127: Panel #4 – Joseph, Emma & Joseph III v. the Traitors

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Chapter Index

0:00 Intro
1:10 Is Brian Hales a “Transparencyist”?
3:20 Hyrum Smith’s April 8 1844 speech
7:50 Brian on how Joseph could deny having seven wives
37:45 Speaking evil of the Lord’s anointed (Joseph Smith)
39:15 Who’s really destroying faith?
40:05 Brian on Emma Smith’s denials
52:15 The testimony of traitors
56:35 Brian on William McLellin’s claims about Emma
1:03:30 William McLellin robbed the Smiths
1:05:00 Fanny Alger
1:11:05 Emily Partridge & Eliza Snow unreliable witnesses
1:14:10 Joseph Smith III defends his mother
1:22:45 Edmund C. Briggs interview with Emma
1:28:50 RLDS narrative v. LDS narrative
1:37:10 Joseph III’s letter to Joseph F. Smith re polygamy
1:50:25 Did Emma push Eliza R. Snow down the stairs?
1:56:15 Outro

Transcript

[00:00] Michelle: Welcome back to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy for the second half of my second conversation with Whitney Horning and Jeremy Hoop responding to Brian Hale’s narrative. Those of you who watched the first half will remember we ended just after talking about the voice of innocence, which is just one of Joseph’s many condemnations and denials of polygamy, which Brian doesn’t even include on his website. We are going to continue to talk. About Joseph’s denials, and then we are going to get into the conversation of Emma’s denials and Joseph Smith the TII’s denials and Brian’s handling of those. For anyone who hasn’t yet watched my, um, short video about the world’s worst transparencies, that is included in this part of the conversation, plus a lot more that you will want to hear. So thank you so much for joining us. Huge shout out to Whitney and Jeremy, and I hope you enjoyed this episode. I want to show what our neighborhood resident transparency is, how he covers this. This is Brian Hale’s website, Joseph Smith’s polygamy, the search term I’m typing in voice of innocence, let’s see what comes up. A total of 0 results. He doesn’t even include it anywhere at all on his website. This is not transparency. This is as opaque as it’s possible to be.

[01:40] Jeremy Hoop: That’s right. And then of course we have um uh we have. Uh, which does get published in the Times and Seasons, uh, Hiram Smith’s letter to the Saints in China Creek, basically telling them if they practice anything of that nature, having more than one wives, etc. that they’ll have their licenses removed and then they call in the elders from abroad to have them come to a special conference at the April 7th through 9th conference, at which, of course, and we, and Michelle’s talked about this extensively and, and for those of you who don’t know this, you should go and read the whole thing. Um, he speaks for an hour and a half with Brigham Young, and I believe Hebrew Kimball sitting behind him on the stand railing, railing against spiritual wifery and having more than one wife, and he says, and you should commit this to memory. God has not commanded any man to have more than one wife ever, and no spiritual wife doctrine ever originated with me. And he says, I would rather be friends with the devil than a man who preaches, uh preaches a pack of such crap, basically. And he says, if you find someone who’s doing this, I, I would box them in the nose and you ladies, if you have someone come up to you, you should box them in the nose. OK? And, and. By the way, Joseph warned the women. Hiram warned the women as much as he warned the men that they should not fall prey to these absolutely insidious doctrines. And so

[03:08] Michelle: let

[03:08] Jeremy Hoop: me

[03:08] Michelle: add. Should I, can I add something quickly? I’ve done shorts on, on all of these sources, any that I haven’t done yet. They’re in the works, so you can even just share shorts of these, um, of these series. But when you go to read Hiram Smith’s April 8th speech, be abundantly careful because it has again been removed from the Joseph Smith papers and Brian Hailes. Continually he has done this repeatedly tries to pass off the edited version as the original. That is so egregious

[03:44] Jeremy Hoop: dishonest. It’s so

[03:46] Michelle: massively he like, like the back and forth that we had on that. I’ve still wanted to do an episode just focusing on that on Brian Hale’s lying about that being removed and then lying about the reasons it was being removed and then continually sharing the edited version as if it were the original. It’s important anyway, there are So many things to be said about this, but I, I, the, the purpose of this episode is to expose the lack of transparency by the main person setting up the narrative for establishing the narrative that he has sold to the church leaders that they are now putting forth in their publications. Have any of you heard any of these sources that Jeremy has been going over from Brian C. Halls? When he goes on his episodes, when he does when he writes his books, his trilogy, his other things, what is his answer to these? Simply to hide them and pretend they don’t exist because they aren’t convenient. That’s, that’s our transparency. OK, go ahead, Jeremy. And,

[04:46] Jeremy Hoop: and so as we’re going through 1844, Joseph and Hiram are getting much more vocal, vociferous about this. and they’re becoming much more, more, more bold in their pronouncements, even though they’ve been opposed to it in letter form and in preaching the whole time, they just, they come out and they hammer it hard. Hire him in particular, but even Joseph, um, I wanna skip over the May 26th and go to June 8th and 10th, and the June 8th and 10th, um, city council meetings. They basically, um, they oppose Austin Cowells and his, um, his accusations that, that there had been a polygamy revelation, a revelation commanding having more than one wife, uh, or that William and Jane Law said that, that they had showed them a revelation, um, allowing a man to have more than one wife. They, they publicly denied that. Not only that, but they had it published. In the Novo Neighbor that it published in the Navu Neighbor so that all could read it. It wasn’t just this little, you know, we’re talking amongst the brethren, and we’re just gonna, you know, kind of keep this on the down low. They published it and they categorically denied having had a, had a revelation received, mind you, Joseph denied that he had received a revelation on plurality of wives. And said that the sum and substance of the revelation in total was that a man needs to be married in view of eternity. So he promoted and then that was likely received probably July 12, 1843, although though we don’t know for sure because there’s no direct record of the actual revelation, but likely it’s July 12th, 1843, and then he gets up on the stand on July 16, 1843 and he publicly preaches. This teaching that a man needs to be married in view of eternity. There must be something to seal them together, and that ceiling must take place on earth for it to be effectuated in the heavens. And that is where the doctrine of true celestial marriage originates. And Hiram refers to that in his April 8th, 1844 talk where he talks about the beauty of the marriage covenant and the ceiling that can take place that can bind a man and a woman. And that’s why he’s, he, he has been accused, by the way, of being a spiritual wifer, of practicing spiritual wife, because he was sealed to his dead wife with his living wife standing as proxy. Nowhere in there does he say that I condone having more than one wife either now or in the future or after you’re dead. He’s trying to, to clarify that Joseph did indeed receive a revelation on celestial marriage that has to do with monogamic or, or monogamous marriage. And so, going all the way up, basically until the time that they are taken out, they are opposing this. Now, the one that Brian mentions. May 26th, 1844. I think it deserves reading a little bit from it and then, then I’m, I’m, I’m done, thankfully, because they kind of want to just say that he just kind of slips in on his side, you know.

[07:52] Michelle: Well, I’m wondering, should I go on to the next two clips before you go into the, to the May 26th? Because these, it’s funny that they ask this question basically twice. So, so we’ve played the first verse. So save this last one because Brian, this is the one he can admit. He says there are hardly any denials, then there’s this May 26th 1, and it’s the only one he acknowledges that I’ve ever heard him acknowledge. Have you guys ever heard him acknowledge any of these others? OK,

[08:19] Jeremy Hoop: he’s fighting spiritual wife and generic condemned,

[08:24] Michelle: right, right. So here’s the next time that Scott asks the question. Uh, here, here’s the question, and then I’ll play the answer.

[08:32] Scott (Church History Matters): Say I don’t do polygamy because he saw a plural marriage as something different, correct? And therefore he kind of was comfortable saying he didn’t do the one while he was doing the other. I mean, how would you explain that to a church member who’s who fully believes and just trying to work through this and trying to say, OK, so how do, how do I process Joseph saying that you know there’s an accusation. where you have 7 wives and he says, 7, I can only find one almost like kind of dodging a little bit. Do you see him dodging? You know what I’m saying? Like, do you see him doing a little bit of dodging in order to, I don’t know, save face, avoid the law? I mean, what, how would you characterize that in full transparency?

[09:12] Michelle: OK, so now. And it’s dodging. He’s kind of dodging, ha ha, tricky. I, I just think it’s so gross, right, that we’re fine with this, and that’s how the question is asked. Here’s how it’s answered.

[09:26] Brian Hales: So I think if if we get try to get inside Joseph Smith’s head at what’s going on here, he’s been giving the ceiling authority and he’s been commanded as part of that process to practice plural marriage. Now that’s kind of a big deal for him and it’s very different from John C. Bennett’s spiritual wifery, so he can slam that with, with vigor and it’s not an author. polygamy because Hiram Brown in Navo went off and I don’t know if they had a ceremony, but it wasn’t authorized by the keys that Joseph Smith had, and he was practicing polygamy and he condemned it and as well he could have and and if we read section 132, we learned that all of these eternal marriages, whether they’re plural or monogamous, have to be authorized by the one man holding the keys. God’s house is the house of orders.

[10:12] Michelle: I just want to point out what records do we have of any of these authorized plural marriages, right? So we have Joseph fighting everything, but Brian can say anything Joseph was fighting wasn’t authorized, but there are these other

[10:26] Jeremy Hoop: authorized ones. And by the way, we have very strange um event in 1841 where both Joseph and Hiram hold the ceiling keys together. And Hiram is told whatever he binds on earth will be bound in heaven. Hiram is the only other man in the modern restoration that was ever explicitly told that by the Lord that we have record of.

[10:55] Michelle: And as I pointed out, I believe in our last conversation, I think. Brigham Young wasn’t sustained as the president of the church until 1847, right? It was an apostolic, the, the apostles as a group. So who was the one man who held the

[11:14] Jeremy Hoop: keys of Brigham Young going while Joseph’s alive, performing the endowment on his own without Joseph there. And so what the heck is that about?

[11:29] Michelle: So this idea of one man holds all the keys does not stand up, does not work. There’s no way to make sense of it at all, other than In 1852, when Brigham did very clearly hold all the reins of authority, they created the parts of the revelation that they needed, or they at least conglomerated it and revealed it. Whitney, were you gonna say something?

[11:53] Whitney Horning: Well, yeah, I was just gonna say, well, this makes me wonder then, when did the revelation come that The one holding all the keys, who has to authorize all marriages cause Brian says polygamous and monogamous marriages. When did that then become that there can be more than one sealer because the president of the LDS Church never authorized my husband and I. Like he doesn’t even know that we exist.

[12:26] Jeremy Hoop: Yeah, where was the revelation to delegate that authority? Yeah,

[12:29] Whitney Horning: where did that come

[12:30] Michelle: from? Very interesting. Lots of good, lots of good questions. OK, we’ll continue

[12:36] Brian Hales: with this one. Have to be authorized by the one man holding the keys. God’s house is a house of order. That’s repeated twice in section 132, and it’s that order is maintained by the keyholder, the one man who holds the keys. So in Joseph’s mind, this is a very different process and he never denied it, but he easily denied these other things. But the language that you repeated and and it’s People have accused me of having 7 wives. I can only find one. Well, that’s hardly a blanket statement against plural marriage in any setting at any time, but what it really is, is the language of somebody who doesn’t want to lie, but also can’t divulge to the audience all of the details. You know, he’s not looking very hard. He’d been sealed to at least a couple dozen women at that point. Maybe they weren’t in the audience and Maybe he wasn’t looking, but yes, he, you know, there is some coded language there, and this is something that carries on that others use later on. I don’t think any of us are comfortable with it. I don’t think he was either. But I would be bothered if Joseph had made a blanket statement against any form of polygamy and then secretly he was practicing a form of polygamy, and this he didn’t do. This is the language of somebody trying not to lie at the same time he’s not divulging what actually has happened.

[13:50] Michelle: Except he

[13:50] Jeremy Hoop: did make a polygamy in the voice of innocence. Sorry, Brian.

[13:54] Michelle: And a dozen other times in the Harrison Sager’s trial in the letter to the Relief Society, in the, in Hyrums, I mean, I mean again and again and again, he’s making all kinds of blanket statements, but if you don’t ever talk about them and you get to set the narrative for the church, then they don’t exist. That’s right. So, so he never denied it. He never made a blanket statement. He was giving the speech and he just carefully looked at the ground so he wouldn’t see any of his wives when he said, I only see one or and or maybe none of them attended, right? This is where we go. We, uh, it, it, it’s painful. OK. Go ahead. You go Whitney and then Jeremy can finish

[14:41] Whitney Horning: I love when Brian says, well, this is the language of someone who’s trying not to lie, but wait, I thought Joseph wasn’t a liar. So which is it? Like when is he, because that’s one of Brian’s real issues with us is that we, we have drawn the line in the sand saying if Joseph spoke out as many times as especially as Jeremy’s pointed out today. And then he was standing up and like that, OK, I only look at Emma because then I can, because this audience, the audience can’t know, even though I am the prophet to this audience, and I bring forth the revelations and teachings and this is a glorious principle, but yet I’m gonna just keep this for me and my few little insider friends, so. I love that Brian, I just love that like it just made me laugh out loud. This is the language of someone who’s trying not to lie. So then he is a liar, Brian. Like, you know, so if, if he truly had more than one wife, and he said that he is a liar, or could we say Wow, it clears everything up if we just believe Joseph meant what he said, and he was telling the truth.

[16:03] Jeremy Hoop: It, it, it’s really this is why I’ve said before, I, I, I think it’s more consistent to be John Dehlin than Brian Hailes because John Dehlin just thinks he’s lying all the time that he’s all this stuff is a lie about everything and

[16:16] Michelle: his. He’s he’s just trying

[16:19] Jeremy Hoop: to take, he’s trying, he’s trying to hold on to power. In fact, he’ll say in one of his interviews, yeah, I think Joseph kind of lost his mind at the end and he’s like losing his grip and everything’s getting out of control and he’s trying to control it all and and that’s why it all goes so haywire and he gets killed, you know, that’s, that’s John Dehlin’s perspective in and I can. See that, I guess, if you wanna, if you want to preference the later stories that come forward and just believe them even though you don’t look at them closely and look at how inconsistent and frankly, how many lies are told by those people, um, then you can just believe them, not believe Joseph, throw the whole thing out. But the problem that Brian has is that he’s got, he doesn’t critically look at the statements by the people that he wants to believe so much, and he certainly doesn’t acknowledge or doesn’t, I’m certain he knows about them, but he, he somehow gets rid of them in his mind, the whole list of things that we’ve been talking about, which is just a partial list. And so, it’s a really particular pickle to be in.

[17:15] Michelle: Yeah. So they have to completely deny 90% of his denials, condemnations, all of the effort he went to that Jeremy, thank you for spelling a portion of that out for us right here. That was so valuable. And they have to completely deny that and then take the few that they’ll acknowledge and twist them and pretend they mean something else. And there’s one more did you want to say something? Yeah,

[17:39] Jeremy Hoop: and the one, the one that he acknowledges, he doesn’t acknowledge. No. You gotta understand that this speech, which is incredible, and, and the context of the speech is that William and Wilson Law go to, um, they go and get indictments drawn up against Joseph on the 22nd of May 1844, then on the 24th of May, those indictments are formalized and in summary, the indictments say the following basically from the 12th of October 1843. And Navu, Joseph Smith did live in an open state of fornication and adultery with one Maria Lawrence. OK, Ria Lawrence, who will later die in 1847, never claims to be a wife. His her sister actually denies uh to Lucy Walker that she was ever a wife, um, and from 10

[18:23] Michelle: to deny that for that purpose, yeah.

[18:27] Jeremy Hoop: And yet they want to claim it. Now, why is this time frame, uh, important? Because the mansion house, which, you know, I, I go into, um, in my presentation, the Mansion House is an important figure because it’s this big building they had to make it a hotel, and this is where they claim so much of the, of the stuff happened. The problem is a lot of them claim to be in the mansion house when it wasn’t even built. It got finished in basically September of 1843. They moved in. Um, in October of 1843, they, they had a big party for it and opened it, and then Joseph turns it over, gives a lease to Ebenezer Robinson. He reserves 3 rooms for himself, 3 rooms for himself, and leases out the other part of it as a hotel. And apparently

[19:08] Michelle: I have 4 children and Lucy, I mean, yeah, Lucy with

[19:12] Jeremy Hoop: them. There may have been. It, it appears that the Lawrence sisters, who I think Joseph had adopted. Actually, literally adopted as his daughters because I believe their parents died or one of their parents died. He adopted them as his daughters. Um, I believe they lived in the, in the mansion house, perhaps don’t know where because we don’t have a record of this, uh, in part of the hotel, and they performed the duties that, that people would have when they would bring in hired girls in to help with cleaning, with maintaining things with tutoring, etc.

[19:42] Michelle: But Emma was Emma was also training them in herbalism and cooking, and she was also mothering them. They weren’t hired girls. They were daughters as well, because those are the those are the duties that oldest daughters would perform as well in a family. And the third was doing the same things.

[19:58] Jeremy Hoop: There were a number of women from the from the Kirtland era. Through the Nuvo era that would come and live with the Smith for a time, OK? And they, they would take in, they basically semi kind of unofficially adopted the Partridge, uh, children, um, semi-officially, unofficially adopted the Walker children kind of as their own, because they had severe problems that Edward Partridge had died and Lucy Walker’s, uh, uh, mother had died. Um, so they extended some courtesy and some kindness to these, to these children to help them.

[20:30] Michelle: This is also what they did. This is all of the pioneers that came into the city. They opened their home to them. Emma, all of the sick were always brought in. Joseph Smith the 3rd talks about his mother saying, I can’t take care of you. I have to take care of everybody. I can’t only take care of you because her children were sick. Lucy, um, Joseph’s mother talks about. there not being an open space or even a blanket or a pillow in the home, and Joseph laying down his coat and laying down with Emma on the floor. It wasn’t just children that they were taking in. This is who they were and this is what they did.

[21:01] Jeremy Hoop: That was in the homestead before they moved into the mansion house and when they were in the mansion house, they were only there for a short period of time, really, from October basically through uh through through the martyrdom. And so we have this brief window of time and because there’s this woman living there, William Law decides to Uh, accused Joseph of living in an open state of adultery with her and with a, and, and the phrase is with certain women to the jurors unknown. I don’t even know. They, they lump a bunch of people. He’s just, he’s, and, and then in his journal, the journal entry on the 25th of May 1844, um, Willard Richards records this, um, was informed. Let’s see, uh, William Marks returned from Carthage, Marshall Green, John P. Green, Eman Babbitt informed me there were two indictments found against me, one for swearing, false swearing by Robert Foster and Joseph Jackson, and one for polygamy or something else by the laws and Foster’s, uh, by William and Wilson Law, the particulars which I shall learn more hereafter. So he learns all about it and then immediately, immediately calls a special meeting the next day. gets up and I’m only gonna read a portion of this as long as you should read the whole thing. He says, you know, speaking to the congregation, and if you read the talk, get a sense for his exasperation. He is done. He’s done. He’s, he’s been in several court proceedings throughout the, the early part of this year, including against Chauncey Higbee and Francis Higbee, um, suing both of them, or actually suing Francis being dealt with by Chauncey, and he is done with this whole thing. Plus, he’s also discovered that there is a plot by the expositor group, the Laws, Fosters, Higby’s, and Joseph Jackson to murder the entire Smith family. There were two people, Marinus Eaton. And one other, um, who had infiltrated this group and had and testified, signed affidavits in open court that these men, they were gonna pay $500 to Joseph Jackson to murder the Smith family, the entire family. So he’s very concerned about his life, not only about This charge, OK? And by the way, this public sermon completely blows out of the water this notion that he destroyed the exposal because he’s so worried about them exposing him. He’s already dealing with it very publicly on May 26th, 1844. Sorry, Michelle, you were gonna say?

[23:23] Michelle: Oh, go ahead. If what I remember, I’ll let you know

[23:25] Jeremy Hoop: he gets up and he says the following. You know my daily walk in conversation. I am in the bosom of a virtuous and good, and he write, and the original writer writes family, Thomas Bullock writes people. I think he’s, I, I think he meant family. Um, for the last 3 years, I have a record of all my acts and proceedings, and Thomas Bullock writes in, we don’t know if this was in the original or not, probably wasn’t, for I have, I have kept several good, faithful and efficient clerks in constant employee. They have accompanied me everywhere and carefully kept my history. They’ve written down what I’ve done, where I’ve been, and what I’ve said. That was all added by Bullock. That wasn’t in the original.

[24:03] Michelle: Bullock was a polygamist at this point,

[24:05] Jeremy Hoop: and he’s, and he’s changing this document after Joseph’s dead. Uh, they, therefore my enemies cannot charge me with any day or time or place, but what I’ve written testimony to prove my actions and my enemies. They cannot prove anything against me. They have got wonderful things in the land of ham. I think the grand jury have strained at a gnat and swallowed the camel. By the way, he’s, he’s explaining in the rest of the talk, he’s explaining what William Law is, uh, doing against him. So he’s being very candid about the particulars of the lawsuit. God knows, then continuing, the charges against me are false. I have not been married scarcely 5 minutes and made one proclamation of the gospel before it was reported that I had 7 wives. So in 1831, That was the first that we know of, public accusation against the church or having a community of wives, OK? In 1831, so he’s accurate in this statement. Um

[25:10] Michelle: And can I, I just want to add in here because people bizarrely use the fact that there were accusations as evidence that it was actually happening and that makes me crazy, right? And there were other groups, right? There had been the Cochranites if you want to go after a new polygamy uh uh. A new religious group, you accuse them of some kind, the, the, the Cochranites, that was a huge scandal. That was scandalous. So if you just want to demean someone, just start going after them in that way. It makes complete sense why these groups could be made

[25:45] Jeremy Hoop: these groups had communal property and community of wives and, and, and when the saints instituted the united order, which is what the Letter to Liberty Jail is, is, um, refuting. Then they assume they were also sharing wives as well as somehow pooling property. And so, so

[26:03] Michelle: this is. And then when you get later on, well, if these allegations have already made, John Bennett, what are these, you know, he can make allegations of polygamy as well. And also, these are not the only accusations they made by a long shot. This was a small part of the expositor. The polygamist part of the expositor was a minuscule part of it compared to getting rid of the Navo um city charter, fighting against Hirum’s candidacy for the, um, legislature, and there were other issues that were Way bigger. Even, even, um, Joseph’s, um, anyway, some of, some of the sermons he he gave on the nature of God, those were more scandalous than this polygamy piece. It’s ridiculous what they claim. So

[26:45] Jeremy Hoop: in my presentation coming up, I’ve documented every known source related to polygamy plurality of wives, spiritual wifery from Joseph’s lifetime. And there are tons of publications in the various newspapers of people coming into town saying, I had heard all these rumors. These are people from Boston and New York and, and a guy from England. I heard all these rumors about the Latter-day Saints and come to find out, they don’t practice polygamy. Oh, interesting. And so these rumors were everywhere.

[27:17] Michelle: Uh, let me ask this. How long did the modern church fight to try to get people to stop thinking we’re polygamists? Right? Remember President Hinckley’s fight? And, and we did have it in our history, right? But I’m just saying that, well, and, and, like, forever, people thought that they literally thought Mormons had horns on their head. I’ve, I’ve met people who thought that like all of these Allegations people who Brian Hales, right, just because people are accusing the Mormon Church all throughout the 20th century of polygamy, does that mean we were polygamists? Are accusations the same as reality. OK, continue. I won’t interrupt you.

[27:56] Jeremy Hoop: That’s OK. Continuing. Before it was reported, I had 7 wives. I mean to live in bullock ads and proclaim the truth as long as I can. Uh, this new holy prophet, William Law, know why you call him that, because William Law is starting a competing church at the same time, has gone to Carthage and swore that I had told him that I was guilty of adultery. This spiritual wifeism. Why a man dares not speak or wink for fear of being accused of this. Remember, spiritual wifery was the same thing to Joseph for anyone who’s confused. William Law testified before 40 policemen and a whole number, the assembly room full of witnesses that he testified under oath that he had never heard or seen or knew anything immoral or criminal against me. He testified under oath that he was my friend and not the Brutus. There was a cogitation of who was the Brutus. Now I think this might be referring to, although I don’t know for sure because it doesn’t seem like there’s 40 men. I think this might have to do with that high council, um, meeting that I referenced previously where, where, uh, William Law says, Joseph’s not involved in this. I mean, I know the spiritual wife thinks bogus because Joseph preached against it and Hirum preached against it. I don’t think this is the same meeting, but he’s referencing a big group of 40 people who witnessed William Law basically saying, I don’t know anything against Joseph. He’s, there’s nothing I can say against him, so mind that. I had not prophesized. Against William Law, he swore under oath that he was satisfied, that he was ready to lay down his life for me. Now he swears that I’ve committed adultery. I wish the grand jury would tell me who they are, whether it will be a curse or blessing to me. I’m quite tired of the fools asking me. A man asked me whether the commandment was given that a man may have 7 wives. And now, and by the way, the Austin Cowles thing talked about 10. So that’s more than

[29:52] Michelle: 2.

[29:53] Jeremy Hoop: So maybe, maybe Brian, he’s equivocating because it was 10, not 7, although 132 doesn’t. Limited is

[30:01] Michelle: 10 and

[30:04] Jeremy Hoop: it doesn’t limit it.

[30:06] Michelle: 7 is accurate with um what Joseph said inspired the revelation. It was the Sadducees coming to Jesus to ask about the seven husbands,

[30:16] Jeremy Hoop: right, and it had nothing to do with polygamy. It had to do with this strange little law that got passed down through the generations about if a woman has a husband and they have no kids and, and he dies, she goes and the brother’s got to marry her. It doesn’t have to go with polygamy. That brother could be single. He’s just got to take her.

[30:34] Michelle: The is supposed to be. There is no instance we have of it being polygamy, and that’s anyway, I just want to point out that the seven is consistent with Isaiah 41, which they use and it’s consistent with, oh, I keep forgetting if it’s Luke 22 that Joseph said inspired the revelation, the revelation on eternal marriage. So anyway, just the pieces all come together if people will look at it honestly,

[30:58] Jeremy Hoop: as Don Bradley says it’s like a puzzle. It just kind of fits together really well. That’s, that’s for you, Don. I love you. Um

[31:06] Michelle: it’s true,

[31:07] Jeremy Hoop: yes. And now the new prophet, he’s mocking William. So in this speech, by the way, both Hiram and April 8th, and this year, they both have had it, and they let the saints have it. They really, really do, and I don’t blame them. I never had fuss with these men. Oh, and now the new prophet has charged me with adultery. I never had any fuss with these men until that, that female relief Society brought out the paper against adulterers and adulterresses. That’s the voice of innocence. William Goforth was invited into the law’s click clique, and Doctor Foster and the clique were dissatisfied with that document. And they rushed away and leave the church and conspired to take away my life there he’s referencing the plot to take away his life, because I will not countenance such. I have been chained, I’ve rattled chains before in a dungeon for the truth’s sake. I’m innocent. Of all these charges, notice he is saying, I am not practicing spiritual wifery. I don’t have more than one. I can’t take more than one wife, no 7 wives, no number of wives. I’m innocent of all these charges, and you, the audience, can bear witness of my innocence, for you know me yourselves. When I love the poor, I ask no favors of the rich. I go to the cross. I can lay down my life, but don’t forsake me. I want the friendship of my brethren. Let us teach the things of Jesus Christ. If you’re listening to this and your heart is hard against Joseph Smith, listen to these words. This is not the only place where he speaks like this, it’s everywhere. And you have believed people who have lied about him because they believed the people who lied about him then. These are Joseph’s words. When I love the poor, I ask no favors of the rich. I can go to the cross. I can lay down my life, but I, but don’t forsake me. I want the friendship of my brethren. Let us teach the things of Jesus Christ. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a downfall. Be meek and lowly, upright and pure. Render good for evil. If you bring on yourselves your own destruction, I will complain it’s not right for a man to bear down his neck to the oppressor always. Be humble and patient in all circumstances of life. He shall then triumph more gloriously. What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery and having 7 wives when I can only find one. I am the same man and as innocent as I was 14 years ago, and I can prove them all perjurers. I labored with these apostates myself until I was out of all manner of patience, and then I sent my brother Hiram, whom they virtually kicked out of doors. I then sent Mr. Bainstos, and they declared that they were my enemies. As I grow older, my heart grows tenderer for you. I’m at all times willing to give up everything. That I am wanted in order that you may, that’s crossed out. It’s wrong, for I wish this people to have a virtuous leader. I set your minds at liberty by letting you know the things of Jesus Christ. When I shrink not from your defense, will you throw me away for a new man who slanders you? I love you for your reception of me. Have I asked you for your money? No, you know better. I appeal to the poor. I say cursed be that man or woman who says that I have taken you of your money unjustly. Brother Almond Babbitt will address you, I have nothing in my heart but good feelings. That’s Joseph Smith. Brian, how dare you? Mischaracterize him. So entirely.

[35:04] Michelle: Amen. Amen. Amen. The voice of innocence is how I feel. I want to add, just I love what he says. I have rattled chains for the truth’s sake, and people who claim. The anti-Mormons are gonna do what the anti-Mormons are going to do, but people who claim to see Joseph Smith as a prophet of God, to think that he is lying in that, and I just want to go and bring up Joseph Smith history, chapter 1 verses 24 and 25. However, it was nevertheless a fact that I had beheld a vision. I have thought since that I felt much like Paul when he made his defense before King Agrippa and related the the account of the vision he had when he saw a light and heard a voice, but still there were but few who believed him. Some said he was dishonest, others said that he was mad, and he was ridiculed and reviled. But all this did not. Destroy the reality of his vision. He had seen a vision he knew he had, and all the persecution under heaven could not make it otherwise. And though they should persecute him unto death, yet he knew, and he would know to his latest breath that he had both seen a light and heard a voice speaking unto him. And all the world could not make him think or believe otherwise. So it was with me. I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two personages, and they did in reality speak to me. And though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true. And while they were persecuting me, persecuting me, reviling me and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely, for so saying, I was led to say in my heart, why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision, and who am I that I can withstand God. Or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen, for I had seen a vision. I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it. Neither dared I do it. At least I knew that by so doing I would offend God and come under condemnation. That was his testimony of that vision. And now we claim that his nature, his everything about him has changed this much, that we can laugh, we can take that sermon that you just read Jeremy and say, was he dodgy. was he, was he dodging? Was he doing tricky words? Was he not looking at his, at any of his wives? That’s what we do with that sermon that he preached.

[37:48] Jeremy Hoop: I would, I would like to believing Latter-day saint. You believe that it is an extraordinary sin to speak evil of the Lord’s anointed. If you just listen to what Michelle just read, what I’ve read, and if you read the things that Joseph himself did and said. And you do that and you isolate those, and then you go and you listen to how they’re characterized by both the people in Joseph’s day, like John Bennett, like Francis Higbee, these like William McClellan, these men who hated Joseph so much they would want him dead.

[38:37] Michelle: And his entire family and

[38:39] Jeremy Hoop: his family and then the likes of Brian Hailes and others today. And

[38:45] Michelle: religious professors. I’m sorry, I have that.

[38:49] Jeremy Hoop: Do they ever read you the things that we’ve read you today? Do they ever let you see these things, so you can understand them for yourself. They accuse us. Of cherry picking sources and reductionism, and it’s precisely what they are doing. This is why Michelle, Whitney and I, why we are so passionate about this because you are being lied to.

[39:17] Michelle: They accuse us of destroying faith, which is exactly what they are doing. You tell me, listeners, please comment. The, the sermons that we have just read, the things that you have just been told, how do you feel about Joseph Smith after hearing these things compared to after being, after hearing them laughing uncomfortably about him dodging and about him trying not to lie by lying, right? Which narrative destroys faith in the restoration? Tell me. I’m Brian, which narrative destroys faith in the restoration? OK, do we have anything else to add on this topic? I, I, that was awesome, Jeremy, thank you for going through that. And I think we will go on, uh, this was awesome, but let’s go on to our next topic, shall we? I almost hate to move on, but here is the next one, cause we’ve got a lot more to get through.

[40:18] Scott (Church History Matters): To understand more about Emma’s relationship with plural marriage after the saints left to Utah, we know her son was out here denying his father ever taught the doctrine, but what did Emma ever say on the subject

[40:29] Brian Hales: afterwards? We don’t have a lot of material from her. We have a couple of denials that are recorded.

[40:38] Michelle: I again want to pause there. Um, I don’t know if one of you also prepared this, but I just want to show this is at least a partial list of Emma’s official, officially recorded and published denials. Each of these was a separate interview. That Emma participated in where she completely, absolutely, unequivocally in no uncertain terms, denied that Joseph had anything to do with polygamy. So again, this is not transparent, this is not true. Let’s continue with the quote.

[41:16] Brian Hales: We have a couple of denials that are recorded. One of them comes through Joseph Smith the 3rd, who waited until she was dead and to publish it. And interestingly, if you go to the notes that he wrote during his interview on that that occasion, it doesn’t have anything in there on polygamy. It talks. About the Book of Mormon and her statement on the Book of Mormon being beyond Joseph’s ability in 1829. But when you get to all the polygamy stuff, there’s no notes there. He’s reconstructing this from notes that we don’t have or from his own memory, and I’m just not sure he’s representing her words very accurately there.

[41:52] Michelle: OK, I wanna pause there again. Whitney, I feel like you’ve been watching for a little while, and I’m sorry, I wanted to cover this claim about Joseph Smith the 3rd. I hope people have watched my um World’s worst transparency is, my first video on that. This is the claim that inspired that. So if you missed it, he claimed that he has seen Joseph Smith the Third’s notes from his handwritten notes from his last interview with Emma, and they include the parts that he likes her testimony of Of her husband as a prophet, her, um, accounts of the translation of the Book of Mormon, they include those things, but they don’t include anything about polygamy. So Joseph Smith the Third is lying and making up falsifying his mother’s last deathbed testimony about her husband. His father, I can, that is such an accusation in an effort to try to um to try to get past Emma’s denial, which he has said in a previous interview is the hardest piece of evidence that he has found. So here’s the interesting thing. These are Joseph Smith’s handwritten notes from Emma’s final testimony. We have all 9 pages of them. The church recently purchased these from the Community of Christ. They’re not yet available on the church history library. These are all 9 pages you can see here. I am really hoping that the church. History catalog puts these up and the rest of the sources that they have purchased from the community of Christ. I’m so thankful I was able to get them. So I want to show you on these first. Well, here, here is Joseph Smith III’s article. It’s published October 1st in the Saints Herald, The Last testimony of Sister Emma Smith. And I want to go through a little bit of this. So this, these are the first two pages of notes. These are Joseph Smith the 3rd’s questions that were written in advance. The first several of them were written in pen, and then with pencil, 2 more, I think the 1st 6 were written in pen. And then um in pencil 2 more were written and numbers were added to all of the questions. You can see here, question number 5. Let me go to the next slide. Here it is. Here’s the original manuscript. Here is what is published in the Saints Herald. What about the revelation on polygamy? Did Joseph Smith have anything like it? What of spiritual wifery? Those are Joseph Smith the Third’s original notes. I, I mean, at this point, when I saw this, uh, like, half of you is so appalled. You just can’t even believe it. And, and the other half of you is like. It’s static that you caught it, you know, I, I mean, I don’t know. I, I don’t know how far to go with this. Did Brian think none of us would see these notes? Is this part of why the church wanted to buy these notes? Like, like how are we not supposed to go down the conspiracy hole when we see what is happening here? So that’s the first page of Joseph’s notes, Joseph Smith the Third’s notes that include the questions and the question you asked, and keep in mind. Brian is claiming that Joseph Smith the 3rd was a liar and that he falsified his mother’s final deathbed testimony about her husband. This is how far we go. I mean, talk about what lying for the Lord is that’s what’s, is that what’s happening here, Brian? I, I, I don’t know. I, I am appalled by this. This is infuriating beyond description. So let’s go on. Here are Joseph’s first two pages of answers in his notes. I think it’s listed as pages 5 and 64 and 5. I can’t remember exactly. Exactly. But again, let’s go to a close up, shall we? Here are his notes. Here is what was published in the Saint’s Herald, side by side, word for word verbatim. Let’s just read the underlined portions. There was, this is Emma answering the question that he asked about spiritual wifery. This makes me so angry. Uh. There was no revelation on either polygamy or spiritual wives. No such thing as polygamy or spiritual wifery was taught publicly or privately before my husband’s death that I have now or ever had any knowledge of. Let’s go to the next page of Joseph Smith the Third’s original handwritten notes. Um, Joseph Joseph assured her that there would be that there was no such doctrine and never should be with his knowledge or consent. I know that he had no other wife or wives than myself in any sense, either spiritual or otherwise. Those are Joseph Smith the 3rd’s handwritten notes that I guess Brian thought none of us would see, so he was free to lie about them. I don’t know. Brian, you help us out here. Is there some other, did, did Joseph Smith the 3rd write two sets of notes? He, I, I mean, someone. Explain this to me. Make this OK. I don’t know how to. This is so blatant and so wrong that, uh, this is Brian, this is why I, I’m coming after you like this. I was up in the middle of the night when I was able to finally get these and saw this. This cannot stand. This cannot be allowed to stand. This is not the only lie that this that is this blatant. It’s just the one that’s the most, the easiest to just encapsulate in one document. The fact that he is saying these things about Joseph Smith the 3rd. Blatantly lying about even the evidence in order to make this accusation.

[47:46] Jeremy Hoop: Can I pause you there for a second? For the audience watching this, if there are people who still think we’re crazy. Because there’s all these things we haven’t addressed, OK? By the way, Michelle’s been doing this for a long time now. OK, Whitney’s written extensively on the subject, and I’ve talked quite a bit about it and I’m, and you’re gonna hear more from me about it. Others have done work. Every single one of the things they say. Every single one of the claims they make suffer. From serious problems when you actually analyze them, and that’s what we’re doing. We are not doing what they say. We are not cherry-picking sources. We actually go through the stuff that they say. We, we analyze their claims and we deconstruct them and show you why they don’t hold water. And we come across this at every crossroads. There was a time, and I know this was the case for the two of you, there’s a time with all of us when, when we didn’t know how to answer their claims. We didn’t know because they’re hard to answer. I mean, William Smith, Joseph’s own brother, said that he almost believed Brigham Young himself. He almost believed them because they were so adroit, so good at at weaving the scriptures in with the narrative, and, and, and they convinced people. It’s, it is difficult to take these things apart.

[49:04] Michelle: It takes hours and hours and hours of work to try to get to the bottom of these things. And the pattern is universal every single time. Once, once you get to the bottom of it. It’s shocking how weak their claims are. Go ahead, Jeremy.

[49:23] Jeremy Hoop: I’m telling you, you don’t have to believe me. But if you will stick with the 3 of us and the others who are doing this work, over time, you will see that every single one of their claims falls apart. Every single one. And we will stand up against who they think are the best. Publicly, anytime, anywhere, and we’ll go through them one by one.

[49:48] Michelle: It is not us who is refusing to show up. I am like begging people, sorry, I have a, I have my windows open. There’s a moth flying around. I am constantly begging people to engage, begging people to engage. And I still, I will open that invitation. Any polygamists, any polygamy, um, advocates, or, or people who think they are expert on this, and I’m constantly running into the same accusations. Like, people have no idea of my work, who just know that I’m emotional and I’m overwrought, and I’m just, I have so much bias and all of the same lame accusations that constantly come at me when they won’t even engage with the evidence. They just know what they know and they don’t have to know anything else.

[50:32] Jeremy Hoop: So we’re never gonna. Those people have closed if you closed your mind, you closed your heart, there’s no way we’ll reach you. But if you have an open mind, you’ve got an open mind. I hope they will. For their sake, but those aren’t people who love truth. They protect whatever narratives they have. If you love the truth, and you want to take a look at this stuff, maybe you will disagree with us on this, that or the other. But if you, you stick with this, if you stick with this, you will see the narrative is absolutely not what Brian Hale says, what Todd Compton says. It is not. It is absolutely categorically wrong, the things that they have put forward.

[51:11] Michelle: And we are showing the blatant lies. I’m sorry, I’m gonna go here. When we are claiming, just as I love that you pointed it out, Jeremy, because I’ve thought so much about the same thing. We are accusing people of evil speaking of the Lord’s anointed, right? We are Accusing people of destroying faith. All of these things. Who deserves to be looked at and scrutinized in relation to the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? Me or Brian Hailes, who is the liar here? That’s, that’s the question we need to ask, and that’s the question that needs to be answered. I hope that people will recognize the seriousness of this. This is the narrative that the church for now espouses. Because they’ve been fed it by historians like Brian C. Hales, and this is what he’s doing. I don’t know how complicit anybody is in it, but I know how complicit he is, and, and this needs to stop. It needs to stop. We’ll go. There are more things that we need to go through. So I’ll continue with Emma’s denials. Whitney, did you have anything you wanted to add? Yeah,

[52:17] Whitney Horning: just what you were saying made me think about uh Jeremy had read earlier about the letter, I believe it was the letter from Liberty where Joseph talked about being, you know, if you do these things, you’ll be cursed. But there’s also um a letter that Joseph sends out, and I believe it’s when he’s in Missouri, and I’d have to look it up. It’s in my book. I was gonna try and bring up the manuscript to find it. But he basically says anyone who accuses him, so we’re talking about speaking evil of the Lord’s anointed. He says anyone who accuses him of doing these behaviors will be cursed and denied priesthood.

[52:58] Jeremy Hoop: And they’re

[52:59] Whitney Horning: generations after generations after them. This is serious business. Then we also have the angel that appears to him and tells him his name will be had for good and evil and says that that his, the saints who believe in him will turn away the testimony of traitors. Who do we use LDS Church, Brian Hailes as the number one contemporaneous source that Joseph did these things, a traitor.

[53:33] Michelle: Mhm. John C. Bennett is who, who we get the wives from that they claim. That’s William Clayton William Clayton. Mhm. And so let’s read that. Let’s, let’s read that, shall we? The ends of the earth shall inquire after thy name, and fools shall have thee in derision. Was he dodging? Was was he dodging? And is that not derision? What is that? And hell, hell shall rage against thee, while the pure in heart and the wise and the noble and the virtuous shall seek counsel and authority and blessings constantly from under thy hand, and thy people shall never be turned against thee by the testimonies of traitors. Which side are you on, Brian? Are you a traitor of Joseph Smith? That’s the testimony you’re bearing, and we can go, yeah, it goes, it goes on from there.

[54:28] Whitney Horning: You, you had a little slip of the tongue there when you said hale, reread that, that scripture, and it’s hail, H A I L, but you said it as hail and like maybe, maybe the Lord’s got a little bit of little sense of humor.

[54:48] Michelle: Uh, a Freudian slip. I don’t know, but OK, I think, I, I mean, I’m sorry, I know we’re going after this pretty directly and pretty intensely, but I think it it. This is very.

[54:59] Jeremy Hoop: When you hear Joseph defend himself the way that he did, and he did it before in 1842 when he got up and he, he actually asked all of the elders to go about the entire country. At least in the mission field, proclaiming his innocence against the charges of John Bennett, and he said, and I prophesy in the name of the Lord, if you’ll go and defend the honor of the Lord’s anointed. That the Lord will prosper you in your missions. Joseph said, put that out to the elders, and I believe he’s putting that out to us today.

[55:31] Whitney Horning: He actually made a pamphlet for them to take, and about 30,350 men went.

[55:38] Jeremy Hoop: Including Brigham Young.

[55:43] Michelle: Well, I want, I want to read verse 4 after that thy people shall never be turned against thee by the testimony of traitors. And although their influence, the influence of traitors, shall cast thee into trouble and into bars and walls. Thou shalt be had in honor, and but for a small moment, and thy voice shall be more terrible in the midst of thine enemies than the fierce lion because of thy righteousness, and God shall stand by thee forever and ever. And I, I feel so strongly, and I’m certain you do too. This was all God knew all of this from the beginning. God knew the end from the beginning. God is calling people now to fulfill these things, to make sure that the truth comes out, that the things are shouted from the rooftop, that all the hidden things of darkness are revealed. All of the Promises in the Book of Mormon, if we will take it seriously, are beginning to come to pass, right? So we do need to take this very, very seriously. And, uh, there’s more, there’s more to be said. Let’s go on with this, um, the rest of, of what he has to say about Emma and Joseph Smith the Third, and then we’ll have more sources to look at. OK.

[56:56] Brian Hales: From others who say, yeah, I talked with Emma in 1846 or 1847, and she acknowledged that there were plural wives and, and so there’s ample evidence that Emma knew and, and Eliza R Sna who was eloquent.

[57:11] Michelle: Let me pause it there. Who, who is he talking about that Emma told that she knew? And McClellan, William E. McClellan. That’s

[57:20] Jeremy Hoop: that’s 2. That’s that, well, sorry, he references in 72, but he says he had a conversation with her in like 48 or something

[57:27] Michelle: like that. 7 in 47, right? William E. McClellan writes a letter to Joseph Smith the Third claiming writes two letters, one in 61. I want. I wanna say, and 1 in 72, claiming that, um, Joseph needs to talk to his mother, and he, and she will tell him that his father was a polygamist. OK, so, so he claims that he went and had a conversation with Emma Smith. Uh, let me see if I can find it. Um, I do not wish this is what he writes in, on January. 10 1861. I do not wish to say hard things to you of your father, but Joseph, if you will only go to your own mother, she can tell you what, um, that he believed in polygamy and practiced it long before his violent death. He uses a lot of exclamation points. All of these sentences have at least one, if not more, exclamation points. It’s like Ogden Cra, he does the same thing. That he that he delivered a revelation sanctioning, regulating, and establishing it, and that he he finally burned the awful document before her eyes. So in his both of his versions, Joseph Smith burned it, according to Emma. Elder Marks can tell you that before its conflagration, it was read in the High Council of Navu over which he presided. Your mother told me told me these things when I was in Navvo. That’s 1861, then July 1872. He wrote another letter, and he says, No, Joseph, I will relate to you some history and refer you to your own dear mother for the truth. You will probably remember that I visited your mother and family in 1847 and held a lengthy conversation with her. I did not ask her to tell, but I told her some stories I had heard, and she told me whether I was properly informed. Mr. FG Williams placed with me in Clay County, Missouri during the latter part of 1838, and he Told me that at your birth, your father committed an act with a Miss Hill, a hired girl. Emma saw him and spoke to him, and he desisted, but Mrs. Smith refused to be satisfied. He called in brother William Williams, O. Cowdery, and S. Rigdon to reconcile Emma. But she told them just as the circumstances took place, he found he was caught. He confessed humbly and begged forgiveness. Emma and all forgave him. She told me this story was true, multiple exclamation points. Again, I told her I heard that one night she missed Joseph and Fannie Alger. She went to the barn and saw him and Fannie in the barn together alone. She looked through a crack and saw the transaction, 3 exclamation points. She told me this story too was verily true. You referred to polygamy. Now, let me tell you, my dear sir, I asked your mother particularly upon this point. She said one night after she And Joseph had retired for the night. He told her that the doctrine and practice of polygamy was going to ruin the church. He wished her to get up and burn the revelation. She refused to touch it, even with tongs. He rose up from his bed and pulled open the fire with his fingers and put the the revealment in and burned it up, but copies of it were extant, so it was preserved. Can you dispute your dear mother? She related this to me, and will, if you ask her, tell you the same thing. OK, this is William E. McClellan writing to Joseph Smith the 3rd. William E. McClellan, who, among other things, first of all, you can see how off the story is. Brian Hailes does not include the voice of innocence on his website. He sure includes this. This is included on his website in his list of documents. He includes it as a valid source. This is who he uses. To say that Emma was lying, right? So we have Miss Hill, Fanny Alger, somebody else as well. So Joseph is a repeat um adulterer. This isn’t even polygamy, right? He burns the revelation. We have all of these problems, but let’s just go to here. William McClellan apostatized multiple times, but he finally was excommunicated for good in 1838. Let me go to here, let’s see, maybe I can share this. Here it is. This was printed by the church, but this was not in regard to polygamy. This was just telling us about William E. McClellan, the history of William E. McClellan. We go down to the 2nd page, you can see, um, he was cut off from the church for unbelief and apostasy. I’m reading in the 2nd column. Since he has been cut off from the Church of Jesus Christ, he has tried to establish a church of his own that he might be the head thereof, but without success. He took an active part with the mob in Missouri in robbing and driving the saints. At the time Joseph Smith was in prison, he and others robbed Joseph’s house. And stable of the following property. So when Joseph is in prison and Emma is home alone, according to this, William McClellan robbed Emma. He robbed her home and her stable. He robbed her of one roll of linen, cloth, a qua a quantity of valuable buttons, one piece of cashmere, a quantity of valuable books, a horse and gig, harness, saddle, bridle, etc. While Joseph was in prison at Rich Missouri, McClellan, who was a large and active man, went to the sheriff and asked for the privilege of flogging the prophet. Permission was granted on condition that Joseph would fight. The sheriff made known to Joseph McClellan’s earnest request, to which Joseph consented if his irons were taken off. McClellan then refused to fight unless he could have a club to which Joseph was perfectly willing, but the sheriff would not allow them to fight on such unequal terms. OK. So that William McClellan, right? That William McClellan went to Emma, and we also have Joseph, if we need to verify any of these things, in the very letter from Liberty Jail that you referenced, Jeremy, he writes about William McClellan and the other apostates, calling them all kinds of names, right? Talking about how awful they were. And um refers to them as the donkey, is it Balaam’s ass, right? Anyway, and many other things.

[1:03:29] Jeremy Hoop: By the way, let me, let me add to that. This is John Butler who recorded his autobiography. He was there at the time when McClellan robbed the Smiths. He writes this about that event. He says, um, When brother Joseph was in prison, he suffered in the cold. He sent him home, uh, and he sent home to his wife, Emma and sent home quilts or bed clothes for they had no fire, and he had to have something to keep him from the cold. It was in the dead of winter. My wife was up there when the word came. This is after McClellan, who had, um, he took all the jewelry out of Joseph’s box, took a lot of bed clothes, in fact, plundered the house, took things off while Brother Joseph was in prison. He, his wife said that Sister Emma cried, said that they had taken all of her bed clothes except one quilt and blanket, which she, uh, and what she could do. So my wife with some other sisters said send him them. And, oh, because she was supposed to give the stuff to Joseph because he was freezing in the dead of winter and

[1:04:23] Michelle: this is the this is when Joseph wrote begging Emma for a quilt and Emma to write back and say I have none. And it was. This happened and we’re supposed to believe

[1:04:35] Jeremy Hoop: that Emma is divulging

[1:04:36] Michelle: this stuff. Right. She, she gives repeated testimonies throughout her life of Joseph’s innocence. We will

[1:04:45] Jeremy Hoop: Brian believes the substance of the letter. He believes the substance of the letter. He uses it as one of the proofs of Fannie Elder being a plural wife. And,

[1:04:54] Michelle: and as the central proof of Emma lying about Joseph’s polygamy.

[1:04:59] Jeremy Hoop: Oh, and this

[1:05:00] Michelle: is why we

[1:05:01] Jeremy Hoop: need to. For those who are, uh, ex-Mormons who believe Joseph screwed Fanny in the, in the barn, OK, it doesn’t say that. In a newspaper article, no, it doesn’t say that. In a newspaper article, McClellan clarifies that, in fact, I’ll read it. It said this was in the, uh, 3 years later, JH Beetle reports that he, McClellan, also informed me of the spot where the first well authentic case of polygamy took place in which Joseph was sealed to the hired girl. The ceiling took place in the barn on the haymo and was witnessed by Mrs. Smith through a crack in the door. That Is the allegation. There’s no proof that that is true.

[1:05:45] Michelle: There’s nothing to back it up.

[1:05:47] Jeremy Hoop: And like John Dehlin who pass around this nonsense that Fanny saw the saw them having sex on the hay in the barn. I mean, Emma saw Joseph and Fanny. John, stop that. That is categorically, there is no evidence for that whatsoever and you are simply passing on a blatant lie.

[1:06:09] Michelle: Right, so we have this story. The assumption, the glasses that everyone’s wearing, is that everything Emma ever said about polygamy is categorically false. We just can throw it out. We don’t even have to deal with it or think about it. Because she’s trying to protect Joseph Smith III, that she’s trying to protect her children. So we have that explained. Everything Joseph ever said about polygamy is categorically false. We can throw it out. He was lying because it wasn’t safe. It was illegal, by the way, that none of those excuses come into play ever. Even when John Bennett was explaining why Joseph had to preach against it, he said it was because of his family, right, because Emma would be mad. Has nothing to do with the law anyway, so all of these, we just come to it and we believe William McClellan, claiming that Emma opened up to him, this man who did this to her while her husband was imprisoned, he comes and visits her to Navu, and she, he’s the only man in the world that he that she confides to in her chief. husband. That is the story that is being accepted, believed, and passed along. We are we are claiming Emma hardly ever denied it. She only did this one time. Joseph Smith III lied about it. Oh, and William McClellan was telling the truth. Again, infuriating. So, OK,

[1:07:30] Whitney Horning: and just just to put the nail in William McClellan’s coffin. The Lord Remembrance Scripture tells us adulterers are liars, and in DNC 66, a revelation to William, this same William McClellan, the Lord says, forsake all unrighteousness, commit not adultery, a temptation with which you have been troubled. Thank

[1:08:00] Michelle: you. I thank you for adding that. And that was before he was, that’s before he went astray, afoul of the church, right? That was before he robbed Emma. So Brian, stop, stop giving William McClellan the you give Orsemus Bostwick. Like you accept him and say, well, you accept John Bennett, you accept Joseph Jackson, you accept, right? Like stop it. Well,

[1:08:29] Whitney Horning: he accepts all the traitors.

[1:08:31] Michelle: Yeah, yep, that’s, that’s exactly. So, OK, we’re, we’re, we’re speaking hard, but it’s got to happen just like, just like I’ll. Covered in another episode. Um, Brian says that 132, sometimes people get to the point. Emma got to the point where the Lord had to use harsh language. That’s what he says about Emma with God destroyed, threatening to destroy her. Brian, you’re to the point where we have to use harsh, harsh language. That’s what’s happening here. So, OK, we’ll continue.

[1:08:59] Brian Hales: That there were plural wives and, and so there’s ample evidence that Emma knew and and Eliza Arsena, who was eloquent, she said if the words that Joseph Smith the Third published as Emma’s last interview, the ones were published after Emma had. passed away. If they are true, then Emma died with libel on her lips because Eliza knew she was in the home. I mean, she knew what Emma knew. And I think really there’s lots of evidence that Emma did know it comes from good sources.

[1:09:33] Michelle: So again, that’s William McClellan. And I, the other comparison I want to make, forever, we claimed that Josephine Lyon was absolutely Joseph’s child. And even now that it’s proven that she’s not, people claim that she was sleeping with both men and didn’t know who the father was, or Brian Hailes makes that that’s what I, I mean, the claims go everywhere. And the the reasoning is It was her deathbed testimony. She would not lie on her deathbed, right? That’s one of the central reasons that we use to believe that Sylvia said this. First of all, it doesn’t come from Sylvia. It comes from Josephine in 1915, right? Who knows under what, like what she, what, what rewards or pressure was put on her. I have no idea. But it’s such a ridiculous story. But so he uses Eliza Snow, Eliza, Jeremy, as you pointed out, who had been promised that there was nothing she could do to lose her exaltation, and who had been taught that we have to lie for the Lord, and who was the queen of this system, and she assented to her royal station by being Joseph’s wife, right? And it wasn’t her deathbed testimony. It was, so we use Eliza Snow’s Statement there to again claim that Emma lied on her deathbed about her husband. So, and Owen is changing stories there too, because remember Emma knew, but she lied about it. Oh, but Emma wouldn’t have lied about it, so Joseph the Third lied about it, so yeah, go ahead. And

[1:11:06] Jeremy Hoop: he says, he says we have good sources that, you know, indicate that Emma knew. Like Emily Partridge, for example, um, I spoke with, I’ve spoken with a historian. I don’t know if I, I, I don’t know if the thing that this one person has written has come out yet, but, but they have come to the same conclusion. They, they don’t agree with us about this historian does not agree with us about the overall narrative, but in terms of Emma knowing, because they’ve looked at the, at at least some of the documents, I don’t think this person has looked at all of them, um. But this historian has concluded Emma didn’t know. That Emily Partridge was lying. OK, and I can show how Emily Partridge was lying in her Temple Lot testimony and very inconsistent with her affidavits and her other published statements and her written statements to her family. And they are not good sources. Eliza Snow, for example, one historian, Meg Stout, she postulates, she believes that that Eliza Snow was John Bennett’s conquest. That, that the girl named that, uh, Joseph, the unnamed girl that John Bennett, um, seduces in 1841, 1942, the this time period was Eliza Snow. And, and it’s not only because, uh, Of her putting pieces together, it’s because of things that Eliza’s writing at the time, and also because of things that other people like Wilhelm Ville write later on. He suspects that Eliza was one of John Bennett’s conquests. So now, do we know that for sure? No, we don’t. But those are the things that have to be discussed in this conversation. Good sources. Eliza Snow is a good source. Eliza Snow, when you pull the thread, the sweater just comes apart.

[1:12:44] Michelle: All of them, Lucy Walker, Melissa lot, all of them, they just, it’s, it’s like, well, the judge said it well of the Temple Lot trial, right? He did not find them credible and all of those affidavits are an absolute joke.

[1:12:58] Jeremy Hoop: So that that that uh Emily said that Emma was there on May 11, 1843 and put her in. Eliza’s hands and Joseph’s hand and taught them the principles, and then Joseph was married, uh, by Judge James Adams to Joseph in the presence of Eliza Emma, in, in the presence of Emma by her full and free consent. She repeats over and over and over and over again until the attorney says, can you read Joseph’s journal for that day? And Emma’s not in town on that day. This is the date that she and Eliza have promoted for ad nauseam for decades. They published it, mind you. This is the date, this is the date they sign in their affidavits. Not only is Emma not there, but Judge Adams is not there either, OK? And there’s a lot more to that story, but these are not good sources.

[1:13:51] Michelle: Well, Brian Hailes takes him so far as to claim in multiple interviews that Emma is guarding the door. Well, as John Hayk, John Hayazek has great commentary on all of this, and he says Emma’s guarding the door while Joseph’s banging other women. That’s his wording for it, to say how ridiculous this is, ridiculous, that these are the sources that Brian chooses to present in full transparency. Whitney, were you gonna say?

[1:14:20] Whitney Horning: Well, are you OK if I read some stuff from Joseph the Third that relates to?

[1:14:26] Michelle: Should I go to Joseph the Third? Well,

[1:14:27] Whitney Horning: this is about Emma. This is. Is that OK? So he writes a series of letters to his cousin Joseph F, um, April 25th, May 10th, May 11th of 1889. So it’s been 10 years since Emma’s passed away. And he says this In the May 10th letter, Kandor compels me to hold that according to the word of God, known and acknowledged of the church from 1830 to 1844, the only rule of faith and practice concerning marriage was that of the revelations of 1831 and the section on marriage adopted August 1835. That this was understood in this way in the church is certain from the statement of Miss Eliza R. Snow, whom you cite as a witness, Mrs. Leonora Taylor, Sophia Marks, Emma Smith, and others, and then you cites the publication in Times and Seasons October 1842. I believe in, I believe in which those women say that they know of no other system of marriage practiced in the church but the one in D&C which is believed cited by them. Then on April 25th, may uh continuing these same letters, he says, you cannot, of your own knowledge testify that either Joseph or Hiram Smith was a polygamist. You cannot testify that others have told you the truth. You can only say I believe them. That is all. Hearsay evidence is subject to suspicion. You disbelieve what my mother told me or what I say she told me and ask me to believe that she deliberately and willfully lied to me. You ask me to believe what others say that contradicts her. My mother is called an elect lady in the word of God. I have reason to revere her and to hold that she was a truthful upright woman and to be censured by you and others for believing her, you would resent possibly to blows an assertion that your mother was a liar and who blames you for it. Yet I have been told, and President Brigham Young publicly stated that Emma was a liar and had taught her children to lie. This Emma was my mother. After Father’s death, President John Taylor publicly endorsed the character of my mother. One of those women you repute to be one of Father’s wives told me that my mother was a truthful woman. I am glad that my mother rebelled. If it so be that the stories that have been told in support of plurality are true, she had the law of God to date upon her side, and so have I.

[1:17:44] Michelle: I love that so much.

[1:17:47] Whitney Horning: That’s Joseph the 3rd to his cousin

[1:17:50] Jeremy Hoop: Joseph F. Mind you. Joseph F would lie to Congress.

[1:17:57] Michelle: Mhm. He does. And cut out pages of books and then tape them back in and do we have a well documented um list of Joseph F. Smith’s lies, including, I will say, the affidavits that he claims are the women’s testimonies. Star the first the first. The first foray he makes into this battle of proving Joseph’s polygamy. That’s amazing, Whitney.

[1:18:27] Whitney Horning: I don’t think people today appreciate because so much time has gone, we, you know, we’re 150 years since those affidavits in 1869. What they don’t appreciate is that the actual quote unquote evidence that Joseph did polygamy, the only contemporaneous is the testimony of traitors who were lying about Joseph. Then we get to Orson Pratt standing up in 1852 and, and Joseph the Third challenges Joseph F on this and he said, your own Orson Pratt stands up. When he’s introducing the revelation of marriage, and he says that Brigham had this in his drawer for 8 years, and then he says, we are introducing the doctrine of polygamy for the first time. Right? So, we really don’t have really much from Brigham or any of those people in Utah that put it on the shoulders of Joseph. It really is these affidavits in 1869. You can see in these letters between the cousins and Joseph the Third and Emma’s denials, you can really see kind of the breeding ground for why Joseph F. I believe, became almost became like this contest that he would make sure to get all of this infallible proof, and that is really what we’re fighting today, is picking apart all of those lies that were put in place um in 1869 on because even after this, these letters in 1889. Joseph the 3rd actually even challenges Joseph about his own father Hiram, and he even makes a statement and he says, you can throw, you can give my father all these wives, but yet you’ve only given your father one and that’s your aunt Mercy Thompson, who keeps the same name, Thompson. Her husband was Robert B. Thompson. So, um, I just, I, I read these letters and I think There really is, besides the idea of the LDS church fighting the RLDS and who’s the actual legitimate um You know, child Jesus, right, right, um, and there’s also this family um contest going on and To me, I just think, I, I just, sometimes I wanted to say dang these people that created these lies because we’re here today picking apart, you know, this massive ball of yarn that’s just knotted and tangled up, that’s this huge lie today. And people like Brian Hailes are adding to that. He’s taking documents that he knows are actual denials of Joseph Smith, and he’s creating new narratives, new stories, new lies, adding to this tangled mess that we’re trying to unpick strand by strand and not by not.

[1:21:38] Michelle: Oh, that was so well said. That’s perfect. And yeah, I, and I, I don’t know if we should go into Joseph F. Smith here. He had such a sad story. This was Hiram’s son, 4 years old when his father was killed, brought to Utah. His mother dies soon after. You know, and it’s, it’s like the, the worst the the test the traitors, cause I’m sorry, Brigham and Hebrew were also traitors to Joseph Smith on this, at least on this doctrine. They took over Krum’s son and raised him up and then used him cause they needed a smith cause that was the other claim of the RLDS Church, the sons of Joseph Smith, is that there needed to be a lineal succession. That’s why um Joseph F. Smith was so useful to them. So this poor guy, you know, like Joseph F. Smith is Good to understand why he was what he was. And I, I mean, I don’t know. God’s gonna have a lot to sort out, but I guess in the meantime, we have to sort out this mess for ourselves. And Brian C. Halls really is following in the footsteps of Joseph F. Smith of continuing to lie to create a false narrative. OK, so I just want to read one more quote that is from Edmund C. Briggs, but this is another really good critical source that I think needs to be included. And so this is from his interview with her in 1856, I believe, yep, 1856, a visit to Navu in 1856. He says, I then said to her, did Joseph have any knowledge or premonition of his death before it took place? She said, Yes, he was expecting it for some time before he was murdered. This is first what she’s saying about Brigham Young. About the time he wrote those letters that are in the Book of Covenants, he was promised that if he would go and hide from the church until it was cleansed, he should live until he had accomplished his work in the redemption of Zion. And and he once and he once left home intending not to return until the church was sifted and thoroughly cleansed. So that’s interesting. And her his letters to Emma verify that, proved that he had no intention of going west, which is also another huge problem for the women in the Temple Lot trial and their testimonies. Um, anyway, she goes on to talk about he, he came back and, um, he, let’s see, she says. That she was so sad that he came back, that she never felt worse in her life because as soon as he came back to Navu, she knew he would be killed. He said, while she talked to us, the tears flowed from her large, bright eyes like rain, and I could see in every act affection for Joseph. He goes on to say, the people in and out, this is his experience in Navvoon, it goes to what we were saying about the people’s impression of Joseph when they went to Navvoon, when they met him, right? The people in and out of the church about Navu, who personally knew Joseph Smith before he was murdered, spoke of him with respect and declared he was a good honorable honorable man, a worthy citizen. And declared the scandalous stories circulated about him were base misrepresentations, put in circulation because of religious intolerance or by his political enemies. At the time, at the same time, the newcomers in the city after the death of Smith, who spoke about him, were rabid in their denunciation of him and delighted in telling extravagant stories about him, though they had never seen him. So that’s really interesting as well to see what they said, and I just have. Two more quotes to read about Emma. So I just wanna continue reading these testimonies of Emma that Brian does not include and does not deal with, right? And Sister Emma, in speaking of the condition of the church after her husband’s death, said to me, I was threatened by Brigham Young because I opposed and denounced his measures, polygamy, and would not go west with them. At that time, they did not know where they were going themselves, but he told me that he would yet bring me prostrate to his feet. My The house was set on fire several times and one time wood was piled up at the side of the house and set a fire. It burned the siding considerably and went out before we discovered it. It was either set on fire, set on fire, or by accident or carelessness caught a fire a number of times and went out by itself when we did not discover it and put it out. But I never had any fear that the house would burn down as long as the inspired translation of the Bible was in it. I always felt safe when it was in the house. For I knew it could not be destroyed. She spoke very affectionately of Joseph and said, I never had any reason to oppose him, for we were always on the best of terms. I’ll just skip forward and read this. She spoke so endearingly of Joseph. Now, mind you, according to William Clayton, she, they were on the brink of divorce. They had nothing but problems. Joseph was actually abusive to her, had to treat her roughly to get her to stop railing on him. According to Brigham, she tried multiple times to kill him. And she was responsible for his death because she plotted it, right? So this is, this is what, what Edmund Briggs talks about in his, um, experience with Emma. She spoke so endearingly of Joseph in confidence, tears filling her eyes, that I could see she reverenced his very memory and had full faith in Joseph’s inspiration as a prophet of God. And she always denied to me in the most Emphatic language that he taught or practiced polygamy. Again, she said several times in conversation with me that the Utah Mormons had by their acts since the death of her husband, made true all the slanders and vile things charged against the church. I was also present when my brother Jason Briggs asked Sister Emma in relation to the purported Revelation on polygamy published by Orson Pratt in 1852, and she again denied that her husband ever taught polygamy or that she ever burned any manuscript of a revelation purporting to favor polygamy, and that the statement that I burned the original of the copy Brigham Young claimed to have is false and made out of whole cloth and not true in any particular. Emma Joseph’s wife and and secretary, the partner of all his toils of all his glories, coolly, firmly, permanently denies that her husband ever had any other wife than herself. She declares the story to be false, the revelation of fraud. She denounces. Polygamy as the invention of young and Pratt, a work of the devil brought in by them for the destruction of God’s new church. On account of this doctrine, she has separated herself from the saints of Utah and has taken up her dwelling with what she calls a remnant of the true church at Navvo. Which shall we believe, Sister Emma, the elect lady and prophet’s wife, or the bold unsupported statements of Brigham Young is what the Book of Mormon calls the grosser crime now that now what Mister Young calls the only means of exaltation and glorification. And all this great change to rest on the uncertainty of a purported copy of a purported revelation burned by a woman. It is too absurd and a rebuke too good and a rebuke to good common sense. It cannot be entertained by an honest thinking, logical mind for a single moment. That’s also not included in Brian Hale’s website or books. I think it ought to be. Amen. OK. Should we go on to the last clip of this episode? Here we go. Her

[1:28:57] Brian Hales: sons were fighting against it. There’s very good evidence that Joseph Smith the Third knew. He wrote a couple of letters. We have them here. One is telling William, his uncle, to not remember certain details if he writes a biography of Joseph, but there’s another letter to an RLDS missionary in Salt Lake where he’s asking the missionary to find the branches of the family tree, and by that it’s a list of the plural wives or women who say they are Joseph’s plural wives. So I think it’s pretty clear that Joseph Smith the 3rd knew, and yet the public view was, let’s try to repair my father’s acceptance in the world by denying this.

[1:29:31] Scott (Church History Matters): So you think that was the motive as you’ve researched this, the motive was, let’s deny the evidence or let’s kind of brush over that evidence coming from the RLDS perspective in order to basically heal Joseph Smith’s reputation, Joseph Smith Junior. Yeah, what’s your take on why Joseph Smith the 3rd would in some ways actively try to forget this aspect about his father?

[1:29:53] Brian Hales: Well, I don’t know. I, I like Joseph Smith the 3rd. I’ve read a bit about him. He was a strong man. He’s very committed. I think he was a good man. I think he was a very moral man, but I think if we study the RLDS Church in the 19th century, they were built upon two primary ideas. One was that Joseph Junior wasn’t a polygamist and the other was that the presidency should pass down. Through a patriarchal line. And so he defended those two, which if he had not, his church, I think would have imploded. So

[1:30:22] Scott (Church History Matters): this in some ways was about the legitimacy of the RLDS church’s existence in the first place. Like if polygamy was authorized, if that is a correct practice, then why are we out here in Navvo and not in

[1:30:35] Brian Hales: Utah? Yeah, well said. I don’t know that I could improve on that.

[1:30:39] Michelle: Wow. OK. First of all, the claim that the RLDS Church had to deny it. It was an existential threat for them. And so we should, that should somehow invalidate their claims that Joseph was not a polygamist. So don’t want to respond to that? cause I sure do.

[1:31:02] Whitney Horning: You know, growing up, I was, I even I still think that this comment, this little clip you show, this commentary. It’s from the, from the very beginning, it was, uh, you know, it was a war between who is the correct church and as a child, I remember um hearing, you know, all the, almost, you know, mocking the RLDS um that they were, you know, that they denied Joseph did polygamy and uh how stupid can you be kind of a thing and to the point where You know, I believed it. I believed, you know, the things that’ve been taught about the RLDS Church. And so when I read The Price’s um incredible work, um, there, there are 3, I think, almost 4 volume series now on Joseph lygamy. It, it did not convince me at first. Instead, what it did was it gave me this terrible cognitive dissonance between, I mean, because they just put it out there, the constant, consistent denials of Joseph Smith, the um denials of Joseph the Third, the denials of Emma, the denials of Hiram, to the point where I really, it really shook me up because The only conclusion I could come to was Joseph was an absolute liar. His whole family were absolute liars, and I want nothing to do with the church founded on an absolute liar. And so, you know, it’s not an easy thing to work through, right? Um, but I’m so grateful that the RLDS Church did have people for a time. I mean, I think it’s really tragic that now that they’re the community of Christ, they’ve embraced the LDS Church’s narrative that Joseph did play me. Because for such a long time, um, they fought this fight that Joseph was a pure um virtuous man who was monogamist. And so when I finally Um, made my switch into believing that Joseph actually meant what he said. I was so grateful to the work of the prizes in particular, they really took a lot of heat. They, I mean, you know, in Joseph the Third’s day, maybe there are people supporting him in this narrative that his father never did it. But the prices really were not treated well at all, and they were really ostracized from their community of believers for um retaking up this fight that, you know, that we’ve all taken on to today.

[1:33:39] Michelle: They’ve still not been taken seriously by the historians, and they deserve to be. The works deserve to be cited. It’s really bad how they how their work is continually treated.

[1:33:51] Jeremy Hoop: The sourcing is fantastic. Sometimes their interpretation of the sourcing can be can be argued, but hello.

[1:34:02] Michelle: Look at how Brian’s treated, yeah, and, um, and, and the RODS um. Religious ideas that come across in their writings, that’s fine. Look, I mean, you know that it is what it is. Who cares? That does not invalidate their sources and their sources are fantastic. And so the, the point I want to make is for Brian and Scott to say, well, the RLDS claims aren’t valid because it was an existential threat for them. The existential threat was for the Utah church who had to prove to the United States government. That they were that that Joseph was a polygamist so they could continue to claim it was a religious right to live their polygamy. They also had the RLDS people coming and gaining many, many converts. They had so just like he said, well, if Joseph was a polygamist, what are we doing here in Navvo instead of out in Utah? No, exactly the opposite. What are we doing out here in Utah.

[1:35:03] Jeremy Hoop: The post-Joseph narrative about polygamy comes because of the of the Utah church trying to establish its legitimacy. 1852. What do they do? They pull the revelation out of the desk. They don’t actually show it, but they, they, they, they publish it for the first time. Under what guise that they are constitutionally protected because it didn’t come from them, it came from Joseph. And then when they’re challenged by the US government, the army, Brigham Young. Deposed as governor and they’ve got all these external pressures. You’ve got the Civil War raging and all these things and the twin barbarisms of the Republican Party are, are what slavery and polygamy of all things. And so they feel the pressure from the US government. You got the Smith brothers coming out to Utah preaching and converting people. So what happens? Joseph F. Smith goes to work on behalf of Brigham Young to cook up the affidavits in 1869 to prove that this didn’t happen. Unfortunately, they didn’t know that all of us would be. Look at those things and poking serious holes in, in, in those statements. And then after that, what do we have? We have, uh, after polygamy has been outlawed entirely, still the LDS Church has to try to weigh in in the Temple Lot case, even though they’re, they’re not the main claimants. They have to weigh in to say, no, we’re really, we’re really the, the, the successors, um, of, of Joseph Smith’s legacy because he practiced polygamy and the judge didn’t believe that.

[1:36:23] Michelle: Right, they had nothing to gain in that. They just couldn’t let the RLDS church prove that they had a valid claim. That was the only reason for joining.

[1:36:33] Jeremy Hoop: Ryan or

[1:36:33] Michelle: the

[1:36:35] Jeremy Hoop: back.

[1:36:36] Michelle: 100% and for him to say it was polygamy and lineal succession, he’s exactly right. So why was Joseph F. Smith brought in as an apostle, right, to try to combat the lineal succession that like the whole thing is, is backward, like, oh, OK, let’s, I think, I think, OK, Jeremy, let’s let you say

[1:36:57] Jeremy Hoop: goodbye. OK, yeah,

[1:36:59] Michelle: yeah, this is good. This was awesome. Thank you so much, Jeremy and yep and we. Well, let’s reschedule because we’ve got to keep it going. This was really fun. Thanks. We’ll see you. Whitney and I are gonna finish up. Whitney, I just want you, I know you went through all of these letters and you had snippets to read and I would love to hear what you have.

[1:37:19] Whitney Horning: Um, one of the things Brian Hailes does is he He’s so authoritative and he speaks so authoritatively and so then when he speaks about having seen the letter, and this is what the letter said, Well, we always advise that even when we do that, we advise you to go look at the source itself and you decide if we read it correctly or if we conveniently left out things. Um, but one of the things he talks about is that Joseph the 3rd. He makes it, you know, again, he’s basically calling him a liar, but then he doesn’t want to say, so then he, oh well, he’s a nice guy and he seemed, you know, spiritual. Then he makes a statement that he wrote letters to an RLBS missionary saying, you know, find all the branches of the family tree, as if that means he’s saying there, his father did do polygamy. But

[1:38:15] Michelle: I know that there are branches of my family tree. Go find all of the descendants.

[1:38:19] Whitney Horning: Right, right, and I would, I need to go find that letter and read it. I haven’t found that one yet, but my guess is that it, that he was saying it kind of tongue in cheek because, yeah, because Joseph the Third is constantly challenging Joseph F, saying, Where are the children? Where are my father’s children? Where are your father’s children? Where are they? You can’t prove you haven’t given me any children as proof.

[1:38:48] Michelle: And to all of the women as well when he comes out to Utah, he asks all of the women, Where are all of my long lost siblings? Where, where are the children? He was absolutely being sarcastic.

[1:38:59] Whitney Horning: He even has a letter where he breaks down. He says, You’re telling me that all of these women were young. Women married to my father and that he couldn’t have children with them and he says sarcastically like, so you’re saying my father wasn’t a man he couldn’t perform his duty. Right, but he could do with my mother. He had children with her, you know, and, and actually that is what lays the foundation that, that Joseph didn’t have sexual relations, that idea that there were no children to be found is why so many people have decided, well, we need to believe in polygamy, um, because, you know, there’s so much evidence and because Brigham. Brigham was doing it. Our church did it, and so we’ve got to believe in it, but there’s no evidence that Joseph had sexual relations. That’s kind of where they get that from. It’s just the lack of children. But then Brian makes a statement that Joseph the 3rd knew his father was doing it. And so basically, essentially then He’s lying when he then comes out and says my father didn’t do it. So I wanted to read just a few snippets from these letters between the cousins. So remember Joseph the 3rd and Joseph Fth are first cousins, their fathers or brothers, Joseph and Hiram. And so in this letter, May 10th, 1889, he says, what I am, so this is Joseph the 3rd. What I am contending against is a deceptive untruth and iniquity, a sin against God’s laws and man’s laws as well. It is with a decided earnest conviction of the untruthfulness of plural marriage so far as sanctioned in God’s will and economy for the church is concerned that I am doing as I am. I do not dispute the existence of this that is to me evil. But it is, but is, it is, it’s righteousness, it’s soundness and based in the word and will of God that I dispute. So in letters previously, he laid out, he basically laid out Michelle’s entire show. For two years he in these letters like just going through the word of God and saying my father revealed these words of God. This was what the church believed. It was God’s will and it was the church’s will. It was my father’s will. So he’s basically telling his cousin. I dispute that you are now teaching that this is God’s will, because all scripture, all of the teachings of my father are against it, and you’re perpetrating a great deception. So then he says this now if celestial marriage means that having more than one wife at the same time, living with them according to the institution of marriage, then God and church and prophets and apostles, the Book of Mormon, the doctrine and Covenants, and the Bible have all spoken against it. And your statements in support of it are an artful evasion substituting a sort of spiritualized arrangement designed to take effect in eternity for the practice of marrying and living in marriage with more than one wife at once, as is understood by the word polygamy, plural marriage, and plurality and which you well know is the stick of controversy between us. It is a trick, a play upon words, a hidden meaning, a deception similar to that by which the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and subsequent wives are called auntie or aunt. So he’s calling him out for the way that the Utah Mormons living in polygamy have tried to make it sound like they’re not doing what they’re doing, which is polygamy. So so far, All I’m reading is a man who is decidedly against it, right? It is a piece of maladroit subterfuge by which the apparent spiritual side of it is held up to the view as a mask behind which hundreds of men by no means pure men either in intent or practice have mistreated their first wives and reveled in lust by which both men and women have been degraded. You ask me to believe that Joseph and Hiram Smith only seem to do what the language used by them specifically states they did do. Who makes Joseph and Hiram Smith out to have been guilty of duplicity in this case? You or I? Who is striving to make them out to be lawbreakers? You or I? Who seeks to vitiate the record these men made for the 14 years the church existed, you or I. I am not under the necessity to prove that Joseph Smith did not have the revelation from God authorizing plural marriage and that he was himself a plurally married man. The burden of proof rests upon you and all others who affirm that he did as you assert. My position is that of the negative, and your proofs must pass muster, both as to the matter of the revelation itself and its genuineness. And then let me find one other one.

[1:45:07] Michelle: And I just want to point out again, remind people the reason we’re reading these. Brian Hailes claims that Joseph Smith the 3rd knew his father was a polygamist and was lying about it. That’s his claim, and I will also add like. The unbelievable tragedy that this is what the community of Christ historians say as well. John Hamer gives presentations. What is it called? Joseph Smith the TII’s unpromatic, unpragmatic choice on polygamy. They, and then, um, Linnaeus, I never know how to pronounce his name, an older community of Christ. Historian RLDS historian before wrote, I just wrote a paper of his talking about how basically they all basically accused this man writing these letters of lying that he didn’t believe anything he was saying. It’s unbelievable to me that this, like, let’s read his actual letters before making these accusations.

[1:46:02] Whitney Horning: Right. OK, so here’s this one’s good. Polygamy is the having of more than one wife at the same time. A pluralist is a polygamist, no matter how the wives were obtained. Joseph Smith denounced polygamy. Your father, plurality of wives. They did this in 1844, the year they died, and when, according to you, both were not only teaching it, but were practicing. You say these denials are only seeming denials. It sounds like maybe this is where Brian Hailes gets his little pretzel language stuff.

[1:46:45] Michelle: Exactly the same conversation, yeah,

[1:46:48] Whitney Horning: right, I, yeah, reading these, I feel like we’ve, we’ve just picked up the same, the same thing.

[1:46:57] Michelle: Don’t you feel like it’s almost discouraging because it’s like. Everything that that I and you painfully had to learn in the scriptures and through the history, we kind of just read Joseph Smith the Third’s letters, right? We could have just read. I mean, now it’s even better because we have access to all the LDS documents and we can see all the forgeries. He couldn’t see all of. That so we’re making an even stronger case now, but the fact that everyone just continually claims that this is an old RLDS claim that’s been debunked when they have no idea what was said is insane. Joseph Smith the 3rd deserves to be read.

[1:47:36] Whitney Horning: He’s pretty great. He’s a brilliant writer. So, OK, so he says, you say these denials are only seeming denials. If they are not denials, open square denials of the charge that somebody was teaching and practicing, the having and living with more than one woman as wives at the same time in the flesh, and in theory and fact are unable to read and understand the English language.

[1:48:05] Michelle: That’s you, Brian.

[1:48:07] Whitney Horning: OK.

[1:48:08] Michelle: And everyone else on that side of it. OK.

[1:48:11] Whitney Horning: The denial of Joseph Smith is made in reference to Hier M Pete Brown, whom was reported as teaching polygamy and other false doctrines. The denial of your father was upon the report that when Hewitt was circulating the report on China Creek, some miles below Navvo, the men of a certain priesthood could have more than one wife. Your father said no such doctrine is taught in Navo. There is nothing in the language of these denials to warrant the thought that the men whose teaching was denounced were teaching prematurely and upon insufficient information. On the contrary, both polygamy and plurality, that having more than one wife living at the same time were specifically denied, and he underlined that were specifically denied. In these cases, it is not I that is reasoning from false premises fallaciously, sophistically, but somebody else.

[1:49:20] Michelle: I, it’s amazing. I love it. OK. So some, if you want to claim that Joseph Smith the 3rd knew that his father was a polygamist, you have to deal with those letters.

[1:49:35] Whitney Horning: Yeah, he’s just over and over again, just hammers home. My father didn’t do it. Mhm.

[1:49:44] Michelle: And to, to use that claim, go find the branches of the family tree to try to use that as evidence that he knew that there, that his father was a polygamist is insane, especially since we know that there are no children. There were no, yeah, I mean, you know, like, guess who never claimed that Joseph Smith had children? Brigham Young. Herey Kimball, like, like the the people who knew that they were lying about Joseph, they knew there weren’t going to be children. Well, you know,

[1:50:15] Whitney Horning: that’s, that’s when the story um began about Eliza R Snow being pushed down the stairs. It was when this constant looking for children, um, I can’t, it was an article I found on Eliza R Snow. I can’t remember what it was now. I need to go find it, but it basically said that the brethren started that story. And he had been pregnant and had been pushed down the stairs and that just for anybody who’s wondering, that has been completely found out to be a falsehood, um, just by even the, the just mere fact that the two supposed witnesses, um both have completely different stories of what door they were standing at and the house they were living at the time. The stairway can’t be seen from either door. So just the fact of just the witnesses, um, that that’s been told now.

[1:51:16] Michelle: I believe Brian Hailes was actually involved in finalizing that debunking because I think it was him, if I’m not remembering wrong, who so and someone else that went to the house and realized that the layout of the house made it completely impossible. There was no

[1:51:29] Whitney Horning: there’s some good things that he’s done. Ryan, like we’re hoping that you actually start maybe thinking, I mean, it’s just flipping a switch. I mean I was just like him and it literally you just need to flip that switch in your brain to say, OK, could everything fall into place. If I believed what Joseph said that he didn’t do it. Right, you know, so I mean and that’s why we are, we are evidence this can be done, right?

[1:52:02] Michelle: And it’s so refreshing. The truth is just delightful. This kind of thing doesn’t happen when you tell the truth. People can’t get on and expose things that were not truthful. And I know, I know that we have been. Pretty direct in these episodes. But I love that you made that invitation because really, like, no hard feelings. Let’s just move forward and do better, right? This isn’t, nobody wants to have enemies. We don’t,

[1:52:29] Whitney Horning: I know that you read the scripture today. That, that’s why I think I. Take this work so seriously because I really honestly believe Joseph’s words where he said the Lord said to me, anyone who says I do these things will be cursed and denied priesthood through your generations. So that requires to become uncursed, it requires repentance. And that means we repent of thinking these things of Joseph. And then also the scripture where, you know, the angel says to him, you know, fools will have you in derision and, you know, the pure in heart will seek after you. And so this really is an invitation like we, I want people. To be somebody who seeks the blessings um out of Joseph’s hands, right? Like, I really, it, this really isn’t a This really isn’t a, you know, my narrative is better than Brian’s narrative for any of us. I really believe that Jeremy, Michelle, and I, we want people to feel the joy that we felt when we’ve been able to repent from this false tradition.

[1:53:40] Michelle: Yes, yes, and to. To be able to receive the promises throughout the Book of Mormon. And to avoid the cursings, the warnings throughout the Book of Mormon, right?

[1:53:53] Whitney Horning: Is that real? I mean, I take seriously.

[1:53:56] Michelle: Yeah, like, we, we are in a time when we need to come to know God, right? Like that is a necessity, and God is sending these messages. I, I’ve said it before, but really, like, the Joseph Smith papers becoming available, DNA evidence becoming available in conjunction with the God’s promises, with God’s promises that All hidden things of darkness will be revealed, all things will be shouted from the rooftops, that all things will be made known. That’s exactly what is happening. And, and all of us get to choose which of those two categories from that scripture we got we want to be in. The the fools who hold Joseph in derision, or even if, even if you don’t, even if you think that you honor Joseph Smith, but you believe this narrative, you have to understand you’re going along with the people who say profits aren’t that great. We have to cut that part out of this presentation. But my gosh, even Brian Hailes is incredibly hard and critical of Joseph Smith because of the narrative that Brian claims that Joseph did, right? Right.

[1:55:00] Whitney Horning: So and you know it’s almost like when you settle like that. With all of the, the things that are becoming available today, it’s almost like God’s extending his hand of mercy and saying, I’m making all this available to the point where you have to make a choice. It is that clear which, which narrative, which Joseph Smith do you want to believe in or are you going to believe in?

[1:55:28] Michelle: Right, right. And really, I think we’re laying out the evidence well enough. That it’s not even really a choice between which narrative. It’s to me, it feels like, are you willing to look at the evidence, honestly, or are you going to cling to the false traditions of your fathers on either side? Are you too motivated to believe the church narrative that you won’t consider this, or are you too motivated to believe And Joseph, who you have decided is a bad guy, because now you’re post-Mormon or you’re anti-Mormon, right? So you have to see Joseph this way. It’s a choice for all of us to decide if we will look at this with fresh eyes and look at the actual evidence, not just the narrative, not just look through the Utah narrative lenses.

[1:56:15] Whitney Horning: Right?

[1:56:18] Michelle: OK, any last words?

[1:56:20] Whitney Horning: No, I think this was so fun. I mean, you know, I shouldn’t say fun in the sense I don’t enjoy like we, we don’t, this isn’t a personal attack on a person. It’s on the narrative and the ideas and the um and the, the lies exactly. And so I love getting in and doing the research and so thank you, Michelle, for having us again. We always love coming on, we can talk forever, all of us, because this is just something that’s dear to all of us.

[1:56:53] Michelle: Yeah, it’s after midnight when we’re ending and I’m sure we’re gonna be doing it again. So thank you so much, Whitney. This is awesome. Thank you, Jeremy. I’m sorry we had to lose you. Thanks for, thank you for staying so long and thank you all of you for tuning in and Brian, with all the sincerity of all of our hearts, I, I do thank you for the incredible work you have done. You’ve done so much good on this topic. It’s been profoundly important. You just need to go the next step and, and don’t be an apologist, actually be a transparentist. That would be amazing. I’m even willing to use your word, but that is the purpose and for all of you tuning in, thank you so much, and we will see you next time. Well, that’s a wrap for now. And remember, we’ve only covered 2 or 3 of Brian’s claims so far, 2 or 3 elements of his narrative that the church is still telling people is the truth. And I think it is extremely important that this narrative be challenged and investigated because it is not sound and it destroys faith. That is why we are engaging in this. That is why We are doing it. So I apologize to Brian if this feels personal, if this feels harsh. That is, I’m doing it despite that. I actually hate that it feels that way at all. I would like to just be friends with everyone. We just need to all be engaged together in finding the truth. And anyone who is willing to engage honestly and trying to find the truth, come on, let’s work together. Let’s disagree. Let’s prove our points. Let’s get at it and find truth. Anyone has not engaged in that, but is just interested in protecting a narrative, even with lies. Anyone who’s just interested in protecting their reputation or their platform or whatever it may be, I’m sorry, that’s not, that’s not what I’m about. That’s not what this channel is about, and that cannot be what this topic is about. So we are going to continue to address this narrative and point out the many, many problems with it and the many reasons that it is not sound with the Desperate hope and prayer, and I hope all of you will engage in these prayers along with us, that this narrative can be discarded because it belongs in the discard pile. We need to do better, and that is what we are hoping to accomplish. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you again to Jeremy and Whitney. I am looking forward to bringing more panels with different faces and more panels with Whitney and Jeremy as well. There is a lot more to talk about, so we will see you next time.