All Activity

You're overselling this. I don't think so. Serious topics deserve serious discussion. I'm sorry to hear that. I have attended dozens of depositions, and conducted many of them. While I have seen tense moments, I haven't seen any attorney misconduct, and incivilities are measures (no shouting, etc.). Depositions are a tough thing to the extent there is no referee - the judge - to step in and stop problems. Thanks, -Smac

Why does it have to be the same? I see nothing wrong with the meaning being different. Especially when you look at how Joseph and others followed it. I have never seen any teaching that says that a polygamist wife must never have had sex.

I'm just pointing that the term virgin doesn't just mean someone who hasn't sex.

So you want things to exist in a kind of limbo where textual criticism and historical study can be dismissed when it is problematic but brought in when you find it valuable but spiritual/ecstatic experiences overrule everything. Heads I win, tails you lose. I assume this is some deep moral cost and that it somehow discredits Dan somehow. The law and our justice system is, in many ways, deeply absurd. The best lawyers I associate with know and understand this so I don’t put a lot of credit into your ‘I am big serious man discussing important things reclining in my chair in my smoking jacket while toying with my monocle’ bit. You’re wrong. His approach hasn’t changed much at all. You just dislike him more because he is saying things that are factually correct that you do not like. But Nehor you might say: “How do you know that Smac doesn’t just hate click-batey garbage in general?” Good question, dear reader. You see Smac routinely post articles in his “serious and substantial” discussions by posting disreputable click-bait articles from ridiculous websites maintained by drooling idiots. With how often he posts such articles ‘for discussion’ he must spend a lot of time in these unserious pseudoscience spewing dregs of the internet. So no, I don’t think the problem is that things are designed to attract attention. I think it is character assassination. Dan is taken seriously as a scholar. Many scholars who do public engagement have fun with it. My favorite is Eleanor Janega, a medieval historian. She is brilliant, knows her stuff and is engaging and funny and I suspect you would completely hate her. I don’t think Dan is trying to appeal to stick in the mud pseudoscience peddlers who imagine they are serious and decorous. So you aren’t a target audience I think he wants to win over. In fact he would probably laugh if he read this post. He is a good guy that way.

You're overselling this. I've been on the receiving end of a significant amount of nastiness, unprofessional behavior, and lack of decorum in numerous depositions.

Understood. Mugging for the camera so as to garner more social media clicks may be "having fun with it." But it comes at a cost, I think. I work as an attorney, and we are generally addressing serious topics. While some verbal asides during oral argument and very brief forays in written briefs may arise, substantive discussions about the law and its impact are important, and so are treated with seriousness and decorum. Again: Dan's social media stuff is coming across more and more as self-aggrandizing, conclusory, stirring-the-pot, politicized, click-baity, berating and dunking on amateurs, etc., and less about thoughtfully distilling and presenting the nuances and complexities of biblical scholarship to a lay audience. I first said this about two years ago, and it seems to be even more applicable now. Well, no. I do not have any social media presence. I do not want attention from the public at large. I'm content to post thoughts on this seemingly obscure and sparsely-visited message board. I acknowledge that "desperate for attention" does not cast Dan in a good light, but that's what his more recent splashes convey to me. If he wants to be taken seriously as a scholar, I would not think he would be mugging for the camera for click-baity video splashes. Thanks, -Smac

If you are going to simultaneously praise Jacob Hansen (as you've done elsewhere in this thread) for being thorough and well reasoned and criticize Dan for appealing to clicks, I suggest you need to look at more of Hansen's content, especially on Twitter/X. Hansen is orders of magnitude more guilty of the aforementioned "sins" than Dan, IMO.

One - I think NotaTBM is barking up the wrong tree. Based on my recollection (especially from the JSP and In Sacred Loneliness) I really don't think there's any question Joseph was sealed to Emma, but I do also recall it was after he had already been sealed to a number of other women. Two - Your question, as stated, looks a lot like the simple fallacious demand to prove a negative.

Some of the summary about Caesar, yes. Though I have previously spoken of the historical evidence for Caesar's assassination, including Nicolaus, etc. No. I think reasoned skepticism about miraculous events is generally appropriate. My previous discussions have analogized evidence for the assassination with the evidence for the physicality of the Gold Plates. Any thoughts on that? If I say that a saw is better than a hammer for cutting a two-by-four in half, I am not "attempting to water down" the utility of a hammer in its own sphere. I just pointing to the better tool. And yet we still have substantial problems with Irreproducibility, Human biases and incentives, External influences, non-neutral Methodological and theoretical presumptions, Peer review, and so on. And then there's the whole "Using a hammer to cut a two-by-four" issue of trying to apply the Scientific Method to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the theophanies of Joseph Smith. Not "only," but otherwise, yes. No, I don't want that. As does the historical record about Caesar's assassination talks up the validity and reliability of the extant historical narratives. There is nothing close to a one-to-one comparison in view, I acknowledge that. Hence the more appropriate comparison between Caesar's assassination and the physical reality of the Gold Plates. It does. But the methodology and presuppositions matter. In the U.S., courts of law are not an appropriate forum for adjudicating religious disputes. The Scientific Method cannot be meaningfully applied to the resurrection of Jesus Christ or the theophanies of Joseph Smith. I agree. I also think that a hammer is "fit" for nailing things into wood, but not for cutting wood in half. Thanks, -Smac

You’re doing it backwards. They don’t need to substantiate their claim. They need to refute the extant evidence that indicates Joseph and Emma were sealed or show how it is flawed or inaccurate or how other things show it is unlikely to be accurate. All that being said I don’t think there is a good case for the sealing not happening.

Am I required to by forum rules? Then no I think you are required by thee forum rules, see here: It certainly is a strong expectation on the board. I am invested in being a Latter-day Saint, yes. I have strong beliefs about the Restored Gospel. I come to this board to vet and test what I believe and why, and to listen to divergent points of view. I am interested in your point of view, for example, hence my questions posed to you. You are making repeated and various factual assertions of a sexual relationship between Joseph and Helen, while at the same time admitting that you have no evidence for those claims. Yes, as well as personal and prophetic revelation and my own reasoning. The evidence relative to the relationship between Joseph and Helen merits real attention. And it's a serious topic, so I would hope it is addressed with decorum and reasoning and civility. The evidence against a sexual relationship is largely negative—there is no contemporary record of consummation—and is reinforced by Helen’s own later accounts. No contemporary source (letters, diaries, affidavits from the 1840s) describes sexual relations. The sealing is documented as a religious ordinance arranged by Helen’s parents (especially her father, Heber C. Kimball) to create a dynastic link. Helen’s own writings, composed decades later, frame the event as a sealing she accepted at her father’s request for eternal family purposes. She does not describe cohabitation or a sexual marriage; her language emphasizes the spiritual and familial character of the ordinance and the difficulty of understanding it at age 14. There is no record of pregnancy, childbirth, or other physical evidence that would indicate consummation. The arrangement fits the same mid-1840s sealing logic seen in the Law of Adoption (adult men sealed to leaders for spiritual kinship). In that context, many early plural sealings functioned as eternal bonds without requiring or documenting ordinary marital cohabitation, particularly where the woman was very young. Later critics and some historians have inferred a sexual relationship from the fact of the sealing itself and from the broader practice of plural marriage, but that inference rests on assumption rather than direct evidence specific to Helen. In short, the historical record supports a parent-initiated dynastic sealing; it does not contain positive evidence of a sexual relationship. For my part, applying Occam's Razor to the foregoing scenario points away from a sexual relationship, and towards what was seen at the time as a dynastic one. I did not know you were a member of the Church, and I fully support your right to both have an opinion and express it. Some come here to socialize. I don't. I come here to discuss and debate and learn and listen. Your comments in this thread appear calculated not to education or inform, but rather to incite offense and anger. While you are certainly at liberty to do that (there is a limit re: "trolling"), I hope you will set aside the vitriol and have a conversation about the evidence. If you are right in your assessment of Joseph Smith, I want to know that. Your comments appear to be calculated to give offense, but I haven't taken offense. I also have not given you any "orders." Just requests, framed with intentions toward civility and inquiry about your perspective. Thanks, -Smac

Okay, I realize you may not have much experience in this area but this is what is called “having fun with it”. It is something people do to amuse themselves and others. It is playful and a way to inject some levity into things when you are dealing with obtuse ignoramuses. I would think you would recognize it by now. Many here do the same thing when conversing with you. You reading it as desperation really only says something about you. “It is always projection. Always.”

"That the sealing was between Joseph and Emma is a reasoned inference." Is her name written there somewhere? Again, no. Are you saying the journal entry cannot form the basis for the reasoned inference? If so, could you elaborate? But that was not your original assertion. You said: "Heck he didn’t even bother to get sealed to Emma." Are you now retracting that claim? Or just qualifying it ("Heck he didn’t even bother to get sealed to Emma {until after he had been sealed to several other women})? So do you accept and agree with the reasoned inference, or not? Thanks, -Smac

Wow there is a lot of AI slop in there. Let me take apart your Julius Caesar comparison. Let’s say that we have the same sources but those sources instead of saying a conspiracy killed Caesar said that Jupiter descended in all his glory and killed Julius Caesar declaring Caesar to be a threat to the Republic and striking him down with lightning from his outstretched hand.. Then Jupiter ascended into the clouds. Would you have an equally high degree of confidence that that event happened as described as you do for the assassination that actually was described? Nothing changes except that the whole thing involves divine forces. Do you think that reported occurrence should be treated more skeptically or does that change in the standard of evidence only apply when you don’t believe in the deity that is supposedly intervening? Most of the rest of your response is just attempting to water down the scientific method because it led to some wrong or incomplete conclusions which (and this is important) it self-corrected on as it gathered more data, developed better instruments to study things, and new methods of testing were developed. Then some more special pleading about how historical inquiry has nothing to say about whether the resurrection happened despite Christians continually and rather desperately trying to establish a historical case for it happening. You not only want to make sure that the historicity of the resurrection is something reserved only for divine revelation but want historians and textual critics to shut up about it and they aren’t going to do that. Nor is your approach the one the New Testament takes. The New Testament talks up the validity of eyewitnesses of the Resurrection as evidence it happened. So pick a lane! Does evidence for it matter or not? If it does then it is a fit subject for history and textual criticism. If not, then witnesses of the Resurrection including apostles and prophets and the New Testament and Book of Mormon aren’t evidence or support of anything and individual divine experience is all that matters. Or do we have more special pleading where it somehow counts in this case?

For all your complaining about logical fallacies, you should know better than to ask this question. Could you elaborate? @Notatbm is making an affirmative declaration, that Joseph was not sealed to Emma. I am asking him to substantiate that claim. The Burden of Proof Principle The Claimant Bears the Burden: In logic and debate, the person making a positive or negative assertion is responsible for providing the evidence to support it. The Negative Proof Fallacy (Argumentum ad Ignorantiam): It does become a fallacy if someone asserts a claim and then demands that their opponent prove the claim is false to show it is true (e.g., "You can't prove Joseph Smith was never sealed to Emma, therefore he wasn't"). Shifting the burden in this way is a form of an argument from ignorance. The Specific Example (Joseph Smith and Emma Smith) The Historical Fact: Historical records—including entries in Joseph Smith's journals and documents housed in The Joseph Smith Papers—show that Joseph Smith and Emma Hale Smith were sealed for eternity on May 28, 1843, in Nauvoo, Illinois. The Assertion: If someone asserts the negative claim ("Heck he didn’t even bother to get sealed to Emma"), they are the ones who must provide the evidence. Asking them to back up their assertion is a valid challenge to their claim, not a logical fallacy. However, asking them to prove a negative can be practically difficult or impossible because proving the non-existence of a historical event relies on complete historical records. Here, however, we have some historical and circumstantial evidence that Joseph was sealed to Emma. NotaTBM is, of course, free to assert the opposite, but I think he needs to present some evidence for it. Thanks, -Smac

I guess I'm clueless sometimes, when I looked up the progressive meaning in politics, this is what it said. Do you mind sharing what you don't like in these descriptions? Also, when I posted "progressive", to me Joseph Smith seemed progressive as he changed things as far as religious things. So more a different way of being progressive. When I answered the topic post, in my mind I skipped the politically speaking part of the topic and when I put in the following description after I looked it up I think I may have not totally understood it this way. Because in my mind Joseph and Jesus were both different in the religious aspect from the norm. My bad. But please do not peg abortion as murder. There are certain times for abortion, and now in this climate when a woman has miscarried and needs the deceased baby out of her or she may bleed out and die or it may cause her to not have any more children because of the damage. Do you think she shouldn't have an abortion? Because if you do, then you are nonsensical. And women are dying because of the reversal of Roe vs. Wade. In politics, progressivism is a political philosophy and movement that supports social, economic, and systemic reform through active government intervention. [1, 2] Core Beliefs and Goals Social and Economic Equality: Progressives advocate for policies that reduce wealth gaps, strengthen worker protections, and protect marginalized groups. Active Government Role: Unlike ideologies that favor deregulation or a smaller state, progressivism holds that government should be used as a tool to solve social problems, regulate corporate power, and provide public goods (such as health care, education, and environmental protection). Systemic Transformation: Progressives generally push for bolder, faster structural change to address root causes of inequality rather than relying on incremental moderation. Key platform priorities often include single-payer health care (like Medicare for All), aggressive action on climate change, tax reform on high earners and corporations, and criminal justice reform. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] History The Progressive Era (1890s–1920s): The movement took root in the United States during the Industrial Revolution as a reaction against corporate monopolies, harsh labor conditions, political corruption, and the Gilded Age. Figures like President Theodore Roosevelt (who formed the Bull Moose / Progressive Party in 1912) and Robert La Follette pushed for trust-busting, women’s suffrage, and direct democracy measures like referendums. The New Deal and Beyond: The philosophy expanded mid-century through Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs and later saw major revivals during the civil rights movements and modern-day political alignments. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] Progressivism vs. Liberalism While often used interchangeably or grouped closely together, progressivism and traditional liberalism have distinct nuances: [1] Liberalism traditionally emphasizes individual rights, constitutional governance, and free-market capitalism tempered by social safety nets. Progressivism often places a sharper focus on challenging concentrated corporate power, reducing systemic economic inequality, and demanding deeper structural or institutional changes. [1, 2, 3] You can read more about current policy aims on the Congressional Progressive Caucus platform or explore definitions via Merriam-Webster Dictionary and historical context on BBC News. [1, 2, 3]

I just saw this after another post to you. I am listening. But some revelation had already begun in the Old Testament, no? Are saying that truth simply IS? True truth? There are truths of nature and supernature that remain unrevealed, no? To be revealed or discovered in the future? I am not trying to assertive. I want to understand you rightly, but I fear our definitions of truth might not be the same. Could that be what is making my hesitant? Catholics say that truth is conformation of the mind with reality. That has been my working definition for a while. But I can't conform it to all reality like God. I can only have bits and pieces of it.

Am I required to by forum rules? Then no I see you are pretty invested as well judging by the massive walls of text you create for every response. Ok...you go with the evidence then. I know you want to treat everything as a criminal trial and trot out huge volumes of data, references and whatever else you can find, but many (to include myself) are satisfied with Occam's Razor. Do what you do and I'll do what I do. it isnt a complicated issue. Marriage = Sex. "inflammatory and offensive things to Latter-day Saints, who revere Joseph as a prophet." OK so what? Im a member of the church as well. I am entitled to an opinion. People can choose whether they want to be offended or not. I think some prophet somewhere described that behavior as a weakness or some such thing. I dont need to take orders from some random stranger on the internet. If you dont enjoy discussions with me then dont respond...its easy.

"That the sealing was between Joseph and Emma is a reasoned inference." Is her name written there somewhere? I also responded to this same question you asked. We know that until he was married to 22 women other than Emma, JS and Emma were not sealed together. After...like you say, there is a reasoned inference, but again, she isnt named from what I understand. Sooo for about half of the time he was practicing polygamy, he chose to not be sealed to Emma and she was apparently unaware of the whole thing...apparently

For all your complaining about logical fallacies, you should know better than to ask this question.

"Before Abraham was, I AM." The truth exists. We cannot own the truth like a possession. Can we conform our minds to things that are true, and have by faith a level of dark understanding about supernatural reality? I think you would grant that through the light of reason we can conform our minds to demonstrable truths about natural reality with much greater certainty, beyond a reasonable doubt, as they say in the courtroom? You have written a lot about this and have given it more thought than I have. I am interested to know if you find it problematic to understand truth in the way I have described? Maybe you could describe hour own relationship to certain truths as you understand them, could be corrupted into "having truth" rather than ____________truth. Maybe you could fill in the blank?

I am certainly willing to consider historical evidence of a sexual relationship, but I am not aware of any. Can you help in this regard? They were married as husband and wife. Totally justified in having sex and also, who would go around bragging about it or making statements. He was hiding all his marriages from Emma. That right there is not only scandalous but indicative of horrible behavior. If it was so honorable to have a bunch of wives (even little girls) why not be open about it??? Probably because it was not only illegal, but he was having sex with them which is.... Adultery on his part and probably on the part of some of the women if they were married to other men at the time. In her reminiscences, autobiography, poetry, and later defenses of plural marriage, she never described sexual relations with Smith. Do you dispute this? If so, please lay out your reasoning and evidence. What do you write in your journal about your sex life? Probably nothing and if you did you wouldnt share it here would you. Of course there is no evidence. The only "Evidence" anyone needs is a marriage. It is an expectation in marriage. I dont know why some are so hell bent on proving Joseph didnt have sex with some of his wives and not others. The dosctine is lieterally about sex among other things... raising up seed. If he wasnt trying to procreate with each of these wives he was disobeying the lord apparently. My understanding is that she characterized the sealing as “for eternity alone” and focused on its dynastic/spiritual purpose (linking the Kimball and Smith families and securing eternal blessings for her father’s household). After the sealing she continued living with her parents and attending school; she wrote about social restrictions (missing parties) rather than any intimate relationship. She was later married “for time” to Horace Whitney after Smith’s death. They do? Could you explain why and how laws existing in 2026 "apply" to Joseph Smith in the early 1840s? Yea I they place Joseph Smith in the modern era why not apply the modern era laws? Oh... yea because he would be in preison and looked at no differently than warren Jeffs who still has many of his brides dfending him just like Joseph did. Possibly, yes. Again, I would be interested in what evidence you believe exists of a sexual relationship. They were married- that is all the proof needed. What proof is there of your fellow ward members having sex?? Esp the ones who have not had children yet? Answer: None unless they are going around talking about it, but everyone knows there is like a 99.99% chance they are. Not sure what you mean here. Look at the crap the AZ Gov candidate lamb is involved in. It isnt polygamy but do you think for a minute running for president (which Joseph did apparently) and everyone knew he had a pile of wives, was detroying printing presses etc he would survive in the current political climate?? He didnt even survive it in his day both figuratively and literally. I think this is incorrect. See here. Per Richard L. Bushman, Joseph and Emma were sealed on May 28, 1843. Bushman is a pretty solid historian, so I assume he has documentation. Do you have contrary evidence? That Joseph and Emma were never sealed? I have not ever seen any proof with her name on anything resembling a sealing. There might be something out there, but my understanding is it isnt settled science so to speak. Not sure open mockery is helpful to the discussion. JS is worthy of being mocked. Thats what you get when you marry women behind your wife's back. Thanks, -Smac

I dont have any. "Yea keep believing he didn’t have sex with her." "You also placed this scenario in today’s political landscape so today’s laws apply as well. He would be in prison for not only marrying a 14year old and having sex with her." "I know you dont have a problem with prophets having sex with teenage girls..." "Then why did Joseph keep his marriages secret from Emma? I'll tell ytiou why...because he was havng sex with them." "Just because none of the wives had any children doesnt mean he wasnt having sex with them." "Was Helen MAr Kimball sealed to Joseph as a wife or daughter? A: She was sealed as a wife...so sex it is of course" Do you intend to retract or amend any of these statements? Nobody disputes that. If the "marriage" was dynastic, then perhaps not. We are going with the evidence. I encourage you to do the same. I see you are pretty invested in this issue. Your various statements above, and your comparisons between Joseph and Warren Jeffs, are likely coming from a place of disgust and anger, so much so that you are seeking to say inflammatory and offensive things to Latter-day Saints, who revere Joseph as a prophet. You clearly are not saying these things to persuade, am I right about that? If so, what is the intended purpose of these various statements? And given that you now admit you have no evidence to support your factual averments, why are you presenting them as factual? Thanks, -smac

No. That the sealing was between Joseph and Emma is a reasoned inference. If you have evidence of an alternative and superior inference, I'm happy to consider it. Okay. What evidence do you have that Emma was not sealed to Joseph? Thanks, -Smac

I am reiterating my request for evidence of a sexual relationship between Joseph and Helen. On a somewhat related note, my wife is a great-great granddaughter of John D. Lee. Brigham Young adopted Lee on January 25, 1846, when Brigham was 44 years old and Lee was 33. That's only an 11-year difference, and both men were well into adulthood, and Lee's father was still alive (he died in 1850), and Lee did not legally take on his "adoptive" father's surname. So that seems pretty strange, particularly if this point is being presented in a decontextualized way. Some of the weirdness goes away when more context is provided. Both Young and Lee were Latter-day Saints. In the 1840s (especially in Nauvoo), some Church members were sealed to other members—often leaders—in a spiritual father-son relationship. The idea was to create an unbroken chain of sealing back to Adam and to link people into the priesthood network of the kingdom. Brigham Young himself was sealed to Joseph Smith; he in turn had dozens of men (reports commonly put the number around 38) sealed to him as adopted sons in early 1846. John D. Lee was one of them—he later described himself as Young’s second adopted son. Lee was already a loyal, active member (missionary, Council of Fifty clerk, etc.). The sealing formalized a spiritual and practical bond: Lee was to look to Young’s temporal interests, and Young was to secure Lee’s spiritual welfare as an heir in the family. Lee sometimes signed his name in ways that reflected the relationship and referred to himself as Young’s adopted son for years afterward. The practice was later discontinued as the Church’s understanding of sealings developed (especially after temples became available and proxy work for biological ancestors expanded). It was never a conventional adoption meant to raise a minor; Lee was an adult convert and leader at the time. So, contexts matters. It helps us understand a facially strange circumstance. It does not fully resolve the weirdness, it just mitigates it. The Church was, after all, still very much in its formative stages, and I think some practices need to be viewed through that lens. Which brings us to the marriage of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith, Jr., the examination of which may benefit by comparing and contrasting it with the Young-Lee adoption item. Here's what I think: Both practices were irregular by 19th-century (and modern) social norms, yet were motivated by the same emerging Latter-day Saint theology of sealing: the creation of eternal familial bonds that linked people into a priesthood network extending back to Adam, independent of ordinary biological or legal relationships. In the Law of Adoption, adult men (including John D. Lee) were sealed to Brigham Young as spiritual sons. The relationship was understood as religious and dynastic—Lee was to advance Young’s temporal interests while receiving spiritual inheritance—rather than a conventional parent-child arrangement. It was performed in the Nauvoo Temple period as part of the broader effort to organize the Saints into sealed “families” of the kingdom. Joseph Smith’s sealing to Helen Mar Kimball (age 14 in 1843) operated under the same sealing logic, applied to plural marriage. Contemporary and later accounts from Helen herself and others frame it primarily as a dynastic or protective sealing that connected her family to the prophet, not as an ordinary marriage. Historians across perspectives note the absence of contemporary evidence of consummation; many treat it as consistent with other early sealings that created eternal links without requiring (or, in the case of a 14-year-old, plausibly involving) a sexual relationship. Like the adoptions, it was justified by the theological claim that such sealings secured place and protection in the afterlife and bound families together beyond death. The analogy is therefore structural: both were non-standard sealings that created spiritual kinship for religious ends, performed by prophetic authority, and later discontinued or reframed as the Church’s understanding of sealing developed. The differences are also clear—one was a same-sex, adult-to-adult priesthood adoption; the other involved a minor female under the practice of plural marriage (albeit with her parents' consent (it was Heber's idea, actually)—but both reflect the same mid-1840s impulse to organize eternal relationships through temple ordinances rather than through ordinary civil or biological norms. What are your thoughts about this? Thanks, -Smac