D&C 132 Contradicts Jacob 2.

April 4, 2005

MoFool,

I appreciate that you are willing to examine the flow and details of the text and take these into account in your interpretation. I hope to get back to responding to you shortly.

Don

Brackite · April 4, 2005

Confidential Informant WROTE:

Aside from the fact that you've created an unsupportable bifurcation here, I'm curious because you seem to be more concerned about the law of the land than about anything else. For example, if Illinois had had no law regarding bigamy, would still say that Smith hadn't commited adultery?

Yes, because Joseph Smith married the wives of other men. JS married at least eight or nine women who were already legally married to other men. Did JS have sexual relations with any of these women? There is a little bit of evidence that he had sexual relations with at least two of these women who were already married to other men. Brigham Young also ended up marrying Henry Jacobs legal wife like Joseph Smith did before. Brigham Young did have sexual relations with Zina Huntington Jacobs (Smith), which proves that BY was guilty of adultery. BY and Zina had a daughter together. I do Not believe that most of the men within the territory of Utah during the 1800 hundreds were guilty of the sin of adultery like JS and BY were, when they practiced plural marriage. Nearly all of these men did Not marry the wives of other men. Most of these men were good and honorable men.

Brackite · April 4, 2005

Hello auteur55,

So Brackbite you accept the validity of the Book of Mormon but you believe that Joseph was a "fallen prophet" like many of the early bretheren? So much for the statement that the lord "will never let the Prophet lead the church astray" seems like Joseph led everyone astray before the Lord could remove him and replace him with an even more Polygamous prophet, Brigham Young. Or are you saying the church, that was supposed to be the restitution of all things, slid into apostasy due to Josephs indiscretions? If we come to believe that Joseph was in fact an adulterer and a liar should we logically denounce the Book of mormon as well? Hmmm...quoting a line from the film Being John Malkovich..."do you see what a metaphysical can of worms this is?"

The phrase,

Confidential Informant · April 4, 2005

Yes, because Joseph Smith married the wives of other men. JS married at least eight or nine women who were already legally married to other men. Did JS have sexual relations with any of these women? There is a little bit of evidence that he had sexual relations with at least two of these women who were already married to other men. Brigham Young also ended up marrying Henry Jacobs legal wife like Joseph Smith did before. Brigham Young did have sexual relations with Zina Huntington Jacobs (Smith), which proves that BY was guilty of adultery. BY and Zina had a daughter together. I do Not believe that most of the men within the territory of Utah during the 1800 hundreds were guilty of the sin of adultery like JS and BY were, when they practiced plural marriage. Nearly all of these men did Not marry the wives of other men. Most of these men were good and honorable men.

Interesting. You seem to have coined your own definition of "adultery". Under your version, it appears that adultery only occurs when a married man sleeps w/ another women, not his wife, who is also married. Is that correct?

Upon what do you base this new definition besides your obvious dislike for Smith and Young?

And what about the question of intent? You seem to assign a nefarious intent to Smith and Young in their relationships (at least in their relationships with other married women) but you appear to arbitrarily assign a non-nefarious, completely innocent intent to their folowers, especially those who practiced plural marriage in Utah after the exodus westward.

I'm curious as to how you support this seemingly new definition. To my knowledge, "adultery" has always been characterized as a married man who has sexual relations with another women not his wife. In that case, the man committed adultery and the woman committed fornication.

Since this would seem to be the pattern followed by vast majority of practioners in Utah, I fail to see how you cannot hold them equally culpable of adultery. Unless, of course, you base your defintion of adultery on the "intent" of the practioners. You seem to indicate that since the Utah followers had no lascivious intent, they were not guilty of adultery. In whose eyes? In the eyes of the State they surely were.

Morever, I fail to see your basis for assigning such ulterior motives to Smith and Young and not to their subsequent followers. I've read the extant accounts and I've read several of the scholars views on these accounts. To person, they almost all agree that Smith practiced plural marriage in accordance with a genuine religious belief.

So, where do you get your contrary information that allows you to assign their actions to a mere carnal desire?

C.I.

My apologies to Onandogus if this post is worse than worthless.

April 4, 2005

Ben:
Third, there is any number of ways to deal with Jacob 2:24. No matter how you want to read it, the Lord didn't actually speak to the people. Jacob did. If, for example, Jacob was prefacing a quotation from Deuteronomy which he believed came from God through Moses, then his "thus saith the Lord" is completely reasonable even though he himself was not the oracle.

Don:

But in Jacob 2, vs. 24 is not used to preface a quotation from Deuteronomy; nor does the text offer any justification for the removal of a such a quotation. The ideas from vs. 23f are, as has been discussed, chained together in a logical flow.

Jacob 2 straightforwardly presents vs. 24 as part of a "thus saith the Lord" revelation. A reading that requires an understanding fundamentally at odds with this presentation should be suspect for that very reason.

April 4, 2005

MoFool,

I appreciate that you took the time and effort to show how much of Jacob 2 fits together on your reading. I have never seen anyone taking the standard interpretation of verse 30 make this kind of effort. So, thanks. I'll offer my critique below.

23 But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people [speaking of the Nephites between 544 and 421 B.C.] begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.

I've offered in other posts my reasons for believing this was part of a revelation to Lehi and that those criticized here were the Jerusalem Jews.

A particular problem I see here is for the coherence of verses 23-25. WHY would the behavior of either the later Nephites (as you read vs. 23 as referring to) or of monarchs of several centuries earlier (vs. 24) be the reason God would need to lead away the Lehites in order to raise up a righteous seed (vs. 25)?

24 Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable [in some cases, as explained later] before me, saith the Lord.

What cases? This isn't explained later. Nor is this what the grammar of the passage denotes.

If your explanation is that the text is saying polygamy is abominable when God commands otherwise, as in the commandment to the Lehites in Jacob 2:27 and 3:5:

1) why is no such explanation made in the text?

2) why would David and Solomon's having many wives and concubines have been abominable? were they under the Jacob 2:27 commandment?

25 Wherefore, [Why the logical connector? The Jerusalem environment was unconducive for raising a righteous nation] thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.

God wanted the Lehites to raise up a posterity to Himself - it says so here - and, therefore, He had them practice monogamy (Jacob 2:25-27; 1 Nephi 7, 17). There is something God commands His people when He wants them to raise up seed to Him, as He wanted the Lehites to do (vs. 30). And the thing we see Him commanding them to do for this purpose is to be monogamous (vs. 27).

26 Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old. [because in Jacob's audience's situation polygamy was not conducive to righteous posterity.]

In Jacob 1:15 were told that David "of old" and Solomon his son had "many wives and concubines," a fact reiterated in Jacob 2:23. The likely allusion here is, therefore, to the kings of old, David and Solomon, whose having many wives and concubines had just been declared a "thing" which was "abominable" before God. The natural reading then is not that polygamy is unconducive to raising up a righteous posterity among the Lehites for situational reasons but because polygamy was inherently bad and hence abominable before God. There is nothing here to suggest that a righteous seed can be raised up by polygamy; and there is nothing to explain why Jacob's audience would be exceptional in their ability to raise seed (or not) by polygamy.

Also, confining this to "Jacob's audience" is mistaken, since the monogamy commandment was given to Lehi for all his posterity (2:34; 3:5) so that they could raise up a righteous seed to God (2:25-26).

[Note: this line of argument has weight because the Lord didn't show mercy in rescuing the Nephites from one bad environment merely to have them disobey him in another ("choice") environment]

Indeed. And the Jerusalem environment was bad for raising up seed partly because the people there sought to justify themselves in having many wives and concubines, a fact indicated by the connection of vs. 25 to 23-24 by "wherefore," but ignored in your reading.

This latter point that you adduce in favor of your reading fits the contrary reading at least as well, and therefore offers no support to yours over and against the other.

27 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;
[Here Jacob lays down a command that the people shall hearken to]

As already discussed, "they shall" in the book as a whole does not indicate that what follows is a commandment. Overwhelmingly, "they shall" is descriptive. So, if the commandmens in verse 27 were "these things" that "shall" be hearkened to, this would almost certainly mean "they *will* hearken to these things." Do they? In Jacob 3, Jacob tells his people that if they persist in dabbling in polygamy, God will lead out the righteous from among him - which later happens. And the Book of Mosiah represents King Noah and his priests as having many wives and concubines and as leading the people into iniquity by their example. It hardly seems to be the case that the people do as predicted if "these things" in verse 30 refers to the commandments of verse 27. But, then, if we read the phrase "they shall" in verse 30 inconsistently with its usage in the book as a whole, we can sidestep this problem - and our best evidence for how the phrase should be read.

28 For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.
[ God gets upset when people violate "chastity" and commit "whoredoms" as defined by his commandments.]

It was "whoredoms" that the people were attempting to justify in vs. 23 by appealing to the examples of David and Solomon, whose behavior of having many wives and concubines was "abominable." Now in vs. 28 God indicates that he requires the people to have one wife and no concubines because he loves chastity and hates whoredoms. Having many wives and concubines - which means having more than one wife and having any concubines is a whoredom. And it is not a whoredom because God forbids it, but, rather, the direction of the logic in 27-28 is that God forbids it because it is a whoredom.

29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.
[Wherefore - i.e., because He is concerned about raising a righteous posterity and is un-delighted when chastity is violated, he will enforce his recently re-issued command through a curse]

Agreed.

Interestingly, here we have a third-person use of "shall": "this people shall keep my commandments." This usage, however, is not imperative and fits the OED usage in which "shall" is used to communicate what will or will not be allowed - i.e., God will not allow the Lehites to have many wives and concubines without serious consequence - the cursing of the land against them.

As another interesting side note, this revelation repeatedly uses "thus saith the Lord of Hosts," which is characteristic of many parts of the Bible but uncharacteristic of the Book of Mormon, being used elsewhere in the book only by Samuel the Lamanite and in Bible quotations. This suggests that the revelation may have been dictated in a setting closer to the world of the Bible (e.g., by Lehi in the Old World) or may rely on a generally unrecognized biblical text. Notably, Deuteronomy 17 (and the rest of that book) lack the phrase, while a Hebrew

Bible passage commonly used as a Christian anti-polygamy proof-text uses it frequently and also shares several more exact connections with Jacob 2.

30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.
["For..." - here He is laying out the general principle on which the above is based. If He finds polygamy to be a better way of raising righteous posterity in some exceptional situations and so wills it, He will issue a new command, otherwise the standing commandment is to practice monogamy like He just gave in v. 27. ]

Hm. Interesting. I've never seen "my people" here taken as limited to the Nephites. Latter-day Saints have overwhelmingly taken the passage as saying that monogamy was the rule for God's people in general (not just the Nephites) and polygamy the exception for when God wants to "raise up seed" to Himself.

Yours makes a more interesting and in some ways more tenable reading. If verse 30 truly states a general principle for God's people that God commands [some X, presumably] when He wants to raise up seed to Himself, and if in the Lehites specific case He commanded monogamy, then it seems to follow that the X God commands when He wants to raise up seed to Himself is monogamy. But if verse 30 is read (per your reading) as having explicit reference to the Nephites/Lehites, then it could also be read (per your reading) as stating that God will command the Nephites/Lehites some other X (something besides verse 27) in order to raise up seed to Himself.

This reading is not, however, without serious problems. For instance, there is simply no indication here that God is talking about what He would command in order to raise up seed in a different way than He already is. The straightforward reading, which doesn't add any qualifiers not already present in the text, is that it's talking about God choosing to raise up seed to Himself in the first place, not about His imposing a new method of doing so. And the "otherwise" clause, taken straightforwardly, describes what the people do when God does not elect to issue a commandment by which to raise up seed to Himself.

The reading also multiplies uses of the notion of commandment in text. Outside this verse, people are commanded, in the revelation and its explication, to practice monogamy - that's how "command"/"commanded"/"commandments(s)" are used. Your reading introduces an otherwise novel and contrary usage - and when this is unnecessary: The Lehites are raising up seed to God (25, 1 N 7, 17), and they are doing it by a commandment (27) just referenced (29) and logically related to this verse by "for" (30). Given that the Lehites were raising up seed to God by what He did "command" just prior to this, there is no need to posit another, contrary practice God would command in order to achieve this very thing. Verse 30 works perfectly as an explanation of the general principle on which the commandment preceding it was premised, and this usage accounts also for its use of "for." There is simply no reason in the text to introduce a second thing God commands in order to raise up seed. The one already in play in the text and among the Lehites is sufficient to make sense of the text. It is, therefore, most parsimonious to posit that the text makes only one consistent use of the idea of commandment and speaks of only one way God raises up seed to Himself.

Further, that polygamy is not how God raises up seed to Himself is implied by the logical connection of verse 25 to what precedes it - God leads the people out of Jerusalem to raise up seed to Himself because of the polygamy there (unless of course you read it as saying He leads them out because of polygamy among *future* Nephites) - and further implied in His commanding monogamy because he wanted to raise up seed to Himself (25-27).

And, finally, unfortunately for this reading, it is followed by text that suggests verse 30 is a general principle for God's people, not a specific application to the Nephites or Lehites:

30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.

31 For behold, I the Lord have seen the sorrow and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people, in the land of Jerusalem; yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands.

If verse 30 concerns only the Lehites and the commandments to them, it's odd that the reason given for this here is the behavior of the men of His people at Jerusalem and in all their lands.

And while "people" is used with some inconsistency in the revelation, the use of "my people" in verse 31 and its logical link back to the usage in verse 30 would most naturally suggest that "my people" in verse 31 (Israel as a whole) is the same group referred to in verse 30 - i.e., that verse 30 is a general principle applying to more than just the Lehites. And in this case, the polygamy-exception reading of the text suffers all the problems discussed above.

I apologize for becoming a bit less coherent here at the end. My brain is tired.

While thus far I haven't agreed with any of your novel readings of the text, I do appreciate the opportunity to be exposed to such readings. This helps me to sharpen my own thinking and explore possibilities I may later conclude have validity. Thanks MoFool.

Don Bradley

April 5, 2005

Hi Ben

- if you're still around.

As a tangent to this discussion, I'm curious if you've noticed or addressed the fact that the proscriptions of Deuteronomy 17 are targeted (posthumously, of course) at King Solomon. And I'd be curious to see how you see this as bearing on (what you see as) the Jacob 2 application of Deuteronomy 17 to Solomon.

BTW, I will be looking forward to what you have to send. Do you still have my address?

Don

April 5, 2005

My goodness, you guys go on with so much verbose intellectual crap. How about just addressing the original post and just giving some STRAIGHT answers?
Stop playing mind games with each other!
Good night.

BTW, Ray, since I was on one side of this discussion and didn't perceive myself to be playing mind games, I wasn't really happy with this comment. The meaning of a complex text like that of Jacob 2 is encoded in a myriad of details. To ignore these is to miss that meaning.

Don

April 5, 2005

Ben, you'll be shocked to know that...I approach this differently! :-)

First, a text needs to be interpreted primarily on its own internal evidence. In reading a text, the main thing to be sought is internal coherence (see the work of Wolfgang Iser). And it especially makes particular sense to read a text on its internal evidence when its context is disputed or unclear. Hence...

Second, we don't and can't know the exact texts that would have been familiar to the author. Many argue that, appearances to the contrary, Jacob 2 cannot say that David and Solomon sinned in their polygamous lifestyle because this contradicts the legal texts and deuteronomic history, which both allowed polygamy as a general matter and stated that David's wives had been given him by the Lord. The Book of Mormon text is thus made to fit with these other texts. Oddly, this approach overlooks the text of Jacob 2 itself as an indicator of what biblical materials were familiar to the author. Rather than argue, for instance, that verse 24 does not mean what its grammatical structure clearly denotes - that it was the *having* of many wives and concubines that was abominable to God, because this contradicts the biblical text in which the Lord says he had given David his wives, one could argue, with greater force, that Jacob 2:24 evidences that its author was not familiar with this biblical text.

We *don't* have the "brass plates" or exact list of biblical sources as familiar to and interpreted by the author and therefore don't know what they said. We *do* have the Book of Mormon and *do* know what it says - and it represents the polygamy of David, not as divinely authorized, but as divinely denigrated. Therefore, rather than argue from the unknown to the known - from a hypothesis of what biblical texts (other than those cited by him) were familiar to the author of Jacob 2:24 to it the meaning of Jacob 2:24, we can argue from the known to the unknown - from the demonstrable structure of Jacob 2:24 to what other scriptures were familiar to an author who would write in this way.

Third, if we assume that the book can be correctly understood only in the light of the ancient Near East, this makes it comprehensible only to "the learned" - scholars of antiquity, and not to the 19th Century audience foreseen and addressed (sometimes on an individual basis) by its self-described authors and compilers.

<Additionally, in the Kingship codes in Deuteronomy 17, there was a restriction placed on kings:

He [the king] must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.

My interpretation depends in part on the fact that Jacob stresses the numerical number of the wives of David and Solomon. Thus - "David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines".>

Then it depends on a chimera. The text of Jacob 2 doesn't stress the actual *number* of David and Solomon's wives. such thing. It does not state that "David and Solomon had truly many wives and concubines," but rather that they "truly had many wives and concubines." What is emphasized is not the quantity of their concubines and polygamous wives but the reality of their having had them.

Why include verse 24 in the first place? The answer is readily apparent on this latter reading. This verse is a parenthetical note to both acknowledge the historical basis of the people's justification ("David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines") and refute its value as a justification ("which thing was abominable before me"). To paraphrase the text on this reading, then, it says, "The people are trying to use the scriptures about David and Solomon to excuse their own misconduct. (And, yes, they're right that David and Solomon really did have multiple wives and concubines, but this was abominable to me.)"

The value of verse 24 to the revelation's overall argument is very clear on this reading. Why, on your reading, verse 24 would be valuable in putting down Lehite polygamy is not readily apparent. Indeed, verse 24 is actually *counter* to this purpose. Pointing out to would-be polygamists that David and Solomon's wrong was in violating laws that 1) applied only to the kings and 2) forbade having *too* many wives would only serve to *encourage* them since they were neither kings nor attempting (or remotely able) to amass harems on the scale of an oriental monarch.

Divorce also was allowed under the Torah; but this didn't stop Malachi from declaring that God "hateth" it (Malachi 2). And what does it mean from something to be "abominable" to God - precisely for Him to hate it. Polygamy could thus be both permitted under the law and "abominable before" God.

It is also notable that verse 24 does *not* limit the abomination of having "many wives and concubines" to David and Solomon, nor to monarchs as a group. The earliest manuscript of Jacob 2 preserves the reading "which thing *is* abominable before me," not "was":

"David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing is abominable before me."

It is not the case, then, that God merely hates the specific case in which these monarchs had many wives and concubines. God finds the having of many wives and concubines abominable in itself and hates *their* having done so for this reason.

<Further, Lehi, Nephi, Laman, Lemuel, and company, all were raised within this culture which allowed polygamy. So while it is possible, it seems quite unlikely that the polygmay in general of those who practiced it during the patriarchal period, could be considered an abomination.>

This presumes that the point of view offered on polygamy in Lehite revelation matches that of the extant Hebrew Bible or of Jerusalem at the time of Lehi. What, the Book of Mormon can't be iconoclastic? If Lehi fit so well with the Israelite culture of Jerusalem, why did they try to stone him? why did he leave? How typical was the Lehite view of the Messiah, the afterlife, the purpose of the Law...? And if it was atypical of Israelite faith on these major points, why could it not differ on the matter of polygamy?

The Jacob 2 revelation is quite clear that God *dis*approved of the state of marital relations in Jerusalem (vs. 31-32) and led the Lehites out specifically so they would *not* follow that pattern of living, but would, rather, raise up a righteous seed unto Him (25) by monogamy (vs. 27). Also, I have offered a series of arguments that the revelation in Jacob 2:23-33 is that referred to as having been originally received by Lehi (2:34; 3:5), and that verse 23 addresses the behavior of the Jews at Jerusalem (e.g., it's difficult to understand how verse 25 follows from 23-24 unless the polygamy-justifiers in question were the people of Jerusalem - how else could the behavior in verse 23 be of such a time and place as to be a *reason* for God to lead the Lehites away from Jerusalem to raise up posterity to Himself?).

<So, no matter how it is viewed, the notion that the patriarchs committed an abomination in the practice of polygamy is inconsistent with a historical approach to the Book of Mormon. So, we are left with the notion that I introduce, which is that David and Solomon were specifically open to this criticism (and not other prominent polygamous Israelites) because they appeared (at least to Jacob) to be in violation of Mosaic Law.>

And yet if the criticism "by Jacob" (or, more accurately, by revelation to Lehi) of David and Solomon is that their harems were excessive, and that this was forbidden to the kings, that is precisely why this criticism would *not* apply to those he is trying to dissuade from practicing polygamy, who were neither kings nor likely pursuing harems of legendary proportions. Using Deuteronomy 17:17 as his anti-polygamy text would have left him without a valid reason why these non-monarchs couldn't have concubines and at least two wives; while his purpose is to persuade them to have only *one* wife and *no* concubines (Jacob 2:27). Either Jacob/Lehi/God foolishly used texts that undermined his very purpose, or he did not make the allusion and argument you claim.

A fact that weighs in against your "multiplyng wives" reading is that the opposition and juxtaposition in Jacob 2 is not that of "many wives and concubines" and "just a few wives and concubines" but that of "many wives and concubines" and "one wife and concubines...none." The Lord cannot tolerate the Lehites doing "like unto them of old," which context indicates to be "having many wives and concubines" (Jacob 1:15, and the chain of logic from vs. 23 through vs. 26), and *for this reason* confines them to "save it be *one* wife and concubines...*none*" (30).

April 5, 2005

Hey Ben,

Here is more of my response to your Jacob 2 interpretation:

Whereas the purpose of God issuing a commandment in verse 30 is to "raise up seed unto me," which makes it the Levirate only if practiced by one of our Heavenly Uncles after God passes away.

This is inconsistent with the use of the terminology of "raising up" posterity to God elsewhere.

First, we are explicitly told that Lehi's sons were commanded to bring the daughters of Ishmael with them "that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise." So, either the text fails to mention the fact that each of the daughters of Ishmael was actually the widow of an already-deceased son of Lehi, or the language of "raising up seed unto the Lord" refers to raising up posterity to God in righteousness and *not* to the Levirate.

Second, while in Jacob 2:30 God states that *"if"* He wants to raise up seed to Himself He will command his people, five verses earlier He made it clear that this was *exactly* what He wanted to do among the Lehites. Indeed, the very reason He brought them out of Jerusalem, He says, is "that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch" (25). Thus, whatever He *would* command in order to raise up seed to Himself, He *should* have commanded the Lehites. And what He commanded them to this end was to have only one wife and no concubines (25-27).

If, however, raising up posterity to the Lord meant living the Levirate, then, freakishly, per 25 God led the Lehites out of Jerusalem to have them practice the Levirate! *This* was the reason for the Lehite exodus. Then, apparently, having led them far from Jerusalem, God realized that there were no other brothers of theirs in the wilderness that He could kill off in order to have Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi live this law, so He switched to forbidding polygamy (including the Levirate) altogether.

Well, certainly in commanding monogamy through Lehi, God would have overridden biblical injunctions; but this was *so that* He could raise up seed to Himself (Jacob 2:25-27; cf. 1 Nephi 7:1), not something which He in turn had to reverse in order to achieve this.

First, the question is not whether your interpretation is beset by "insurmountable" challenges, but whether it is the most probable intended reading.

Second, it is no simpler to refer to raising up seed to the Lord than to refer to raising up seed to a brother. And if the latter is the familiar language for the idea to be conveyed, using the former complicates and obfuscates rather than simplifying.

Third, this precise language has already been employed by Nephi to refer to what are evidently monogamous first marriages (1 Nephi 7:1-2, cf. 1 Nephi 17).

Fourth, this basic language is used in the same revelation to refer to purpose of the founding of the entire Lehi colony, which purpose was obviously not to fulfill the Levirate (Jacob 2:25).

Fifth, the idea of "raising up seed unto" another is, as you are aware, that of raising up seed who will be the seed *of* that other - the plain reading is thus that raising seed up unto the Lord means raising up seed *for* and therefore *of* the Lord, in the same way that raising up seed to a brother is raising up seed *for* and *of* him. And the idea of seed *of* the Lord is elsewhere employed with specific reference to heirs of salvation (e.g., Mosiah 15).

<Additionally, as Brackite points out, Jacob does in effect say "Thus saith the Lord" - but as I point out, this may be a formulaic introduction to a statement from the Law of Moses.>

No such statement is offered.

And the nature of Jacob 2:23-33 as revelation is made abundantly clear throughout:

23 But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.
24 Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.
25 Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.
26 Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.
27 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;
28 For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.
29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.
30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.
31 For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands.
32 And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people, which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem, shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts.
33 For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction; for they shall not commit whoredoms, like unto them of old, saith the Lord of Hosts.

Note also how Jacob is quite aware of and eager to distinguish between his own words and those of the Lord:

Verse 27 - "Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord"

See above.

Abraham put away Hagar. Yet in Malachi the Lord "hates" putting away.

And, as stated above, the Lehite view on things is often atypical of Israelites. So, why *must* the Lehite view on marriage be typical?

Interesting. And yet while it might not be unreasonable for him to do so, the evidence of the text is that he includes no such caveat, as argued at length in my other posts.

<It also seems to me to be gramatically awkward and logically inconsistent to have God (through Jacob) saying (paraphrased): For if I will raise up seed unto me, I will command my people to practice monogamy; otherwise they shall shall practice polygamy (like David and Solomon).

Why does the failure of God to instruct his people in monogamy automatically guarantee polygamy?>

I fail to see either the awkwardness or the inconsistency. The "otherwise they shall" is a prediction of what the Lord's people will do absent such a commandment - and apparently an accurate one, since the men of the Lord's people in Jerusalem and in "all the lands of their inheritance" fell into such abominations (vs. 31-32) and even the Lehites who *had* received this commandment were tempted in that direction (Jacob 1:15).

The inconsistency would be in having the text say "they shall" here as an imperative when this is not how it uses the phrase elsewhere, in having the text invoke the notion of commandment here to refer to polygamy when elsewhere in the revelation it uses it exclusively to refer to monogamy, in having "raise up seed unto" the Lord here refer to the Levirate when elsewhere it refers to Lehi's sons raising up righteous children for God, etc., etc., etc.

<Finally, D&C 132 is concerned with an entirely different issue. Taken at face value, I see them as bein contradictory. In fact, no matter how you look at it, if you presume that Deuteronomy 17 existed at the time of David and Solomon, then they were clearly in violation of it. This was enough of an issue that later Judaism responded to it by claiming that it was unavailable at the time of David and Solomon (I can provide references to this later if you want). <My response is that it simply didn't exist at the time of David and Solomon - although for Jacob, who viewed Deuteronomy (as it existed in the Brass Plates) as the writings of Moses, it had to exist at the time of David and Solomon.>

Entirely speculative, since 1) you don't know what scriptures were familiar to the author, and 2) there is no reference to Deuteronomy 17 here that would be clear to a dispassionate observer.

<So, while an approach which accepts Deuteronomy as a work of Moses, or which accepts Jacob uncritically as wholly inspired, would still contain the contradiction, I don't accept either premise. And while Jacob could view David and Solomon as violating Deuteronomy 17, and thus comitting an abomination, Joseph Smith doesn't need to view this in this fashion at all, and can instead focus on the nature of the marriages (and not their number).>

OK. My own question is not whether this contradicts that, but what Jacob 2 says and means.

Don

SteveO · April 5, 2005

I never had a real problem with the two scriptures. But I am bothered by the accusation that Joseph Smith was having affairs with other men's wives. I always thought there was no basis for that!

Benjamin McGuire · April 5, 2005

Don Bradley writes:

Second, we don't and can't know the exact texts that would have been familiar to the author.

This isn't true at all. Particularly when the author alludes to, quotes, and references other texts. More on this in a minute.

Many argue that, appearances to the contrary, Jacob 2 cannot say that David and Solomon sinned in their polygamous lifestyle because this contradicts the legal texts and deuteronomic history, which both allowed polygamy as a general matter and stated that David's wives had been given him by the Lord. The Book of Mormon text is thus made to fit with these other texts. Oddly, this approach overlooks the text of Jacob 2 itself as an indicator of what biblical materials were familiar to the author. Rather than argue, for instance, that verse 24 does not mean what its grammatical structure clearly denotes - that it was the *having* of many wives and concubines that was abominable to God, because this contradicts the biblical text in which the Lord says he had given David his wives, one could argue, with greater force, that Jacob 2:24 evidences that its author was not familiar with this biblical text.

I have several challeneges with this argument Don (as you know).

First, "having many wives" isn't lexically synonymous with "more than one". And Jacob emphasizes the quantity ("truly ...").

Second, the passage in which God gives David his wives quite possibly post-dates Lehi's departure. I haven't bothered (much) with comparing the Samuel material in the Book of Mormon to the standard dating schemes. I have spent considerable time doing this with Deuteronomy. So, as far as Deuteronomy goes, I can be much more specific about parts which were, and which were not, included in the Brass Plates. I have done some work with 1 Samuel. In other words, I can verify, with a great deal of certainty, the fact that Deuteronomy 17 existed in the Nephite Brass Plates. Scholars tend to include this text in what is termed proto-Deuteronomy (that is, this kingship codes in 17 and the similar prophetic codes in 18 pre-date the Deuteronomist redaction which post-dates Lehi's departure). 2 Samuel 12 doesn't seem to pre-date Lehi's departure. So, I suggest that while Deuteronomy 17 was available, 2 Samuel 12 may well not have been - although I admit that portions of Samuel did exist (particularly 1 Samuel 17, where about half of the verses seem to be in the Brass Plates, while about half do not).

Third, the Law of Moses is referenced dozens of times in the Book of Mormon. Some of them are quite relevant to this discussion, as in Jacob 4 - "And for this intent we keep the law of Moses". Other significant mentions occur in Jacob 7, 1 Nephi 4 and 2 Nephi 25. So, unless you are challenges the point of the existence of the texts I reference within the Brass Plates, it is very reasonable to assert that the people were aware of, and followed, the Law of Moses as recorded on the Brass Plates. The Law of Moses, of course, does not condemn polygamy (it actually requires it, as I keep having to point out, in certain rare circumstances). It endorses polygamy (albeit indirectly) by stipulating when it was appropriate and when it was not. Because of this, any charge that David and Solomon were practicing an abominantion has to contend with the Law of Moses (particularly if, as you do, you claim that Deuteronomy 17 is irrelevant to Jacob's discussion).

Fourth, it is somewhat ludicrous to assume that Lehi's commandment would be applicable to the earlier David and Solomon. To do so is to suggest (through Lehi) that the Law of Moses was corrupt - which stands in a stark contrast to the respect which it is normally given in the text (which is substantial). It seems odd that we would have Jacob condemning a part of the Mosaic Law (and its subsequent practice) in a sermon which he concludes by claiming that this law points towards Christ, and that they kept the law to worship Christ.

Fifth, it seems odd that the people would single out David and Solomon as examples of polygamy when so many other examples exist - particularly more prominent examples like Jacob/Israel or Abraham. Of course, Jacob and Abraham predate Mosaic Law. But this would not be an argument against my proposal, rather it would argue for the notion that the Law of Moses was central to the debate. It also seems significant that David and Solomon are both kings.

Sixth, while completely unrelated to the text, later Judaism got hung up on these same issues. When polygamy was abolished in the Middle Ages, some groups refused to stop the practice based on Mosaic Law, citing in particular the practice of Levirate marriage. In other places, rabbinic teachings had to deal with the apparent discrepancy of David and Solomon having many wives contrary to the Deuteornomic Kingship codes. The most popular response seems to have been the notion that since Deuteronomy was "rediscovered" upon the return to the temple from captivity in Babylon, it was "sealed" up and was not available to David - and thus he was not in violation of any commandment of which he was aware. Before the complete abandonment of polygamy, the number of wives a man could have was usually limited in Jewish communities - citing Deuteronomy 17:17 as the basis for such a claim. "Many" was usually defined - and the most widespread definition ended up being four - the number of wives of Jacob - although there is a great deal of literature demonstrating debate on this topic. In many ways, these issues point out that your claim of irrelevancy has to be scrutinized. These texts were (are) still relevant to Jews centuries and millenia after the events they describe. Do we suggest that the Nephites had any less reverance for their texts? Certainly within the Book of Mormon, the notion of Mosaic Law continues for a very long time - see Abinadi, centuries later, reading the Law to Noah.

Essentially, these are my points. And you haven't come very close to responding to these issues.

We *don't* have the "brass plates" or exact list of biblical sources as familiar to and interpreted by the author and therefore don't know what they said. We *do* have the Book of Mormon and *do* know what it says - and it represents the polygamy of David, not as divinely authorized, but as divinely denigrated.

I can, however, with a fair degree of certainty, reconstruct portions of the Brass Plates, because we do know to some degree what we would expect them to look like, and we do know (from quotations) that the text, where it existed, was similar to our current text, and we do know, in places, where it is referenced and alluded to. So, while we can't produce an exact list, I can say with certainty, that Deuteronomy 17 was used by the writer of the Book of Mormon. Just as I can say with certainty, that several chapters of Isaiah were used, and that 1 Samuel 17 was used, and so on. In other words, I can *know*. And it isn't that hard to demonstrate.

Therefore, rather than argue from the unknown to the known - from a hypothesis of what biblical texts (other than those cited by him) were familiar to the author of Jacob 2:24 to it the meaning of Jacob 2:24, we can argue from the known to the unknown - from the demonstrable structure of Jacob 2:24 to what other scriptures were familiar to an author who would write in this way.

But you forget that I am doing this. I don't start with the Biblical text. I start with the Book of Mormon. And I demonstrate the intertext which produced both the Book of Mormon text and the Biblical text which we know. (This part of the discussion - the reliance of the Book of Mormon on Biblical sources isn't really a component of the argument for historicity - so my arguments in this area are based on good methods and criteria).

Third, if we assume that the book can be correctly understood only in the light of the ancient Near East, this makes it comprehensible only to "the learned" - scholars of antiquity, and not to the 19th Century audience foreseen and addressed (sometimes on an individual basis) by its self-described authors and compilers.

Absolutely. Which is why I view Joseph Smith as a "reader" of the text. But then, this is the case with any ancient record isn't it. We might say that the Bible is, often, inaccessible to the typical reader. How many readers, for example, are familiar with the Ba'al/'Athtar myth cycle in Canaanite literature to recognize that this is the narrative to which Isaiah is alluding when he calls the King of Babylon the dawnstar, son of the morning? Every text has an intertext. And the degree to which you are familiar with that intertext can and will affect your reading of the text. And this, in turn, will affect any particular reader's ability to correctly ascertain the intent of the author. he question is why you think that the environment and literary tradition which Jacob was raised with, would have no impact at all on his own approach to scripture and to oration.

Then it depends on a chimera. The text of Jacob 2 doesn't stress the actual *number* of David and Solomon's wives. such thing. It does not state that "David and Solomon had truly many wives and concubines," but rather that they "truly had many wives and concubines." What is emphasized is not the quantity of their concubines and polygamous wives but the reality of their having had them.

I disagree with the meaning that you derive, not your description of the word "truly" or its function in the text. What does it mean to "truly have many wives"? Would four wives fit this description? Would three? Would two? Would six? Would twelve? Jacob is suggesting that there is no doubt that David and Solomon had many wives. And so, the quantity is being emphasized. It could not be said of Israel that "he truly had many wives and concubines" because he didn't. Nor could it be said of Moses (who had two wives). So, the emphasis is on the quantity. There was no doubt - according to Jacob, that David and Solomon had "many wives and concubines". And this was the abominantion - the having "many wives and concubines" (which is not the same thing as having two wives, for example). And it was this having "many wives and concubines" which was explicitly in violation of the Law of Moses as found in Deuteronomy 17:17. The number of wives which David and Solomon had, and the fact that the people could use this as justification for ignoring the commandment of Lehi, presumes that this information was in the Brass Plates. How the people justified it we don't know. Perhaps they justified (as later Jews did) through Levirate marriage. Perhaps they justified it in some other way.

Why include verse 24 in the first place? The answer is readily apparent on this latter reading. This verse is a parenthetical note to both acknowledge the historical basis of the people's justification ("David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines") and refute its value as a justification ("which thing was abominable before me"). To paraphrase the text on this reading, then, it says, "The people are trying to use the scriptures about David and Solomon to excuse their own misconduct. (And, yes, they're right that David and Solomon really did have multiple wives and concubines, but this was abominable to me.)"

Why include it? Obviously, the people were justifying certain behaviour by an appeal to the text (as an authority). Jacob is responding to that appeal, as you note. But this doesn't resolve the larger issue - which is why the people did not use other examples to justify their behavior. There is no mention, in particular, of Israel and his four wives and concubines. And Jacob's response couldn't be made to apply to Israel.

The value of verse 24 to the revelation's overall argument is very clear on this reading. Why, on your reading, verse 24 would be valuable in putting down Lehite polygamy is not readily apparent. Indeed, verse 24 is actually *counter* to this purpose. Pointing out to would-be polygamists that David and Solomon's wrong was in violating laws that 1) applied only to the kings and 2) forbade having *too* many wives would only serve to *encourage* them since they were neither kings nor attempting (or remotely able) to amass harems on the scale of an oriental monarch.

The challenge though is that Lehi's commandment points of the Law of Moses. A Law which the people claim to be living. We suspect then, that the people were challenging Lehi based on the Law of Moses. (What better way to challenge a prophet than with another prophet - we see it all the time). And this issue - that Lehi has reversed the Law of Moses on some points, and made it meaningless on other points, isn't something which you address at all. You remove the discussion in Jacob from it's context - the context of theological law.

At the same time, I am not sure that your claim that "they were [not] attempting (or remotely able) to amass harems on the scale of an oriental monarch." isn't well established - particularly if they had come into contact with an indigenous people at this point. This is an issue which Brant Gardner raises. This phrase in particular is interesting: "For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness".

Further, the entire issue of the validity of using the Deuteronomic passage (even though it is explicitly connected only to kings) to limit or control polygamy, occurs in later Jewish history. So there is a known real-world corrolary for this kind of treatment of the text. How applicable this corrolary is may be open to debate, but its existence is not.

Divorce also was allowed under the Torah; but this didn't stop Malachi from declaring that God "hateth" it (Malachi 2). And what does it mean from something to be "abominable" to God - precisely for Him to hate it. Polygamy could thus be both permitted under the law and "abominable before" God.

You have a point here. But it is a theological point. And I am certain that it can be argued quite effectively. After all, how many divorces are actually described in scripture? How many of the patriarchs got divorced? This is speculative beyond the speculation which I engage in here. (And of course could be applied anywhere). The one downside to your position is that I can show how a normal reading of the text would allow me to claim that David and Solomon having many wives and concubines was an abomination - without having to suggest that the Law allowed it while God hated it.

It is also notable that verse 24 does *not* limit the abomination of having "many wives and concubines" to David and Solomon, nor to monarchs as a group. The earliest manuscript of Jacob 2 preserves the reading "which thing *is* abominable before me," not "was":

But this is indifferent to the question you are trying to resolve. Was the change made on the basis that it was printer's mistake, or was it that way in the handwritten original? Do we have the original? If it was a printer's mistake, then it is completely non-consequential to the discussion.

It is not the case, then, that God merely hates the specific case in which these monarchs had many wives and concubines. God finds the having of many wives and concubines abominable in itself and hates *their* having done so for this reason.

If the reference was to kings, then this would only suggest that at the time of Jacob, that commandment was still in force.

This presumes that the point of view offered on polygamy in Lehite revelation matches that of the extant Hebrew Bible or of Jerusalem at the time of Lehi. What, the Book of Mormon can't be iconoclastic? If Lehi fit so well with the Israelite culture of Jerusalem, why did they try to stone him? why did he leave? How typical was the Lehite view of the Messiah, the afterlife, the purpose of the Law...? And if it was atypical of Israelite faith on these major points, why could it not differ on the matter of polygamy?

The issue is that Lehi and Nephi and Jacob all seem to hold the Law of Moses in very high esteem. The criticisms which Lehi offers, if anything, could well be directed at the Josian reform (which occurs in Lehi's lifetime). If this is the case, then the writings of Margaret Barker have some significance relative to assessing Lehi's opinions of the Messiah - which then would hearken back to pre-reform Judaism. The stoning could be for many reasons, but the most likely was his claims that Jerusalem would be destroyed. This was a particularly sensitive issue at the time, and the text of Jeremiah, for example, claims that this was the basis for his being taken into custody and imprisoned. Have you read much history from this time period?

The Jacob 2 revelation is quite clear that God *dis*approved of the state of marital relations in Jerusalem (vs. 31-32) and led the Lehites out specifically so they would *not* follow that pattern of living, but would, rather, raise up a righteous seed unto Him (25) by monogamy (vs. 27). Also, I have offered a series of arguments that the revelation in Jacob 2:23-33 is that referred to as having been originally received by Lehi (2:34; 3:5), and that verse 23 addresses the behavior of the Jews at Jerusalem (e.g., it's difficult to understand how verse 25 follows from 23-24 unless the polygamy-justifiers in question were the people of Jerusalem - how else could the behavior in verse 23 be of such a time and place as to be a *reason* for God to lead the Lehites away from Jerusalem to raise up posterity to Himself?).

Well, we have no idea if the population was largely polygamist in Jerusalem at the time that Lehi leaves (although, I can say with some degree of personal certainty, that Levirate marriage was likely at an all-time high due to the fact that Jerusalem was in between major battles, having lost nearly all of it land to the Babylonians (at the time Lehi leaves anyway) and having recently gone several changes on the throne due in part to the violence between Judah and her neighbors. However, the marriage laws cannot be considered the "reason" that Lehi left. Nor is marriage practices given as a reason for Jerusalem's destruction in the earlier parts of First and Second Nephi when we get discussions of Lehi's visions.

Further, the discussion of the behavior of the Jews at Jerusalem can only be understood in terms of the text. Jacob himself had not been born when Lehi left Jerusalem. None of his audience (with the possible exception of any of his remaining older siblings) would have an context in which to place such a claim. So it likely refers to the text and is a reference to behavioral patterns established in the text and not to real world experiences of Jerusalem at the time of departure.

Your arguments about the people though, are problematic. In your view, if "this people" in verse 23 are those at Jerusalem, then "this people" in verse 25 has to refer to a different group, and the section of verses 23-33 cannot be a single literary unit taken from Lehi. In other words, "this people" in verse 25 have been led "forth out of the land of Jerusalem", and, in verse 25, they are referred to as the fruit of the loins of Joseph (which cannot be a reference to the Jews, and must postdate the recovery of the Brass Plates). It is much more reasonable, in my opinion, to suggest that "this people" is the same in both instances. There is no appreciable difference between "Behold, thus saith the Lord" and "Wherefore, thus saith the Lord" - so this doesn't differentiate between one as a statement from Jacob, and one as a statement by Lehi. And your reading certainly is challenged by Jacob 1:15:

And now it came to pass that the people of Nephi, under the reign of the second king, began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices, such as like unto David of old desiring many wives and concubines, and also Solomon, his son.

It is the People pf Nephi who desire many wives and concubines. Not those in the Land of Jerusalem when Lehi was prophesying there.

Since this is long, a response to your other comments will follow in a new message.

Ben

Benjamin McGuire · April 5, 2005

Onandagus writes:

Whereas the purpose of God issuing a commandment in verse 30 is to "raise up seed unto me," which makes it the Levirate only if practiced by one of our Heavenly Uncles after God passes away.

Not at all. In fact, the notion of God needing children is a funny issue - so the earlier phrase in the Book of Mormon which is often quoted against me - "that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise." isn't about giving God offspring. Although it is about raising offspring to the parents involved. Personally, following my paradigm of thought, I simply consider this to be a way of referring to Levirate marriage without having to stipulate the notion of a dead brother-in-law (which would be more difficult to engrave, and so on). The point of levirate marriage was to maintain linneages within Israel. And I see no problem with referring to this as raising up seed to God. It is the "raise up seed" phrase which occurs in the Old Testament as a reference to levirate marriage. But the real issue is that this deals with the problem of the conflict between the Law of Moses and the commandment of Lehi. Which, I think, is an aspect that has to be dealt with within the context of this sermon.

This is inconsistent with the use of the terminology of "raising up" posterity to God elsewhere.
First, we are explicitly told that Lehi's sons were commanded to bring the daughters of Ishmael with them "that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise." So, either the text fails to mention the fact that each of the daughters of Ishmael was actually the widow of an already-deceased son of Lehi, or the language of "raising up seed unto the Lord" refers to raising up posterity to God in righteousness and *not* to the Levirate.

Once again, the issue that I have here is that just because the are going to raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise does not somehow make them not Lehi's seed, or Nephi's seed. It seems to me, rather, to simply be a euphemism. I am more than willing to note that the phrase is used elsewhere with a different connotation. But here within this context, it makes sense (rhetorically) to read it in this fashion. Certainly, this is not the strength of my argument (which is elsewhere) but rather considered as a corroborating detail.

Second, while in Jacob 2:30 God states that *"if"* He wants to raise up seed to Himself He will command his people, five verses earlier He made it clear that this was *exactly* what He wanted to do among the Lehites. Indeed, the very reason He brought them out of Jerusalem, He says, is "that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch" (25). Thus, whatever He *would* command in order to raise up seed to Himself, He *should* have commanded the Lehites. And what He commanded them to this end was to have only one wife and no concubines (25-27).

Raising seed, in the context of polygamy, takes on an entirely different perspective than the one which you seem to favor here. Raising up seed is the purpose of marriage. But this point has been beaten to death.

If, however, raising up posterity to the Lord meant living the Levirate, then, freakishly, per 25 God led the Lehites out of Jerusalem to have them practice the Levirate! *This* was the reason for the Lehite exodus. Then, apparently, having led them far from Jerusalem, God realized that there were no other brothers of theirs in the wilderness that He could kill off in order to have Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi live this law, so He switched to forbidding polygamy (including the Levirate) altogether.

And here, I think, you are intentionally abusing my argument. The whole point is not what you make it here. The issue is that they are supposed to live the commandment given by Lehi. And should God want to reinstate Levirate marriage (and by extension the other stipulations of the Law of Moses) to "raise up seed", God would do so. And until then, they were to listen to the commandment of Lehi.

Well, certainly in commanding monogamy through Lehi, God would have overridden biblical injunctions; but this was *so that* He could raise up seed to Himself (Jacob 2:25-27; cf. 1 Nephi 7:1), not something which He in turn had to reverse in order to achieve this.

So, why doesn't Jacob 2:25-27 use the phrase "raise up seed" if you think that this is what Jacob was trying to say? The challenge is that you are still failing to deal with the conflict between Lehi and the Law of Moses as recorded in their scripture.

No such statement is offered.

Sure it is.

I fail to see either the awkwardness or the inconsistency. The "otherwise they shall" is a prediction of what the Lord's people will do absent such a commandment - and apparently an accurate one, since the men of the Lord's people in Jerusalem and in "all the lands of their inheritance" fell into such abominations (vs. 31-32) and even the Lehites who *had* received this commandment were tempted in that direction (Jacob 1:15).

The problem is this - the Lamanites after a period of time did in fact forget about the commandments of the Lord. Did they suddenly become polygamous? Did the Nephites who abandoned the commandments suddenly become polygamous? The challenge is that this simply is a nonsensical statement. If you don't obey the commandment to be monogamous, you will be polygamous? Is that what you think the text is saying? So, is any instance of monogamy autimatically to be considered a keeping of the commandment? Personally, I think this reading is way off. It isn't a natural reading. It doesn't make a lot of sense, and as a prophecy, it doesn't seem to be fulfilled.

The inconsistency would be in having the text say "they shall" here as an imperative when this is not how it uses the phrase elsewhere, in having the text invoke the notion of commandment here to refer to polygamy when elsewhere in the revelation it uses it exclusively to refer to monogamy, in having "raise up seed unto" the Lord here refer to the Levirate when elsewhere it refers to Lehi's sons raising up righteous children for God, etc., etc., etc.

First, it is used elsewhere as an imperative (although you neglected to put it into your list earlier, and why this should make a difference is unknown to me). Second, the logical construction is an if-then-else. If I want the people to engage in polygamy, then I will command it, else they will hearken unto the commandment which Lehi gave. This same structure would likewise apply to the Law of Moses. If I want the people to practice monogamy, then I will command it (Lehi) otherwise they will hearken unto these things (Law of Moses).

One reference to "they shall" which I am thinking of, by the way, occurs in 1 Nephi 6:6.

Entirely speculative, since 1) you don't know what scriptures were familiar to the author, and 2) there is no reference to Deuteronomy 17 here that would be clear to a dispassionate observer.

Not true. And in actuality, the real problem is of course finding dispassionate observers who are familiar with the Old Tesament. Competentcy is necessary to recognize an allusion or a quotation or a reference.

Ben

April 5, 2005

Ben,

Because of time issues, I am going to break my response into pieces and begin with responding to something brief.

Don:
It is also notable that verse 24 does *not* limit the abomination of having "many wives and concubines" to David and Solomon, nor to monarchs as a group. The earliest manuscript of Jacob 2 preserves the reading "which thing *is* abominable before me," not "was":
Ben:
But this is indifferent to the question you are trying to resolve. Was the change made on the basis that it was printer's mistake, or was it that way in the handwritten original? Do we have the original? If it was a printer's mistake, then it is completely non-consequential to the discussion.

You are badly confused here, Ben. Obviously a reading in the earliest manuscript is not going to be a printer's mistake.

The earliest manuscript we have for this portion of the Book of Mormon is the one from which the printer typeset the book - the "Printer's Manuscript" (P). While the Original Manuscript (O) for most of this portion of the book is no longer extant, there is no reason whatever to believe that E. B. Grandin's typesetting error would, as though by inspiration, correct a copying error on P and restore the original reading of O. By both common sense and the methodology of textual criticism, we would privilege the reading in the earlier document from which the printer copied, not his own version.

So, now, to quote you, "If it was a printer's mistake, then it is completely non-consequential to the discussion." The reading "which thing was abominable before me" is a printer's mistake, and is, therefore, by your (correct) reasoning, completely inconsequential to the discussion. The consequential reading is "which thing is abominable before me," and on this reading it is the having of many wives and concubines, not just by the ancient monarchs referred to, but in general, that is abominable to God. The abomination is one of which not only kings may be guilty, a fact that weakens your already opaque claim that the text here alludes to a law given explicitly for the kings.

Much more as time permits,

Don

April 5, 2005

I am bothered by the accusation that Joseph Smith was having affairs with other men's wives. I always thought there was no basis for that!

Steve,

That Joseph Smith married women who were already married to and living with other men - in about a dozen cases - is well-established fact. Several of these women left affidavits to this effect in later years, and Nauvoo journals and related sources indicate the same.

In some cases, apparently, Joseph Smith asked the existing husband for his wife. In other cases, Joseph Smith appears to have married or attempted to marry the wife of a Mormon or non-Mormon with a Mormon wife. He married, for instance, the wife of non-Mormon Adam Lightner and proposed to the wife of non-Mormon Hiram Kimball (who told him to go teach it to someone else!). These men certainly had not given their consent for Joseph Smith to appropriate their wives.

And, even more troubling to me, Joseph Smith sought the wives of men he had sent away on missions. He married Nancy Hyde to Willard Richards while her husband Orson was on a mission to Palestine, and then, when this marriage failed a couple months later took her as his own wife. Orson Hyde had left Nauvoo before Joseph Smith began teaching polygamy, and almost certainly did not give his consent to either marriage.

Joseph Smith apparently also proposed to Orson Pratt's wife Sarah while Orson was on a mission. While Sarah Pratt was smeared in the Nauvoo press for making this claim, there are several reasons to believe her story over the counterclaims. First, Sarah made the claim in mid-1842, while the knowledge of polygamy was still held rather close, and her story of Joseph's proposal is similar to those of known genuine accounts, which she likely would not have known. Second, the smearing of Sarah Pratt is very similar to the smearing of others who came forth about polygamous behavior in Nauvoo who are known to have been telling the truth, such as Martha Brotherton. Third, the only counter-explanation for Sarah's motive is that she was attempting to hide her own misbehavior with John C. Bennett - and the Nauvoo testimonies used to connect her with Bennett again bear the earmarks of an orchestrated smear campaign, and at least one of the witnesses, Mary Ettie V. Smith, later acknowledged that her testimony against Sarah Pratt had been forced and false. How could Joseph Smith have married the wives of men he had sent away on missions?

But did he sleep with the wives of other men, or was he married to them only for eternity? There are several evidences that he was married to several of these women for time and had physical relationships with some of them. Mary Lightner wrote explicity that she had been married to Joseph Smith "for time and eternity." Ebenezer Robinson, who had been the printer of the Times and Seasons, testified that he was forced to vacate the Times and Seasons office when Willard Richards took up living there with Nancy Hyde. If Joseph sealed Orson Hyde's wife to another with the intent that she have sex with him, it seems reasonable to suppose that this is what he himself intended in marrying other men's wives, and what he did when he took Willard Richards' place in Orson Hyde's shoes. Sarah Pratt testified that Joseph Smith kissed her during his last proposal, a detail that both accords with what we know of several other polygamous proposals in Nauvoo and explains Sarah Pratt's sudden coming forth with her story at that point. Mere eternal sealing hardly requires such physical affection And in the one case in which a child of one of Joseph Smith's plural wives testified that her mother told her she was his child, the mother was one of his otherwise-married wives. Indeed, the very reason the daughter needed to be told she was Joseph's child is that her mother was married to and living with her legal husband Windsor P. Lyon when the daughter (Josephine Lyon) was conceived and born.

Joseph Smith's marrying of and sleeping with other men's wives, apparently sometimes behind their backs, and even while they were on missions he had sent them on, is a circle I was never able to square - one of the most disturbing things in Mormon history.

Don Bradley

P.S. These cases are certainly not exhaustive. They are just examples. And, BTW, there are a number of sources to which you can turn for details of Joseph Smith's polygamous practice - Todd Compton's book and the reviews, Lawrence Foster's work, Richard VanWagoner's book, etc.

Benjamin McGuire · April 5, 2005

Don writes:

You are badly confused here, Ben. Obviously a reading in the earliest manuscript is not going to be a printer's mistake.

I'm not confused, simply a bad communicator at times.

Obviously, we don't what is in O for this passage. We have P (which you provide), and the 1830 edition follows the text we have today. So the question is, did the error occur first in P and was corrected in the published account, or did it first occur in the published account?

Ben

April 5, 2005

Obviously, we don't what is in O for this passage. We have P (which you provide), and the 1830 edition follows the text we have today. So the question is, did the error occur first in P and was corrected in the published account, or did it first occur in the published account?

Ben, the textual history of the Book of Mormon manuscripts and first edition is well known. The participants in the publication project were unaware of the variants between O and P in 1830. It was not until a subsequent edition (1840) that Joseph Smith realized O was more reliable than P. And, except for a short stretch of text from 3 Nephi to Mormon, where the P copyists had lagged behind the publication schedule, the Book of Mormon was typeset from P. Jacob 2, like the extant text surrounding it, was typeset from P. And, as mentioned, no corrections were made to text typeset from P using O until several years later.

If you doubt me on this, read Royal Skousen's published articles on and volumes of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. BTW, I have read these articles, possess and use the volumes, and participated in the project.

A reading from P is superior to a reading from the 1830 edition, except in 3 Nephi through Mormon, where the two are of roughly equal value, having both derived directly from O.

The 1830 says "was." P says "is." Given what we know through textual criticism of the Book of Mormon, P is to be preferred and is almost certainly more correct. We are on dubious exegetical ground, to say the least, if we ignore the reading of P - "which thing is abominable before me."

Don

April 5, 2005

Don:
QUOTE
Second, we don't and can't know the exact texts that would have been familiar to the author.
Ben:
This isn't true at all. Particularly when the author alludes to, quotes, and references other texts. More on this in a minute.

Right. Somewhere buried in one of my posts I included a parenthetical qualifier like "other than those biblical texts the Book of Mormon echoes or alludes to." I use such echoes and allusions in my own exegesis, and so, of course, did not mean to rule them out as a source of knowledge about the texts available to an author.

That said, my basic point for you here was intended to be that, accepting both critical biblical scholarship and the antiquity of the Book of Mormon, you can't realistically, IMO, claim to know just what biblical texts, in what form were available to the author of a BoM other than those identifiably quoted, alluded to, or echoed. Even assuming a given author had "E," you couldn't really say that the brass plates version thereof was just the same as the "E" source teased out from the Hebrew Bible. Same goes for proto-Deuteronomy or just about anything else. We are talking about hypothetical sources in the first place, and ones that could have taken a very different form in a "brass plates" version.

Not knowing the biblical texts familiar to the author, other than those clearly identifiable in the Book of Mormon text itself, we would be far safer in reasoning from the known - the actual BoM text in front of us - to the unknown, than from the unknown - the hypothesized texts of the brass plates - to the known.

QUOTE

Many argue that, appearances to the contrary, Jacob 2 cannot say that David and Solomon sinned in their polygamous lifestyle because this contradicts the legal texts and deuteronomic history, which both allowed polygamy as a general matter and stated that David's wives had been given him by the Lord. The Book of Mormon text is thus made to fit with these other texts. Oddly, this approach overlooks the text of Jacob 2 itself as an indicator of what biblical materials were familiar to the author. Rather than argue, for instance, that verse 24 does not mean what its grammatical structure clearly denotes - that it was the *having* of many wives and concubines that was abominable to God, because this contradicts the biblical text in which the Lord says he had given David his wives, one could argue, with greater force, that Jacob 2:24 evidences that its author was not familiar with this biblical text.

I have several challeneges with this argument Don (as you know).

, First "having many wives" isn't lexically synonymous with "more than one". And Jacob emphasizes the quantity ("truly ...").

As I have argued, the juxtaposition and opposition in Jacob 2 is between many wives and one. And, as I have also argued, "Jacob" does not emphasize the quantity with "truly." Rather, the text is most coherent and logically flowing when "truly" is understood to emphasize the actuality of the people's claims regarding David and Solomon, not the number of their wives and concubines.

So, as far as Deuteronomy goes, I can be much more specific about parts which were, and which were not, included in the Brass Plates. ... In other words, I can verify, with a great deal of certainty, the fact that Deuteronomy 17 existed in the Nephite Brass Plates. ... So, I suggest that while Deuteronomy 17 was available, 2 Samuel 12 may well not have been - although I admit that portions of Samuel did exist (particularly 1 Samuel 17, where about half of the verses seem to be in the Brass Plates, while about half do not).

There may well be Deuteronomy 17 allusions in the Book of Mormon. If so, they will be truly identifiable only if stronger than your putative D17 allusion in Jacob 2. This allusion/quotation exists primarily in your assertion that it does.

Third, the Law of Moses is referenced dozens of times in the Book of Mormon. Some of them are quite relevant to this discussion, as in Jacob 4 - "And for this intent we keep the law of Moses". Other significant mentions occur in Jacob 7, 1 Nephi 4 and 2 Nephi 25. So, unless you are challenges the point of the existence of the texts I reference within the Brass Plates, it is very reasonable to assert that the people were aware of, and followed, the Law of Moses as recorded on the Brass Plates.

The law of Moses in the Book of Mormon has a purpose different than any ascribed to it in the Hebrew Bible, and is often presented in a negative light. The Nephites are described as keeping this law; but I would submit that the "Law of Moses" is not a unitary thing with which one is either familiar or unfamiliar. As mentioned above, even if you could know that various hypothetical texts behind the present Bible existed, and know their structure and extent, this would not necessarily tell you that these texts were exactly what the author had available.

It is also worth noting that Book of Mormon practice has sometimes been identified by Bible-informed critics as flouting the Law of Moses; so, again, it's unclear why the pre-Jesus Christian Nephites whose familiar texts are largely unknown and Torah practice non-standard for our Bible would necessarily view and abide the marriage laws as understood by you, especially given their own prophetic tradition's obvious slant against polygamy.

The Law of Moses, of course, does not condemn polygamy (it actually requires it, as I keep having to point out, in certain rare circumstances). It endorses polygamy (albeit indirectly) by stipulating when it was appropriate and when it was not. Because of this, any charge that David and Solomon were practicing an abominantion has to contend with the Law of Moses (particularly if, as you do, you claim that Deuteronomy 17 is irrelevant to Jacob's discussion).

Again, to Malachi, God hated divorce; and to Jesus, it was allowed in the law only because of the hardness of men's hearts and actually led to adultery. For David and Solomon, or anyone else, to practice polygamy could have been "abominable" - i.e., hated - to the Lord while being perfectly consistent with the Law.

The text offers no charge that David and Solomon violated the Law. Rather, it quotes God saying that He hates the having of many wives and concubines - that it is abominable to Him. It was not because He forbade it that it was abominable to Him. Rather, it was because He finds it abominable, according to Jacob 2, that He forbade it among the Lehites (27-28).

Fourth, it is somewhat ludicrous to assume that Lehi's commandment would be applicable to the earlier David and Solomon.

As, indeed, it is ludicrous to lay this charge at my feet when I have never said anything remotely resembling it. To the contrary, I keep repeating (per the text) that the having of many wives and concubines just is abominable to God in Jacob 2 (vs. 24) and that He forbade it among the Lehites for this reason (vs. 27-28). This is the argument of the text. Neither I nor the text argue that David and Solomon's behavior was abominable to God because it contradicted a later commandment to Lehi.

To reiterate, according to the text, the having of many wives and concubines is abominable to God, and it is because He hates such things that, whatever He may have done elsewhere or elsewhen, He explicitly forbade them among the Lehites.

To do so is to suggest (through Lehi) that the Law of Moses was corrupt - which stands in a stark contrast to the respect which it is normally given in the text (which is substantial).

While the Law is normally given respect as what God requires, it is described as a temporary expedient, a law of "outward performances," as being "dead," and as having been given because of the "stiffneckedness" of Israel.

It seems odd that we would have Jacob condemning a part of the Mosaic Law (and its subsequent practice) in a sermon which he concludes by claiming that this law points towards Christ, and that they kept the law to worship Christ.

This is simply a straw man. The idea of later revelation qualifying and modifying earlier revelation is quite familiar in Mormonism. And Jesus, in offering a higher standard, sometimes condemned behavior allowed or required by the Mosaic Law (e.g., an eye for an eye) - without also condemning the Law itself.

Notably, the pre-Christ Christians of Alma's church in the wilderness live the Law, but rather than rendering an eye for an eye, they anticipate the Sermon on the Mount. Why could not other Book of Mormon peoples be guided by current commandment that qualifies or in some places replaces the injunctions of the Law? And why couldn't God include in the Law of Moses things abominable to Himself as a nod or wink at the people's weakness and stiffneckedness and later change them by direct commandment?

BTW, it's interesting to note a righteous Nephite king's response to the slaughter of many of the husbands among his people. Invoking the Levirate? Nope...

Mosiah 21: 17

Now there was a great number of women, more than there was of men; therefore king Limhi commanded that every man should impart to the support of the widows and their children, that they might not perish with hunger; and this they did because of the greatness of their number that had been slain.

Fifth, it seems odd that the people would single out David and Solomon as examples of polygamy when so many other examples exist - particularly more prominent examples like Jacob/Israel or Abraham. Of course, Jacob and Abraham predate Mosaic Law. But this would not be an argument against my proposal, rather it would argue for the notion that the Law of Moses was central to the debate. It also seems significant that David and Solomon are both kings.

But it is the people desiring the illicit marriage practices who are invoking the examples of David and Solomon. Why invoke the examples of those who, on your argument, were most vulnerable to the charge of breaking the Law? If the Law of Moses was central to the debate, and the Law only specifically condemned the polygamy of these men, why use them as the justification for polygamy?

Sixth, while completely unrelated to the text, later Judaism got hung up on these same issues. When polygamy was abolished in the Middle Ages, some groups refused to stop the practice based on Mosaic Law, citing in particular the practice of Levirate marriage. In other places, rabbinic teachings had to deal with the apparent discrepancy of David and Solomon having many wives contrary to the Deuteornomic Kingship codes.

This is one of your most interesting points.

One section of scripture relevant to both Jewish and Christian discussion of polygamy that you have overlooked is Malachi 2; and the relationship of Jacob 2 to this text undermines your argument considerably.

Before the complete abandonment of polygamy, the number of wives a man could have was usually limited in Jewish communities - citing Deuteronomy 17:17 as the basis for such a claim. "Many" was usually defined - and the most widespread definition ended up being four - the number of wives of Jacob - although there is a great deal of literature demonstrating debate on this topic.

One obvious question is why David would be regarded as having too many wives under Deuteronomy 17:17. That Solomon married in excess is clear, but David? You bring up the medieval limitation to four; but this limit was set in a time when polygamy was on its way out. And texts such as Isaiah 4:1 seem to approve of higher numbers. So, almost surely in earlier times, a higher number would have seemed appropriate and not excessive.

Another point relevant to David's guilt or absence thereof under Deuteronomy 17 that you have not brought up is that the proscriptions of Deuteronomy 17 were specifically targeted at Solomon:

Deuteronomy 17:16 But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.
1 Kgs. 4: 26
26

April 5, 2005

Heroic Monogamy in the Book of Mormon

One thing worth pointing out is just how different the Book of Mormon's overall view of polygamy is from that of the Bible. It is not only among the Lehites that polygamy is an unrighteous practice. Among the Jaredites, it is only the wicked kings who are described as having multiple wives; and among the righteous kings we have a righteous example of monogamy so heroic and absolute as to at least border on the absurd:

Ether9:
23 And it came to pass that Coriantum did walk in the steps of his father, and did build many mighty cities, and did administer that which was good unto his people in all his days. And it came to pass that he had no children even until he was exceedingly old.
24 And it came to pass that his wife died, being an hundred and two years old. And it came to pass that Coriantum took to wife, in his old age, a young maid, and begat sons and daughters; wherefore he lived until he was an hundred and forty and two years old.

Here we have a monogamous king who refuses to take a second wife even to raise up seed even unto himself. With his entire dynasty on the line, Coriantum lives monogamously and faithfully with his barren queen until he is well past the age to which he could reasonably have expected to live, and then takes another (singular) wife in his old age, for all of which he is blessed with sons and daughters and the continuation of his kingdom by monogamous means. What kind of king would really have acted so suicidally with respect to his dynasty? Only one absolutely committed to monogamy.

I'd like to note again that the Book of Mormon juxtaposes and opposes monogamy and having "many" wives. There are no descriptions of polygamy in which the wives are not described as number "many." It would appear that for the Book of Mormon one has "one" wife or "many" wives. And Coriantum stayed with the universal Book of Mormon standard of one, when even an additional one was obviously enough to preserve his line.

Don

Brackite · April 5, 2005

Hello Don,

Joseph Smith apparently also proposed to Orson Pratt's wife Sarah while Orson was on a mission. While Sarah Pratt was smeared in the Nauvoo press for making this claim, there are several reasons to believe her story over the counterclaims. First, Sarah made the claim in mid-1842, while the knowledge of polygamy was still held rather close, and her story of Joseph's proposal is similar to those of known genuine accounts, which she likely would not have known. Second, the smearing of Sarah Pratt is very similar to the smearing of others who came forth about polygamous behavior in Nauvoo who are known to have been telling the truth, such as Martha Brotherton. Third, the only counter-explanation for Sarah's motive is that she was attempting to hide her own misbehavior with John C. Bennett - and the Nauvoo testimonies used to connect her with Bennett again bear the earmarks of an orchestrated smear campaign, and at least one of the witnesses, Mary Ettie V. Smith, later acknowledged that her testimony against Sarah Pratt had been forced and false. How could Joseph Smith have married the wives of men he had sent away on missions?

An LDS Apologists once told me that Sarah Pratt once denied that Joseph Smith proposed to her to become one of his many plural wives. Is there any truth to that? If there is anybody who knows anything about this, it has got to be you Don, since you have study a lot, and you do know a lot about early Mormon Church History.

Zakuska · April 5, 2005

Well onandagus... maybe there is scriptural backing for the Anne Nicoles of the world.

I wonder if shes Mormon?

Only one absolutely committed to monogamy.

Sounds like JPII to me. <_<

April 5, 2005

An LDS Apologists once told me that Sarah Pratt once denied that Joseph Smith proposed to her to become one of his many plural wives. Is there any truth to that? If there is anybody who knows anything about this, it has got to be you Don, since you have study a lot, and you do know a lot about early Mormon Church History.

Hi Bracki,

I appreciate the vote of confidence. While I have made a major study of Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy (a subject on which there is a great deal more to be done), the best informed person on the Sarah Pratt case is almost certainly Richard Van Wagoner. Breck England is probably one of the more informed sources as well. I'll post more on what I know about your question, and about where to read the works of Van Wagoner and England, later tonight.

Yours,

Don

Zakuska · April 5, 2005

I'd like to note again that the Book of Mormon juxtaposes and opposes monogamy and having "many" wives. There are no descriptions of polygamy in which the wives are not described as number "many." It would appear that for the Book of Mormon one has "one" wife or "many" wives. And Coriantum stayed with the universal Book of Mormon standard of one, when even an additional one was obviously enough to preserve his line.

Could this also be attributed to Mormon in his copilation of the Record.

Juxtaposing himself and his ideals into the account?

He never uses a positive Polygomous account because of Jacob he is pre disposed to Monogamy.

truth dancer · April 5, 2005

Thank you to the person who emailed me this post... <_<

Hi Edward... :unsure:

Plural marriage is an ennobling order of marriage, it exalts men and women. Those who disparage plural marriage will surely fall and be led astray by the adversary. They who oppose plural marriage have from the beginning of time been those who would subject women to men, making women chattel and property whose primary responsiblity is to their husband. Polygamy did away with that. No longer were women the chattel of men, but where their equals and were counted to be worthy of their divine nature. Those who practiced polygamy, both men and women, did not feel that it degraded them but that instead it exalted them. Who here can say otherwise should be ashamed. The Church doesn't view women as you do. Women aren't chattel.

Wow... this is quite a statement.

I'm curious if you have studied much about the origins of marriage and patriarchy?

Marriage, concubinage, and slavery were all forms of ownership of women. Owning women was about owning property... exchanged for land, rights, relationships with other tribal groups. It had NOTHING to do with love whatsoever.

As the consciousness of human began to discover compassion it seems to me that there was an innate understanding that it is unholy to treat women in such a way. As humans discovered the beauty of a balanced, harmonious partnership, equal and loving, the idea of women being chattel or part of a harem began to, at least for some, dissolve.

Many men today no longer want a harem to provide sex on demand and a tent full of offspring. Many men today enjoy the beauty of a relationship that is one of depth and unity... I see more and more men truly wanting a partnership; a relationship that is close and dignified rather than wanting women to be the dutiful maid, cook, bearer of children and sex object.

I think this is why for many men, there is a bit of difficulty accepting the fact that it would be OK to treat women in the demeaning way that is often a part of polygamy. (I'm trying to be respectful here...) It seems to go against the consciousness and feelings of morality because to love as a unified equal partnership is how humans have evolved. It is more loving, more holy, more divine because it is only in an equal partnership that one can know the depths of love and passion that are possible in the human. To achieve this sense of love and depth in a relationship requires time, energy, devotion, care, interest, time, sharing, openness, communion, time....

Using women for the peasure of men (call it whatever you wish) is not exactly the most holy of behaviors. It speaks of the animalistic, primitive ancestory from which we evolved.

I highly recommend the book, "The Origins of Patriarchy."

Warm regards,

~dancer~

Ray Agostini · April 5, 2005

An LDS Apologists once told me that Sarah Pratt once denied that Joseph Smith proposed to her to become one of his many plural wives. Is there any truth to that? If there is anybody who knows anything about this, it has got to be you Don, since you have study a lot, and you do know a lot about early Mormon Church History.
Hi Bracki,
I appreciate the vote of confidence. While I have made a major study of Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy (a subject on which there is a great deal more to be done), the best informed person on the Sarah Pratt case is almost certainly Richard Van Wagoner. Breck England is probably one of the more informed sources as well. I'll post more on what I know about your question, and about where to read the works of Van Wagoner and England, later tonight.
Yours,
Don

The best article I have read on this subject is:

Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 18 (3): 67; "Sarah M. Pratt: The Shaping of an Apostate," 19 (2): 69.

Sarah Pratt eventually left Mormonism and vowed not to bring up her children in that faith.

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