This is an audio recording of a Fireside held in Southern Utah on January 13 2018 on Joseph Smith’s polygamy. We share the accounts of the plural wives of the Prophet Joseph Smith in their very words. Going through multiple accounts one begins to see a pattern appear. Religious pressure, rhetoric to each women that gives the impression they are the first being approached to “start the principle”, young girls working or living in the Smith home encouraged to become plural wives, and imposed deadlines for these women to make a decision. Once one works through all the data, it seems impossible to avoid the uncomfortable realization that there is a deep unhealthiness in Joseph implementation of polygamy and we get to the heart of the matter.
Resources:
http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/
http://josephsmithspolygamy.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Joseph_Smith%27s_wives
lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng
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I really don’t appreciate the heckling laughter of the female crowd in the room. These are serious accusations against the prophet Joseph Smith. It’s messy and tainted by those who protected the narrative to support BY, HCK, and the like in their pursuit of polygamy. How sad, how sad, and how inappropriate. The public narrative of Joseph and Hyrum always opposed polygamy and adultery. I serious doubt their support of polygamy could be proved in a court of law. None of the narratives are contemporaneous. Also it’s interesting to note that these polygamous wives started having children with BY and HCK within a short time after the death of Joseph. The real traitors are BY, HCK, and the Q12.
It is so inconsistent to think that Joseph was threatening these women with damnation if they did not accept his proposal. What about D&C121: 41-42. Joseph was more than patiently forgiving of even John Bennet.
The drawn sword narrative is so inconsistent. Show me any scripture where the Lord forces someone to obey by sending an angel with a drawn sword. This is bunk. This wreaks of the hard core authoritative nature of BY and the like, not Joseph Smith. Again,the heckling women in the audience are pathetically insensitive.
Bill, I’ve listened to your podcast from the very start and appreciated your candid efforts to find and discuss the truth, but you are loosing me if you can’t treat these subject with more respect. Those that followed BY to the desert west fell into a serious cult. Them and their descendants all suffer from the psychological effects of lies, manipulation, and straight out neurosis. Maybe those females in your audience heckle from embarrassment because they too live or lived under the shadow of polygamy and the LDS patriarchy.
I used to believe that joseoh practiced polygamy because that’s what the church taught me. A close and careful study of the manipulation of the historical documents, including Joseph’s own personal journal, leads very candidly to the conclusion that joseph, the prophet of God, kissed polygamy just as he always stated and testified, and thatBrigham and his contemporaries perverted the record to implicate Joseph so that they could continue in their sin!
I hate auto correct! Abhorred polygamy is what was meant.