webbles

I'm not sure why you quoted me. I was talking specifically about the paragraph on Fanny Alger (the one I quoted). Helen Mar Kimball was definitely 14 at the time of the sealing/marriage. There is another 14 year old as well, Nancy Maria Winchester, though her evidence is a lot weaker. Are you seeing somewhere in the church's articles saying that Fanny Alger was 14?

It is more likely that Joseph sounded the names out first and then corrected the spelling. One of the best evidence of that is Coriantumr. You can see the original manuscript when that name is first seen (Helaman 1:15) - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/original-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-12-april-1828-circa-1-july-1829/194 Oliver first writes "Coriantummer" which is a good estimate of how to spell it based on phonetics. And then he crosses it out and writes "Coriantumr". So Oliver first heard the name, and then was told its correct spelling. Another example is Amlicites from Alma 2-3. We don't have the Original Manscript, but in the Printer Manuscript, the first few instances are spelled "Amlicites", then it changes to "Amlikites", and then it changes back to "Amlicites". That suggests that Joseph pronounced it as "Amlikites" (with the hard 'k') but had Oliver spell it with a 'c'. The first time, Oliver was given the correct spelling and then a few lines later, forgot and used the more normal spelling, and then re-remembered and finished with the correct spelling. This is also an argument that the later Amalekites (Alma 21-27) is just a misspelling of "Amlicites" which would mean that the pronunciation of "Amlicites" is much more different than what the pronunciation guide has.

This paragraph has some inaccuracies. Fanny was born in 1817 (per her obituary in the family bible). The earliest dating given for the relationship is 1833. So, the she would have been at least 16, not 14. The letter that Oliver Cowdery wrote was in January 1838 ( https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/oliver-cowdery-letter-to-warren-a-cowdery-olivers-brother-january-21-1838/ ) and Fanny would have been 21, not 17. And Oliver Cowdery was excommunicated in April 1838, so he is not an ex-member at the time. He also was questioned about the relationship in the summer and fall of 1837 and gave responses that made seemed like it was an adulterous affair (see minutes of his excommunication - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/minutes-12-april-1838/6 ). The new research from Bradley and Smith show that the relationship may have started with an adoptive sealing but they still acknowledge that Joseph took it further than that. They also put the sealing in 1836 so she would be 18/19 instead of 16.

I've been seeing a lot of cars that have venmo details along with the "Just Married" writing. Not sure if they are expecting random strangers to venmo them because they were just married.

The bolded isn't really a fact. We have nothing from her on whether or not she consented. If we accept that Joseph lied in public about polygamy, then we can't just assume that Emma was telling the truth in public. She could have been lying as much as her husband. And we have no private statements from her. And even that it wouldn't help because we have contemporary private statements from Joseph (such as his journal) that have him also denouncing polygamy. All the stories about her are told to us much later and most are conflicted. She probably was never fully and wholeheartedly converted, but it is possible to say the same thing about Joseph. There are stories from people like Law who said that Joseph repented of introducing polygamy and was going to weed it out. What ever happened was messy.

There is a LOT of disagreement around that. Joseph married or sealed over 30 women. I use both terms because there isn't an agreement on whether or not all the women were fully wives (with everything that entails in that relationship) or just some sort of sealing that had no physical connection. There are some who argue that all of the relationships were sealings (some sort adoption or betrothal), there are some who argue that all were full marriages (with maybe some relationships maybe being interrupted), and some argue that it is a mix. Another thing to know is that he wasn't the only one to practice polygamy. He introduced it into the Mormon faith. And after his death, the Utah church (and a few other Mormon sects) openly practiced it and in the vast majority of cases, they were marriages in the traditional sense. So, if Brigham Young, John Taylor, etc (people who were taught by Joseph) treated polygamy as normal marriages, then it is highly likely that Joseph did as well. There are people who do argue that Brigham Young corrupted Joseph's teachings in this regard. I, personally, am in the bucket where most marriages were traditional and only a small few were marriages of convenience. An example of a marriage of convenience (to me) is Fanny Young ( https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/fanny-young/ ). She is the older sister of Brigham Young and was 56 at the time. The story of the marriage is odd. She apparently is worried that she doesn't have anyone sealed to her (her husband had died years ago) and so Joseph offers to seal her to himself. It could have been a marriage in the traditional sense, but the story doesn't sound like that to me. But we have some of the women, who testified under oath, that their marriage was a traditional marriage. These occurred because of a lawsuit happening between the RLDS and the Church of Christ (Hedrickites) over the ownership of the temple lot in Missouri. Both of them are Mormon sects but neither believed Joseph practiced polygamy. The Hedrickites, though, reached out to the Utah church and asked them to prove that Joseph practiced it so that they (the Hedrickites) could then prove that the RLDS were not the real successors of Joseph (the RLDS was lead by Joseph's son). Because of that, several women were questioned and said that they were his wife in every sense of the word.

I know that. We are discussing whether Joseph's opponents knew of that and if they ever talked about it. There is also Nancy Maria Winchester (age 14 - https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/nancy-maria-winchester/ ) and Flora Ann Woodworth (age 16 - https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/flora-ann-woodworth/ ) who are really young. Helen is the best attested since she wrote about her marriage/sealing. Edited - Oliver never talked about Helen, Nancy, or Flora. By the time those sealings happened, he had left the church.

His description about Fanny? She never was 14. Earliest age would be 16 which is young but Joseph would have been only ~28 and if she had been his only wife, I don't think there would have been much issue with it. Most likely, she was closer to 18. I don't think any opponents (and very few supporters) were even aware of the young wives. Edited to add: Oliver Cowdery was 26 and his wife, Elizabeth Whitmer, was 17 when they were married. So a 28 year old marrying a 16 isn't that much difference. I think it is the polygamy aspect that bothered Cowdery, not the age.

Do you have references? I'm trying to think of where these would be and I'm drawing blanks. There's the letter and stories about Alger but she was probably 17-18 when it started (Don Bradley recently proposed that it was after the Kirtland Temple dedication so she would be 20). The Expositor doesn't really have anything. The closest thing is its referencing of Martha Brotherton but she would probably be >18 years old. Law also sometimes talked about the Lawrence sisters, but they also were ~18.

Did Joseph Smith's opponents make a big deal of the 14 year old marriage? I don't recall any place where it is brought up. I thought this was one of the aspects that wasn't really known until Fawn Brodie documented it.

I would love for lessons to include more discussion about his less socially acceptable practices. For me, it makes it easier to understand him and relate to him. And there are even verses in D&C that reprimand him and that could be a place where we might be able to discuss that. But the D&C year of lessons isn't really a "history of the Church" year. We learn about the history only when it has some relation to D&C. And not even that much. For example, John C. Bennett is named in D&C 124 but I can't remember the last time a lesson talked about his interaction with the church and Joseph Smith. And since we are talking about the Expositor, if you look at the lesson this year about the Martyrdom, there is no mention of it. That lesson has almost no historical details about what happened in the lead up to the martyrdom. But it does do a lot of "Praise to the Man stuff" because D&C 135 is full of that. And we are studying the D&C, not the history of the church. This is similar to our interaction with the rest of the scriptures. In the New Testament year, we learn a lot about the life of Christ, then a little about the apostles from Acts, then a lot about Paul. We don't get to hear much about what the other apostles did. Or about other parts of the early Church. It is mostly focused on what the scriptures have. And that is what the church meetings are for, it is a place for us to learn more about the scriptures. Any history outside of that is not really important in a church setting.

Would you say that the church hasn't "formally" acknowledge that Joseph was the Nauvoo Legion general since I don't think there is anything in the correlated curriculum about that? Or that the church hasn't "formally" acknowledged that Hyrum had lost his first wife in Kirtland for the same reason? Or that the church hasn't "formally" acknowledged that Martin Harris remarried a young woman 31 years his junior in Kirtland (I didn't even know about this till last year)? Or that the church didn't "formally" acknowledge the Mountain Meadow Massacre till the essays since no correlated curriculum mentioned that (and still doesn't)? There's lots of historical facts that aren't taught in the correlated curriculum. I have a hard time accepting that it has to be in the correlated curriculum to mean the church has "formally" acknowledged something.

I came across this - https://aschmann.net/AmEng/ - a while back. It's got a map of the US broken up into dialect regions. It has 8 major ones and then a bunch of minor ones. Utah is part of the West dialect but it groups parts of the state into minor dialects. On major separation is "pin" vs "pen". Another is the "fronting" of the long o (not entirely sure what that means).

I was curious if this was really the first time that the church's website cited the Expositor and it isn't. The Saints Volume 1, published 7 years ago, cites the Expositor multiple times in the Chapter 43. It also cites from the Warsaw Signal which definitely published lies about Joseph Smith and is definitely anti-mormon. I count 4 references to the Expositor and 6 references to the Warsaw Signal. Edited to add: It even directly cites John C. Bennett's expose in chapter 39.

I think Gemini is wrong. I don't believe the "Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith" mentions that he practiced it. I also don't see anything about a "severe trial of faith". In the index, there is a "Plural Marriage" section with two references. They say: So it just says he taught it but never explicitly mentions he practiced it. So some one (like Notatbm) might have read that and not understood it as practicing it himself.

I agree that polygamy isn't a big thing the church wants to talk about. And I think the church is right. How does knowing that Joseph practiced polygamy have an impact on my own salvation? How does knowing that Brigham Young practiced polygamy have an impact on my salvation? But tithing, covenant path, missions, all of those have a direct impact on my own life. I would absolutely love to have a good lesson on polygamy but I would absolutely hate to do it in church. That is not where it belongs. I absolutely love learning about the gritty details of the church. Mountain Meadow Massacre? Sign me up. Specific dates on when Fanny Alger and Joseph Smith might have begun their relationship? Awesome (the new details that Don Bradley discovered on when then relationship was discovered is really cool). Reading the Expositor and discussing what it actually meant to them? I'm ready. But none of this fits in a church setting. They are history lessons. Church is NOT a history class. I understand that people feel blindsided when they learn these things and maybe the church should have been more aware of that. But these gritty details are not things that are needed for our own salvation so I can understand why the church didn't feel like it should "waste" resources on them.

The "Teachings of the Prophet" series doesn't mention polygamy for pretty much anyone. I remember discussions around how sermons were edited to remove polygamy. Brigham Young's book has no mention of his polygamy. It mentions his first wife and second wife but those weren't polygamous as his first wife died before he married his second wife. I believe the only one that has any mention is Lorenzo Snow and possibly because he married his first two wives within months of each other. The mention of the Expositor in the "Teachings of the Prophet: Joseph Smith" says it "slandered the Prophet and other Saints and called for the repeal of the Nauvoo Charter" which it did. Ignore all of the polygamy parts of the Nauvoo Expositor and it definitely slandered him. The polygamy part in the Nauvoo Expositor was not the biggest worry for Joseph. It was the repeal of the Nauvoo Charter. If Nauvoo looses the ability to do habeus corpus, then Joseph is going to have serious problems. He used/misused that ability multiple times to stay safe. I have had Sunday School lessons that talked about his polygamy. One of the more fun ones was a Jeopardy game that included a few of the lesser known details. Not many people could answer those. I know the old Institute manual talks about Joseph's polygamy in regards to section 132. See page 334 - https://archive.org/details/DoctrineAndCovenantsStudentManual/page/n349/mode/2up There's also the "History of the Church" books. They've been reprinted multiple times and I believe Deseret Book always had them. My family had the whole collection. When I was bored on Sunday, I would read through those. They are old but were not ignored. The Institute manual references them several times (look at 327 in the above manual). The beginning of Volume 5 has a long section on D&C 132 and does talk about Joseph have multiple wives. You can read the entire volume at https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/60736/pg60736-images.html. Here's one quote:

When did the church stop acknowledging that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy? I don't recall the church ever saying that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy. They might not have mentioned (like they did with several of the prophets in the Prophet manuals), but I don't think they ever denied it. The Work and the Glory series (remember that one?) was really popular for a while and it talks about polygamy in Joseph's day. Yes, it was really whitewashed but it links polygamy with Joseph. I think you might be confusing the issues with polyandry, young wives, etc. I would expect most members to not have known about the more complicated issues around polygamy. Joseph's polygamy even shows up in the Ensign every now and then. For instance, in the September 1973 Ensign, it said in an article about Eliza Snow - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1973/09/eliza-r-snow-first-lady-of-the-pioneers?lang=eng:

It was not all vicious, it was not all lies. But there were many (imo) vicious (intentionally inflammatory imo) lies in it. I don't think there were many vicious lies about Joseph Smith in it. For me, I think there are only really 2 lies about him. There's one about him wanting to be president and put his followers in as governors of the state. And then the comment about Joseph Jackson. The later, though, isn't the Expositor writing the lies, but just stating that he is telling the truth in the Signal paper. So that's why I would disagree with that sentence.

I never read the Primary book verbatim to the kids. I would read the lesson and then build the lesson around what was in it. I never taught the kids in my classes that the Expositor was vicious lies. I have no recollection that the Nauvoo Expositor was labelled all lies. I heard libel, slander, public nuisance, half truths, contains lies, etc. But saying that the entirety of the Expositor was all lies, no recollection of hearing that. And since I apparently read the Primary 5 book (maybe I was lazy that week and didn't really read the lesson), that one line did not stand out to me. I think dissecting the Expositor is really useful. It explains why the Nauvoo Council felt it was libel. Unfortunately, I think most people who have heard about the Expositor just think it has something to do with polygamy. But it is much, much more than that. It was libel. It was dangerous. Governor Ford even admitted that to John Taylor. He suggested that Joseph Smith should have just incited a mob instead of creating a legal justification. See page 47 at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4336&context=byusq. Also, the definition of libel has changed over the years. Now a days, if you can prove that you spoke the truth, you are not libel. But that wasn't always the case. There is a famous case in 1804 where Alexander Hamilton argued before the New York Appeals Court that his defendant should be able to use truth as his defense and that the fact that New York doesn't allow it was a disgrace. In the end, the judges deadlocked over it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Croswell). It wasn't until 1964 (!) that the US Supreme Court ruled that libel must actually be falsehoods (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan). So yes, the Nauvoo Expositor was definitely libel and definitely a public nuisance.

I would absolutely agree with you here. The church has barely talked about the Nauvoo Expositor and its contents. It hardly says anything about it except that it was declared a public nuisance and how it was linked to the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. Which kind of goes against your original statement that the church "always taught the Nauvoo expositor was just a bunch of vicious lies". A single primary book that shows it was taught possibly once every 4 years is not a great argument that the church always said it. I don't know when I first read the Nauvoo Expositor and realized that it had a lot of truth, but it was decades ago. And I used that primary manual when I taught Primary and apparently didn't notice that line since I had to figure out where the "vicious lies" statement is coming from.

Ok, so if you think slander and vicious lies are the same, then the Expositor has them. I mentioned the statements about Jeremiah Smiths which has several lies. This includes both stating partial truths that give the wrong impression without the rest of the truth (I know of several modern court cases where this is ruled as slander). Then there is the statement about Joseph H. Jackson which says: Joseph H. Jackson would later write an expose on Joseph and Nauvoo called "The Adventures and Experience of Joseph H. Jackson" which does have truths but also a bunch of lies. But that is in 1846 and the Expositor is talking about a letter that he sent into the Warsaw Signal. You can read the letter he wrote over at http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/IL/sign1844.htm. The Expositor doesn't list which of the statements are true or false, it seems to say all of them are true. In his letter he makes the following statements, which are probably all false: Joseph Smith attempted to have him killed Joseph Smith is an athiest Joseph Smith knows the Book of Mormon is a "humbug" and was copied from Spalding's manuscript Joseph Smith sent Rockwell to kill Governor Higgs Joseph Smith offered Joseph H. Jackson money to kill Governor Higgs Joseph Smith requested Joseph H. Jackson to kill his enemies in Nauvoo Additionally, it appears Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo council had access to the 2nd edition of the Nauvoo Expositor. We don't as every single copy was destroyed. But in the Nauvoo Council minutes, it says These minutes are from June 10th and later that day, they destroy the press and all copies of the second edition. It is highly likely that the second edition contains lies as well. It might even contain more lies, but we have no way of knowing it. And the Expositor was absolutely a public nuisance. Besides all of its arguments against the Nauvoo charter (which I feel is the worst thing it did), it also stated that it would see no problem with force used against Nauvoo. Having a newspaper call out for military force against the town would be a cause (at that time) to shut down the press.

Slander is different from "vicious lies". In the Expositor, there is a discussion about the case on Jeremiah Smith. In that discussion it says: In that, I would say there's several potential slanderous things. It says Jeremiah Smith was "secreted in the city" and that the Marshal demanded him from Joseph or else would send dragoons and that Joseph Smith then promised to find him within 30 minutes. The demand with dragoons didn't actually happen till much later. And the producing the fugitive within 30 minutes vs him being hidden is potentially slanderous. We can't prove it at this point, but that could have been invented by the marshal or who ever wrote this section in the Expositor. The Expositor was way more than polygamy. In fact, the polygamy parts of the paper is tiny compared to all the rest. A much larger portion of the paper was a call to repeal the Nauvoo charter. And that was considered dangerous to the town council (including the non-mormons on the council). And in fact, we know from hindsight, that the repeal of the charter did cause a lot of blood shed and the expulsion of the church. So, having a paper publicly demand the repeal of something that is protecting the city sure sounds like a public nuisance.

The same footnote says: If you go there, you'll find it referencing John C. Bennet's expose (amongst a lot of other things). And I don't know if you've ever read that, but that is definitely full of "vicious lies". I really love the part about the 3 hierarchies of women. And yet, it is used as a "credible contemporary source" because it does have some truths in it and John C. Bennet was definitely contemporary (plenty of debate on whether he was an insider of polygamy or just made some really good guesses along with the stuff that was made up). Just because something has lies, doesn't mean it is all lies. Also, besides a primary lesson (Primary 5, page 211), where else has the church "always taught that the Nauvoo expositor was just a bunch of vicious lies"?

I remember that the counselor (who was at the excommunication) stated that he didn't hear about the abuse till the guy was arrested. But I think the appeal court is supposed to take the most favorable view for the appellant and since we don't know what actually happened in the excommunication (because of privilege arguments), the appeals court maybe just assumed that he confessed there. I think it will come down to whether or not an excommunication court is privileged communication or not. It doesn't look like the court really decided that.