Did Emma Really Kick Eliza Snow Down the Stairs?

[Obiwan]

Next time you visit Nauvoo, take the tour of the Mansion House. It takes about an hour or 1.5 for a 20 minute tour, but it might shed light on this. The tour guide told us, and she otta know, she's from Moscva on a work permit, that the house was modified by Bidamon and, if I remember correctly, JS III in later years. The whole rear wing was added on, so the possibility of the stair geometry being different originally should be considered.

Wood

I'm quite sure the scholars on the subject considered such an obvious point. We aren't that dumb.

[pcarthew]

Dr. Brian C. Hales, a Salt Lake physician who has become a significant authority on the history of plural marriage in Mormonism, has a nice article in the just-arrived issue of Mormon Historical Studies on the well-known story of Emma Smith's pushing or kicking Eliza R. Snow (pregnant by Joseph Smith) down the stairs. He sees serious problems with the story, and suspects it never happened.

It seems that doctors are doing some of the best work on early plural marriage. I continue to regard Dr. Gregory L. Smith's review of a bad book on Nauvoo polygamy, for instance, as invaluable:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=20&num=2&id=721

Certain critics and disaffected members post, from time to time, about how they detest Joseph Smith because of the way he practiced plural marriage. (The recent Kevin Garn scandal has summoned forth innumerable cynical posts on that score, in various locations.) But many of the things they think they know about Joseph's practices may not even turn out to be true. Will that affect how they feel? I'm not altogether optimistic on that score, alas.

I find it curious that we condemn Joseph Smith for polygamy ie being bound in wedlock and commitment for time and eternity, and we want to parade him around as and evil fallen oversexed prophet. On the other hand many of our civil and political leaders have one wife, along with their wife they have many other mistresses; for them we give them national and international awards and recognition, they are lauded and go down in history as great leaders. We excuse them for being "men". What I have learned about the world is; it is OK to have as many sexual relations with other women or men as you like, as long as your are married to one person (and more often or not you keep it a secret from you spouse)!

I agree that when the critic does find out that a lot of what they believed about Joseph Smith to be incorrect, they either go silent or continue their incoherent rant.

[Obiwan]

Indeed.... That's true on any subject related to the Church.

When it concerns anti-mormons, no matter how much you show them from the facts clearly that their statement/conclusion is clearly false, they will ignore the fact and continue their negative fantasy. Only the person who isn't so invested in anti-mormonism can still see logic and facts to change their opinion on an issue, or the extremely rare anti-mormon who still has some soul left.

One of the most obvious and clear ones for example from the scriptures themselves. Most anti-mormons believe that satan lied about everything in Genesis, including the part where he said Adam & Eve would be "as the Gods". It doesn't matter to them when you show them clearly a few scriptures over that God Himself "verifies" satan's statement as an actual "truth", by saying "man has become as one of us". I mean, you can't get more clear than that..... Yet, the vast majority of anti-mormons will still claim it is a lie, that it is one of satans lies that we can actually be "as God".

I mean, how do you compete with such intellectual incompetence?

This applies to many issues as well. Liberals suffer from the same problem, be it WMD's, torture, conservatives, the environment, global warming, capitalism, etc. They just believe whatever negative thing they want to, not the actual truth.

[Woody]

... Most anti-mormons believe that satan lied about everything in Genesis, including the part where he said Adam & Eve would be "as the Gods". It doesn't matter to them when you show them clearly a few scriptures over that God Himself "verifies" satan's statement as an actual "truth", by saying "man has become as one of us". I mean, you can't get more clear than that..... Yet, the vast majority of anti-mormons will still claim it is a lie, that it is one of satans lies that we can actually be "as God".

The real fun starts when you notice the seams between Gen. 2:3/2:4 and Gen. 4:26/5:1. It seems obvious at least to me that two texts were patched onto the front of the Book of the Generations of Adam. What were they? I'd guess transcripts from Temple ceremonies, however unauthorized. Which leads us to the point that these stories were written to be acted out as drama. When you're writing a drama, how do you get certain points across? Use a Narrator. But if that doesn't work then you can have the characters themselves speak a few narratey lines, such as Gen. 3:5. This gives us the bizarre and frightening spectre of Satan telling great and notable truths. I think it was just an artifact of the playwright. There be all kinds of such in the scriptures!

I mean, how do you compete with such intellectual incompetence?

Well, try not to outdo them.

Wood