what would happen in the future regarding polygamy either. But I very, very strongly believe that Joseph Smith was acting under divine guidance, and not to satisfy his own lust. And the available sound scholarship supports that.
Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding https://www.amazon.com/dp/1589587235/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_qpZJAb1W1B7H3

As for the fate of the church in the latter days? Again, I think Joseph Smith saw what was necessary to drive him to build the church, so that it would be ready to cross the plains under Brigham Young's leadership. Anything else is secondary to that truth.

I do think that Joseph Smith had a tendency to overshare his revelations though. I think that some things that were meant for him personally, to spur divinely sanctioned action, were sometimes stated as doctrine. Given the newness of prophecy in this dispensation, I forgive that error. It's an error that can be seen to diminish across prophets as the church has matured.

May be it would be helpful to point you to some honest source that seeks to give a non subjective and fair evaluation for the claims of the church.

1.   A book that provides a general view on how to go about thinking about hard church issues. It is really good. Entitled the Crucible of Doubt by Teryl Givens: https://www.amazon.com/Crucible-Doubt-Reflections-Quest-Faith/dp/1609079426/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=crucible+of+doubt+givens&amp;amp;qid=1561524835&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;sr=1-1<br />

   
   

2. My favorite book to start thinking very thoughtfully and from an academic perspective on the book of Mormon. Incredible stuff. Entitled “Understanding the BOM” by Grant Hardy: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Book-Mormon-Readers-Guide/dp/0199731705/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=KBX8MX63A88H3GCBCHYR
   
   
3. My favorite book on early church history focused around the life of Jesus Christ. Written by the renowned Columbia U History Professor Richard Bushman. Entitled Rough Stone Rolling: https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400042704/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=richard+bushman+rough+stone+rolling&qid=1561524690&s=books&sr=1-1
   
   
4. My favorite book on modern day church history. It is a careful look at the David O McKay era with incredible source material. It completely changed my view of how the upper echelons of church governance works, but somehow at the same time strengthened my faith in our very fallible leaders. Entitled The Rise of Modern Mormonism by Greg Prince: https://www.amazon.com/David-McKay-Rise-Modern-Mormonism/dp/0874808227/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+rise+of+modern+mormonism&qid=1561524807&s=books&sr=1-1

Here are a couple of resources:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi827OngqLaAhVBoVMKHd6dDEgQtwIIPDAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dp8X8a7DtwUI&usg=AOvVaw3XXUiZlCdnODbctHxPaLbt

https://www.amazon.com/How-Wide-Divide-Evangelical-Conversation/dp/0830819916/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522893087&sr=1-1&keywords=how+wide+the+divide

https://www.amazon.com/What-Mormons-Believe-Rex-Lee/dp/0875796397/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522893452&sr=1-1&keywords=what+do+mormons+believe

If you honor your parents and do your best to keep the commandments, they are going to be able to see the difference and light in you. And God will not punish you in any way for respecting their wishes while you live under their roof. Do your best to life as a disciple of Christ and then be baptized once you've turned 18, if they will not change their mind before that.

Please read "Are Mormons Christians?" by Stephen E. Robinson. He systematically goes through the various dogmatic definitions of Christian and shows that any attempt to qualify Christianity as excluding Mormonism also excludes various other faiths/denominations as well.

For me it boils down to definitions. Whenever someone says, "But Mormons/you aren't Christian." my response is always to honestly ask, "What's your definition of Christian?"

You'll get responses that vary from "Anyone who follows Christ." to "Only people who go to my bible study group on Thursdays." To the former I simply share my testimony of the Savior and they are happily corrected. To the latter I just say, "Well, I guess I'm not a Christian then." and ask them if they feel Mother Theresa was a Christian. The vast majority of people are generally the former.

Bottom line, I could care less what other's definitions are. Only Christ Himself is qualified to claim His own (see parable of sheep and goats).

I keep saying, atheists need a church. The social support structures provided by a healthy church group is incredibly valuable to the community.

That said, I also agree with the article's author (and Jonathon Haidt) that it's hard to motivate such organization in the absence of religious guiding principles.

Well there's this which is very basic.

If you want something more there is also this and this for short introductions by two of our foremost scholars. However, if you want to dig deep you will probably like this overview of Mormons in general as well as this standard scholarly work on Joseph Smith and this scholarly work on the Book of Mormon.

So, take your pick what level of intro you want and jump in! (And never forget to read the Book of Mormon itself!.) Good to meet you!

There are dozens and dozens of apocryphal Abraham stories involving almost every aspect we currently have in our current Book of Abraham. This book, Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham by Tvedtnes, Hauglid, and Gee is fantastic.

It's essentially the worldwide standard for the best compilation of these stories. (Unfortunately, they accidentally skipped one of the best stories, but it can be found online).

I own a copy of the book, and when you read through story after story, you find that what you quoted above is repeatedly seen. The book also contains dates to help aid in the process of when they were translated into English for the first time.

You should check out a book called Traditions About the Early Life of Abraham, which is a bunch of extrabiblical stories about Abraham passed down through the generations. It's broken down into Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Apocryphal, and other legends, so some of them overlap, but it's fascinating to see how many of them align with the Book of Abraham. So many of those old apocryphal stories match up to parts of our own scripture, it's really interesting.

Okay. Yeah - I can get that. I'm going to go with "It's much, MUCH more complicated than you think." I'm not saying the church leadership at the time is without guilt. I AM saying there are two sides to every story.

I highly recommend [Walker's book] (https://www.amazon.com/Massacre-Mountain-Meadows-Ronald-Walker/dp/0199747563) if you want a more thorough look at what was going on.

The brethren used to publicly disagree about things. Now they disagree in a closed room. Because members are not privy to these disagreements, they assume:

1. that the brethren are completely united
   
2. that anything from church headquarters = the literal voice of God
   
   I’d love to see more of this healthy public debate among church leaders. The gospel of “having all the answers” is falling short for people in my generation. We ask deep, challenging questions. The exploration of deeper questions is far more fulfilling to me than having rote answers. I wish church leaders were engaging in this discussion rather than implying that they have all the answers and to just “get in line”.
   
   >> “You must work through the Spirit. If that leads you into conflict with the program of the Church, you follow the voice of the Spirit.” (Elder S. Dilworth Young, First Council of the Seventy, 1945; quoted here, p. 17)
   
   >> “We have hitherto acted too much as machines, as to following the Spirit. I will confess to my own shame that I have acted contrary to my own judgment many times. I mean hereafter not to demean myself, to not run contrary to my own judgment. …When President Young says that the Spirit of the Lord says thus and so, I don’t consider that all we should do is to say let it be so.” (Elder Orson Pratt, 1847, quoted here, cover jacket)

This may be helpful:

https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2019/03/12/fairmormon-questions-having-unsettling-feelings-before-receiving-my-endowment

These are the books that I got for my daughters. One of them is specifically for women, but if that doesn't apply to you, it still has good stuff about what to expect.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0884944115/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/1599550520/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

reminds me a fun book you might like: https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Mormons-Wm-Henry-Morris/dp/0982781245

I highly recommend you read Pinker's book "The Better Angels of our Nature."

​

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0143122010

Something I wanted to mention in the other thread that got buried is the fantastic book:

And They Were Not Ashamed: Strengthening Marriage through Sexual Fulfillment

I'll be honest, I haven't read it, but I have read the reviews and I'm considering buying it for me and my fiance. It talks about the purpose of sexual relations. It's written mainly for women, but that doesn't mean you can't get anything from it.

I recommend these sites regarding those questions, as each wife was situational and these go over each one:

http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/

http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/common-questions/sexual-polyandry/

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Polygamy_book/Polyandry

The short answer is that some of them are undocumented and only speculated, all of them were eternity only sealings and not civil, nor sexual marriages, and the ones that were polyandrous were known and 'okayed' by the husbands.

The reasons seem to be because

1. Some of the women were married to husbands who weren't faithful LDS and they wanted to be sealed to someone who was and they believed that doing so would bring them blessings in the next life.
   
2. According to one of those sites 'the marriages could have been a way for Joseph to comply with the command to take plural wives in a manner that would be less painful for Emma. Plural marriages that didn’t include an earthly component (or were for eternity only) would presumably have been less bothersome to her'
   
3. to create eternal familial bonds.
   
   It is a very difficult subject to tackle, but there is a lot of info available on the subject. A lot of people recommend this book:
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smiths-Polygamy-Toward-Understanding/dp/1589587235/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448914331&sr=8-1&keywords=laura+hales

I usually recommend the Mormon contributions to Oxford's "A Very Short Introduction" series to people who want to learn more but who are not interested in conversion. They're short (like 100 pages) and scholarly (though written by believers) and very well done. There is one specifically about The Book of Mormon and one about Mormonism more generally.

If you're a reader, I highly recommend these books:


https://www.amazon.com/How-Wide-Divide-Evangelical-Conversation/dp/0830819916

https://www.amazon.com/Are-Mormons-Christians-Stephen-Robinson/dp/1570084092

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0143122010 this helped me to be more optimistic

The book that helped us the most was "They were not ashamed" -- the author is an LDS sex therapist.

> How do you define what is "okay" and what isn't? How do you come to some conclusion on topics that you might disagree on? Or what if one partner is more experimental and exploratory than the other? What are good boundaries?

That's between the 2 of you.

You may want to try seeing a family sex therapist yourselves, to empower you with the language needed to work through this on your own.

The ones I remember almost always involved Skinwalkers.

As it turns out, I'm currently reading an excellent collection of Mormon themed ghost stories called Monsters and Mormons. Though these stroies are all ostensibly fictional, as opposed to traditional-folk-urban-legend stories that get passed around campfires.

Here's a few books from Amazon that might be helpful:

• Covered Wagon Women, Volume 1: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849: Focus is on female pioneers, might give insight into the roles of women in general in the west.
  
• Autobiographies of Mormon Pioneer Women - Volume 1- 2: There's no Amazon reviews, but it seems to be a self-explanatory title.
  
• Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights: Discusses the contrast between LDS women's (and church leader's) support for women's suffrage (Utah was the first state to give women the right to vote) and their rejection and campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment. This may only be tangential to your thesis, but would provide another example of changing roles of and views on women in the church.
  
  Disclaimer: I have read none of these books.

From what I understand there are a few reasons:

 

1. The JST was still a work in progress at the time of the martyrdom
   
    
   
2. The transcripts were mostly owned by the RLDS Church (Now Community of Christ)
   
    
   
3. Because the transcrips were not in custody of the LDS church there is no way to know if changes were made after the martyrdom
   
    
   
   You can, however, but a copy. It's published by the Community of Christ.
    
   https://www.amazon.ca/Joseph-Smiths-New-Translation-Bible/dp/0830900322

https://www.amazon.com/More-Wives-Than-One-Transformation/dp/0252075609

Not sure if you're willing, but have you looked at The Holy Temple?

In Sacred Loneliness: the plural wives of Joseph Smith

Relevant to the latest essay.