Joseph Smih And Flaming Sword

[blackstrap]

A person comes to confront me with an AK47. He says ," You must take a knife and cut your wife's heart out . If you don't,I will kill you! "

I might be able to summon the courage to say to him what one early church brother said, ' Shoot and be damned '

Joseph could have stood up to the angel and there might have been a different outcome. Why did he not?

I can think of a couple of reasons. One of which might have been the absolute assurance that the 'practise' was God's will.

[MormonMason]

Can't really interpret your tone here, but you are not arguing that Joseph did not have access to a KJV bible, are you?

Ummm... Actually, he did not have a Bible at that time in Harmony, Pennsylvania. (He did not take the Smith family Bible with him when he moved to Harmony). Whenever he needed one to settle an argument he had to have someone go get one from a neighbor down the road. The rest of the time he wasn't taking a break from translating he had his head buried in a hat, excluding all light and precluding him from reading anything. All eyewitnesses are unanimous that he also had no books or manuscripts of any kind during that time. That includes the Bible (which is a book, after all).

He did not buy one of his own until he bought one in company with Oliver Cowdery on October 8, 1829. The Book of Mormon was already finished months before and was being furnished to the printer a few pages at a time.

Just saying...

Edited September 14, 2012 by MormonMason

[why me]

'

Joseph could have stood up to the angel and there might have been a different outcome. Why did he not?

I can think of a couple of reasons. One of which might have been the absolute assurance that the 'practise' was God's will.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. If Joseph discontinued the practice because of the mess that it caused with emma and fanny and then several years later he was warned about discontinuing it by an angel, I think that he had to do what he needed to do for the church. Remember that it wasn't only Joseph who was practicing polygamy. He also taught the principle to others. It was not a joseph only commandment. It was a commandment for the church.

Here is what is taught in seminary:

Moreover, Joseph Smith and the Church were to accept the principle of plural marriage as part of the restoration of all things (see v. 45). Accustomed to conventional marriage patterns, the Prophet was at first understandably reluctant to engage in this new practice. Due to a lack of historical documentation, we do not know what his early attempts were to comply with the commandment in Ohio. His first recorded plural marriage in Nauvoo was to Louisa Beaman; it was performed by Bishop Joseph B. Noble on 5 April 1841. ¹² During the next three years Joseph took additional plural wives in accordance with the Lord’s commands.

As members of the Council of the Twelve Apostles returned from their missions to the British Isles in 1841, Joseph Smith taught them one by one the doctrine of plurality of wives, and each experienced some difficulty in understanding and accepting this doctrine. ¹³ Brigham Young, for example, recounted his struggle: “I was not desirous of shrinking from any duty, nor of failing in the least to do as I was commanded, but it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time. And when I saw a funeral, I felt to envy the corpse its situation, and to regret that I was not in the coffin.” ¹⁴

http://seminary.lds....ft-16-20-20.asp

chapter 19, section: Revelations on Marriage.

Edited September 14, 2012 by why me

[why me]

Apologists sometimes claim that plural marriage was a periphery of celestial marriage. Zina's statement and sermons like Orson Pratt's suggest that celestial marriage = plural marriage.

If you look at the seminary manual I posted above, it was in accordance with the restoration of all things. We can leave that up for interpretation.

[MormonMason]

The revelation of Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants is itself at least bi-partite (if not tri-partite) in structure. The first of the sections of the revelation, after the revelation's introductory piece in the first person of the Lord, speaks in terms of "a wife," repeatedly in the singular. This continues until verse 27. Then, in verse 28, the section begins to speak in terms of "the law of my Holy Priesthood" and begins to explain plural marriage as part of that law. I see no reason why an interpretation of two things cannot be valid. For those who were commanded to practice plural marriage, it was part and parcel of celestial marriage. For those who weren't, it wasn't. There are, in fact, statements by the leaders of the Church in various places from that period that even those with one wife who were prevented from taking others for varying reasons could still receive their exaltation and leave it to the Lord to adjust.

Incidentally, some years back someone I know did a private stylometric analysis of Section 132. He never intended to publish the thing but only did it for his own amusement. He wanted to see whether or not Brigham Young came up with this revelation or whether Joseph Smith did or if it matched up with other sections of the Doctrine and Covenants that also match up with the Christ of the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

It did not match Brigham Young or Joseph Smith, but did match the Christ of the Book of Mormon and the Bible. I have seen the chart he wrote out after the analysis (this was before personal computers and personal printers and he did not have access to a computer at the time anyway). After all the word counts were done he plotted the results by hand on graphing paper. The results were worlds apart, with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, separate and distinct on one side, and Section 132, the Book of Mormon Christ, and the Bible Christ all clustered together on the other side.

Based upon that preliminary analysis it appeared to show that Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants was written by the same author, Christ. I just thought I would toss that one in for fun for those who have their doubts about the actual source of that revelation.

Edited September 14, 2012 by MormonMason

[Tacenda]

The revelation of Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants is itself at least bi-partite (if not tri-partite) in structure. The first of the sections of the revelation, after the revelation's introductory piece in the first person of the Lord, speaks in terms of "a wife," repeatedly in the singular. This continues until verse 27. Then, in verse 28, the section begins to speak in terms of "the law of my Holy Priesthood" and begins to explain plural marriage as part of that law. I see no reason why an interpretation of two things cannot be valid. For those who were commanded to practice plural marriage, it was part and parcel of celestial marriage. For those who weren't, it wasn't. There are, in fact, statements by the leaders of the Church in various places from that period that even those with one wife who were prevented from taking others for varying reasons could still receive their exaltation and leave it to the Lord to adjust.

Incidentally, some years back someone I know did a private stylometric analysis of Section 132. He never intended to publish the thing but only did it for his own amusement. He wanted to see whether or not Brigham Young came up with this revelation or whether Joseph Smith did or if it matched up with other sections of the Doctrine and Covenants that also match up with the Christ of the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

It did not match Brigham Young or Joseph Smith, but did match the Christ of the Book of Mormon and the Bible. I have seen the chart he wrote out after the analysis (this was before personal computers and personal printers and he did not have access to a computer at the time anyway). After all the word counts were done he plotted the results by hand on graphing paper. The results were worlds apart, with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, separate and distinct on one side, and Section 132, the Book of Mormon Christ, and the Bible Christ all clustered together on the other side.

Based upon that preliminary analysis it appeared to show that Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants was written by the same author, Christ. I just thought I would toss that one in for fun for those who have their doubts about the actual source of that revelation.

Please CFR where it's a commandment to live polygamy in the bible. Just because some chose to take concubines it wasn't a commandment. Also, Joseph went to the Lord first with it, thinking all things needed to be restored. The Lord didn't bring it to him first.

Edited September 14, 2012 by Tacenda

[MormonMason]

Please CFR where it's a commandment to live polygamy in the bible. Just because some chose to take concubines it wasn't a commandment. Also, Joseph went to the Lord first with it, thinking all things needed to be restored. The Lord didn't bring it to him first.

You won't find a written revelation of this nature in our current Bibles and I never said that the Bible has one. Please try to read my post a little more carefully. All I said was that the same Christ in the Bible was the author of the Christ parts in the Book of Mormon and also was the same author of Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Well, at least that is what the analysis showed when I saw it all those years ago.

But, the Bible does legislate for plural marriage and gives laws governing the practice among them thereof. See, for example, Exodus 21:10. See also Deuteronomy 21:15-17 for laws governing inheritance for those with two wives. Importantly, there is in that same last chapter I gave specific legislation and revelation for the taking of concubines. See verses 10-14 of chapter 21 of Deuteronomy. Now, as you do that, notice the "thou shalt" statements in those verses. In point of fact, some of these women who would be among the captives would already be married. That would be inevitable if they did not wipe out every male in the city and elsewhere who might have been married to the women. There are more examples but I do not at the moment recall where they are. I think this should be sufficient for the purposes intended.

Now, as to whether a commandment was given to biblical characters, now that we are on that subject, it is rather convoluted to follow but not all commands have to be written or even given expressly to the person involved. You might think that strange but there is an example in the Bible of such kind of command to do something. Funny thing was, the person who was to be commanded had no idea about the commandment until the prophet showed up and asked her for something to eat. The Lord had told Elijah, however, that he had commanded a lady to feed him. But, as I said, she seemed to have had no idea what he was talking about when he approached her. See 1 Kings 17:8-16. Pay especial attention to verse 9 and compare that carefully with verses 12-15 in that same passage of scripture. If she had known about the command, she would have said something, greeted the man, and told him that the Lord had given her a commandment, don't you think?

So, what we have is that a command was given by the Lord but the person commanded had no idea at the time of the command. Another example of a similar use can be seen in 2 Kings 24:3. There the text stated that the Lord commanded that Judah be taken out of his sight by the Babylonians. Perhaps a better rendering in English might be "decreed" but that is not what the Hebrew says. Following the argument so far?

Now, what does the Lord do in the case of Sarah and Abraham? Well, he says in Section 132:34-35 that he commanded Sarah to give Hagar to Abraham. The Bible, of course, seems to be silent as to that commandment. Could this be a case of commandment by decree?

Now, before I continue I need to ask you whether you have ever heard of the Nuzi Texts? Have you ever read any of them? If not, you should. They are law codes from the region near where Abraham and Sarah lived before they were married. In these law codes, provision is made that if the first wife does not bear children within a certain amount of time that the wife would be required to give to her husband another wife so that she and he could have a child by the plural wife. Marriage contracts also at times had these provisions in them that the wife had to agree to before the marriage could proceed. (I found that interesting in light of the phrase "because this was the law" in Doctrine and Covenants 132:34; compare 132:65). It was also in fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham about him being the father of many nations. Do you think a monogamous marriage was going to bring this about in a timely manner?

But, what happened to Sarah? Do you think the Lord knew about that law of the land about requiring plural marriage in the event of childlessness? But what does the Lord do to Sarah that would force her hand and cause her to offer Abraham her maid? He restrains her from bearing (Genesis 16:2). But, how did she know that it was the Lord who had restrained her from bearing? So, if we took the Bible alone, we might see this as another example of commandment by decree. Or, not.

This is where it gets interesting! Josephus, the Jewish Historian, had a different version of the Bible than we do today. His Bible flat out stated that God commanded Sarah to give Hagar to Abraham. He so states that God commanded Sarah to give Abraham another wife. Josephus in his history stated elsewhere that he was getting his information about the earlier period from the "Sacred Writings." Don't believe it? See Josephus, Antiquities 1:187 (Whiston translation reference is 1.10.4). So, it is quite probable that his Bible contained that information that our Bibles now lack.

You will also notice that Abraham then marries a concubine after Sarah dies. (See Genesis 25:1 and 1 Chronicles 1:32). He also had other concubines, too, though they are unnamed. See Genesis 25:6. But, what were concubines? They were secondary wives. You will also find it of interest that in the Bible there were women who considered themselves blessed by God because they gave their husbands additional wives. One example of that can be seen in Genesis 30:18. Be aware that our English translations euphemize the passage. The ancient Latin, Greek and Syriac versions of the Bible state that the sense of the Hebrew of the passage means: "...God has rewarded me because I have given my maid to my husband..."

Finally, you are also mistaken about Joseph going to the Lord first. That is not entirely true. It is apparent that you were unaware of the 1831 revelation on plural marriage that was given before Section 132. Several of the men in a company of men, were told about a revelation that the time would come when these men should take women as wives from among the Native Americans in the area of Kirtland.

When several of the men asked him about it he told them that it would involve having more wives than one. This was all detailed in a letter, including the entire text of the 1831 revelation. Ezra Booth knew about it, too. He blabbed about it when he went apostate. Unfortunately, I do not have access to my notes at the moment so I cannot give you the text of the letter and the exact information about Ezra Booth. I'll have to get to that later, if you are insistent on my providing it. Or, you can do your own research and find the material for yourself. No sense waiting for me to get back, look through my papers, and so forth. The information is not easy to obtain in all its parts but it is available and part of it is in the public domain.

It was when he was reading the Bible during the translation of the Bible that he came across passages regarding plural marriages in the Old Testament and he was curious, so he asked the Lord about it. But, he had already known about the principle since 1831 and an apostate was a witness to it and spoke of it in public. That was, in fact, where the rumor talk began to come into the Kirtland area regarding plural marriages at so early a date.

Edited September 14, 2012 by MormonMason

[Calm]

Being threatened with a sword is a very powerful threat. We also need to remember that swords were also used at that time in the army. Many people died by the sword in the civil war.

http://www.johnnyg.w...rds-usa-cw.html

http://www.atlantacu...er-weapons.aspx

People still threatened others with knifes all the time, think how much more impressive would be a sword. Samurai and Highlander movies are not about the clothing or accents. There is something very visually intimidating about facing a sword.

[rodheadlee]

Doesn't it seem odd though that a sword would be used by angels to emphasize a point in the mid 19th century? During Biblical times since this would have been a common weapon at that time, its understandable that a sword would have been the most recognizable weapon to symbolize the severity of the message or warning. In other words, an angels weapon of choice so to speak just so happens to coincide with common weapons of the time. Would an angel carrying a gun be more appropriate? Would that be weirder or less believable of a story than appearing with a sword?

Just a random thought...

No, I've only met 2 angels and they were both packing swords, in the 21st century. I believe they were riding horses too. Which I thought was the strange part. The memory is a little fuzzy as it was over 20 years ago. So I guess that would be the 20th century.

Edited September 14, 2012 by rodheadlee

[mrmendoza]

Hi Why Me,

I don't think you are representing the criticism very well -- at least for a big chunk of critics. The criticism isn't that an angel with a sword appeared to JS. The criticism is that the angel/sword story is very convenient. Especially when you are trying to convince others that your out-of-the-norm practice is a divine edict, non-observance of which will have deadly consequences. They see it as a made up story for purposes of manipulating believers. Other religious leaders have used similar tactics to engage in abnormal sexual arrangements and so I think critics are trying to lump JS in with this wider group. Personally, I think JS was sincere in his practice of polygamy and thought it was the right thing to do. I don't see JS as a fraud.

I suppose some EV critics may object to the angel story on a Biblical basis but since many critics today hold secular views, I don't think this represents the thrust of their criticism.

Seth

not too long ago a guy I was talking to about the Church said that he thought it wasy convenient that Joesph had a

revelation

that allowed him to have a bunch of wives. I pointed out to him that the revelation was in reality a great inconvenience, in that if JS was just looking to have an, or multiple, affaire's he could of just sneeked around like most other men in his position have been known to do. But to try to

conviently

make it a revelation created a much more difficult situation for him, and was instrumental in getting him killed! Pluse when you read about how difficult the

principle

was to live you'll see that it was not convenient at all1

[mrmendoza]

not too long ago a guy I was talking to about the Church said that he thought it wasy convenient that Joesph had a

that allowed him to have a bunch of wives. I pointed out to him that the revelation was in reality a great inconvenience, in that if JS was just looking to have an, or multiple, affaire's he could of just sneeked around like most other men in his position have been known to do. But to try to make it a revelation created a much more difficult situation for him, and was instrumental in getting him killed! Pluse when you read about how difficult the was to live you'll see that it was not convenient at all1

Sorry about the way my last post turned out! It's been a long time since I posted anything and the new format is a bit confusing to someone as computer -illerite as me! I tried modifying it but I couldnt figure that out either! I hope that you all will be able to figure out what I was trying to say. I have to go somewere now but I hope to rejoin you somete later today or tommorow.

Mike

[Calm]

No, I've only met 2 angels and they were both packing swords, in the 21st century. I believe they were riding horses too. Which I thought was the strange part. The memory is a little fuzzy as it was over 20 years ago. So I guess that would be the 20th century.

Swords are much more formal than guns, don't you think. They still use them in formal military ceremonies. I see Joseph's encounter with the angel as a quite formal occasion, not just a casual 'hey, I was in the area so I thought I'd drop by' kind of thing.

[Tacenda]

I don't believe in a God that would approach anyone to take wives of other men. JS was mistaken in this regard. Like it's said over and over again, prophets weren't perfect.

[Calm]

So his comment about a visit from an angel commanding him was a delusion or a lie or what? The revelation of Sec 132 is what?

Edited September 14, 2012 by calmoriah

[Tacenda]

So his comment about a visit from an angel commanding him was a delusion or a lie or what? The revelation of Sec 132 is what?

He was commanded to live polygamy. But did it go into taking other men's wives also? I think not.

[Tacenda]

So his comment about a visit from an angel commanding him was a delusion or a lie or what? The revelation of Sec 132 is what?

And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood-if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.

62 And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.

[Calm]

Not really an answer, but the one prior to it where you limited the mistake if I am reading you rightly to the sealing with women previously married makes sense anyway.

PS: The whole "other men's wives" and harping on the men being sent on missions or whatever treats the women like mindless possessions of their husbands who couldn't make up their own minds and succumbed to the influence of Joseph Smith because their husbands weren't there to protect them or convince them otherwise. Doesn't work for me after reading actual comments of the women describing their experiences with spiritual witnesses etc.

Edited September 14, 2012 by calmoriah

[why me]

I don't believe in a God that would approach anyone to take wives of other men. JS was mistaken in this regard. Like it's said over and over again, prophets weren't perfect.

None of these women felt used or abused by Joseph Smith. I think that there was much more going on than we know about. I see it more like family dynasties and I don't think that he was mistaken in what he did. And I am in no position to judge something that I know little about. Unfortunately, I wasn't there at that time.

[cinepro]

No the angel had to stop his hand. Isaac was a teenager. At least that is what my HP group theorizes.

Scholars in Ancient Hebrew theorize that Isaac couldn't have been a teenager, else the angel wouldn't have had time to "stop his hand".

[cinepro]

None of these women felt used or abused by Joseph Smith. I think that there was much more going on than we know about. I see it more like family dynasties and I don't think that he was mistaken in what he did. And I am in no position to judge something that I know little about. Unfortunately, I wasn't there at that time.

When you say "none of these women" are you including Sarah Pratt and Nancy Rigdon? How big is the sample size?

[why me]

When you say "none of these women" are you including Sarah Pratt and Nancy Rigdon? How big is the sample size?

Nancy said no to his request. And nothing happened to her. However, i have no idea if she stayed in the church. And I do not believe that sarah pratt was a plural wife of Joseph.