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Transcript
[00:01] Michelle: Welcomed 132 Problems revisiting Mormon polygamy, where we explore the scriptural, theological, and in this case, again, historical case for plural marriage. I am excited to introduce you to my old college buddy Jeremy Hoop, who I learned is one of the, in my opinion, top experts on the discussion of Joseph’s polygamy. He really has gotten So deep down in the weeds and looked at every single piece of evidence. So I’m excited to introduce you to him today. We ended up speaking actually for 3 hours, so I’ve cut this down quite a bit. If it’s a little bit choppy, I apologize. And also I’m still working on perfecting my um interview style. I’m sure it will always be a work in progress, but I think there’s so much value to this discussion. I wanted to tell you if there are a lot of names and things thrown around that you’re not familiar with, don’t worry about it again, we’ll, I’m hoping that Jeremy, Jeremy and I will be able to have an ongoing discussion that he can come on periodically to cover more issues. So in that, on that note, for those who still believe that Joseph was a polygamist because the evidence is just so strong, I would love it if you would put in the comments some of the most convincing or compelling bits and pieces of evidence that you find because I, we Really want to get in and make sure we have covered every single topic, every single piece of evidence, so that we can all be seeking truth and not just seeking to defend our site. So if you would go ahead and put the evidence in the comments, then I can um ask Jeremy to come on and readdress it in a future episode. So please go ahead and do that so we can keep this discussion, discussion vibrant and useful and enlightening to all of us. So thank you so much for joining us as we take this deep dive into the murky waters of Joseph’s polygamy. OK. Welcome to 132 Problems. I am actually really excited for this episode. I say this all the time, but it’s not very fun that I get to have an old friend on my podcast. So this is, this is Jeremy Hoop. And fun fact, we were at BYU together in the music dance theater major. And you have to tell me, Jeremy, did you graduate in music dance theater? Or in acting, did you switch over to acting on the acting, yeah. So you went on and had a career. It’s been really fun to watch. So my son on his mission watched the Testaments over and over. He said he watched it at least once a week because they were allowed to watch it and he loved it. So he came home quoting my good friend Jeremy, who was the star of Testament. So then And then I know we saw you in Charlie and I’m trying to remember you, you’ve anyway, done a bunch of Mormon films and then a lot of other TV work and then I know that you’ve also taught a lot of acting, um, classes and seminars and then worked in other fields. I think investments and. Finance and sales and marketing. So I got that right?
[02:57] Jeremy Hoop: Yeah, I’ve had a singer. Oh, thank you. Yeah, um, oh, I, I was as ambitious as they. As they make them as a younger person and and then I had a family and And uh God showed me other things that were important
[03:22] Michelle: and. And I believe I should have thought that out. I believe 6 children and 5, is it 7 children and 6 that are still with you. I read an old bio. I was trying to remember and I know Jeremiah caught up recently and kind of we’re able to share our experiences of, um, shouldn’t bring that up, but some hard experiences that we’ve both um that we’ve both had so my heart goes out to you and thank
[03:44] Jeremy Hoop: you. Don’t make me cry. I know I shouldn’t
[03:48] Michelle: there. So um. Yeah, so anyway, and then I guess it was just this year when I saw you on the debate on Hemlock knots, but I was like, what Jeremy? You’re, you’re in this debate and you, you definitely were like, um, you were in the Joseph polygamy debate. I actually didn’t want to be in the Joseph polygamy debate. Like I’ve, I’ve gotten her kicking and screaming. I just wanted to focus on. I’m God and polygamy, not Joseph and polygamy, and I have to say it’s been an intense week. I, well, I released when we’re recording that, I released, um, when we’re recording this, that was my most recent episode, the one about Joseph’s polygamy.
[04:35] Jeremy Hoop: OK, yeah, it was very, very good.
[04:38] Michelle: Thank you, thank you, but it’s, it’s, it’s brought out the haters big time and I feel bad to step into this into this arena. It’s tough. It’s hard.
[04:48] Jeremy Hoop: Welcome to the club.
[04:50] Michelle: I know. Well, I’ve been, I’ve been in my own little club. It’s interesting because I think that people that like, I think the people that want to say, yeah, polygamy was never of God, um, who have left the church, were on board with what I was doing, but now that I’m saying polygamy also wasn’t of Joseph, you know, people are really invested in this image of Joseph they had that really was instrumental in destroying their faith in the church and the gospel, and I, I find that interesting and unfortunate. And so I guess that’s why I’m like, oh, maybe the Joseph debate does matter because, yeah, you know, it all gets lumped together and, and there’s some value to saying nope, it maybe doesn’t deserve to all get lumped together. So I’m, I’m in the, in this discussion now, but
[05:35] Jeremy Hoop: anyway
[05:35] Michelle: you got here first.
[05:37] Jeremy Hoop: It’s been, it’s been fascinating to watch your, your transition if you will, or this process of discovery. How it’s unfolded for you. Uh, first of all, I, I think what you’re doing, um, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen on the subject because, um, you’ve broken down the scriptural case, uh, unlike anyone else I’ve ever seen. You’ve helped me understand. There’s a lot of things that that I’ve worked through myself, but you have given me insights that That have further solidified my conviction, um, uh, where I am today on the subject and, um, and so I’m really grateful for what you’ve done because Uh, it’s, I think it’s so valuable to have um an articulate. Um, strong woman talking about this, from the, from the scriptural perspective, that has been needed. Um, uh, Carolyn Pearson with her Um, with her book that you, that you talked about, I think it’s the Ghost of eternal
[06:40] Michelle: polygamy, um,
[06:44] Jeremy Hoop: the premise in that book is so important. I mean, we could talk about, I can talk about from my perspective, uh, and give you firsthand experience or my firsthand experience of of how that affected me in, in, in my first marriage. Um, if you want to, I don’t know if you want to.
[07:00] Michelle: Because we hear, I think, more often from women, and it’s and it’s good to hear from men as well. We do hear from men, which I appreciate, but I’d love to hear your experience.
[07:10] Jeremy Hoop: OK, I’ll, I’ll be really candid with you, um. I Who have I told this to? Not very many people. Um, so I, I used to believe. All of the standard narratives. I’ve been studying church history and and the doctrines of the the restoration since my mission in 1990 through ’93. I, I, I fell in love with um. I, I, I used to listen to the Truman Maddison tapes. I don’t know if anybody knows what those are, and, and he would tell these fantastic stories about Joseph Smith, and, and I read all of the, all of the standard narratives you’re supposed to read on your mission back then, marvelous work and a Wonder and Jesus the Christ, and it’s, uh, and, and my mission was as much study as it was and study and reflection and contemplation as it was preaching the gospel for me and um it was a an incredible experience. I, I was in Uruguay for a couple of years and Um, and I, I walked away from that, having a, a deep conviction. Of the mission of Joseph Smith, um, the importance of the Book of Mormon, and the, um, And the character of Joseph Smith more than anything else. Um, and as a human, I, I fell in love with him as a human being, um, and that’s that was based on some pretty limited understanding. I can say now, um. Fast forward to 51, jeez, um. I, I, I have almost a reverence for him. I wanna be careful with the word reverence, cause I don’t, I don’t, um, worship him in any way, but as far as human beings go, there’s only a few. George Washington. Joseph Smith, and then then we’ve got mythical characters without much historical context, you know, from Christ’s time or whatever. So, um, but for someone, um, where we have so much available information. I find him to be an extraordinary human being. And I find the criticisms of him really unfortunate. Um, and, um, so speculative and so relying on on, frankly slanderous testimony. What I find to be slanderous testimony. I understand why people believe it, you know. Because there’s a lot, there’s a lot that people said. There’s a lot of things that people said while he was alive, and there’s a lot of things that people said while he was after he was murdered. um, and, you know, if, if the angel was telling them, telling him the truth, um, the angel Nephi, by the way, um, not Maroni, Nephi, um, that his, yeah, the, the angel he saw in his bedroom was not Moroni, it was Nephi.
[10:02] Michelle: Yeah, OK, that’s a whole another side. Maybe you’ll have to fill me in on that.
[10:06] Jeremy Hoop: It’s
[10:06] Michelle: a fun fact.
[10:07] Jeremy Hoop: He, he told the story several times and he always said it was Nephi. It got turned into Morona somewhere and I have to track the story down. But anyway, the angel um told him his name would be spoken, um, you know, for good and evil, and, and it has been.
[10:22] Michelle: And so we’ve seen that that keeps more and more and more depth just as
[10:26] Jeremy Hoop: more and more, more and more depth as people. become more and more polarized as far as Joseph Smith’s concerned. Through my mission coming home, um, I gain, I gained a deep conviction, um. For two things in particular that Joseph taught. Number one was this idea that that we could have every revelation that he had, that we could meet our Lord in the flesh. We could have this, this experience called calling an election, and the more sure word of prophecy and the second comforter. And I found that so astonishing. Um, it’s a really unique doctrine. That that that the being who created this planet, created this universe would come into your living room? And visit you from time to time and, and instruct you on the things of eternity and actually tell you really where you come from and what the age of the earth really is and how this whole thing really works. He, he, he actually taught that, and, and I found that so now whether you believe that or not, that he, but he taught it, and for me, I thought, huh, that’s um That’s something I would like to, I’d like to pursue. And he taught this idea of Zion. This idea of a of a society, a flat society of equals, who all know God and who all love one another, and care for one another, and have one heart and one mind, and they, and they have all things in common and and um those two concepts for me resonated so powerfully. Well, um, I’m kind of taking a tangent and then getting gonna get back to the the how polygamy affected me in my marriage, and, and just as a young man. But what I noticed was in, in, um, as I grew up, um, through my adult years in the church, I noticed that not many people really cared about that stuff. In the church. OK. That was my experience. Um, and I would talk about.
[12:20] Michelle: I felt the same way as I discovered these things and they rocked my world because I think that’s like for me that’s what was what what the book of Mormon opened up to teach me was that not only is this possible, it’s the very purpose of the gospel, the way that we that we. Like we, we always say I’ll live with God again someday. What it means is, no, you overcome death. You overcome spiritual death by coming back into the presence of God. You overcome physical death by eventually being translated, which is the city of Enoch. That’s what Joseph was teaching, and that’s the actual purpose. So yeah, I’m on board with you, and I remember discovering this going. Why didn’t anyone surely this can’t be true because someone would have told me and how can I think I know things that I have like it’s very lonely. It’s a very lonely thing to. Yes, I was I
[13:07] Jeremy Hoop: I constantly felt a stranger and a sojourner. Teaching gospel doctrine class or high priest group or or you know like
[13:21] Michelle: that can be true to yourself, yeah I just and
[13:27] Jeremy Hoop: and I would get strange looks and anyway um so and I’m like you, I, I, for me, the book of Mormon, um. is, is, is a precious gift because of, because it teaches that, um, it’s what the Lord told the brother of Jared, you’re redeemed because you’ve seen me, cause you’re in my presence. Wait, what? Redemption’s not just about dying and going to heaven. Redemption’s about being brought back in the presence of God and this this parable of walking along this path with a rod of iron. And you endure to the end of life or the end of the path. It’s the end of the path the gold, and this has this fruit that’s the love of God and and and it’s a representation of the being of Christ anyway, so, so I fell in love with the restoration and with Joseph Smith and and um the things he taught. So. For whatever reason, you know, um, I could read all kinds of salacious stuff about him. And I’ve read all this salacious stuff about him, you know, the CES letter was just like reading. Some kind of strange um word rearrangement of of some word puzzle saying, so look, look how awful this is. I’m like, wait, what? OK, let’s pull this apart and and and those arguments, they don’t hold water for me and I and and I understand why they do for people, but they, they, they, they sound like um straining at gnats and um instead of, instead of seeing what because To, to, to focus on those things you have to ignore. A mountain A mountain of accomplishment, just within the Book of Mormon itself. If you want to just talk about chiasms and Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon. It
[15:20] Michelle: is interesting. It’s so interesting because on the one hand, it’s so easy to have this testimony that’s really based in ignorance, you know what I mean? Like you just were always taught and, and you have a couple of experiences and so it’s all true and you’re and you know, but then at the same time it seems to kind of flip to all of a sudden you learned all of these things. So now you have this anti-estimony, this testimony against Joseph Smith, but that also, I mean, I know a lot of people have done a lot of studying on both sides, but it seems to be. The same level of hostility and cer certitude that’s not open to let’s actually discuss, you know, people are just invested just as invested in really hating Joseph Smith as they were in loving him. So it’s really an interesting
[16:02] Jeremy Hoop: thing by the way, I should, I should say, um, I’m really sensitive to how. People who are in the church, or people who have left the church, their response to all of these things, and I really empathize with people in both places. I really do. Um. We were mentioning something we have in common. I, I lost a child in 2013, and, and that. That put me into a place where I had a a a different perspective. Um, I was forced. Into a different perspective. And that caused me to question everything. And I spent a season. Throwing everything out and starting over, um, cause nothing made sense to me. And I, and I fully appre well I don’t know if I fully appreciate, I can really appreciate the work how people become agnostic. Um, I was there. I, I fully appreciate how people can become completely throughout God altogether and, and, and not be able to make sense of their belief system, their former belief system. So, so as I’m talking about these things, if there are people listening that, you know, they, they, they no longer believe in in the restoration, I I don’t mean to disparage that, because I, I get that, and
[17:26] Michelle: I do too, yeah, I’m very sympathetic to it, and some people that I am very close to, I watched them go through it and I, you know, I, I didn’t have anyway, I, I have a lot of understanding and empathy for it. So yeah, I’m on the same page as you. So I wish that there was still an opening to consider, just to continue to consider. I’m always like, let’s keep investigating. Don’t settle there either. But, but
[17:50] Jeremy Hoop: I do want that was my experience was was to dive deeper into it. And a lot of people do, but they, but for whatever reason it still doesn’t work, and it doesn’t work almost entirely because of this subject, because of polygamy. It’s almost entirely this because this is where it starts. It starts with Joseph bedded a 14 year old, I’m I’m done, or Joseph sent guys on missions to marry their wives, I’m done. Or uh Joseph was Um, hiding all this from Emma and, and, and he even tried to poison her and, and I mean she tried to poison him and this back and forth and I I can’t, I can’t be involved in this thing because I can’t trust him anymore and I get that. I understand that hypocritical of a picture and so I understand very well why people get to that place. What I have found. To get to that place, by the way, you do have to ignore a lot. And you and you have to, you have to take the word of people. Who hated him so much that they tried to or or were in league to try to kill him. You also have to take the word of people who have motives that have not been really well examined. And we can talk about some of that today. Um, in fact,
[19:18] Michelle: OK, so, so I want to clarify one thing right here, and then we still have to go back to, you were talking about your first, your first marriage we’re going to go everywhere, but um, so I do want to clarify, I think that a lot of people are just appalled at the idea that One would think Joseph wasn’t a polygamist because there’s so much.
[19:39] Jeremy Hoop: So, so I think that the idea that not only appalled, but they, but they, the mockery, they they they they they do they do to you what the CIA’s tactic is. OK, here’s the CIA’s tactic. Anytime someone brings up something that hits home close to them, they call them a conspiracy theorist.
[19:56] Michelle: Conspiracy theorist,
[19:59] Jeremy Hoop: which by the way, the CIA now, a lot of people are they’re on to you, we’re on to you, and you finally admitted this year that Lee Harvey Oswald was actually Working for you.
[20:09] Michelle: We’re going into all kinds of conspiracies. Well, it’s true. I mean like I didn’t go for the shots and for the, you know, and, and, and, and what they do is they deplatform you. I’ve had people now, um, well, I hate to say, but I have had people refuse to come on because like, like they don’t want to have to engage in this topic. They’d rather just say you’re ridiculous. This you’re not worth talking to. Like someone just this just yesterday was incredible who, who I had wanted to have on the podcast and had, I think, planned to, but you know, so, so it’s gonna be interesting to see where it goes from here because what they do, like people think that like I, I’m invested in needing Joseph to be this. No, I came here really kicking and screaming. It took a lot to get me here. And um, I, you know, I had, I had peace in different scenarios all along the way and I did face the whole do I throw out the Book of Mormon, not based on this issue, but you know, so I’m similar to you and actually it’s cost me a lot to, to come to this place. So anyone that’s, you know, people can be really like, like intentionally, we’re, we’re kind of now on other, we’re on everyone’s sacred cows, right? People that need to believe in. and believe the standard narrative and have, you know, have the, um, briggamite tradition, I guess our LDS tradition we’re on their sacred cows and now the people that hate Joseph Smith we’re on their sacred cows. So, so it’s really interesting to see the hate come in. And so the one thing I wanted to clarify is. To believe that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist means that we must believe that there was a conspiracy. That’s it, there was a conspiracy, so we’re not denying any of the claims that that the claims don’t exist. We’re saying. We, you need to look at the, the um credibility of those claims by judging the motives, the, you know, the, the accuracy of their stories like so that’s what, so I just wanted to clarify that we’re, we’re of course not ignorant of the claims that are out there. We are looking at all of them in depth and to clarify is on their side,
[22:19] Jeremy Hoop: they’re conspiracy theorists as well. Because they believe there was a conspiracy during Joseph’s lifetime to hide the stuff. And to keep it from the public and and yet that sorry folks is a theory. It’s a theory, because there are no provable facts to establish it other than What comes decades after the fact, and what and and by inference during his his lifetime, by inference only, not by established fact. At the end of the day, What, what, what they come to is when you, when you, when you point out all of the all of the problems with their narrative, at the end of the day, they all get to one point and that one point is I just don’t believe that many
[23:06] Michelle: people would lie
[23:07] Jeremy Hoop: lie. And so
[23:08] Michelle: it’s a conspiracy theory. So many people on it.
[23:12] Jeremy Hoop: I’m going to talk a little bit about that, just a little because that, that becomes a really interesting um exercise. The Anatomy of a lie. And how it works, and evidence is clear evidences of it, um, from the swath of things they call um fact. And so we’ll examine that and then, you know, people can make up their minds. By the way, I would recommend anybody who’s who’s watching this, if you’re really interested, if you find things that Michelle’s done compelling, if you find things like Whitney Horney has Horning is um written to be compelling. Um, if you listen to the talk that I gave, um, which is on my podcast, if you find that compelling, I’ll put the links below as well. Don’t trust us, don’t trust them. Do your own homework and read the sources yourself, but read all of them. On the one side, they curate their sources into a bundle, into a picture that sounds like it’s incontrovertible, they present it as fact, and they stated as such. Uh, Todd Compton has this habit, for example, and man, he’s, he is really hard to to dislike because he’s such a, he’s such a
[24:30] Michelle: likable guy.
[24:32] Jeremy Hoop: By the way, I don’t mean to say that we should dislike him. I’m just saying he’s so, he’s so nice. But he has this habit of stating things as though Joseph himself wrote it in his journal, as though Emma herself, as though there’s a record at the time. We can talk more about that, but let’s go back to how this affected, yes, me personally, so. OK. So on my mission. Um, Hm This is kind of embarrassing. So I um I, I was a Very hardworking, faithful missionary. I, I, I was so focused and dedicated, um. Like no other time before that and hardly any other time after that, um, to what I believed, um, God was wanting me to do, and I, I, I tried to really serve a faithful mission. I remember teaching a particular woman. Um, we had one discussion with her. This was in the capital city of Montevideo, and, and I remember feeling, um, a compelling spirit from her. And it, it really struck me. And I remember that I, I felt, now this is gonna maybe not be believable to people, but I, I, I remember feeling nothing sexual toward her, nothing. It purely, um, I don’t know, brotherly sisterly, however, I just felt, I felt something very pure. Um, And I remember, I remember praying. This is really embarrassing, but I remember praying. If she is not married in the hereafter, I would be honored for her to be my wife. In addition to whomever else I had. OK. Mhm. I mean that’s just weird. Yeah I remember I’m gonna tell you a couple, I’m gonna tell you a couple more. OK. I remember, um, a friend of mine I grew up with, who was like my sister. I never had a romantic thought about her at all. Um. And I remember praying the same thing. Getting on my knees and praying for that, that if she was not married in the hereafter, that You know, if she could be with me, I would, I would welcome that. And it’s weird. And I remember during my marriage. Um, we had some, some real struggles. Um, I married an incredible woman. Um, we brought 7 souls into the world. We lost a child together, we went through a lot. There were some times when we would discuss, when she would tell me her struggles with polygamy. And by the way, I never promoted it to her. I didn’t, but I believed that it was a thing in the hereafter, possibly. I didn’t know how it worked, I didn’t know if you did or didn’t, you know. But she would tell me things that I was that I should have been so much more. Um, validating of and empathetic too. Um, she would say, I just don’t want to be somebody’s property. I And, and, and in my mind I couldn’t reconcile how a loving God would, would make that the thing, and I, and I believe that it was probably the case for some people, maybe for all, I don’t know, cause I knew some of the statements that Brigham Young had made and that they would teach about it being the law of the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, and you couldn’t get there without it. So I didn’t know how to reconcile all these things. And so I, I made it, I, I, by my lack of empathy. And by my even. Acknowledging that I believed it to be a possibility, it was very hurtful to her. And I’m very sorry,
[28:45] Michelle: were you, were you like, um, were you, were you kind of the pat on the head like, oh God won’t do that. You don’t need to worry about it, or were you like, well, it’s God’s commandment. So, or like how, how did
[28:56] Jeremy Hoop: you? I was, I don’t know if I was either of those. I think I said, I said, I just think I tried to say it kindly, but I think I think I probably said. I think we just need to have faith that it’ll all work out somehow. And
[29:11] Michelle: we’re told that a lot and and I didn’t want to interrupt you because you were saying like I love that you’re being so um so kind and thoughtful, you know, I, I, this is really hard to to admit all of this, you know,
[29:25] Jeremy Hoop: it hurt her deeply and and I and I still to this day, um, I, I feel terribly for that. I regret that, um. I don’t know if she’ll ever watch this, but uh. I’ve told her this, you know, but um. Anyway, if you’re watching this, uh, I’m telling the world this, so, um, also, uh, well, Um, So, I’ve heard women say that. It, it can make them so afraid of the next life, it, it, it can inhibit them from giving their whole heart to their husband. It does the same thing to men. And so, I remember in troubling times in our marriage, when things were not going well. I would, I, I never thought of it sexually. I never thought of polygamy sexually in the in the eternal eternities, believe it or not. I, what I thought was maybe. I’ll have a wife that loves me.
[30:26] Michelle: That understands me, that loves me, that
[30:29] Jeremy Hoop: that was such a painful thought. And, and it’s such a warped thought, it’s such a horrible thing. To to find yourself thinking. Instead of turning what I should have done, turn within and toward her. And, and, and figured out how to be humble and and to and to heal the breach and, you know, I, I learned a lot of things way too late. You know, um, Anyway, so, so that’s just a little insight.
[31:04] Michelle: You feel like it directly had an effect on on on your first marriage not surviving at I
[31:12] Jeremy Hoop: don’t know I don’t know how much it played in. The it was 7 years between the death of our son and our divorce and and 80% of marriages don’t survive the loss of a child. It’s very, very difficult
[31:25] Michelle: and I will say my husband and I have had to dig deep. Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard to go through. Yeah,
[31:32] Jeremy Hoop: it’s and and by the way, um, my heart goes out to you tremendously, so.
[31:40] Michelle: So I should, OK, moving on.
[31:44] Jeremy Hoop: So that, so I wanted to mention that because um because this this narrative has been a part of my being since I can remember. And so when, so like you’re saying when people say, oh, it’s just so easy for you to believe these things. I, I have, I have dug into this. With the exception of the Book of Mormon and the scriptures and the teachings of Joseph, I’ve dug into this more than I’ve, I’ve I’ve looked at anything, and um. Uh, not as maybe as much as some, but more than most. And I can say now, um, that I, I have a greater respect for Joseph Smith. I’ve ever had.
[32:28] Michelle: OK. I have to respond to your story as soon as you go ahead and finish and then I have to go ahead. OK, so this is one of my really like awful, OK, vulnerability overload again. um, so this has been because just like you talk about how polygamy like who was I, I think it was Whitney Horning and I were talking about how it actually weakens the commitment of marriage, and I think So there are a couple of different aspects that I want to share, but women also can very easily think in the next life, I can, I can have a husband who will love me because I will have a profit or I can have a man who’s right, the same, yeah, yeah, a man who like, like I’ve heard women express that. My experience wasn’t that because my husband and I are backward. Like he was, I was the one that was like, no, polygamy is great, of course, just trust God and, you know, and, and he was one that was like, honey, you know, like I’m not comfortable with this. So there’s something wrong with me apparently because I, I was like, no, it’s good. I was raised to believe that God would wouldn’t have us do something that wouldn’t make us happy, but This is the weird thing I will acknowledge just as you were describing this, OK, this is where the vulnerability overload comes in, but just as you were describing the connections you would sometimes feel to women, I have had that same thing with men, never, never anything, you know, but like a single man who is a good man who. You know, who I was like, what can I do for him? What do you know, so it’s actually been good for me and, and then of course going, OK, God, like I can’t marry him. I already have a husband like what could, you know, it’s a mess for, for it’s been a mess for me, but what I have valued from it is that when men Tell me I have these feelings. I know I’m like, yeah, ditto, they’re not the confirmations you think they are because I relate to them exactly like sometimes really profoundly this like connection, gratitude, love, nothing spiritual. I, I mean nothing like purely spiritual, not at all sexual, you know, and feeling like there’s some connection there and I would love to have that guy have a family and a wife and And so as weird as that may sound to people, it shouldn’t be any weirder for a woman than it is for a man. It’s not a testimony of the truthfulness of polygamy. Men interpret it that way. Women just go, What’s wrong with me?
[34:55] Jeremy Hoop: So I have, I’ve had the privilege and the opportunity to observe all kinds of people who who have engaged in. Today, this kind of stuff under the guise of some kind of spiritual connection or or or having been sealed in a previous life or
[35:17] Michelle: uh by the Lord now yes,
[35:19] Jeremy Hoop: I’ve heard it called dyadic companions, um uh bonded wives um uh stars’ good.
[35:26] Michelle: That’s what some of them call it and there were,
[35:26] Jeremy Hoop: there were I met women doing it and doing it and and. What I’ve noticed, uh, see, there’s this thing where people believe there’s a righteous way to do it. And then there’s the uh all the rest, which is just wicked and awful, but the problem is it never works. I was just reading through the journal one of there’s
[35:53] Michelle: no righteous way to commit adultery. There’s no righteous way to commit murder. You can’t say, oh, I’m following the example of Nephi, so I can commit murder. That’s how we get the Lafferty’s and the Le Barons, and it always starts with polygamy. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, sorry, go ahead, keep going.
[36:08] Jeremy Hoop: No, I was just reading through one of the memoirs of one of my great great great grandmas today, and she talked about when her husband took a second wife and all she said was, It went against my natural feelings, but I consented to enter into the order to fulfill the will of heaven. You know, and I could, I could hear her heartbreaking. And these uh. You know, and I, it’s hard to have anything but compassion for these people. Who believed this was, this was the stairway to heaven. This was, this was how you became a god. And yeah,
[36:49] Michelle: it’s important to put the blame, the blame where it belongs, which is on the father of lies, because this was a lie. That’s the pain comes from believing a lie because it’s not true.ed
[37:00] Jeremy Hoop: me out of that mindset. And it and it, it began the transition to studying this issue and helping me understand why I believe now that this is Joseph equated this with polygamy and spiritual wifery and plurality of wives. He never differentiated. He equated those with abominations and whoredoms and adultery, always.
[37:26] Michelle: And people who want to split hairs and say no, he was talking about this, not this, they have never produced a single quote and even our, even our Utah leaders talked about polygamy. Polygamy is all through the Journal of Discourses, so they use. Polygamy far more often than they use celestial marriage.
[37:44] Jeremy Hoop: Is it correct? And, and they also said, as Emily Partridge said, in those days in Navvo, we called it spiritual wifery. OK. So, so Joseph equated all those together. I, I know Brian Hailes wants to, to separate, you know, polygamy and and plurality of wise celestial marriage from John Bennett’s. But Joseph put them all in one lump, and you can’t, you simply can’t find anything from Joseph. You have to rely on what other people said, Joseph said. Problem is when you rely on what other people said, Joseph said, you have to see if you can trust what they’re saying. Um, and so, what took me out of Um, believing that was first I, I had a, a, a dear gospel teacher who, who He said something about marriage that Really changed my perspective. He said, what what catches the attention of the heavens the very most. is when a man and a woman in marriage are so united that their marriage mirrors the heavenly marriage. That’s what draws the attention of the angels to begin. Their work, and I thought, wow, that’s
[38:59] Michelle: That’s
[38:59] Jeremy Hoop: interesting.
[39:00] Michelle: That’s cool.
[39:02] Jeremy Hoop: OK and the, and the idea was to strive for a marriage that mirrors the heavenly marriage. Whatever that means, so you have to discover what how how how do the gods. How, how does a heavenly couple, how are, how are they married together? And I think we have clues. No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by By virtue of any relationship, let alone priesthood or marriage, especially man over a woman or even woman over a man, only by persuasion, by gentleness, by meekness, by kindness, by love unfeign, by pure knowledge, without hypocrisy, without guile, these, these godly virtues, where, where there’s free, um, interchange between two people who respect each other as equals, who collaborate, who Who, who, who don’t demand and control and coerce and manipulate but invite and entreat and and and they’re turning toward each other
[40:05] Michelle: they’re turning toward each other.
[40:07] Jeremy Hoop: They, they leave their father and their mother and they become one flesh, you know, and and they love each other, body and soul and Yeah, it sounds like, uh, you know, your, your iconic love story, but that’s the point. And I, and I, I was so jaded as a young man. My parents got divorced and I was, I was not taught very well. I had a, I had a very cold grandma, uh, they slept, my grandma and grandpa slept in separate beds, and I, um, she was a wonderful woman, uh stories galore and great vacations at her house, but she was kind of a cold fish and, and my mom was a bit cantankerous and beautiful woman, incredible singer, but but not so, she’s a little prickly. You know, and, but she had not been, she had not been cared for by by the men in her life either, and, and my father didn’t know how to be a a husband, and so I, I didn’t have a good example, and I didn’t know what it meant to have a a a good marriage. And so when I’m hearing the description, Of what a godly marriage is. And I’m examining in myself. What I lacked Then I finally realized, wow. First of all, I wanna believe that it’s possible to have that kind of marriage, cause I think that’s where it has to start. I think a lot of people just don’t even believe in that kind of love. They really don’t. And and And the scriptures inspire us to that kind of love, you know. Well, this teacher put it in such a way that I finally wanted that. So I started to work on myself and make changes and and try to figure out how to be that kind of husband. Um, honey, if you’re watching, I hope I’m figuring that out. So, um, In that process, uh, I, I came across an article and read a paper, and this paper was called Joseph Smith’s Monogamy. Um, it was by, um, an anonymous writer. I know him, he’s a great guy, and it really sparked my interest, and then I listened to a couple other talks and then started reading a few books by the Prices, and I read a book called The Exoneration of Emma, Joseph and Hiram, and then I, um, and then I read Whitney Horning’s book, and in the meantime, I started to go and look up. I didn’t care so much what the opinions of the authors were. I wanted to know what the sources said, so every time I would dig up the sources and go look at it myself.
[42:45] Michelle: You spend more time in the index and the footnotes than you do in the act.
[42:50] Jeremy Hoop: I have, I have a ridiculous number of bookmarks in my browser, and I have so many documents I’ve downloaded. It’s, it’s kind of disgusting. I have to organize it all. So in that process, um, as I was, I would talk to people about what I was learning and, and, um. I got asked to to deliver. A talk on the subject at a, it was a restoration conference where a bunch of different branches of the restoration, from strangites to Cutlerites to um reorganites were all invited to come. It was fascinating cause I heard these perspectives of these people who love the Book of Mormon and they’re not LDS. Wow. Um, and, and I talked on polygamy, which a lot of them. They, they don’t believe Joseph was a polygamist either.
[43:36] Michelle: Well, only if we’re going to use the term only the hams
[43:47] Jeremy Hoop: and branches of that stuff. I mean, I even heard that some authors have opined that. Spiritual wifery was part of Sydney Rigdon’s philosophy. I mean, I, I gotta figure figure that one out, but that, that he, he had it back in his candlelight days, and it just so happens John C. Bennett was a Candlelight preacher, so I don’t know, maybe John C. Bennett learned it from Sydney. I don’t, I don’t know, but it’s, it’s, it’s complicated. Excuse me, so I, I began to study this stuff. And and I gained enough of a conviction of it to write um what I considered to be an opening statement. In defense of Joseph Smith. This is, this subject is way too big. Um, in order to, to, to convince anybody in soundbites. So I, I know that people listening to this, there’s people throwing stuff at their computer right now saying that you guys are so dumb. How can you possibly even,
[44:36] Michelle: they probably did that a couple of weeks ago and now they won’t listen anymore. But yeah, that’s what it is. It’s everybody knows the science is settled. Yeah. And so there’s no discussion to be had. So I want you to walk us through. OK,
[44:50] Jeremy Hoop: so from that perspective. Um, I did a lot of work on that on that paper and that talk. Um, I started a podcast and I got divorced and so I put it aside. I’ve recently got back into it. And I have um. I have done a a a a deep and nearly exhaustive dive on the subject, to where I can’t think of at the present. An argument that has been put forward by the best I’ve heard. That I haven’t been able to thoroughly investigate. Um, I’ll leave it to others to judge whether, you know, the things I put forward are are compelling or not. I would say look at the sources.
[45:31] Michelle: I want to make a comparison because when I was studying polygamy, I would get these arguments and I’d go, OK, this is the claim, and then I’d investigate it and it would just be like. What like it was so weak and I think that’s what’s been the most surprising about the the sincere study into Joseph is that it feels like exactly the same thing is happening where I can’t say I have a comprehensive knowledge of all of the sources, but everyone I have looked into thus far, I’m like, wait, that’s, that’s not that’s kind of the same thing. There, there is, I mean, really, as you and I have talked about before. Like, once there was no children, it should be like game over discussion done and yet we, we have to keep going and going and going, you know, so it’s like, it’s like how many, how many times do we have to disprove this and how many ways, but that should right there be kind of like, OK, red flag and and especially when we claim the, the false claim of the reason for polygamy, the main one is to raise up seed and so Joseph completely failed. right? I mean, it should, it should be like, OK, done, but here we keep going.
[46:42] Jeremy Hoop: So anyway, the meaning of the seed is. And so and and and and how you view the context of the entire chapters and you’ve talked about that in such a comprehensive way.
[46:54] Michelle: I’m talking about. and how many different knots and how many magic tricks they have up there.
[47:06] Jeremy Hoop: What about what about what about for now,
[47:08] Michelle: I cut the part of our discussion where we talk about the revelation Hirum read in front of the high council, which polygamists claim was section 132. We’ll get into those complicated sources in future episodes. We go on to talk about where some of the ideas found in 132 might have come from.
[47:24] Jeremy Hoop: Whatever Hirum read, OK. Brigham Young himself said I was in England, long before Joseph ever said a word. In 1830, 1940, I guess, and I was by vision and by the spirit. I received the principles of a plurality of wives. I’m I’m paraphrasing, that he was taught in his own revelation. In England
[47:54] Michelle: Is that in the discourses or is that’s
[47:58] Jeremy Hoop: um that’s one of the statements he makes, I believe. I gotta find it. It’s it and I’m ledges that he learned it before Joseph ever said a word. And then he says I talked to Joseph later and he was basically impressed that I knew the principles basically
[48:17] Michelle: doesn’t say he hadn’t even thought of it until I talked to him about it or
[48:21] Jeremy Hoop: had a word of it in the church, and, and, uh, even though that story is all fuzzy because apparently Joseph’s telling um um. Uh, what’s her, Mary Elizabeth Rawlins Lightner things that he was, you know, that when she was 12, that he was, uh, he had been, he had the inspiration that she would be his first wife, and, and, uh, we can’t get the dates straight. Is it 1831 or 1829. The whole story of how this revelation starts is a mess, but regardless, Brigham says, I learned it in England before Joseph ever says a word. So, Can we postulate? Is it possible? That Brigham Young had already worked out the doctrine, that there’s no sin you can commit. Once you enter this principle, there’s no sin you can commit that can derail your exaltation, save shedding of innocent blood and the sin against the Holy Ghost, that your exaltation is secure, that you can marry virgins, that uh you can have as many wives or, you know, 10 wives, the things that Austin Cowell’s names. OK. Because we know from Emily Partridge. Emily Partridge learns about plural marriage, plurality of wives, spiritual wifery as she called it, before Joseph ever said a word. To her
[49:41] Michelle: How do you know that?
[49:42] Jeremy Hoop: She she tells about it in her memoirs.
[49:46] Michelle: OK,
[49:47] Jeremy Hoop: she says, I gained a testimony of the principle of the things Joseph would have said to me had he explained them to me before. OK, and how does she do that? Because she learned from a Mrs. Durphy, and in her Temple Lot testimony, she says it was whispered about in Navvo. It was whispered about. And we have testimony of people who, Catherine Lewis says, I was in 1843, I was approached by an elder who taught me about this principle and said, if you ever tell anybody, I, I will, I will tell them you’re lying. But he, but people were whispering this stuff all over, not just Navvo, but in Boston and in England, OK, but Brigham had it. In the 1839, 1940 period, and we know that Hebrew Kimball writes in his own journal. This is his mission journal. I can show you the page. He writes in his mission journal that he’s alone with a a a sister Ellen. He’s not his wife. They they’re writing a letter, he and she are writing a letter to his wife Vlate. And at the end of
[50:50] Michelle: the home.
[50:52] Jeremy Hoop: That’s right Navo. Um, they’re writing a letter to the late. Wilfred Woodruff is in the apartment. He goes out preaching. They had people come to see him. They’re gone. They’re all alone, says she combed my hair. And then we washed our feet and went to bed. The point I’m making is that this stuff was going on before Joseph ever taught it, uh, to the 12, OK.
[51:15] Michelle: Well, that’s what I thought the fact that they get some details right. Isn’t necessarily that impressive because obviously things were being said and done and people were saying Joseph says, Joseph approves and so they could have definitely included some of the details that they that later were included in 132. That is plausible, although a wild conspiracy theory that there that
[51:37] Jeremy Hoop: that word plausible tale was used by women who testified against John Bennett. They said they told us a plausible tale that Joseph is the one who’s saying that we can do this. By the way, that started. Samson Navard, who was the who was the the guy who ran the Danites. His excuse for all the violence he was committing was that Joseph told me to do it. OK, and Joseph denied it vehemently, and, and Samson had no proof, and Joseph was not ever um uh held to account for the things of Vard was doing. This started.
[52:12] Michelle: So that’s we have the Danites and the polygamy and all of these things that we have against Joseph based just on claims of people that were doing it saying Joseph told me.
[52:21] Jeremy Hoop: So this is nothing new. This is Joseph’s been dealing with people putting words in his mouth to do their wicked acts for a long time. OK, now, so this is this is um Hebrew Kimball’s, can you see my screen? This is Hebrew Kimmel’s journal from January of 1840.
[52:37] Michelle: Can you full it? Yeah,
[52:39] Jeremy Hoop: uh, let’s see here, yes.
[52:41] Michelle: If not, that’s OK.
[52:45] Jeremy Hoop: If that worked. That didn’t work.
[52:48] Michelle: There we go, OK that’s OK. So, oh, there it is, OK, yeah.
[52:51] Jeremy Hoop: On the 21st, um, very unwell with a bad cold, uh, wrote one letter, Susannah, um, received one from. Home from Joseph Brotherton. He sent us the uh stand, Sister Ellen came in the evening, she finished. Let’s go to the next page. By the way, he’s been hanging out with his sister Ellen for many days, OK? In any case,
[53:21] Michelle: a mission would be highly, highly concerned if
[53:24] Jeremy Hoop: this and by the way, he’s doing all kinds of weird stuff. I gotta change the pages. He’s doing all kinds of weird stuff with women. Um, he’s hanging out with women alone. There he’s having several instances where women are cutting his hair and combing his hair, and uh, and I believe washing his feet, which is strange. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know the social mores of those days, but is it normal for a married man to have women. Um, You know, combing your hair and cutting your hair. I don’t know. Maybe that’s maybe, maybe it was female barbers in those days, but it says this, the letter is a pedicure, something about the letter to my wife, so Ellen is working on the letter to my wife. She stayed with me through the evening. Elder W, that’s Elder Woodruff, went and preached after meeting the doctor and his wife. This is a Doctor Copeland. He’s been hanging out with some Doctor Copeland, traipsing around London with a Doctor Copeland. I don’t know what this is about, but he mentions him a lot. Uh, the doctor and his wife and others come in to see me. Sister Ellen combed my head. If you can see this, you can see what it says. Now look what they’ve done. Somebody scratched, somebody tried to erase this. We washed our feet and went to bed, OK. That was just found last year.
[54:43] Michelle: And what is this?
[54:45] Jeremy Hoop: This is in 1840.
[54:47] Michelle: And we claim that Joseph Smith’s first wife was 1841. Is that Louis,
[54:54] Jeremy Hoop: yeah, and they, and they keep, they keep going backward. I people claim all kinds of wives they have no proof for, but because somebody said that they’ll they’ll attach a wife, right? But that’s just one, that’s one example of to to show that there’s some stuff going on in England. Brigham says, I learned it in England. Lorenzo Snow says I, it was revealed to me in England. So my point is, if, if Brigham had this already in his head, OK, and, and he, and he’s, and he, he makes a big deal about it because, hey, God told me, he told me before Joseph told me. If he’s got this in his head, is it possible? That Brigham Young had already worked out the basics behind the revelation, the things about there’s no sin you can commit. That uh marrying 10 virgins, um, and the things that Austin Cos refer Austin Cos doesn’t go into great detail. He just names 4 or 5 things that are in the substance of the revelation. Is it possible that Brigham was telling people this is the word of God, this is what either Joseph has told us, or this is what God has told us we can do. And we know they’re doing all kinds of interesting and strange and weird things, um, that because they’re taking wives in 1842, maybe as early as 1841, um Heber and Brigham and maybe a couple others, um, and then they get back to Navu and John’s doing his thing, John Bennett’s doing his thing. So when Austin Cowell says, I was, I heard the revelation, if he’s upset at Joseph for whatever reason. We know he’s going on with the the the laws, Foster’s, Higby’s, um, and that he’s going to become the first counselor in the church, the new church that William Law starts, OK, the competing church. So Cows is upset. Is it possible that Cows purposefully knows that there’s this other revelation being talked about, and that he purposefully conflates the two. If you can’t acknowledge that that’s possible, given the fact that no revelation was ever produced at the time, given the fact that Joseph Smith and Himm vehemently denied it. Is it possible? And if you can’t acknowledge that it’s possible, then I don’t know that you’re a fair broker of information. So, so that’s just one example.
[57:15] Michelle: I think so I’m seeing part of the challenge. The challenge is it is so specific and detailed and it’s so much easier to believe this side or this side, right? And so cause look at how much we had to just break down to get that Austin,
[57:33] Jeremy Hoop: unfortunately that frankly that’s the work that I’m engaged in right now is trying to make this consumable for people so they don’t have to do what I’ve done because it’s exhausting, but if you can understand it in chunks. Then you can understand the whole, I believe, and there are, there’s there’s about 8 or 9 main issues that you need to really absorb. And once you do, I think you can, you can make a really intelligent choice. That doesn’t mean, I acknowledge doesn’t mean everybody’s gonna necessarily agree with what I, what I see, but however, I’ll I’ll give you an example. So my, my wife, Deborah, um, she gave me permission to talk about this. When I first met her She thought I was nuts. On this issue, and she just, she didn’t tell me the full extent to which she thought I was nuts until later, but she did. She thought I was crazy and At one point, uh, she listened to the talk I gave um on my podcast Still Mormon, and she, um, she said, OK, that’s interesting. The, the talk that I give is just an opening statement. It, it frames the issue, and it gives enough information for things to, to, for you to contemplate. What if these things might be something important to look at? And then as we talk about it, over time, She would ask me specific questions and then she would go read the documents. She’d come back and she’d go read documents and come back. And all of a sudden She came to me one day, it’s about a year and a half in, long conversations. And she said, I’m beginning. So lean toward your argument. This is crazy. And then one thing happened to her. She, she was listening to her daughter read Jacob too. And then all of a sudden. It hit her in her chest. And she finally saw it differently. This came through Joseph Smith. And all of the things that we’ve been talking about that Joseph said, said, did, preached, published, the people he excommunicated, the way he fought it. It finally all meshed together and she realized, I don’t think he did it. That’s usually the process that happens when people, they begin to really look at the individual pieces of this, and instead of just going the easy route, which is, come on, everybody knows, come on, you’re you’re telling me you’re smarter than the historians. No, I’m not smarter than the historians.
[1:00:13] Michelle: We all have access to the same sources we’re all looking at the same sources.
[1:00:19] Jeremy Hoop: It is written from a perspective always, and you’ve heard the phrase, the the victors write the history, and the historians in this regard have both had the same, have both had agendas that have um parallel purposes. On one hand, the the Fannie um Fon Brodys of the world, they want to destroy the character of Joseph Smith or, you know, tell the truth about him. Her book is easily debunkable, but from her perspective, she wants to tell the truth about him and
[1:00:52] Michelle: and modern Brian Todd Compton disagree with I mean acknowledge that there are problems with Brody’s book from my understanding
[1:00:59] Jeremy Hoop: and podcasters who find themselves antagonistic to Joseph Smith, they no longer believe they they they want to prove that Joseph Smith had an agenda and and was You know, it was just a cat or, you know, he was just a girl hungry, power hungry, a little crazy against him,
[1:01:19] Michelle: they will jump on eagerly regardless of
[1:01:22] Jeremy Hoop: how to believe the stuff that says he was and then those who are defending the traditional narrative want to uphold this narrative because of a continuity of a story from Joseph to today and that there’s no distinction between Joseph and Brigham. That’s really important. There’s no distinction between Joseph and Brigham
[1:01:41] Michelle: and insistence on the idea that the prophet can never lead us astray, which I think is unfortunate. I think when we can let that go, we can look at this more honestly and, and with more confidence and not being afraid of what we might find.
[1:01:55] Jeremy Hoop: So that’s right. And so it’s very, it’s very difficult, um, when you’re looking at that and, and, and it seems like everybody’s saying the same thing. So I acknowledge that that’s the case with the exception. Of late, there is more and more and more material and more uh cogent cases being made to to seriously consider our argument. And
[1:02:17] Michelle: I will say that that is because more documents are being available to us. We can actually look at the history, so we’re not just relying on what people have said. So because that’s what, so, so, so what what you’re saying and I, I want to let you finish, but it’s kind of like you need to like, like we just had to spend all that time breaking down Leonard Soby because that’s one of the big what abouts, right? But and so. What it is is there are always going to be whatabouts and we can say right now there are answers to every what about. You might have to, you might have to be like, oh come on, you know, but if you, because that’s where you’re starting, but if you consider the facts of, if you look at Joseph’s and Hiram’s words throughout their lives, Emma’s words, their letters to each other, you look at this, these love stories and these, the character of these. People, it’s very easy to paint them through the lens of the Danites and you know, of everything that was claimed about them, polygamy. But if you look at them honestly, look at the sacrifices they made, the, the like it’s like, like if you take a true portrait of them, it’s hard to make polygamy work. It’s hard to make it make sense. If you look at how I think a big one is Joseph always followed the revelations. He did his best, he believed. Them and he tried to obey them, and they always are informed about the Bible. 132 is a huge departure from that. You add to it that it wasn’t added until 1876. It appeared out of nowhere in 1852. The only claim we had about it is from the very suspect William Clayton in 1874, like all of these things, and then you make the case of how many lies do we have to debunk? How many children do we have to prove are. Josephs that were claimed to be, how many and we’re gonna go through some of the testimonies that women gave. How many do we have to show your dates are impossible, your story is impossible. You’re right, and, and then we find that gem that you just shared of Hebrew C. Kimball’s journal to say there was funny business going on. There were motives and so the reason we do so I just want to point out this is the story actually this whole big thing and then we have to dive deeply into the few little pieces like Leonard Soby. There are maybe a A dozen of those that are like considered contemporaneous evidence that can’t just be part of the conspiracy, and each one of those can be delved into for the people that want to, but what we need to say is the case is getting more and more clear as more and more historical documents are made available, not the opposite. That’s important. So I’m sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to kind of sum up
[1:04:54] Jeremy Hoop: what is what is happening right now. That’s very well and um. The you’ll hear people say, come on, Occam’s razor says, simplest answer is the right one. This more straightforward answer is the right one, and the most straightforward answer is he did it because all these people said, now wait a minute. Occam’s razor says, the simplest answer is the right one. The consistent evidence. is far and away on Joseph’s side, and I know people are chucking things at their computer right now. If you take time, you will see that I’m telling you the truth. From 1827 to 1844, the day he marries Emma to the day he’s murdered. It is one long exhausting string. Of outward acts, OK, that he does, that he speaks publicly, that he writes publicly, that he publishes in scriptures over and over again throughout the scriptures, uh, that he is uh uh disciplining people, that he’s exhorting people. It is continual. His very last public talk, after his king fall at discourse where he says, you never knew me, you never knew my heart, no man knows my history. Think about that. At the end of his greatest sermon, he says, you never knew me. And then the next public sermon, May 26, 1844, he gets up in a long defense, speaking for I think an hour and a half, and he’s talking about William Law and he says, I keep, I keep careful records and, and, and, and I can prove everybody perjurers, and, and it’s, I’ve been scarcely preaching the gospel, you know, uh, for, for 5 minutes when they said I have 7 wives. This has been going on for 14 years now. How many times do I have to say this? I only have one pointing to Emma in the crowd, basically, and that’s his final sermon. His final sermon before he’s murdered. So it’s not, it really, it’s hard for me not to get a little bit frustrated when I hear carefully worded denials. He carefully worded deny these are not careful. These are anything but we have, we have hirerum just a month before on April 8th, 1844, he stands up after the king fall at discourse. We talked about this a little bit. He he preaches to he he called all of the elders home in a letter. To talk specifically on this subject, this was approved by Joseph Smith, who was on the stand at the moment, OK? Don’t tell me that Joseph is burying his head in his hands and embarrassed by his brother.
[1:07:29] Michelle: I want to point out this also is a few months after supposedly Hiram said to Joseph, only on the testimony of William Clayton. The doctrine is so pure and so, so beautiful that I know I can convince them if you’ll write it. So uh Hiram apparently said that in July, this is what is this September next year, the following 9 months later. So I want to point out it’s after this and, and that story we have is only by William Clayton till the 1874. So, OK, but this Hirum speech we have recorded right
[1:08:09] Jeremy Hoop: then on the day by Thomas Bullock. OK. By the way, Thomas is the only one of the scribes to record this one. William Clayton, Willard Richards, Wilfred Woodruff, who are the typical recorders. They don’t record this talk,
[1:08:24] Michelle: OK? They didn’t add it to the history of the church where they added the other.
[1:08:28] Jeremy Hoop: And so they, you’ve talked about this a little bit. Brigham Young in 1845 starts officially, he says in his own records, I started revising the history of Joseph Smith. He meets in Will Richard’s office and he gathers his team around him, and they’re and they’re going through all the all the records. We know with certainty. That because we can see the transition from the. What I’m gonna call the earliest records, I don’t believe they’re the earliest records, but things like Joseph’s supposed journal that’s the Willard Richard’s memo book where he’s documenting on the days that Joseph’s doing this, that or the other, those, the public sermons, the other uh other records, etc. they’re coalescing it into a uh a history that becomes BH Roberts’ history of the church, OK? It goes through several stages. Through the first stage, you have the copying over of stuff from the various sources into what’s called um the rough draft history, OK? The basically a rough draft. And in that rough draft, they copy Thomas Bullock’s sermon. Uh, from Hiram on that day. That copy has an X through it marked out. OK. And once you get to the dra to the to the actual history, the manuscript tests you, the church, it’s no longer there.
[1:09:45] Michelle: OK, so you can see it being edited by the,
[1:09:48] Jeremy Hoop: by the final draft that’s actually published, the sermons there. But it’s entirely changed, and there is no mention of anything to do with the main topic, which he talks from beginning to end on the subject of a man having more than one wife, which he says expressly, God has never commanded any man. Think about this. God has never commanded any man to have more than one.
[1:10:19] Michelle: He’s 132 commanded Abraham specifically, so we have to look at that huge contradiction,
[1:10:25] Jeremy Hoop: right, so he is saying God has never commanded any man. By the way, at this point we are acknowledging Hiram as a prophet, seer, and revelator. That’s the Lord in 1841. He is the co-president of the church. He has been named by the Lord as the Holy Spirit of promise, OK. That if you believe in in in in Joseph Smith’s Mormonism at all, that’s important, OK? Because early on in Hiram’s ministry, the Lord told Hiram, don’t go declare my word. Obtain my word. That doesn’t mean just read, that means get my word from me to you. I need to talk to you first. I need, like Jacob says, I need to, Jacob in the Book of Mormon, I need to give you your errand. Then, will your tongue be loosed, and then you’ll have my spirit, then you’ll have power, OK. It took a while. Hiram was a good student. Hiram was very faithful to his brother. And by 1841 he had received it. And Joseph acknowledged Hiram as such and made him co-president of the church. He’s the 2nd president of the church, not Brigham. Hiram is the 2nd president of the church. Oh no, that’s, that’s verifiable. We just don’t acknowledge him that way, OK? And, and the reason we don’t acknowledge him that way is because Brigham disparages him later on. OK. Brigham, Brigham puts him down and because he wants, that’s right, he wants to minimize Hiram’s role. Well, Hiram stands up. This is in 1844. This stuff is coming to a fever pitch. Why? Because there’s accusations by a guy named Boswitch, who has accused Hirum now of practicing polygamy, not just Joseph and the and the and then uh William Law and Jane Law do the expositor. They released their affidavits with Austin Cowes, and, and it’s coming to a fever pitch. Previous to this. Um, you read a little bit of this, The Voice of Innocence. Um, Emma has published that. Joseph began began authoring that with WW Phelps. Emma put the flourishing finishing touches on it. Joseph has it read to a huge congregation. Emma reads it 4 times to the relief Society. I mean, this is, they are going all out. Being extremely vocal, and by the way, this is after 1842 and they’ve been extremely vocal about against John
[1:12:40] Michelle: Bennett. Can I just point out that if you’re doing something, if you’re doing something in secret. You wouldn’t create this much confusion. You wouldn’t, you know what I mean, I could,
[1:12:54] Jeremy Hoop: I could see
[1:12:55] Michelle: if he was making carefully worded denials, it wouldn’t look like this.
[1:12:58] Jeremy Hoop: So in no, people don’t know this. In 1843. Joseph sued Chauncey Higbee. We have the docket. Yeah, on the Joseph Smith papers, we have all the court paper, all the court information. He took Chauncey Higbee to court and sued him for slander and libel against him and Emma for saying that Joseph taught polygamy, OK? Why
[1:13:24] Michelle: in the world, OK, so Joseph sued Chauncey Higbee because he found out Chauncey Higbee was saying this and the challenge here is if you sue someone like in um. Kennedy Kennedy Robert Kennedy Junior who just wrote the book on Fauci, he’s very careful to say, look, I’m a lawyer. I you you’re making yourself vulnerable if you either make false allegations or if you sue someone, then you could be you have to testify, so he. Like if if if he were really doing polygamy, he couldn’t possibly sue one disgruntled, uncle,
[1:14:11] Jeremy Hoop: I think it’s something like a dozen or so wives by that point that he supposedly has, you know? This is 13. I have it in my notes. I think it’s you’ll have to forgive me. I’ll have to clarify that. I think it’s 1843. It’s either 1843, 1842. It’s right before he goes into hiding because of, it must be 1842 because Governor Boggs in Missouri issues an extradition order and there are marshals in the town trying to arrest him, so he can’t actually show up to court. The court case never goes forward because he has to go into hiding. But he, but the fact that he sued is just one more thing in a long line of things. Section 101, the section on marriage, that that that even though Oliver Cowdery wrote it, Joseph vouched for it, and Joseph would later publish it again in the times and seasons. All of these things, it, it, it is relentless. Relentless and it starts in 1835 when they acknowledge, hey, because we’ve been reproached for the crime of uh of polygamy and uh and fornication
[1:15:14] Michelle: and polygamy.
[1:15:16] Jeremy Hoop: Wait, wait, wait, you’re you’re conflating polygamy and fornication, and the voice of innocence conflates polygamy and adultery and and prostitution. They, they always put them in the same bundle publicly. So it’s awfully curious that if he’s doing these, these are carefully worded denials and and and to his secret anointed quorum, he’s going around, you know, secretly teaching this stuff. He’s being awfully, you have to acknowledge how public he’s being, how brave, how how brazen he’s being. And passionate,
[1:15:46] Michelle: he’s you can hear the exhaustion of these in
[1:15:49] Jeremy Hoop: May.
[1:15:51] Michelle: It’s just like.
[1:15:53] Jeremy Hoop: And hire, hirerum Hirerum speaks for an hour and a half, back to that April 8th, 1844, hour and a half on the subject, and he says, I would rather be friends with the devil. Than somebody who teaches a pack of stuff like this. And he goes on and on and on and tells them, if you do this, you’re losing your license, we’re gonna put you on trial. OK? And he’s very, very clear, and he, he gives us a hint as to why the rumors are so rampant. He says And you have to read this, it’s written in, you know, note style, so, so there were abbreviated sentences, but Thomas Bullock records him saying, I went to Joseph, cause I had a question. About my dead wife. Jerusha You know, could cause Joseph had taught him about sealing this principle of sealing someone for eternity, sealing it up for and sealing a man and a woman together for eternity, OK? And so we asked Joseph about that, and Joseph said, you can be sealed to her. So he asked his current wife about that, and his current wife said, I will stand as proxy, so you can be sealed to her. That’s what the notes say. Later on, people interpreted that or they actually wrote it down. They put it in the manuscript history. They as one of the drafts, they tried to fix it and it said, I will be sealed to both of them. It’s not what the notes say,
[1:17:28] Michelle: OK, and are the basis for it.
[1:17:28] Jeremy Hoop: They tried to revise that to make it work and that’s the part they they took out and they just couldn’t put it at all in the in the final draft. They just made the sermon into something much shorter and Hiram gave some instructions on the priesthood or whatever. So, so they admit the in the final BH Roberts history of the church, it’s this sermon is basically not there. But on the day, he says, Joseph basically allowed me to be sealed to my dead wife, and people are saying, I’m practicing spiritual wifery. Because I’m sealed to my dead white. And he says, no, no, no, no, no, no. God has never commanded any man to have more than one wife ever, so you don’t do it, and I don’t wanna hear this. He says, I hear if I heard it
[1:18:09] Michelle: so he’s not even saying he’s sealed to both wives. He’s sealed to his first wife. So he’s put in the same situation that widows are put in today. Like I mean, I mean, it’s kind of like, OK, he’s not just sealing wives up to himself for the next life. He’s not even like a widow.
[1:18:27] Jeremy Hoop: There is not definitive indication that he’s saying that he’s sealed to both women, OK. And so, so, so we have this stuff that’s going on at the time, right? And, and, and basically, people aren’t aware of the extent to which Joseph did these things. So, to frame this issue, first of all, people have to be aware that historical consensus, believe it or not, is often dead wrong. So go do a Google search, just do an exercise, historical facts that have been proven wrong. Just do that. And you’ll find actually a long list, and they’ll some of them will really surprise you. Things like George Washington didn’t have wooden teeth and Columbus didn’t discover America and and it goes and and and Thomas Edison did not discover the light bulb and etc. etc. etc. It goes on and on and on, OK? Just go do that as an exercise.
[1:19:20] Michelle: Well, I think it’s also useful to think about the term the science is settled like we need to be very wary of that term because I like, well, what that really is is the same pride the Book of Mormon warns us about. That’s, that’s pride and saying I already. I know everything I need to know, so I don’t actually need to apply the scientific method to these things because I already know the answer. If,
[1:19:43] Jeremy Hoop: if they had if they had contemporaneous journal records from Joseph, if they had the journal that I just showed you with Hebrew Kimball on his mission, if, if that was Joseph’s journal, and Joseph was in Kirtland having his hair combed by Eliza Snow and Eliza. comb my
[1:20:02] Michelle: hair washed his feet and then we went to bed. What would we say that means,
[1:20:07] Jeremy Hoop: but the problem is you don’t have a single letter. You don’t have a single contemporaneous journal entry, not from not just from Joseph, but from any of the women or any of the men. You
[1:20:17] Michelle: don’t
[1:20:17] Jeremy Hoop: have
[1:20:18] Michelle: we don’t have a baby and you have.
[1:20:20] Jeremy Hoop: So in the absence of here’s the thing.
[1:20:23] Michelle: Knowing, knowing the changes that were made, knowing the allegations, we haven’t even, we’re gonna have to do this in two parts because this is already really long we haven’t even gotten into the Partridge Sisters’ testimonies, which are pretty fun to get into, um, knowing all of the conspiracy that really. Was happening all of the attempts and efforts to make Joseph guilty, including claiming that there were children, right, including those claims they did everything they could to create this picture but they couldn’t create a child because they didn’t know there was going to be DNA testing. They couldn’t create love letters. They couldn’t create, well, they tried to create journal entries. Joseph went up and down the street preaching that there’s no one should have one but one wife unless I command it, which was a they’ve made all of these changes, so they’ve doctored all of the history, and I think that is important to recognize the more. Um, the more means we have of getting at the truth, such as DNA testing, such as the actual records being released, right? The more the lie is coming out, the more we are seeing. I mean that’s an important thing to recognize that the more and more we get, the more we can make the case of the lie, it should go the other direction. If Joseph is guilty, the more we get that we should have these scandalous love letters and these right like so this is really an important thing to recognize right now they’re calling us crazy, but the tide is really going in our direction and
[1:21:58] Jeremy Hoop: the fact that the church isn’t
[1:21:59] Michelle: releasing more kind of is is another testimony of why aren’t they haven’t they released more?
[1:22:06] Jeremy Hoop: Well, that’s that’s a principle called adverse inference, OK? It’s a legal term that says if you make a claim of something. And you say have evidence of it, but you won’t produce the evidence. The jury can basically infer the opposite. And the judge can even instruct them to say, hey, they, they’re unwilling to prove this, so you can basically infer that the opposite’s true, like the William Clayton Journals, for example. The William Clayton Journals are so suspect and you’ve gone over that. So the, this, this issue, if you understand several things. Uh, number one, you have to understand the nature of the evidence. We’re dealing with things that have to do with memory. You need to understand memory science. Memory science is well, um, established. Go look up studies of, of memories after 9/11. They’ve done studies on people after 9/11 who wrote down their memories and 10 years later they revisited them. The people recalling the events on the day, what they wrote down, they swore it didn’t happen the way it wrote they wrote it down. They swore it happens the way they remember it. Memory is extraordinarily suggestible, and it’s not an exact record, it’s an interpretation of events. Go listen to Malcolm Gladwell on the subject. He’s got great podcasts on the science of memory. Uh oh, eyewitness testimony, something to be understood. There’s a reason why people, uh, there’s a whole foundation devoted to getting people off of death row. Based on eyewitness testimony using DNA science to disprove eyewitness testimony, because eyewitness testimony is extraordinarily fallible. And uh uh along with eyewitness testimony, then you need to understand the nature of of how the books were cooked, how how how extensively Brigham Young went to change the narrative of the history during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. We don’t have time to go into that today, but that is well established. The the serious credible historians acknowledged that Joseph did that. People like Richard Van Wegner Brigham
[1:24:01] Michelle: did that.
[1:24:02] Jeremy Hoop: What’s that
[1:24:03] Michelle: Brigham did that changed the
[1:24:06] Jeremy Hoop: history. So if you start there, to to to to understand the nature of the evidence that we’re dealing with memories decades later and recollections and people claiming things and that there’s absolutely no concrete evidence during Joseph’s lifetime. I know they call things like Austin Cowell’s concrete evidence. It’s not. I just explained how Austin Cowells could be talking about the very thing that Brigham Young is already doing. OK, that he claims he got in England.
[1:24:32] Michelle: Concrete evidence would be a child. Concrete evidence would be a love letter from Joseph. Let’s point out what it would be. Concrete evidence would be the, the, the, the actual trial of Emma divorcing Joseph or Emma claiming, you know, concrete evidence would be this was the house where the second sister Smith lived. There are lots of things that could be concrete evidence and all of their claims about, well, it was. Secret don’t hold up because we have Hebrewy Kimball’s journals and we have the do you know what I mean and and we have the, the questionable journals that William Clayton was keeping that make all of these claims. There was plenty of opportunity to have any kind of concrete evidence, but all we have are complete denials that they have tried to re erase and minimize and alter and change, and we have revealed lie after lie.
[1:25:24] Jeremy Hoop: After
[1:25:24] Michelle: so I just wanted to point out what concrete evidence really should look like so we can compare it to a like nothing but a claim, a second or third hand claim. That’s right.
[1:25:34] Jeremy Hoop: There’s a, there’s a reason why we know Brigham did what he did because we have all that concrete evidence. We have it. We have the records.
[1:25:42] Michelle: Brigham’s polygamy is not in question for good reason, right? Let’s compare what we have for Brigham’s polygamy to Joseph’s polygamy. They should look more similar.
[1:25:50] Jeremy Hoop: Exactly. So,
[1:25:53] Michelle: let me just point out one more thing. I’m really sorry, but also Brigham’s polygamy was also illegal. It brought the US Army against them, right? And so, so just because they’re in Utah doesn’t mean even, even pre 1852. When they admitted polygamy, we can find a lot of concrete evidence of Brigham’s polygamy even before it was publicly attested they felt safe enough. So I just want to make those distinctions of what we should be looking for,
[1:26:22] Jeremy Hoop: for example, that his second wife, Augusta Cobb sues him in court in 18 sorry, her husband Henry Cobb, this is funny, she, she was married to Henry Cobb. Uh, Brigham Young married her while she’s married to Henry Cobb, and in 1847, he’s so upset Henry is that he takes Augusta to court and sues for divorce on the grounds of adultery. Henry wins. So at least by a legal standard, Brigham Young is legally acknowledged to be an adulterer in 1847. OK. So, we know all this stuff because we know what Brigham Young was doing, plus we have the ceiling records from 1845, 1844, 1845 after Joseph is dead. So if there’s no sex. And by the way, and, and if we get to it now or in another time, I will show you that what Brian Hales says is the strong evidence. Of sexual relations is not just not strong, it’s a lie, OK?
[1:27:19] Michelle: Strong evidence would be a child. Well, I guess that would be that would be, right? And then there there could be lots of different things that would be strong evidence. What he calls strong evidence is extremely weak in my opinion.
[1:27:33] Jeremy Hoop: Only one woman ever said, only one in 1892. How many years later is that? In 1892, an old woman named Emily Partridge, under cross-examination, when finally asked something I don’t think she ever thought she would ever be asked. Did you have sexual intercourse with him? The second piece is, if section 132 has no actual verifiable connection to Joseph Smith. Then you cannot claim that he had a revelation, other than what other people said, and can you trust what they said. And then the third piece is, what did Joseph actually teach on ceilings? What do we know and what do we not know? And let’s be really honest and clear about that. Then the fourth piece is to understand what Joseph actually did during his lifetime. When you see that picture, When you see everything, from 1827 to 1844, and you include in that things like when Don Carlos dies, and he’s supposedly taking a wife just in a few more days, and, and he’s being so callous. Toward Emma in the way that he’s just willy-nilly taking all these new wives and bedding them, as Todd Compton would say. And Emma is in the depths of despair. When you see everything put together and all the discourses that he’s, that he’s teaching, these profound prophetic discourses, and all of the court cases he’s dealing with, and all of the excommunications he’s dealing with, when you see it all in context, A different picture emerges, and you have to say, Where does all this fit? And then when you take a look at the fifth piece, the brigammite culture, and their theology is the belief that there is no
[1:29:12] Michelle: sin to heaven that will that will that will take me away from
[1:29:18] Jeremy Hoop: from the highest degree of celestial glory because I’ve entered in to the to the what they call the holy order. OK, which is, which is, which is a a twist on what the scriptures call the holy order. The holy order is very different than the scriptures than what they’re doing. They think the holy order is 1 man and at least 3 women, but hopefully uh 50, you know, and in eternity 1000 or whatever, cause I have a big train that fills the temple and my train’s my wives, you know, that’s the uh that that’s the notion. And the second anointing was where they were promised these things. Catherine Lewis doesn’t go through that part, OK? But, but what she, what she learns is that they that they say, I’ll tell you these things, but if you tell anybody, I’ll tell them you’re lying. I’ll put the lie on you, OK? So this is the pattern we learned. So we learned that there’s this, there’s this secrecy, this, this threat of lying, and she also says, when I didn’t accept plural marriage, I was afraid for my life and had to flee the city because I thought I was in danger. This was a common theme as well. So we have to understand not only do they believe themselves gods and goddesses, kings and queens on the earth. That is not to be taken lightly. Brigham Young acted like it. OK. He acted like it, at least during the Mormon Reformation period. He got a little
[1:30:32] Michelle: humble he acted like he was like He
[1:30:37] Jeremy Hoop: He called Brigham. He said Brigham. Joseph was Brigham’s God, and Brigham is my God. That’s what Hebrew said about Brigham Young. Think about that. Well,
[1:30:47] Michelle: that’s what they were in a sermon as well. I’m a yes,
[1:30:54] Jeremy Hoop: that’s how they twisted Joseph’s teachings in my view. I don’t believe Joseph was teaching that kind of hierarchical nonsense at all, but that’s what they believed. And that’s verifiable in their teachings, you know, this thing that Brian Haile says that they, they never taught that that it was required for the highest degree of social kingdom is, is patently false. It’s just false. And, and for fair Mormon and for for Brian to say that, you say that without. In in the face of undeniable statements,
[1:31:26] Michelle: OK? It might be the same, it might be the same ideology of defending the kingdom is the highest good. Like I can, you know, maybe they’re kind of working in that same model
[1:31:34] Jeremy Hoop: so that brings us to the to the next. This has been written about ads lying for the Lord. This principle, it’s, it’s not not only accepted, it’s just no big deal. Why? Because we are defending the kingdom. And so it’s prudent, like John Taylor is in is in uh France in 1850. He’s standing on the debate stage with another man, and they’re talking about the principles of the gospel, and this other man accuses him publicly, openly, think about this, of abominations and polygamy, and he says, how dare he wags his thing. How dare you, sir. OK,
[1:32:06] Michelle: so, so this is Taylor. What is this? And this is in
[1:32:10] Jeremy Hoop: 1850.
[1:32:14] Michelle: OK, so France in 1850, so two years before they’ve admitted it, but verifiably after they were absolutely doing it, and this isn’t like the Joseph Smith, they were doing it like we know they have children.
[1:32:24] Jeremy Hoop: He says, how dare you? We only practice what our scriptures say, section and then he reads from section 101. This is publicly in France, OK? John Taylor is getting up and and at the time, he had something on the order of 16 wives.
[1:32:42] Michelle: That we know this isn’t based on testimony. Taylor had the ceiling records of 16 wives. I’m just I just draw the difference between Taylor and Joseph
[1:32:51] Jeremy Hoop: Smith.
[1:33:01] Michelle: Polygamy, he says, how dare you? We only do and he opens his scriptures and reads from section 101 that hadn’t yet been removed.
[1:33:10] Jeremy Hoop: I don’t
[1:33:10] Michelle: know
[1:33:10] Jeremy Hoop: if he opens it. OK, so you get the OK.
[1:33:13] Michelle: OK. OK.
[1:33:14] Jeremy Hoop: Later he’s confronted by EC Briggs, I believe, who’s an apostle in the RLDS Church, and he’s saying, why did you lie back then in France? And John Taylor says, well, it was prudent. They wouldn’t have let me stay.
[1:33:25] Michelle: So he’s, he tells EC Briggs it was prudent,
[1:33:28] Jeremy Hoop: meaning it
[1:33:29] Michelle: was what was necessary.
[1:33:32] Jeremy Hoop: OK. So, and, and, and many authors have written on the subject this this lying for the Lord, which by the way starts with Samson Nard. Who who’s with the first one that we know of, to put the notion out there that it’s, it’s righteous to lie for the Lord.
[1:33:47] Michelle: And let me point out also that I’m sorry, I’m just I’m pointing out that in some of the denials that were like printed in the newspaper or the letter that was sent to the relief society that was so strongly worded, Brigham Young’s signature is right there, uh, you know, and Here C. Kimble’s. So we have them on record lying. We have them on record lying,
[1:34:09] Jeremy Hoop: denying that that there’s no other system but but a marriage, save 101 and they print 101. Uh, Section 10, the law on marriage that that says that there’s no polygamy, fornication. So when Mark Smith I was deceived, it doesn’t mean deceived polygamy,
[1:34:21] Michelle: it means I
[1:34:36] Jeremy Hoop: I was I was in. If you if you Mark’s statement with William Smith’s statement, the brother of Joseph Smith, William William Marks says Joseph came to me a couple of weeks before he died and said, I have been deceived. Um, and he repented of what he had done, and he said, uh, put all these men up on charges, who are, who are teaching this polygamy system. Well, if he was doing it, he would have been telling him to put himself up so he couldn’t be telling Marks.
[1:35:04] Michelle: I just realized this and now we need to start excommunicating. William Marks misunderstood.
[1:35:08] Jeremy Hoop: And William Smith, William Smith says, I was at dinner with your with talking to Joseph Smith. I was at dinner um just a couple weeks or a few days before your dad was killed. And Emma at the table said, John Taylor, William Richards, and um Hebrew Kimball or Brigham Young, one of the three, are going around teaching stuff that’s gonna ruin the church and and William said she was talking about polygamy basically. And, and Joseph says, as soon as I get done with the laws and the fosters, the expositor thing, I’ll deal with them. And then he says, and, and, and your father said, I think I’m gonna have trouble especially with Brigham Young. OK. And so, so if William Marks is telling the truth and if William Smith is telling the truth, just a little before they died and put in context. The voice of innocence in January of 1844. Hirem Smith’s talk in August 8th, 1844 and May 6, 20 May 26, 1844. April 8th, 1844, Hiram, and then Joseph getting up on May 26, 1844, saying, I don’t do this right in that time frame, William Marks is, is getting instructions from Joseph to go put these men on trial and investigate Brigham Young and John Taylor and all the rest.
[1:36:23] Michelle: Oh, does he name them? OK. I know he says the 12,
[1:36:26] Jeremy Hoop: but
[1:36:26] Michelle: he
[1:36:26] Jeremy Hoop: names the 12. I’m putting them together. So Williams doesn’t name them. William Smith names. And, and William Smith says he didn’t get to do it because he was killed. Does that make sense? So, so, so I’m tying pieces together that are that are after the uh stories told after the events, just like they do with the other stories, but I’m acknowledging these are after the event. So you have to judge them for their for their provenance, for their proximity and and and and for their veracity, but you have to acknowledge that they exist. There’s a totally different narrative out there that is in my mind just as credible, at least we should consider it. So
[1:37:06] Michelle: brigammite. Along with the things Joseph was saying and the no children, the no known wives, I, I wanna say if Joseph were trying to teach this tricky of a doctrine, look at how many sermons throughout the Journal of Discourses, how often they had to preach it and repeat it and say it and warn and like, like Joseph couldn’t have taught this extreme of a doctrine. While speaking out of both sides of his mouth and only on the like he couldn’t, it wouldn’t have worked.
[1:37:37] Jeremy Hoop: Let me let me let me illustrate the point. So the story that William Clayton says is that Hiram’s trying to convince Emma. You know that that that polygamy is a good and pure doctrine because it’s this glorious principle. If you just write it down, Joseph, I can convince any man that it’s that it’s that it’s a wonderful thing. So just give it to me so I can give it to Emma, and he goes, Well, I, you know, can you get the Yerman thumb and Joseph goes, Ah, I got it memorized, OK, which is odd because then he puts a whole bunch of stuff about Emma that wouldn’t have been in there
[1:38:04] Michelle: in 1831.
[1:38:05] Jeremy Hoop: So, so it’s a strange story altogether. However, one thing that William Clayton doesn’t remember. In 1874, is that Emily Partridge claims that in May of 1843, Couple months before, OK. That Emma already participated in a marriage with her and her sister, OK, and that she participated again with Maria and Sarah Lawrence. So Emma had already given Joseph 4 wives. So why in the world would would Emma need to be convinced that it was a true principle. Even if she didn’t
[1:38:42] Michelle: because she went back on it, she participated in the wedding but changed her mind by that night.
[1:38:48] Jeremy Hoop: I, I with the Partridges and then she married two more to him. So no matter how you look at it,
[1:38:57] Michelle: even if she was and she wouldn’t have the partridges if she hadn’t heard the revelation and
[1:39:02] Jeremy Hoop: I just accepted it because as Emily says, Emma taught us the principles.
[1:39:08] Michelle: Right. And I want to point out that Brian Hale’s explanation for that is that Emma was the point where she needed strong language. She needed threats of destruction. She needed and that makes me so angry,
[1:39:20] Jeremy Hoop: frankly, it’s just that’s historical malpractice. That’s irresponsible and that is nowhere, nowhere. The contemporaneous record and
[1:39:28] Michelle: it’s worse than that. It’s claiming it’s claiming that that’s who God is. It’s worse than it’s worse than even I mean historical malpractice is bad, but it is, I mean we talk about evil speaking of the Lord’s anointed. This is evil speaking of God. This is taking the Lord’s name in vain in the worst way to say that. That like, like I did my episode on MF people haven’t watched it. I hope they will because to claim that God is this, this character is just, it destroys faith as we’ve seen, so,
[1:39:57] Jeremy Hoop: yeah. Some we should break down 132 and 32 when you when you break that down, you understand it’s very possible that they, as James Whitehead said, he said he was revelation was ages. Two pages much shorter and it had to do with ceiling, but it had nothing to do with polygamy. It’s very possible that those short verses on one man, one wife maybe are the revelation that Joseph received on ceiling. It’s been so corrupted it’s impossible. This is what James Whitehead said. He was, he was asked, did you see it? He said, I did see that the the one Brigham produced, he said, and it had some similarities, but it had been so twisted. As to sanction polygamy when before it had nothing to do with polygamy, and he said, and he was pressed the lawyer tries to trip him up. He says, he said, how could you possibly remember that long ago? He goes, I would remember something about that principle that clearly. And if you told me 40 years from hence, I would remember if they took polygamy now and they took it out. That’s something that stark. It had nothing to do with polygamy back then, and it does now. It’s been totally altered. And he and his, just go read his testimony if you haven’t read it or heard it. It’s very compelling what he says. And if this is the guy that was over Joseph’s journals and over his private letters, and he saw him every day, and he visited with him once a week at his home, and he saw Emma often, never saw him with a wife during this whole time when he’s supposedly doing it. And knew about ceilings, had had his own dead wife sealed to him. It’s a testimony worth considering. Notice, Brian Hailes, Todd Compton, never ignore it. They ignore it and be honest, there are 100 testimonies like that, OK? And so, so to, so to say. I just can’t believe these people would lie. You need to understand what what the brighamites actually did, the nature of their practice of polygamy, which, by the way, went far beyond the bounds of Section 132. And that list of long things that that that goes from from sex and Section 132 and ceilings and what Joseph did and what Brigham did, understanding, by the way, that this was tried in court in two courts of law in Kirtland and in the Temple Lot case in which the LDS Church lost the narrative, by the way, the judge decided against. The narrative that Joseph was a polygamist, that he was the founder of polygamy, OK. After hearing all the, all the testimonies, that’s not told to normally. OK. Judge Phillips, his decision, he but he did not believe the women, especially. They weren’t credible, right? They were not credible to him in the Kirtland case, the same thing. And then the final piece, which you have done is understanding the scriptural. Peace and when you when you put all of that together. I believe Occam’s razor says, simplest explanation is he wasn’t doing it, and we ought to look at the Book of Mormon and Joseph in a different way. We ought to, we ought to, we ought to ask the church to do what they’ve done with Blood Atonement, what they’ve done with the race issue, and Brigham Young, what they’ve done with the Adam God theory, um, what they’ve done with, with, with him commingling church and state, and And all of these things that he did that were more like King Noah in the Book of Mormon than they were like Joseph Smith or King Benjamin. And so, they have tried to distance themselves from Brigham Young in so many ways, they can do it here, and they could at very least, if they if they wanna just not be. You know, too, um, too much like us. They could at least say it’s really unclear. What Joseph’s involvement was, if anything, and therefore, we know what Brigham did. We believe polygamy to be an abomination like the scriptures say. And as far as Joseph is concerned, we don’t, we cannot say with certainty that he did. If they would at least do that, that would be something. We’ll see, but I think we can look at Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon with different eyes if we pull this.
[1:44:06] Michelle: Well, and I also propose something. OK, I, I wanna propose something too because right now who we really are stepping on their toes, I think you know our people who have have decided Joseph was this bad guy and they now oppose him and oppose the church and I think that. There’s really an emotional reaction on that side too to this claim that, you know, so I would invite people or maybe challenge people dare people to say let the emotion aside to look and if you, if you still like. If the polygamy issue was taken out of it, maybe you still have other concerns. Book of Abraham, you know, whatever it is, but the polygamy is the big one. If you take it out of it, then you can do a more fair reasoned assessment of the value of the Book of Mormon. The value of these things, maybe they still don’t have value in your life. That’s fine, but why are you reacting so emotionally and are you willing to remove the emotion and and many people now have gone to rationality rather than religion and experience and so I guess I would invite and challenge. People to look at it rationally, consider if you take Joseph out of the polygamy out of Joseph, what does that mean for you? Why are you reacting so strongly? It’s a fair question.
[1:45:25] Jeremy Hoop: I think it’s a great question, and I think there’s two groups of people for whom this is really relevant. There are people inside the LDS church and even, even some, and I’ve met them who are FLDS or parts of certain polygamous sects. I have met people who have been 11. Member of a of a polygamist family who read my talk, and listened to my my talk, and, and my the paper that I that I wrote, and he said that completely turned me around. I was, I thought, wow, that’s that’s interesting. And he, he, he began from that point forward to have a change of view. People in in these groups, um, Mostly brighamite churches, OK, but the LDS Church in particular, who are troubled by this. They don’t want to abandon their roots, they don’t want to abandon the Book of Mormon, but they don’t know how to deal with the contradictions. And, and, and this one opens them up to, oh, the Book of Mormon translation stuff and all the accounts of the first vision and now Book of Abraham, which by the way, Suffers from the same problem as the polygamy issue. It’s stories from other people and how do you deal with those, and uh and I can tell you. That there are Occam’s razor and rational ways to look at those complaints and problems and to understand them and in in a way that
[1:46:40] Michelle: for all the people right now that are saying, oh come on, you just need to like it’s like, no, take that emotion out of it, look at it rationally,
[1:46:51] Jeremy Hoop: so I’m talking to the people in the church at first who are struggling with it to hold on because they’re about to lose it. Start with polygamy, do a deep dive, don’t trust me at all. What I, what I’ve said today, this is probably sounding overwhelming. It’s a long conversation. There’s so much to go through, and my work over the next 1 to 2 years is to unpack all of this in a, in a methodical way, so that people can see it all and then and see all the sources, read the sources for themselves, and I’m doing a I’m doing a project on that which maybe sometime some other time we’ll talk about, but you can see it all, you can assess it all, and then make your own determination. But don’t trust me and don’t trust Brian Hays. Look at the sources, and then look at the scriptures and ask your Father in heaven. For the people who are, who have left the church, I totally, I made a statement in my talk. It is far more intellectually consistent. And to leave this all together if you believe that Joseph Smith did those things. I totally agree with that. Because then he’s a liar? And he’s a manipulator, he’s a deceiver. And he and he is, he is vile. If the things that are said of him.
[1:48:00] Michelle: He’s a psychopath when you consider what Emma was going through in her life and
[1:48:05] Jeremy Hoop: so I understand, I understand and sympathize and empathize with the emotionality that comes into this when talking about he didn’t do those things. I get the reaction, but I would ask, I’m not gonna reach all all of the people who feel that way. There’s just no way because people have made up their minds in both camps. But there is a group of people, and I know this because in the in the time I spent in the single world, uh, going to dances and talking to guys and girls, and going on dates with people, I would, I would always. We do religion would come up and most of the people I met were either on the verge of or had left the church. And they were, they were losing their faith or had lost their faith altogether, but I met a number of people for whom They still had a lot of affection. For their upbringing for moments with a baby, for moments in prayer, for moments with the scriptures, for a time on a mission, for things I can’t reconcile. Why, how did this, how did I feel this way? And and the rationality of the other side says, ah, it’s just the, it’s just the endorphins in your brain, it’s just the synapses, it’s just, it’s just your body. There are those of you listening to this who know that’s not true. Even if you don’t know what God is right now. I understand that. I understand what it feels like to be without God in the world. And I also understand what it feels like to rediscover a relationship with God. And I also understand what it means to look at the restoration from a new lens. That lens being Joseph told the truth. If he told the truth. If he had no reason to lie, the man died in bankruptcy court and with one wife. Who
[1:49:59] Michelle: inherited all of his debts.
[1:50:05] Jeremy Hoop: What motivation did he have other than the cause of truth which he constantly put forward? So those of you who have affection in your heart in some place, even though you’ve given up on it to a degree. Just maybe Investigate this, it’s about polygamy. If you can find what I found, what Michelle is finding, that he was innocent of these things and that this was at the feet of Brigham Young and others, then perhaps Uh, uh, it’s not my encouragement encouragement for people to leave the church or come back to the church. That’s, that’s between you and God. But perhaps you can hold on to something in the Book of Mormon. Perhaps you can hold on to the kernels of the restoration that are so beautiful,
[1:50:46] Michelle: which is the cornerstone of our religion. The Mormon is the value. It is the thing that we can’t explain away no matter how hard we try. We haven’t done it yet very well, and, and it is what teaches the connection to God and it is the first thing that Joseph. Anyway, like, like that, that is worth reinvestigating. You don’t have to buy all the, you know, people don’t have to buy into all of the Brigham and all of the Mormon culture and all of the current affairs, all of that.
[1:51:28] Jeremy Hoop: It’s worth reconsidering if there might be something that we can repent of that, which just means our mind. We’re, we’re repentance all it means is to change your mind or to turn. And face God and we don’t have to face any institution as our as our as our lodestar we don’t have we don’t
[1:51:40] Michelle: have
[1:51:40] Jeremy Hoop: to we can face God and we can we can believe we can exercise a belief. I started with just a mere belief and I still hold on to belief. I don’t have a lot of conviction and knowledge and and firm testimony which a lot of my Mormon friends. I think it is crazy because we’re told we have to have this certainty. I don’t have a lot of certainty.
[1:51:59] Michelle: I, I said I. There are some things that are core, but I’m like, I, I like how that feels. I I
[1:52:15] Jeremy Hoop: I’m er I was. I love Jesus blessed are they who have not seen. And I think there’s something very beautiful in belief, and you can, if you have, if you’ve, if you’ve gone through this period of not believing. You can find that again. I’m living proof of that, and you can find it by seeing the restoration through new eyes. So that’s my invitation today.
[1:52:37] Michelle: That’s beautiful. You can let go of the claims about Joseph and consider reestablishing a connection to God. That’s not a bad trade. It’s not a bad trade.
[1:52:50] Jeremy Hoop: I think it’s pretty good. And by the way, if you’re still super angry, keep listening because you never know.
[1:52:58] Michelle: Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot to
[1:52:58] Jeremy Hoop: dig into. At one point that anger might switch to a just like with my wife. Wait, what? Wait. I think I might be leaning toward just keep listening.
[1:53:08] Michelle: Right, more to come, more to come. Jeremy, this has been amazing long in depth, so great. I’m sure we will talk again. So
[1:53:17] Jeremy Hoop: it’s been a pleasure. Thank you. I have so much respect for the work you’re doing. I hope you keep it up. Um, I hope you weather the mockery and, and the insults, and, and that’s OK. You know what,
[1:53:32] Michelle: what did Christ say Joseph did it. Jesus did it. I’m small potatoes compared, so we just keep getting a thicker and thicker skin. They haven’t tar and feathered me yet, so. So thank you so much. Have a great night and I’m sure we will talk again. All right, goodbye. I hope you enjoyed that discussion. Some of the things that I cut out were some of the best parts because we got into talking about the affidavits and the validity of the affidavits that that’s where we get all of our evidence for Joseph being a polygamist is from all of the affidavits that happened later on. So I cut those that part of the discussion out because I want to have Jeremy to come back on and we will just address the affidavits. And so we’re going to do that as a future episode, look forward to it, but um I hope to see you next time and thank you for sticking with me.
