Curious Passage in Doctrine and Covenants

[mapman]

God gave Joseph virgins? Joseph ruled over his wives? I hate to break it to you, but Joseph didn't have a harem. The wife-to-be and her parents would always be asked before a sealing was done, none of his wives ever felt mistreated by Joseph, most of his wives didn't live with him, and they certainly weren't all virgins since there was some polyandry.

[consiglieri]

God gave Joseph virgins? Joseph ruled over his wives? I hate to break it to you, but Joseph didn't have a harem. The wife-to-be and her parents would always be asked before a sealing was done, none of his wives ever felt mistreated by Joseph, most of his wives didn't live with him, and they certainly weren't all virgins since there was some polyandry.

I can't believe you are opening up that particular can of worms.

Three . . . two . . . one . . .

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[Nemesis]

Unusual? It seems to me that Joseph Smith's standard MO was to claim that God wanted them to do something really kinky (e.g. "marry" his wife), and then (sometimes) back out by saying, "just kidding; I just wanted to test your faithfulness." Given his history of testing his male friends this way, why wouldn't he test his wife the same way?

fair and balanced eh?

I would just like to say I do not appreciate whats going on in this thread. You all know the standards of behavior and the level of discourse that is expected here. Most of you have done a pretty good job but lets keep it where it belongs off our board and on the other.

Nemesis

[mapman]

I can't believe you are opening up that particular can of worms.

Three . . . two . . . one . . .

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

Well, if anyone can give a reference from one of the wives that says that they felt mistreated, I'd be glad to see it.

As for harems, to me it is obviously sensationalism, and ignores all the theological background behind plural marriage.

[Analytics]

fair and balanced eh?

I would just like to say I do not appreciate whats going on in this thread. You all know the standards of behavior and the level of discourse that is expected here. Most of you have done a pretty good job but lets keep it where it belongs off our board and on the other.

Nemesis

I apologize if that sounded sensational. It was just a test

Despite the way it was worded, I think the point is valid and important to understand, so I'd like to rephrase:

Unusual? It brings to mind the following event from the life of Heber C. Kimball:

"During the summer of 1841, shortly after Heber's return from England, he was introduced to the doctrine of plural marriage directly through a startling test-a sacrifice which shook his very being and challenged his faith to the ultimate. He had already sacrificed homes, possessions, friends, relatives, all worldly rewards, peace, and tranquility for the Restoration. Nothing was left to place on the altar save his life, his children, and his wife. Joseph demanded for himself what to Heber was the unthinkable, his Vilate. Totally crushed spiritually and emotionally, Heber touched neither food nor water for three days and three nights and continually sought confirmation and comfort from God." Finally, after "some kind of assurance," Heber took Vilate to the upper room of Joseph's store on Water Street. The Prophet wept at this act of faith, devotion, and obedience. Joseph had never intended to take Vilate. It was all a test."

Heber C. Kimball, Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer by Stanley B. Kimball, page 93

My understanding is that Joseph also “demanded for himself” John Taylor’s wife Leonora, which also turned out to be a test.

Testing Emma’s faithfulness by “offering” her something that would offend her Victorian values isn’t unlike other tests Joseph Smith was involved in.

[consiglieri]

Testing Emma’s faithfulness by “offering” her something that would offend her Victorian values isn’t unlike other tests Joseph Smith was involved in.

The Heber Kimball story is what immediately came to my mind, as well, Analytics.

The reason I said it was "unusual" had not so much to do with the MO, but with the fact it was a woman being offered a second husband.

It is also "unusual" that this test is formally canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants, and that it is phrased for all the world as if it is God giving the test personally rather than Joseph Smith acting on his own to test the faithfulness of his adherents.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[Deborah]

In a sense it's speculation, but it is the only plausible scenario on the table.

But it's still speculation.

[Analytics]

The Heber Kimball story is what immediately came to my mind, as well, Analytics.

The reason I said it was "unusual" had not so much to do with the MO, but with the fact it was a woman being offered a second husband.

It is also "unusual" that this test is formally canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants, and that it is phrased for all the world as if it is God giving the test personally rather than Joseph Smith acting on his own to test the faithfulness of his adherents.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

What I find unusual about it is the word "offer". It doesn't imply that Emma was commanded to take for herself the unthinkable. Rather, she was "offered" to do it based upon whether or not she wanted to. What constitutes passing or failing such a test?

[consiglieri]

What constitutes passing or failing such a test?

Well, as long as we are speculating, it would seem accepting the offer is the lead horse.

Especially since the verse under consideration commands her to "stay herself."

(You know, I've always kind of liked Emma just the way she is. I think she should "stay herself.")

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[Analytics]

Well, as long as we are speculating, it would seem accepting the offer is the lead horse.

Especially since the verse under consideration commands her to "stay herself."

(You know, I've always kind of liked Emma just the way she is. I think she should "stay herself.")

There is another possibility that is consistent with Emma staying herself: rejecting the assertion that the offer was from God.

[Curtis Weber]

Andrew Ehat has written:

Is it possible the mysterious meaning to verse 51 of Joseph's revelation on plural marriage was a suspended case of pseudo-polyandry [Ehat's explanation for the apparent cases of polyandry]? Perhaps the identification of Joseph and Emma with Abraham (and implicitly Sarah) in that verse is the necessary clue to unlocking the true meaning of this passage. The revelation says,

A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice.

According to scripture published by Joseph Smith just the year before, God required that Abraham and Sarah have their faith and covenants tested by pseudo-polyandry. Unlike the biblical account, where Abraham has to take all the credit for concocting the seemingly cowardly explanation, Joseph's Book of Abraham indicates that God asked Abraham to require Sarah to say to those they met as they neared Egypt that she was Abraham's sister—and thus save her husband's life. Without benefit of the Book of Abraham, or the newly discovered Genesis Apocryphon of the Dead Sea Scrolls which backs this point up, the rabbi's have always considered this yellow-streak a singularly tragic flaw in Abraham's character. For this reason they have consigned him to second-place status behind Joseph, his great-grandson, in the hierarchy of scripture's exemplary figures. ⁶¹ But if we accept the fact that Abraham's request of Sarah was made in the fear of God and not because of the fear of man, our view of the sojourn in Egypt dramatically changes in several important ways. First, we see that it was God who, for his own purposes, justified the use of this technically correct albeit deceiving subterfuge. But did He do so simply to save Abraham's skin? Certainly Sarah knew immediately the consequences such a request would have to her. Her virtue and marriage would be put to incredible strain inasmuch as she would be sought after as a wife to Pharaoh. Did God have as an object this test of her faith and integrity? What greater test of faith in her husband's revelations could be asked of a woman who did not, as Sarah did not, witness either the vision or hear the voice which Abraham had seen and heard? Thus God's order that they employ such rhetoric in Egypt and elsewhere served not only to preserve their lives so that His promises might be fulfilled regarding Abraham's seed, but at least equally importantly, it placed them in position to experience an enormous trial of faith.

Which leads us back to Joseph and Emma. Is the meaning of the puzzling passage in the celestial marriage revelation the idea that Joseph Smith believed that God had granted Emma the privilege of obtaining if not a civil at least a priesthood "divorce" so she could be sealed "for time" to someone else more capable of giving her the attention she desired and required? However long Emma seemed to entertain this proposal, the revelation seems to confirm that both she and Joseph took it quite seriously and both were tried to the core by it. But if the chronology of the Genesis Apocryphon is correct, Emma was not subjected to the test to the same degree that Sarah was. Sarah, we are told, resisted Pharaoh's entreaties even though she was his guest for two years. Emma's call to pass through her sacrifice came only once and for a period of at most a few weeks.

The parallel of Abraham's and Sarah's experience to that of Joseph's and Emma's perhaps reflects the Prophet's only unexceptioned rule regarding the nature and role of revelation: "Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we might not see the reason for it till long after the events transpire."⁶² The true prophets have always found ways to test those who maintain that God can only act with the ethics with which they feel comfortable. The prophets leave for them to explain away God's role in the Fall of Adam and Eve, the destruction of the world by the flood, Abraham and Sarah in Egypt, Abraham's offering of Isaac, the fall of Saul in connection with the destruction of the Amalakites, the farness of the quick-coming of the Lord, or even the passion of Jesus Christ on the cross. Each such test stretches our faith in the designs of our God. And those who have received no divine assurance that God had ulterior and ultimate purposes in such tests of faith, can only take solace in his words:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isaiah 55:8-11).

If the Book of Abraham could so beautifully anticipate by over a century the demand which the Genesis Apocryphon now makes that tens of generation's ill-feelings towards Abraham's conduct in Egypt be reevaluated, then might it also be time that we recognize and have the courage to speak the fact of the deeply religious role Joseph Smith's similar and intended tests of faith and integrity was also one of the ultimate purposes in the wide variety of forms by which eternal marriage and polygyny were introduced by him to his disciples, even including his wife, Emma? (Andrew F. Ehat, "Pseudo-Polyandry: Explaining Mormon Polygyny's Paradoxical Companion—The Microscopic View," paper given at the1986 Sunstone Theological Symposium)

In case it wasn't clear from the above, Ehat proposes that the test was to give Emma an "out" from her marital situation by sealing her to another man for time only—in essence, a divorce—just as Sarah had the chance to leave Abraham and become Pharaoh's wife. If this is the case, we still don't know for sure who the proffered new husband was, though I have read claims for both William Clayton and William Law.

[Analytics]

Andrew Ehat has written:

In case it wasn't clear from the above, Ehat proposes that the test was to give Emma an "out" from her marital situation by sealing her to another man for time only—in essence, a divorce—just as Sarah had the chance to leave Abraham and become Pharaoh's wife. If this is the case, we still don't know for sure who the proffered new husband was, though I have read claims for both William Clayton and William Law.

That’s an interesting idea—there is now another speculation on the table. Thanks for quoting this.

This is plausible. In this theory, the original offer was something like, “God commanded me to marry multiple virgins. God says that if you don’t want to be married to somebody like that then you are released from your marital vows and may [specific out here],” and then became, “stay yourself and partake not of [the specific out that was offered]. I told Joseph to make the offer to test you all. You are commanded to receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph. You are commanded to cleave unto my servant Joseph and to none else. If you don’t abide by this commandment you shall be destroyed.”

[mfbukowski]

Andrew Ehat has written:

Which leads us back to Joseph and Emma. Is the meaning of the puzzling passage in the celestial marriage revelation the idea that Joseph Smith believed that God had granted Emma the privilege of obtaining if not a civil at least a priesthood "divorce" so she could be sealed "for time" to someone else more capable of giving her the attention she desired and required? However long Emma seemed to entertain this proposal, the revelation seems to confirm that both she and Joseph took it quite seriously and both were tried to the core by it. But if the chronology of the Genesis Apocryphon is correct, Emma was not subjected to the test to the same degree that Sarah was. Sarah, we are told, resisted Pharaoh's entreaties even though she was his guest for two years. Emma's call to pass through her sacrifice came only once and for a period of at most a few weeks.

That’s an interesting idea—there is now another speculation on the table. Thanks for quoting this.

This is plausible. In this theory, the original offer was something like, “God commanded me to marry multiple virgins. God says that if you don’t want to be married to somebody like that then you are released from your marital vows and may [specific out here],” and then became, “stay yourself and partake not of [the specific out that was offered]. I told Joseph to make the offer to test you all. You are commanded to receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph. You are commanded to cleave unto my servant Joseph and to none else. If you don’t abide by this commandment you shall be destroyed.”

Highly, highly plausible! Thanks to both of you.

I like it a lot. I think what makes it so plausible is this portion of the Ehat quote:

so she could be sealed "for time" to someone else more capable of giving her the attention she desired and required

This, it seems to me, is precisely the kind of thing a reasonable woman might consider, and find "tempting", given the highly unusual situation Emma was in.

This brings to mind Bro Holland's talk where he mentioned President Monson's situation, and how he was called to the apostleship at age 36, and how his family essentially lost him for 50 years (so far) after that, and that of course does not include the family demands of polygamy.

We can pretend to understand Joseph's motives, but there is no way we can even imagine them I am sure. None of us has ever experienced even remotely anything like his life

[Maidservant]

I am desperately trying to find an article I once knew about that discusses Sarah as a princess and as a wife of three husbands, but I don't know if I will be successful.

In any case, with just the record we now have, it may be important to acknowledge that Sarah WAS legally married to all three men (Abraham, Pharoah and Abimelech; the fact that she was Abraham's wife would not have stopped them from taking her as wife, only thinking of Abraham as her brother spared his life), and it was by her marriages to these other two men that Abraham's (and Sarah's) material wealth and worldly status were expanded.