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An in depth investigation into the serious problems that show up in the very first verse of Section 132.

Scriptures

Judges 19
Helaman 11:23

Links

Dictionary: Concubine
Blacks in Utah
Testimony of William Clayton

Summary

In this episode, Michelle Stone examines the very first verse of Doctrine & Covenants 132, which sets the foundation for Mormon polygamy. She questions whether this revelation truly came from God or whether it reflects preconceived biases and desires. She analyzes the historical record, scriptural contradictions, and moral implications of the claim that God justified polygamy for figures like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon.

Key Themes:

  1. The Origin of Doctrine & Covenants 132
    • The only historical source for how D&C 132 came to be is an affidavit by William Clayton, written more than 30 years after the event.
    • Clayton claimed that Joseph Smith dictated the revelation from memory, but Stone challenges the reliability of this account.
  2. Did God Truly Justify Polygamy?
    • The first verse of D&C 132 claims that God justified polygamy for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon.
    • However, historical and scriptural evidence contradicts this claim:
      • Isaac and Moses were not polygamists at all.
      • David and Solomon were condemned for their polygamy in Jacob 2:24 (Book of Mormon).
      • Jacob and Abraham’s polygamous marriages were not commanded by God, but the result of human decisions and social pressure.
    • Stone argues that this foundational claim is factually incorrect, raising doubts about the divine origin of D&C 132.
  3. Preconceived Notions and Seeking Justification from God
    • Stone examines how revelation is received and whether those who sought the revelation on polygamy were already biased.
    • She compares different ways people seek answers from God:
      • Sincere questioning: Asking why something happened.
      • Confirmation bias: Assuming something is true and seeking divine approval.
      • Faith-shelf mentality: Avoiding difficult questions altogether.
    • She argues that the request for a revelation on polygamy appears to be seeking justification rather than truth-seeking.
  4. The Troubling Inclusion of Concubinage in D&C 132
    • The doctrine not only justifies multiple wives but also concubines, which raises serious moral and ethical concerns.
    • Stone discusses the role of concubines in biblical times, noting that they were often powerless women, treated as property, and had no rights.
    • She draws attention to the horrifying story in Judges 19, where a concubine was abused and murdered, yet her husband faced no consequences.
    • This leads to the question: Does God truly endorse concubinage as an eternal principle?
  5. Polygamy and Slavery: A Disturbing Connection
    • Stone highlights how concubinage in the Bible often involved slavery, and how early LDS members practiced polygamy during a time when slavery was still legal.
    • She raises unsettling questions about whether D&C 132 could have been used to justify sexual relationships with enslaved women, as happened in other historical contexts.
  6. Contradictions Between D&C 132 and Other Scriptures
    • The Book of Mormon (Jacob 2:24-27) explicitly condemns David and Solomon’s polygamy, calling it an abomination.
    • Deuteronomy 17:17 warns kings not to take multiple wives, which David and Solomon ignored.
    • Stone argues that D&C 132 contradicts these earlier scriptures, raising serious doubts about its authenticity.
  7. Final Thoughts: Does God Truly Endorse Concubinage and Polygamy?
    • Stone urges listeners to ask themselves whether they truly believe that God would justify treating women as property.
    • She challenges modern polygamist defenders to explain how concubinage fits into their understanding of celestial marriage.
    • She calls for critical thinking, spiritual discernment, and deeper investigation into the origins of D&C 132.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy, where we explore the scriptural and theological case for plural marriage. If this is your first time here, please remember to listen to these episodes in order, starting with number 1 and continuing on from there. My name is Michelle Stone, and this is episode 11, where we will investigate the problems that show up in the very first verse of 132, namely, preconceptions and concubines. Thank you for joining us as we take a deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon polygamy. For this episode, it’s important to have a basic understanding of how we have always been taught that 132 came into existence. So the only source we have for for the story as we understand it is an affidavit that William Clayton, who was Joseph Smith’s scribe at the time that he gave more than 30 years later. So needless to say, there, there’s a lot of controversy here. There are, um, you know, there’s a lot of reason to be Somewhat hesitant to just automatically accept this count as truth. So we’ll go into some of that a bit further again, that’s not not our investigation right now. I just want to read this portion of the affidavit so everyone understands the background we have been taught of where this supposed revelation comes from. So this is what it says. On the morning of the 12th of July 1843, Joseph and Hiram Smith came. To the office on the upper story of the brick store on the bank of the Mississippi River, they were talking on the subject of plural marriage. Hiram said to Joseph, If you will write the revelation on celestial marriage, I will take it and read it to Emma, and I believe I can convince her of her of its truth, and you will hereafter have peace. Joseph smiled and remarked, You do not know Emma as well as I do. Hiram repeated his opinion and further remarked, the doctor. It is so plain I can convince any reasonable man or woman of its truth, purity, or heavenly origin or words to their effect. Joseph then said, Well, I will write the revelation, and we will see. He then requested me to get paper and prepared to write. Hiram very urgently requested Joseph to write the revelation by means of the Urim and Thummim, but Joseph, in reply said he did not need to, for he knew the revelation perfectly from beginning to end. Joseph and Hiram then sat down, and Joseph commenced to dictate the revelation on celestial marriage, and I wrote it sentence by sentence as he dictated. After the whole was written, Joseph asked me to read it through slowly and carefully, which I did, and he pronounced it correct. He then remarked that there was much more that he could write on the same subject, but that what was written would suffice for the present. OK, just reading this again makes me want to go off on so many of the problems there, but that’s not the topic today, so I will refrain. But, um, and I, and I don’t know, I don’t want to claim to know for sure whether or not this account is accurate or not accurate. Whether Joseph Smith was involved in and speaking the words for William Clayton to transcribe or not, everybody will need to measure the evidence and decide that for themselves. Somewhere in a later episode on the topic, I’ll I’ll share some of my thoughts, but again, I just want to clarify. Whether Joseph spoke these words or not, in my opinion, is not the important point and should not be the primary focus. It’s not the primary focus of this podcast because it is not where or how we find the truth of God. Joseph was a wonderful prophet and and restored this gospel, but he was a mortal man who was capable of error. So I again, I’m not claiming one way or the other, just I want to know what God says,

[00:03:40] and for me that doesn’t hinge on what Joseph Smith says. The truth of God might be different from what Joseph Smith taught at one time, or it might be the same. But I think the essential question we need to ask is not did 132, did section 132 come from Joseph Smith. The essential question we need to ask is, did 132 come from God? So that’s what we’re going to investigate piece by piece in this and in future episodes. Today, we are only looking at the very first verse because that’s where the problems begin. So this is verse one of 13. To verily thus sayeth the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, that is in that inasmuch as you have inquired at my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and also Moses, David, and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines. So, OK, there’s verse one, right? So you might want to keep that. Close by so you can refer back to it because we’re just going to spend the whole episode on that one verse. So the first problem I see with this opening verse is that it reveals, it reveals that Joseph or whoever sought the Lord on this issue, I’m just going to assume that somebody prayed about something. I, I don’t, I don’t want to assume that it was just made up out of whole cloth because that’s not what I tend to believe. But again, everyone has their own assumption. I think that somebody went to the Lord seeking an answer, Joseph or somebody else. So, um, but whoever did that seemed to already have their minds made up about it, and they were not necessarily asking sincere questions. Instead of simply asking the Lord to help them understand why some men in the scriptures were polygamists, the wording makes it sound like they were already convinced of and asserting several things. In their very question, they were making the case that polygamy was a doctrine of God justified by God and practiced by most of God’s most important Old Testament prophets. It feels to me that more than seeking than sincerely and honestly seeking insight into something they didn’t understand. They were seeking justification for the ideas they already held and the outcome they already wanted. This kind of approach, in my opinion, is not the best way to receive truth from God. So, OK, so I want to clarify this a little bit. So here’s an example I can give that might, that might resonate with some of you. If I were to ask God with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, in other words, with great contrition and humility and a true willingness to receive any answer. To please help me understand why the priesthood ban occurred in the church. If I ask that way, I am likely to get a very different answer than if I ask God to help me understand why black people were inferior and needed to be kept from the priesthood. Do you understand the difference? I assume you do. If I honestly ask the first question and say, why did this happen? Why was this allowed to happen as I did many years ago. I might be led to answers helping me understand the climate in early Utah. Like, for example, that there were 3 slaves. Their names were Oscar Crosby, Harkley, and Green Flake. Green Flake was Green Flake was actually the man driving the wagon when Brigham Young declared, this is the right place, drive on. Those 3 men were in the very first wagon train to come into the Salt Lake Valley sent as laborers on the trek by their owners who had converted to the church

[00:07:06] and who apparently often used their slaves’ labor as their tithing donations to the church. I might be led to speeches and sermons that helped me see the attitudes of some of the early leaders who I think unfortunately had the authority to implement their views into official church policy which became accepted as doctrine and handed down for generations. So, If I am seeking that way, maybe those are some of the answers that I will be led to and discover. If I ask the second question where I already am convinced that the things, some of the things we’ve been taught are true, that black people, that that the priesthood banned was from God because it was necessary. As apparently some of the early church leaders did ask that way, I might be led to thinking that God was telling me that black people were not valiant in the war in heaven, and because they were fence sitters, they should not be allowed to have the priesthood or receive temple ordinances in this life, even though that contradicts so much of our revealed revelation. Man, I hate even getting into those topics because they are so difficult and painful for me. So I’m sorry to bring them up. I just think it’s an important It’s a very important principle to understand. And this is a really clear example of how we can understand the point. I, I should include that there’s a third way we could ask that’s probably really common in the church. Um, we could, we could ask with a broken heart and contrite spirit, why this was why this was allowed to happen, but with the underlying assumption that it was correct, because if our church leaders did it, it must have been what God wanted. And if I ask this way, I might, I might only be able to get answers along the lines of we don’t know and we don’t need to know. We can put it on the shelf and focus on the things that we do understand and that we do feel good about. We choosing to doubt our doubts and um and while that is a fine, a fine answer and a fine direction, the problem that I think it has is that as we tragically see all around us. Overloaded shelves have a way of breaking, and, um, and I think that God can, can help us do better than just having a big, big shelf. So anyway, there’s an example to show that when we seek revelation, our attitude matters immensely. If we go to the Lord with our minds already made up, seeking only justification for what we already want and we already want to do, and we already want to believe. The Lord cannot easily give us His true answers if instead of asking for justification for polygamy, whoever sought the Lord had had asked how they could understand the difficult things that seemed like grave sins in the Old Testament, including polygamy, slavery, prostitution, murder, aggressive warfare, genocide, kidnapping, rape, more and more if they had really gone and said God. This seems terrible. Can you help me understand this? Maybe they would have received a very different answer. Perhaps something more in line, more in line with the teachings of the Book of Mormon and the teachings of Jesus Christ. I love, um, that Joseph Smith is said to have said that there are revelations of God, revelations of man, and revelations of of devils. I think that one of the best ways to ensure we are ensure we are receiving revelations from God and avoiding deception is to first really check our hearts to discover if we have hidden motives or secret mo. Maybe that we’re not even fully aware of. And then we can ask, ask the Lord if we are asking the right questions. Um, so here’s, here’s another example,

[00:10:35] but it’s my understanding, and again, you can study this out for yourselves, but is it, it does ring true to me. It’s my understanding that when President, oh, I’m sorry, this issue is making me emotional today. It’s my understanding that when President Kimble prayed repeatedly for God to reverse his priesthood ban, God’s priesthood ban. Um, against black members holding the priesthood or being welcomed into the temple, that, um, the heavens were closed and he just didn’t get an answer and that’s part of the reason it took so long that he really sought and prayed about this for a long time. But it wasn’t until he finally went to the Lord in deep and sincere repentance with a broken heart and contrite spirit and asked for forgiveness for the church’s racist policy that the heavens opened and the powerful spirit of the Lord poured out confirming that yes, yes indeed, blacks should be allowed to have the priesthood and be welcomed into the temple and the ban was lifted. So I think it’s essential to ask the right questions. If they had asked the first question the Lord had answered, then they could continue to believe that the band was that the Lord was the author of the ban. But when they instead approached it with repentance, it was clear that the Lord was not the author of the ban, and that was the only way the Lord could answer that question. So, um, OK, so it is essential to ask the right questions, but with 132, again, it appears to me that someone wanted to live this doctrine. And was seeking this revelation in order to claim justification from God. So again, please don’t take my word for it. I’m sharing what seems and the most likely to me from the research I have done. But let’s get into it and you guys can make your own decisions. So let’s look at the preconceived assumptions that were included in the question. Again, if you read the first verse that they are that God is saying, I will tell you, I will ask your question that you asked about how I justified polygamy for these six men and how it is a doctrine and a principle. So first it was assumed that all of these men Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon were polygamists. Well, OK, that’s definitely true in the case of David and Solomon, who were specifically condemned for it in the Book of Mormon. It is true, but with reservations about Jacob and and especially Abraham. We’ll get into it more on the episode of Jacob. And it is factually false about both Isaac and Moses as we covered in our last two episodes. So I discussed this a bit before, but I do not know of any other revelation where God makes this kind of basic factual error. I have never found one. I haven’t done an exhaustive search, so if anybody points one out, please let me know. But in the meantime, I again have to ask, should we just ignore the fact that God, God got such a critical point wrong about his own servants? Should we attribute that level of factual sloppiness to God who says, What I, the Lord, have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself. And though the heavens and the earth shall pass away, my words shall not pass away. Should we expect? God to make that kind of a mistake, or is there a far more logical answer? As I see it, we have three options of how we can approach this problem. First, we can claim that 132 is completely correct and inspired revelation, and that all other scriptures or many, many things and all other scriptures, including the Book of Mormon, are incorrect,

[00:13:55] or I guess we can avoid the problem by just remaining ignorant of all of the other scriptures. Um, number 2, we can Decide that God is imperfect, and can make very basic mistakes, and we’re OK with that. Or number 3, we can believe that God is incapable of error and that the scriptures are true, and thus this one section at least should be investigated, questioned, held up for some scrutiny. I personally think that the third option is by far the most sound, is, is the best choice. So, OK, that’s the first assumption. The next assumption is that God justified polygamy for these men. Again, this assumption directly contradicts the Book of Mormon, which strongly condemns David and Solo Solomon for their polygamy. Jacob 2:24 said, Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, sayeth the Lord. There’s, it’s, we can’t downplay that to say it was only about Uriah. That’s another 132 problem we’ll get on to late, get get into later on. It was the polygamy itself. Very clearly, the Book of Mormon makes it clear. It’s the polygamy itself which was condemned. Um, and even the Old Testament condemns, well, forbids polygamy and Deuteronomy 1717. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself that his heart turned not away. Neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. Neither David nor Solomon kept either of these commandments. So, and God did not justify them in it. The claim that God justified polygamy would have actually been stronger if they had only included Abraham and Jacob, cause that’s where you can at least struggle with that. Like, did God justify this for them? But um, but neither of them wanted to be polygamists. I think both of them would have far preferred to live monogamous lives. So it’s, it’s really interesting, but the fact is it includes all six of these men, so it’s not a very good track record. Um, OK, and so what about also, it left me wondering case they include these 6 men, 2 were not polygamists, 2 were condemned polygamists, and 2 were possibly justified polygamists, we can, we can investigate that, right? But what about the other 19 named Old Testament polygamists they left off their list. It includes lame, Esau, Saul, also on the good side, Gideon and Zedekiah. Um, how can we know whose polygamy was justified and part of a doctrine and who wasn’t? What are the indications? What are the clues? And what about the Book of Mormon polygamists, um, that they failed to include King Noah and his priests, replicke, um, and, and the two others, David and Solomon, who were condemned for their polygamy, they were the only two that were included. And so, um. Let’s see where, where am I going with this? So and then the more important question is what about all of the faithful prophets of God

[00:16:49] who were not included, who were not polygamists, including Adam, Noah, Lehi, Nephi, and so, so many others. I know that some people argue that the people, well, everybody that defends defends 132 argues that the people in the Book of Mormon were not righteous enough to live polygamy. But that is a long list of people who did many mighty works for the Lord. It includes, well, for example, it includes Nephi and Lehi, the sons of of Heliman, and um, this is Heliman 11:23. Nephi and Lehi and many of their brethren who knew concerning the true points of doctrine having many revelations daily. So I, I mean, I don’t know. Did there are many revelations daily? Isn’t that evidence that they qualified for whatever blessings the Lord had and the fact that they knew, they knew the true points of doctrine mean that they understood the doctrine. God, how, how could they just have missed this one doctrine or how could they not have been worthy to live it? It just doesn’t make sense. So, OK, those are the first two assumptions. The third assumption we have is that having many wives and concubines was a principle and doctrine of God. Although there is, again, no evidence for that anywhere in Scripture, at least, at least there wasn’t any evidence for it before 132. If, if you want to ask anyone for evidence of it now, they will cite 132. OK, so I am going to issue an official challenge slash opportunity. If anybody can find any scripture where God commands one of his servants to live polygamy or teaches that it is a doctrine of exaltation other than 132, I will invite you onto the podcast to Discuss it and to publicly prove me wrong about at least that one point. So ready if anybody can find something. I, I, I will put, put it out on the line and give you that opportunity. I have never found anything to support these claims. In fact, everything I have studied contradicts these claims. More and more, the more I research it, the more The stronger the case against it becomes. So despite there being zero scriptural justification for it anywhere, the preconceived assumption that polygamy was a doctrine grew and grew until polygamy became considered the highest, holy, holiest, most important doctrine of the church and the sole means of attaining exaltation. So those are the three assumptions that I find in verse 1, that those 6 men were all polygamists, that their polygamy was justified, and that polygamy is a doctrine of God. So, so, you know, everyone can decide what to do with that. I think, I hope, I hope that you’ll go research it and look and see if you agree with that and share what your thoughts are, cause I think it’s pretty to me it’s pretty clear. Um. OK, so these issues are important, but to me the far more important and more troubling troubling issue. Is that 132 1 not only declares having many wives to be a doctrine of God but also having many concubines. OK, so just as an aside,

[00:20:06] I, I can’t even tell you how many times people have said, well, the 12 tribes came through polygamy, so we know that polygamy is, is from God, and we have to acknowledge that that the 12 tribes came through concubinage just as much as they did through polygamy. Two of Jacob’s wives were concubines. And so, um. Let’s see. So Bill, I’ll say their names Zilpa and Bilha were like Hagar, the slaves of his actual wives, and were given to him to have babies for their mistresses to claim as their own in their desperate competition to have children, to try to attain the love of their husband. So, um, From the history and from 132 itself, it is, it is clear that having many concubines is every bit as much a part of our history and the doctrine. If this is a doctrine, it includes concubines just as much as it includes many wives. So that’s what I want to look into, OK. So one of the tools that I really like, oh, I was going to bring it up with me and I didn’t. It’s a big giant green book. It’s the Webster’s 1828 dictionary. It was Noah Webster’s first dictionary, and the reason it’s important is because it was the dictionary that was in use at the time of Joseph Smith. So it gives us the meaning of words as Joseph Smith would have understood them, if that makes sense. So it’s really a useful resource for trying to understand things. Like an example is one of the one of the evidence. of Joseph Smith’s polygamy is a letter written by Oliver Cowdrey, I think it was a letter where he talks about the nasty dirty affair in the barn. And um since it says affair, I think we’ve really assumed that that means it had a sexual connotation. But if you look up a fair in the 1828 dictionary, none of the definitions have anything to do with a sexual engagement. It just means a happening at an event like, and so, so those kind of bits of information are really useful. So sorry, didn’t mean to go into that. That’s an that we’ll talk about it another time, maybe. But anyway, so I looked up concubine in the 1828 dictionary because I just wanted to get a really clear understanding of how this word would have been understood. So concubinage is um what comes up first, and it’s the act or practice of cohabiting as a man and woman in sexual commerce without the authority of law or of legal marriage. In a more general sense, this word is used to express any criminal or prohibited sexual commerce, including adultery, incest, and fornication. In some countries, concubinage is the marriage of an inferior kind or performed with less solemnity, solemnity than a true or formal marriage, or marriage with a woman of inferior condition to whom the husband does not convey his rank or quality. This is said to still be used in Germany. So that’s concubinage, right? The first definition is any sort of illicit relationship, and then the second definition is more the biblical one that that we’re talking about, which is a marriage to an inferior wife who Doesn’t who doesn’t get the benefits of marriage. So then concubine, the first definition is a woman who who cohabits with a man without the authority of a legal marriage, a woman kept for lewd purposes a kept mistress. And then the second definition is a wife of inferior condition, a a lawful wife, but not united to the man by the usual ceremonies and of inferior condition, such as were Hagar and Kara, the concubines of Abraham.

[00:23:34] Um, and such concubines were allowed by Roman laws. So those are the definitions. So it’s really useful to see that at first means just a mistress. And the interesting thing is, is that in many ways a concubine and a mistress are really similar. A concubine has no more benefits or expectation of marriage of the blessings of marriage than a mistress has. So that’s the definition that I just wanted to get into. And then, um, if we think about that, concubine being included with those definitions in a lot of ways would Would seem to permit the kind of spiritual wifery that um that Bennett and others were engaged in that Joseph spoke out against vehemently and repeatedly. So it’s hard to know how concubine could be included in that, and yet those practices they were engaging in be excluded. So I don’t know exactly how to make sense of that, but um we’ll go on and let’s see. OK, so, so yes, so the definition makes it clear that concubines were basically, well, they were quite literally powerless women who men are free to use sexually with no responsibility and no commitment. So it’s kind of a hard thing to really think about. I know we just hear the word and then, you know, we know the story of Hagar, we know the story of um Zilpa and Bilha, but we don’t really engage always to think what that really meant and what it would mean in our time and how we should feel about that. So, um, the fact that 132 includes this as a supposed part of the doctrine, which is declared by many to be the highest law and the holiest doctrine of God. is something that I find really problematic. So, so I went ahead, we’re going to get into the word concubine and the examples we have of concubines from history. So from the scriptures. So again, if you search the scriptures for the word concubine, it’s used 4 times in the doctrine and covenants, all four in Section 132, justifying wives and many wives and many concubines as a doctrine of God. Huh, OK. It’s used 8 times in the Book of Mormon each time to completely condemn it as we’ve already covered. 4 are surrounding Jacob’s sermon to the people, um, to Jacob’s sermon when he is condemning David and Solomon, who truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, sayeth the Lord. Three of them are describing wicked King Noah and his priests who did not keep the commandments of God, but he did walk after the desires of his heart, and he had many wives and concubines. And the last one is describing the wicked Jaredite king Replike, who it’s either 10:5 says did not do that, which was right in the side of the Lord, for he did have many wives and concubines. OK, so we have 8 instances in the Book of Mormon universally condemned. Then it’s not used at all in the New Testament, and that leaves only the Old Testament where concubine, the word is used 37 times. And as I read through all of them, they’re, they’re just descriptions. They’re descriptive, describing the concubines of various men. Some were included in the genealogies. It’s not ever commanded or doctrinal and frankly, Many of them are very deeply troubling, so we’re just going to talk about a lot of it. I mean just a little bit and go over these, these are all slave women who had no rights, no inheritance, no expectation of protection, no status of a wife, no right to their own body, and often no right to their own children. So some of the troubling stories,

[00:27:09] Hagar’s story of abandonment, Bill Has and Rizpa’s stories of their. their husbands of their of their husband’s sons taking advantage of them perhaps as a political move against their fathers. Rizpa’s and Michael’s stories of their husband willingly handing over their sons to be murdered, um, untold numbers of women like Esther being kept practically as prisoners with no opportunity for a life or family of their own, just waiting until the king called for her by name. And so many more that we don’t even know of. You can remember the story of Esther, where if she even went to talk to her husband, the king, she risked death. That was, that was the life of a concubine, right? OK, but um I really hesitated whether to go into this, but I, I felt like it’s the thing to do, so. I’m just gonna tell you there’s one concubine in particular whose story is far and away the worst of all of them. In many ways, in my opinion, maybe the worst story in the Bible, and that is saying something. It’s at least one of the worst stories in the Bible. This is the woman I think of when I hear the word concubine. I studied her story many years ago when I first wrote a paper and started giving presentations on Lot’s wife. And so you might note some of the similarities. Her story is in Judges 19. I’m going to edit it down for time because this is already a long episode. If you are in a place where you don’t want to hear a hard story, just, you know, go forward a couple of minutes in the video. But I’m going to read this. Kay, there was a certain Levite who took him a concubine out of Bethlehem Judah, and his concubine played the horror against him and went away from Hinman to her father’s house to Bethlehem Judah and was there 4 whole months. OK, to clarify, horror means betrayal. In this case, it is most likely that her betrayal was simply wanting to leave. It says she played the horror against him and did this. So if she had been guilty of adultery, he, it’s very unlikely that her father would have received her into his home. It’s very unlikely that this man would have gone to get her and wanted her back. He could have accused her at the law and had her stoned. So rather than thinking of her as an adulterous wife, I think as we get into the story, I think that maybe you will agree that it’s far better to think of her as a battered wife trying to escape her brutal husband. I’m sorry, I mean a battered concubine. Trying to escape her husband, so, um, and her husband arose and went after her to speak friendly unto her and to bring her again. And um she he gets to the father-in-law’s house where she was staying, and his father-in-law, the damsel’s father, retained him, and he abode with him 3 days, and they did eat and drink and lodge there. And it came to pass that on the 4th day when they arose in the early morning that he rose up to depart, and the damsel’s father said unto his son-in-law, Co thine heart with a morsel of bread and go afterward on your way. And afterward go on your way. I think as it goes on, I see a father who didn’t have rights. He didn’t any longer have. Authority over his daughter because now she belonged to her husband as his concubine, so I think he’s trying to protect her, although he didn’t have the authority to do so. And they sat down and did eat and drink both of them together, for the damsel’s father had said unto the man, Be content, I pray thee, and tarry all night and let thine heart be merry. And when the man rose up to depart, his father-in-law urged him. Therefore, he lodged there 3 days,

[00:30:36] and he arose early on the morning of the 5th day to depart. And the damsel’s father said, Comfort thine heart, I pray thee, and they tarried until afternoon, and they did both eat, and they did eat both of them. And when the man rose up to depart, he and his concubine and his servant, his father-in-law, the damsel’s father, said unto him, Behold, now the day draweth toward evening. I pray you, tarry, all night, behold, the day groweth to an end. Lodge here that thine heart may be merry, and tomorrow get out, get you early on your way. They thou mayst go, go home. So I think you can see the man is trying and trying to stall. But the man would not tarry that night, but he rose up and departed. His concubine also was with him. And he said unto his servant, as they’re traveling, he says unto his servant, Come and let us draw near to one of these places to lodge all night in Gibya or Rama. They go into Gibea, an old man sees them in the street and offers them lodging. So he, so he brought him into his house. The old man brought him into his house and gave provender unto the asses, and they washed their feet and did eat and drink. Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold the men of the city, certain sons of Belial must be a, I don’t know, um, beset the house round about and beat at the door and spake to the master of the house, the old man saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house that we may know him, you see the similarities to the story of Lot’s wife. And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you do not so wickedly, seeing that this man has come into my house, do not this folly. Behold. Breathe. Behold, here is my daughter, a maiden and his concubine. The I will bring out now and humble ye them and do with them what seemeth good unto you. But unto this man do not this vile thing. Sorry. Hard to read these stories, but the men would not hearken to him. So the man took his concubine and brought her forth unto them, and they knew her and abused her all the night until the morning. And when the day began to spring, they let her go. Then the woman then came the woman in the dawning of the day and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her lord was till it was light. And her lord rose up in the morning and opened the door of the house and went out to be on to go on his way, and behold, the woman his concubine was falling down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. And he said and so noticed he rose up in the morning after his good comfortable night’s sleep. And he said unto her, Up, up, let us be going. Hey, get up. Come on, it’s time to go. Um, but there, but none answered. There was no answer. Then the man took her up upon his up up upon an ass, and the man rose up and got him unto his place. And when he had come into his house, he took a knife and laid hold upon his concubine and divided her together with her bones into 12 pieces and sent her into all the coasts of Israel. Oh, OK,

[00:33:33] so. The reason I thought it was important to read that horrible story is because so many people like to claim that God didn’t condemn Abraham and Jacob’s polygamy. So it must be of God. Well, please recognize that God also never combined condemned concubinage, and he also never condemned this particular husband in any way. This man, in fact, he was not condemned, he acquired a level of fame and attention in Judges 20:2, the next chapter. And the chief of all the people, even all the tribes of Israel, presented themselves in the assembly of the people of God. Then said the children of Israel, Tell us how was this wickedness. And the Levite, the husband of the woman that was slain, answered and said, I came into Gibea that belongeth to Benjamin. I and my concubine to lodge. And the men of Gibea rose up against rose against me and beset the house round about upon me. Upon me by night and thought to have slain me and my concubine they have forced that she is dead, and I took my concubine and cut her into pieces and sent her throughout all the country of of the inheritance of Israel, for they have committed lewdness and folly in Israel. So this man got to stand before all the chiefs of all the tribes and tell his version of the story and It went on from there. His story started a war which turned into a horrible genocide, which then. Went into other awful atrocities regarding women that we will, girls and women that we will cover again in a later episode, but. Ah, but, um, there was no justice for this concubine. Her severed body, as I said, was used as the means to start this brutal genocide that caused such a bad, bad um set of circumstances. But in the narrative, the who I consider to be the true guilty party, her husband suffered no rebuke, no condemnation, and no consequences. So. OK, I, I think we all, I think, I mean, we all understand why we usually just ignore this story, but it’s important to recognize that it is part of the biblical record, and it’s part of the history of the 12 tribes. In fact, one of the tribes would have been erased as a result of this story. It anyway, it goes on to. places, but it is an integral part of our, of the history of the 12 tribes. So we cannot use the fact that polygamy is in the Old Testament, seemingly with Jacob and Abraham seemingly uncondemned. We cannot use that fact to claim that it is therefore a doctrine of God. And um And it is quite horrifying that concubinage would be in any way included in what is purported to be a doctrine of God. I I just like, I think we’ll get into this a little more later, but you know, it’s concubine is a doctrine of God? Do you believe that? Do you really believe that? Ask yourself. So, OK, so we’re gonna move on to more recent history cause that was That was in the scriptural time. So let’s move on to the time of 132. So, and, and early church history.

[00:36:40] I personally, thankfully haven’t found any information on concubines being included in the practice of Mormon polygamy. If anyone has any sources or information, please share them with me because I haven’t seen any. So I am very glad I’m very thankful that it seems we didn’t broadly reinstitute concubinage, but I have to admit that that is strange. It is strange that there weren’t concubines since it is part of the doctrine. The claim based on 132, the claim that it was doctrine that grew to say polygamy must be lived in order to gain exaltation. And yet the scripture that that is based on includes concubines as part of that doctrine. Men, men should have both many wives and many concubines. They’re justified in both, and both are part of the doctrine. So if men needed many wives to be exalted, why didn’t they also need concubines? It’s part of the doctrine. So, um, I also haven’t read anything to explain how concubines were supposed to fit into this doctrine. So, My understanding is that it was believed and taught that each wife represented a different planet that these polygamist men would have when they were exalted and became gods. So what was the role of the concubine? It was concubines couldn’t expect the same inheritance or belonging and wives, so what was their eternal destiny? And um did anyone even think about that? And then also, who were expected to be the concubines, who should be concubines? That’s, that’s something to think about. So this entire topic is so difficult, and I’m afraid it gets even harder, um. So stick with me for a minute more. If we put 132 into the context of the time, the time period that it was supposedly revealed, well, yeah, that it was supposedly revealed, which was and exposed, it was um or brought forward. It was 10 years or so before the start of the Civil War. And at least 12 years before the Emancipation Proclamation, so a new horror emerges. We just mentioned that legally owned black slaves whose masters converted to the church were sent by their masters on the very first wagon train to Utah, and slave owners crossed the plains and came to Zion. So slavery existed in early Utah. In the beginning of the church. Now I am not claiming that this happened among the Mormon slave owners because I certainly hope it didn’t. I have no evidence to say that it did, but from my understanding, it was not terribly uncommon for slave owners to have slave mistresses and um. While I desperately hoped that this was never the case, I have to acknowledge that 132 could be perfectly used by a slave owner to justify the righteousness of his having a concubine or many concubines among his slaves. OK, so we will look at that idea. Well, we, we now look at that idea with utter abhorrence, but that is the literal meaning of the word concubine, and 132 declares it to not only be justified, but an actual doctrine of God. And yes, people can say that um that it’s only justified if God gives you the concubines. And in other words, according to 132, if the concubines were given to the man, like verse 37 says, Abraham received 1327. Abraham received concubines and they bore him children, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness because they were given unto him. So there are more examples in 38 and 39 versus 38 and 39, but there is nothing anywhere that defines how to know if God has given a woman or a concubine to you. Well,

[00:40:29] OK, we’re gonna later on discuss the many problems with that entire concept, the entire concept of owning anybody, but including women. But there is nothing in the scriptures to show how God was involved in Abraham or Jacob or David or Solomon’s acquisition of their slaves, their wives, or their concubines. I know, OK, so when we get into the episode on David, we’ll cover the verse where Nathan says that God blessed him with his possessions, which included his wives and concubines. People always quote that as evidence of God’s involvement of polygamy, but They never seem to seem to know about or bring up the contradictory scriptures, like, for example, 2 Samuel 5:13, which says, and David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem after he was come from Hebron, Hebron. So it always says that David took his concubines and his wives, but there’s that one verse where Nathan tells him that God gave them to him. So The way I understand this, and I think the only way to understand it is the concept, you know, we all understand the concept that all things come from God. Everything we have is because God blessed us with it. God blessed us with it. So in other words, God gave it to us, right? If, um, if You know, I think that’s a good concept. All good things come from God. If we’re dependent on God for everything all the time. But if you have read any of the defenses of slavery from this time period, you will know that that slavery was considered by those who wanted to defend it as the rightful order instituted by God and supported by the Bible. Um, you know, why else would a master own a slave if God hadn’t wanted it to be that way, if God hadn’t allowed it, if God hadn’t given the slave to the master. And so, so really, The sad and painful truth is that concubine being included in 132 and thus declared a doctrine of God would absolutely justify men in having slave mistresses. That is literally what it means. And because it is doctrine, it seems that we should acknowledge that just as polygamous men considered themselves more righteous if they had many wives than men with only one wife, wouldn’t they also be more righteous if they had concubines? They were fulfilling the full, the full doctrine, not just part of it. So if they lived the entire doctrine just as Abraham and Jacob did, they were maybe even more righteous. And again, I don’t know if any of this happened. Please don’t take this to say this that I’m saying this is what happened in early Mormondom Mormondom. I am simply looking at this supposed revelation. At what is claimed to be a doctrine of God and trying to parse out what it actually means. And so the question I am asking is, does God support concubinage for, for example, does God want to give us all of those ways to justify, you know, that men could justify themselves in having sexual relations with slaves who Again, as concubines could expect no um no benefits of marriage, right, which is exactly how it, how it was for slave owners who did that. So in studying this,

[00:43:49] I really, I want to ask like current polygamists and people who are just these vehement defenders of polygamy, how they view the doctrine of concubines, which 132 declares. I, I don’t know how that can be denied. These are important questions. So here are some of the questions we need to ask. Who should be the concubines? How do we decide who they are? Um, since concubines are basically slaves, do they have any power or right to refuse? We can see throughout the scriptures the concubines didn’t seem to. Um, in fact, when the sons, like when Jacob’s son and I think it was Saul’s son, slept with one of their concubines, it’s one of the few times in the Bible where the man receives the blame and the condemnation far more than the woman. And the woman doesn’t seem to receive any blame, and that was interesting to me. And the way I can explain that is because it was understood that they didn’t have a choice, right? They didn’t have any power to refuse because they are, they didn’t own their own body. So, um, what is the eternal destiny of concubines? Then for you women, would you want to be a concubine, men and women, would you want your daughters to be a concubine? We can’t claim that the entirety of Section 132 is true revelation. Let alone the purest, highest revelation from God, declaring the most exalting doctrine without also embracing the doctrine not only of how many of of having many wives but also of having many concubines, in which case, if that’s part of the doctrine, it should have been lived. So how can we make sense of this? Asking some of these questions helps me understand a little bit better how They came up with the idea that some people were less valiant in heaven. I really hope that nobody is tempted to use that idea to justify the supposed doctrine of concubinage that has sadly already been done, and I think it should stay dead and buried. So to quickly recap, recap what we have covered. For anyone who is still wondering or considering whether Section 1132, at least in its entirety, is revelation from God, here are some things to consider. First, is it possible that those seeking the revelation? had preconceived notions and motivations that could have gotten in the way of their receiving pure truth, namely that those 6 men were polygamists, that their polygamy was justified, and that having many wives and concubines is a doctrine of the Lord. And You know, looking into that, does it make sense to you that God would have made basic factual mistakes and been kind of Just sloppy in those things and but far more importantly, please take some time to consider whether you honestly believe that God, the champion of women who twice comforted a Hagar and saved her life in the desert, who declared that every soul is precious in His sight. Who refused to allow even a guilty woman to be stoned, who declared, I have seen the sorrow and heard the mourning of the of the daughters of my people, and I will not suffer the cries of the fair daughters of this people shall come up unto me. Does this God, the protector and champion of women who cares deeply about the feelings and experiences of his daughters, want any of his daughters to be considered property in any way, either as wives or especially as concubines? Ask yourself and God, if the doctrine of concubinage doctrine of concubinage with all of its terrible history and terrible implications is truly an eternal doctrine that he inspired and that is required to receive the highest

[00:47:41] degree of exaltation. Take some time to ask God if the idea of concubines are from Him in any way. That’s what I hope that everybody will go on to do. And I know we spent some time on just these little pieces. I hope you found it worthwhile. Um, I am working on the episode on Jacob, so I’m really hoping I’ll have that ready for next time. And in the meantime, thank you so much for being here. My name is Michelle Stone, and this is 132 Problems.