ALarson Posted March 22, 2016 Posted March 22, 2016 (edited) 8 minutes ago, JLHPROF said: Joseph may have been arrested on charges of polygamy, but he never broke the law in his polygamy. He was only ever legally married to Emma. So, then was he committing adultery? How do you get around that being the case, when the definition of adultery is a married person having relations with someone they are not legally married to? Edited March 22, 2016 by ALarson
JLHPROF Posted March 22, 2016 Posted March 22, 2016 Just now, ALarson said: So, then was he committing adultery? How do you get around that when the definition is when a married person is having relations with someone they are not legally married to? I would think that either he was truly married to these plural wives or he was committing adultery (with those that he consummated the marriage). I would be willing to concede that according to the laws of the land, Joseph's plural marriages were adulterous, which was probably illegal at the time. But not in the eyes of God. Separate your views of legal/civil marriage from your views of priesthood marriage/sealings as authorized by God. Quit mixing them together and you will see perfectly. 2
HappyJackWagon Posted March 22, 2016 Posted March 22, 2016 4 minutes ago, JLHPROF said: I would be willing to concede that according to the laws of the land, Joseph's plural marriages were adulterous, which was probably illegal at the time. But not in the eyes of God. Separate your views of legal/civil marriage from your views of priesthood marriage/sealings as authorized by God. Quit mixing them together and you will see perfectly. The early saints ardently claimed that they did NOT practice polygamy and technically they were right because there were no legal marriages to multiple partners. This is why they felt they could deny the charges of polygamy and have statements like the D&C 101:4 denouncing polygamy as a practice. They practiced "celestial plural marriage". So if God authorized the celestial plural marriage I don't think God would be considering the unions adulterous even if the civil authorities would. So it all comes down to whether or not God authorized the behavior. 2
JLHPROF Posted March 22, 2016 Posted March 22, 2016 Just now, HappyJackWagon said: So it all comes down to whether or not God authorized the behavior. Which D&C 132 does. And I don't see how we have any justification for denouncing D&C 132 as some have done (while keeping eternal marriage) and claiming all the other D&C revelations are still true. They all came the same way through the same man claiming the same source. There is nothing to make D&C 132 less valid than any other canonized revelation. 2 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said: The early saints ardently claimed that they did NOT practice polygamy and technically they were right because there were no legal marriages to multiple partners. This is why they felt they could deny the charges of polygamy and have statements like the D&C 101:4 denouncing polygamy as a practice. They practiced "celestial plural marriage". So if God authorized the celestial plural marriage I don't think God would be considering the unions adulterous even if the civil authorities would. So it all comes down to whether or not God authorized the behavior. We will never understand what happened in Nauvoo until we completely separate our thinking on their civil marriages from our discussions of their sealings. As long as we keep the two together we will only see contradiction and confusion and the questions will continue. As a result I have no personal questions about "polyandry" and "illegal" and "raising seed" and "sealing keys" etc. I recognize that others do and I totally understand where that comes from.
Tacenda Posted March 22, 2016 Posted March 22, 2016 2 hours ago, thesometimesaint said: A Sealing is not a marriage. Well that would be news to the wives.
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