Historical Monogamy Doctrine website

[PortalToParis]

Posting a website written by a faithful LDS sister member, on the topic of Joseph Smith not having instituted polygamy as doctrine. Have any of you read it?

historicalmonogamy.wixsite.com/evidenceofdoctrine

[Pyreaux]

No, but heard many things like it. Joseph denied being a conventional polygamist, had no polygamist children according to DNA tests. So, if he were Sealing multiple women to him, he didn't seem to consummate them, no proof of coitus. Brigham's practice was different, more like the Mosaic Law, like a charity for widows and lone women, which coitus was permitted. Brigham claimed his practice was more or less as Joseph taught them. I'm sure he did, but I don't think Joseph practiced what he preached himself.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

no proof of coitus.

But there is evidence as women testified that it occurred…and it is likely imo that Sylvia Lyons was confused over who was the bio father of her daughter because she had sex with both husbands during the crucial time period, which was why she told her daughter she was Joseph’s child.  If it was just about the sealing, then her later children would have been Joseph’s as well by that standard and yet she didn’t tell them that.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Calm

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

No, but heard many things like it. Joseph denied being a conventional polygamist, had no polygamist children according to DNA tests. So, if he were Sealing multiple women to him, he didn't seem to consummate them, no proof of coitus. Brigham's practice was different, more like the Mosaic Law, like a charity for widows and lone women, which coitus was permitted. Brigham claimed his practice was more or less as Joseph taught them. I'm sure he did, but I don't think Joseph practiced what he preached himself.

To the bold: that we know of, it's been said that it's possible he does. Also, the polygamist wives have testified that they were consummated. 

[Pyreaux]

50 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

To the bold: that we know of, it's been said that it's possible he does. Also, the polygamist wives have testified that they were consummated. 

2 hours ago, Calm said:

But there is evidence as women testified that it occurred…and it is likely imo that Sylvia Lyons was confused over who was the bio father of her daughter because she had sex with both husbands during the crucial time period, which was why she told her daughter she was Joseph’s child.  If it was just about the sealing, then her later children would have been Joseph’s as well by that standard and yet she didn’t tell them that.

Its been a long time since I read up on the Temple Lot case. LDS Church lost the case because they couldn't prove Joseph was a polygamist. The Church had journals were the women told their children they were the child of Joseph. But of the 8, 7 were male, and they had decedents, so Y-chromosomal DNA tests were done and none of them were Joseph's. I don't think they are lying; I think they simply believed the child was Sealed to Joseph. The Ward Radio's historian seems almost positive most all of Joseph wives were already pregnant when he married/Sealed them. 

[PortalToParis]

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

\The Church had journals were the women told their children they were the child of Joseph. 

Do you know what journals those were that you are referencing? I've never heard of any woman recording a journal entry about being a polygamist wife to Joseph.

[PortalToParis]

6 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

but I don't think Joseph practiced what he preached himself.

What are your thoughts on the website's section points #3-6?

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

think they simply believed the child was Sealed to Joseph.

Then why didn’t the mother, Sylvia Lyons, tell her younger children they were also Joseph’s child?

Edited December 14, 2023 by Calm

[PortalToParis]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

Then why didn’t the mother, Sylvia Lyons, tell her younger children they were also Joseph’s child?

Do you think it's possible that Josephine Lyon told a falsehood? That when they were collecting affidavits, she said her mother Sylvia told her she was Joseph's daughter, but since no one else had ever heard her mother say that Josephine said it was only one time on her deathbed.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, PortalToParis said:

Do you think it's possible that Josephine Lyon told a falsehood? That when they were collecting affidavits, she said her mother Sylvia told her she was Joseph's daughter, but since no one else had ever heard her mother say that Josephine said it was only one time on her deathbed.

I see it as likely that Emma lied.  Someone lied.

[Tacenda]

19 hours ago, PortalToParis said:

Posting a website written by a faithful LDS sister member, on the topic of Joseph Smith not having instituted polygamy as doctrine. Have any of you read it?

historicalmonogamy.wixsite.com/evidenceofdoctrine

I'm sure you've heard of Brian Hales...

https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/

If you need proof he's got a boatload.

[Pyreaux]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

Then why didn’t the mother, Sylvia Lyons, tell her younger children they were also Joseph’s child?

My wild out-of-date opinion would be to suppose her time-husband upgraded to an eternal-husband with Joseph dead and the Church openly sealing, Joseph would be still sealed to the one child while others would be sealed to the other.

[Pyreaux]

11 hours ago, PortalToParis said:

What are your thoughts on the website's section points #3-6?

My thoughts are no one is lying, but not telling whole truth. Abraham deceived the Egyptians twice about Sarah being his sister, technically he's not lying per se, via lawful, royal, sister-wife concepts. I think Joseph took every legal and linguistic loophole out of fully explaining himself, while teaching the Apostle "normal" polygamy, but not authorizing it, yet or maybe ever. Neither did it come out of the blue.

[TheTanakas]

51 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

My thoughts are no one is lying, but not telling whole truth. Abraham deceived the Egyptians twice about Sarah being his sister, technically he's not lying

The Honesty chapter of Gospel Principles says "There are many other forms of lying. 
When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive 
others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever
we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest".

As for the incident about Abraham deceiving the Egyptians, the Pearl of Great Price says
it was actually God who initiated the deception when he told Abraham to convey to Sarah
to lie to the Egyptians and say "I am his sister, not his wife" (Abraham 2:22-25).

[PortalToParis]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

I see it as likely that Emma lied.  Someone lied.

Do you think it was because of Emma that Joseph lied about it? What did you think of section #6? 

[PortalToParis]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I'm sure you've heard of Brian Hales...

https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/

If you need proof he's got a boatload.

I'm familiar with that website as it relates to the argument of Joseph having been a polygamist, though I don't think it addresses any of the reasons why polygamy has been argued to be a false doctrine. I guess, "Did he do it?" and "Was it doctrine?" are two reated but still separate questions. Do you think it's proven that it is doctrinal as a practice?

[Tacenda]

3 minutes ago, PortalToParis said:

I'm familiar with that website as it relates to the argument of Joseph having been a polygamist, though I don't think it addresses any of the reasons why polygamy has been argued to be a false doctrine. I guess, "Did he do it?" and "Was it doctrine?" are two reated but still separate questions. Do you think it's proven that it is doctrinal as a practice?

I believe like Brigham Young's policy on no blacks having the PH, Joseph's polygamy was man made and not from God. So prophets being fallible, like so many on here say it how it goes, they're not infallible.

[PortalToParis]

18 minutes ago, TheTanakas said:

The Honesty chapter of Gospel Principles says "There are many other forms of lying. 
When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive 
others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever
we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest".

As for the incident about Abraham deceiving the Egyptians, the Pearl of Great Price says
it was actually God who initiated the deception when he told Abraham to convey to Sarah
to lie to the Egyptians and say "I am his sister, not his wife" (Abraham 2:22-25).

I think doctrinal Islam explicitly states that lying is morally permitted in cases of self-defense (from bodily harm), just like hurting an attacker is morally permitted in cases of self-defense. So the Lord teling Abraham to lie in self-defense woud be akin to the Lord telling Nephi to kill Laban in self-defense (and defense of his brothers who Laban was trying to kill too).

It's been argued that Joseph practiced polygamy but lied about it to stay out of jail and to not make Emma angry/heartbroken, but neither of those reasons would be considered to have the same moral justification.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[PortalToParis]

15 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I believe like Brigham Young's policy on no blacks having the PH, Joseph's polygamy was man made and not from God. So prophets being fallible, like so many on here say it how it goes, they're not infallible.

I see, what is your personal opinion on the site's Sections #45-50 then?

[Tacenda]

40 minutes ago, PortalToParis said:

I see, what is your personal opinion on the site's Sections #45-50 then?

I read through, quickly. I have some advice if you want to take it. Go to fairlatterdaysaints.org website https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/ and put in the pertinent parts of 45-50 and see what church apologists say, just scroll down to "find an answer". It's backed by the church and why would the church say JS practiced polygamy? Do you know of all the documents the church has? They have a whole part of the side of a mountain they call the church's vault. 

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/granite-mountain-records-vault 

ETA: Also, the Joseph Smith's paper project will have information.

Here's a Deseret News article:

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2020/5/4/21229859/joseph-smith-papers-lds-mormon-latter-day-saints-church-history-nauvoo-polygamy-plural-marriage

 

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by Tacenda

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, TheTanakas said:

The Honesty chapter of Gospel Principles says "There are many other forms of lying. 
When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive 
others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever
we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest".

As for the incident about Abraham deceiving the Egyptians, the Pearl of Great Price says
it was actually God who initiated the deception when he told Abraham to convey to Sarah
to lie to the Egyptians and say "I am his sister, not his wife" (Abraham 2:22-25).

And so, I don't usually judge these things by such moral absolutes, but by precedent, even Jesus has a very strong secrecy theme. Jesus silences the demons from uttering His identity (Mark 1:34; 3:11–12), tells people who are healed not to tell anyone about it (Mark 1:44–45; 7:35–37), speaks in parables so that people won’t understand what he's teaching (Mark 4:11–12), so even His own disciples do not understand who he is (Mark 4:41).

[InCognitus]

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

And so, I don't usually judge these things by such moral absolutes, but by precedent, even Jesus has a very strong secrecy theme. Jesus silences the demons from uttering His identity (Mark 1:34; 3:11–12), tells people who are healed not to tell anyone about it (Mark 1:44–45; 7:35–37), speaks in parables so that people won’t understand what he's teaching (Mark 4:11–12), so even His own disciples do not understand who he is (Mark 4:41).

There's a long list of him telling people to keep things secret.   When Jesus healed the leper, he said, "See thou tell no man; but go thy way.." (Matt 8:4).  When he restored sight to the blind men, he "straitly charged them, saying, See that no man know it" (Matt 9:30).  When Jesus raised the damsel from the dead, "he charged them straitly that no man should know it" (Mark 5:43).  When Jesus took the deaf and dumb man aside from the multitude and healed him, "he charged them that they should tell no man" (Mark 7:36).  And again, when Jesus healed the blind man at Bethsaida, "he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town." (Mark 8:26).

Some of this was done to control the level of persecution so that Jesus would not be put to death before his time had come.

[blackstrap]

3 hours ago, InCognitus said:

See that no man know it"

All these were very bad at keeping secrets , seeing that all the miracles made it into the scriptures. 

[InCognitus]

31 minutes ago, blackstrap said:

All these were very bad at keeping secrets , seeing that all the miracles made it into the scriptures. 

Or, some of the apostles that were there to witnesses the events took good notes and reported it after the fact.

[halconero]

3 hours ago, InCognitus said:

There's a long list of him telling people to keep things secret.   When Jesus healed the leper, he said, "See thou tell no man; but go thy way.." (Matt 8:4).  When he restored sight to the blind men, he "straitly charged them, saying, See that no man know it" (Matt 9:30).  When Jesus raised the damsel from the dead, "he charged them straitly that no man should know it" (Mark 5:43).  When Jesus took the deaf and dumb man aside from the multitude and healed him, "he charged them that they should tell no man" (Mark 7:36).  And again, when Jesus healed the blind man at Bethsaida, "he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town." (Mark 8:26).

Some of this was done to control the level of persecution so that Jesus would not be put to death before his time had come.

I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that God's standard for honesty doesn't follow some sort of Kantian deontology where it's always sinful. There are plenty of examples in scripture where lying is not only considered *not* sinful, but is rewarded by God. Examples from the Old Testament include the Hebrew midwives lying to Pharaoh, and telling him that they couldn't kill the Hebrew boys because they'd already been delivered by the time they'd gotten to them. The other includes Rahah hiding the Israelite spies in her roof, resulting in her later marrying the Prince of Judah and becoming an ancestor of Jesus.

I'm a bit more cautious using these as examples, but take even the Saviour in Mark 5 and the Daughter of Jairus. When he comes into the house and sees the tumult there, he tells everyone present that the young girl wasn't dead, but sleeping. Now, it's possible that the girl was in some sort of deep coma and not actually dead, but in context it seems more like a tactic by Christ to remove those from the room who might otherwise mock him or reveal the Messianic secret. The fact that he proceeds to command her to rise up using "Talitha cum" further strengthens this possibility, given its use elsewhere to describe resuscitation of the dead (2 King 18:26; 15:34).

Likewise, in John 7, Christ's brothers request him to go with them to Jerusalem to reveal himself at the Feast of Tabernacles. His response? "My time has not yet come...Go to the festival yourselves. I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come." His brothers depart for the festival, and what happens? "Then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret."

Remember the saying by Joseph that what might be sinful in one context is not sinful in another, but is subject to the will of God.