71: One “Polygamy Denier’s” Response to Bill Reel, RFM and Brian Hales | 132 Problems

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Multiple podcasts hit pretty hard last week against people who have come to believe that polygamy did not originate with Joseph Smith. As has always been the case, although they agree on almost nothing else, both those who hate Joseph Smith and think the worst of him, and those who claim to love him and believe they are following in his name, agree on this one central point — that polygamy started with Joseph Smith.
Both sides are convinced that theirs is the only tenable position. I disagree.
In this intimidating episode I do my best to lay out the situation as I see it, explain the basics of my “polygamy denying” perspective, and respond directly to the key points of their presentations.

Links

Saints Unscripted
Mormonism Live
The Peace Maker
Times and Seasons Notice
Oct. 5 Journal Entries: Original
Altered for Publication
After Alterations
Hyrum’s April 8, 1843 sermon (Thomas Bullock unedited transcript — removed from JSP)
Same speech after alterations (Still available on JSP, and has already been passed off as the original)
Joseph Smith’s letter to the RS as recorded in the RS Minutes
Same letter after alterations
Joseph’s letter to Parley Pratt about keeping families together
Brigham Young, Sept 21, 1856, JoD vol. 4, pp. 51-57
Heber C. Kimball, Nov. 9, 1856, JoD vol. 4, pp. 80-83
Rob Fotheringham’s Happiness Letter
Melissa Lott Family Bible
Michael Shirmer Ted Talk

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy. My name is Michelle Stone and this is episode 71 which is one polygamy Denier’s response to Bill Real RFM Lindsey Canton Park, Brian Buchanan and Brian Hales. Thank you for joining us. As I accept this challenge to argue against Joseph’s polygamy. It has been an extremely stressful couple of days um deciding to do this video, deciding how to do this video and then preparing to do it. I really, well, I really felt like I needed to do a video but I wanted to get a panel together of all of the best experts and the scholars so I could just sit here and have them say all the brilliant things. And then I just, I kept feeling that wasn’t right and felt like I needed to just do it by myself, which I did not want to do for several reasons. I’m so hesitant to do this video. It is so stressful to me first, I really want to avoid contention, you know, it would be way better to sit here with, with a group and let them say all of the things than to be here by myself. I am so uncomfortable sticking my neck out like this, um making myself a target to this extent. I, I, I know that I am not the greatest authority of this at all. I’m actually relatively new to the study specifically of Joseph’s polygamy. I mean, I’ve been looking into polygamy for years and I have been looking into the history of polygamy, but that just hasn’t been my focus as those who have watched my podcast. Know I’ve been intentionally just setting aside the discussion of Joseph because it just was too messy and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like getting in like that. So I feel like there are other people who could do this much better and I feel a lot of risk that, um, people are going to mock me. I don’t like how that feels. And I also know that, um, you know, there’s somewhat limited potential for good and it quite a bit greater potential for harm. It feels like to me, I, I know that, um, people who are just adamantly and that Joseph was a polygamous camp and you’re an idiot if you think otherwise, I don’t expect to convince those people. II, I don’t think that, um, you know, I don’t know that that’s gonna happen just like you don’t usually convince people who are adamantly opposed to everything you say. I also, I mean, I hope that you feel that way will listen and consider what I say. But I’m not, I’m not necessarily trying to convince you. On the other hand, I am very aware of the risk that I could say something stupid or be not fully informed on something and something I say could be taken and turned into a straw man for my entire argument. And even worse than that for like anyone who believes Joseph. Joseph wasn’t a polygamist. You can take something. I said, try to use it to undermine everyone. So I’m aware of those risks. I also just, um, like I said, I, I, well, I, I don’t want to be claiming, I’m not, I’m not claiming to speak for everybody in this camp. I am speaking for myself. Maybe that’s part of why I’m doing it by myself. But despite all of that, I think most fall, I just feel like so scared. It’s five on one and more than that, like I was ok. Um, well, I’ll get into this a little bit, but I was ok, changing my mind on polygamy. Those who have followed my podcast. Know, I used to strongly, firmly devoutly believe in polygamy and I actually used to speak quite a bit and included that. And so, um the people who used to really love me, hate me now because I’ve changed my mind on whether or not polygamy was of God through my study, right? And, um that was, you know, I lost a lot when I did that but that’s OK. It was true. This feels harder because in my engagements, the pro polygamist community is quite a bit smaller than the anti Joseph community. And um the anti of community is big and from my interactions can be really mean. Right? Can really mock and be pretty arrogant and impatient. I’m sure we all can do that. I’ve just received it on this end. So it’s hard to want to step into that. So with, you know, all that being said, I hope people won’t respond that way. Maybe that was part of why I’m saying it. But I’m sure that some will. But still I want, I feel like I should do it. These are some of my reasons for doing it. I, I feel some, a lot of sympathy and some responsibility for the people who are allowing them themselves to start to consider this point, right. In that new place of going. Wait, I’m shaken. I don’t know what to believe right now and they’re starting to maybe think, well, I hope that I’ve already helped people who have allowed themselves to believe that polygamy was never of God. This is another step to think that Joseph didn’t practice polygamy, didn’t teach polygamy only fought polygamy. Right? That feels like a scarier step because it’s so loud. The voices are so loud telling us that he absolutely did. I feel some responsibility for those people, people who have just started to allow themselves

[00:05:02] to consider that and maybe now feel like I must be an idiot. I’m an idiot. How could I dare think that, you know, I feel like I want to throw them a lifeline. I want to let them see a different perspective. Let them know. No, you’re not an idiot. It’s not this clear as clear cut of a case as people want to claim it is at all. In fact, I, I feel as strongly in the other direction as people um feel, I feel as strongly convinced that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist as people feel that he was a poly was a polygamist. So I want to share that information so that people who are hearing only a conspiracy theorist or a polygamy denier or someone who was only just massively desperate and motivated to believe this way would possibly believe it. That’s not true. And I wanna, I wanna share that. So, um and then I do so, I’m, I’m hoping that’s my first audience that I’m gearing this for. Are those of you who are feeling a little shaken up by some of the things you’re hearing on the other side? My other audience is, I hope those who have very little patience for polygamy deniers as I’m just going to call myself because that’s what I’ve been labeled. And I’m my hope is that the both of these podcasts expressed a lot of both surprise and concern at how many people are starting to believe that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist. I did RF ma disservice, I think last week I said, he said you can’t swing a stick and he was much more clever than that. He said you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting someone that um does that thinks Joseph wasn’t a polygamist and he’s right. And that is growing and growing and growing and I want to help the people who cannot understand that at all. hopefully understand it, right? So that those of you who think that that’s just insane and ludicrous can, if you can understand better, why I and others think that way you can hopefully speak to it better and respond to it better, right? I so often I was going to make this analogy a little later on. But you know, there’s another thing that’s been happening in our community, right? All of the people leaving the church and um and everyone leaving the church, the more that you’re told, oh, you just wanted to sin or oh, you never had a testimony or? Right? You’re, you’re told your reasons that you’re leaving and they’re all something bad about you, right? Does that feel very good? And is it very helpful? No, it’s not. I’m feeling the exact same thing in reverse right now. That’s what I feel. I’m being told from the people who have left the church and think Joseph is all bad. I just so motivated. I have so much bias. I can’t think clearly or I just had some other, right? And it, it feels just as offensive to me in this context as it did in that context when I was struggling with the church. And people would say that also when, when you are, you know, learning all of these things that you learned about church history and it’s shaking your foundation and you are starting to lose your belief in the church. Um And people, first of all, make all, you know, tell you all of the reasons that you’re doing that and then they start quoting general authorities at you or quoting scripture or telling you all the reasons you need to stay in the, in the church while at the same time refusing to look at what you’ve looked at, refusing to try to understand your paradigm. It’s not very helpful. Is it not like I hope you guys can relate, like whether or not you agree with me, I hope you will at least listen to what I’m saying about the same way that those arguments resonated with me. Then when I was struggling with the church is the same way these arguments are resonating. Now, I’m being accused of things told what my motivations are and, and then given information that does not feel credible to me by people who I don’t feel have done the work that I have done to understand why it’s not credible. So I hope that I I’m setting that out pretty strong in the beginning. But I think it’s an important thing to consider and to recognize and consider, right? If you want to be able to speak to us effectively, you have to do in a different way, do a little more work. And I guess I would say whatever advice you would give to people who were staunchly in the church. And when, when you were struggling with your testimony, maybe give that same advice to yourself. Now to consider um you know, it’s, it’s kind of like a role of reversal, just like we had such a huge tide of people leaving the church. We now have such a huge tide of people coming to believe that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist, right? And it might be beneficial to try to understand better. So that is my goal here. I I won’t necessarily convince you, but I’m hoping to at least help you

[00:09:30] understand so we can have better conversations. OK. So um first of all, I do want to go into a couple of things. I um I really like brain science. I’ve studied it for a long time. I’ve been on and on different sides of many different issues in my life. So I’ve come to really understand this both through study and through personal experience. So this was awesome. I just happened to find these while when I had this idea, these are literally polygamy sunglasses, right? These are polygamy glasses. This style is called polygamy, which I thought was just so perfect for the point. I’m trying to make. Unfortunately, these amazing glasses aren’t available anymore and even if they were, I wouldn’t want to spend $525 to get them. So you instead are going to have to put up with my husband’s sunglasses that I’m borrowing. So these are my poly polygamy lenses. You know, we, everyone knows about perspective, right. And bias. And I have to tell you when I am hearing your presentation, I am seeing your polygamy glasses that I feel like you are viewing everything through. So that’s what I wanted to bring up. Now, I want to talk a little bit about this because I think it’s important to get into. Um as I said, I like brain science. I’m just going to show you this one thing, our brains have to make sense of the world, right? We have to fill in the missing pieces. That’s how our brains work. That’s why they’re so great. So they’re all doing that all the time and we can’t function if they don’t, that’s just how it is. And even when you know your brain, even which I should say is even when you know that your perception is incorrect, you can’t stop the perception from ha happening. So let me show you this little clip that hopefully some of you are already familiar with. We’ll take a look at the illusion again. If you want, try holding up one of your hands and block this section of the image. If you’re having trouble seeing it, we’ll help you out. Crazy. Right? OK. Is that amazing? Like, look at it again, even when you know, you can’t stop your brain from seeing it the way that it is going to perceive it. And so that’s how, that’s how life is, right? And assuming that you’re the only person that doesn’t have a perspective or that it, it doesn’t have a bias is dangerous. We all have bias, we all need bias. It’s baked in. So on that point, these are the monogamy sunglasses in the same line, right? So, um, also not available also $525. So instead I’m borrowing my daughter’s, oh, there’s a horrible glare. I apologize, but these are my funky kind of embarrassing. Everyone’s going to make fun of me for wearing these pmy lenses, right? I, um, I admit that I am wearing these. I will tell you I spend a lot of time looking at the world through these till I finally noticed. Oh, I think I have some polygamy glasses on and started to kind of go back and forth and consider the view, right? And that has been my process to coming to where I finally am comfortable just owning and claiming my monogamy lenses, hoping that people who think that they’re goofy looking won’t be too cruel when they make fun of me. So I hope that demonstration was helpful. II I liked it. The fact that I found polygamy monogamy sunglasses myth. I absolutely had to do it. So I actually think that this bias that is baked in to creation that I think is what the Paul is talking about. When he says we see through a glass darkly, right in this world, we cannot escape bias. And the danger, as I said is assuming that since you can see someone else’s bias, therefore, you don’t have one. And that’s really part of what I want to talk about. I just want to hopefully try to let people see both sets of glasses of lenses, be aware of both frames of bias so that they can consider looking at the world for a minute through a different frame, right through different glasses. I am Michael Smer is someone who I actually I don’t agree with him on everything definitely. But there are some things I really like that. Um I’ll link the TED TED talk below that he gives where he talks about um signal to noise ratio and I like this as well, right? Signal to noise ratio is developing A I was so difficult because, but we learned so much about how our perception works, right? Things we just take for granted again, we take our perception for granted because we don’t know what’s happening, what our brain is doing to help us make sense of the world. But um, the volume, I mean, the signal to noise ratio is what matters, what do I need to make sense of what is irrelevant? And I should just ignore, right? If the signal to noise ratio is set too high,

[00:14:30] you see things that aren’t really there, right? You see patterns. That’s where a lot of paranoia comes from. Everyone’s out to get me. I’m thinking all these things are happening right? When it’s set too low, you totally miss things that um that other people see as important, right? So that’s what I think happens. I think when we put the polygamy lenses on, we see everything as evidence of polygamy, right? Something that someone with monogamy lenses or with not even involved in the discussion might see as just noise as irrelevant. People with polygamy lenses see as evidence of polygamy and vice versa, right? People that and the polygamy camp just think is irrelevant or not that important people in the monogamy camp think is really, really important and then it means looks like very strong evidence for their perspective. And so I think that’s what we need to be aware of. When we see when we are wearing different glasses, different things look in important to us, different things make sense to us. So that’s, that’s what I’m saying. The best I think that we can do. I, I think personally that God made us this way, this is all baked in for a reason. And I think it’s so that we can learn to love one another, right? So that we can learn to treat each other with respect. Even if I like, cannot even begin to figure out what lenses you are wearing. Right. At least I can recognize. Well, I have lenses too. They have lenses to how can I be kind and respectful as I try to see the world through their eyes and then try to engage to help them see the world through my eyes because maybe I think my ideas are better or maybe I’ll learn something and, and how their their frame is better. So anyway, that’s my goal here. I hope that makes sense. I also want to acknowledge that as I am talking and sharing my perspective and answering each of these issues, many of the Joseph was absolutely a polygamist and you’re an idiot. If you think otherwise people will likely feel massive frustration, want to throw things at the screen, turn it off, be really, really angry and, and um if I make a really good point, their brains will immediately start going well. But what about, what about, what about what? Right, I want to express that’s called cognitive dissonance, right? Something we all should be really quite familiar with and it’s caused by our motivated reasoning because it’s shaking up our lenses, right? I um I want to let you know, I sat through both of these presentations a couple of times so that I could get every point um in order to respond to them and I just breathed and dealt with it, turned it off when I needed to and it got really frustrating and came back to it. So I understand and we all have to deal with that because cognitive bias is, I mean, cognitive dissonance and motivated reasoning and bias are again baked into the cake part of our lives unavoidable, just like our, our bias, our lenses are our perspective. So that’s, that’s not unique to you. And it’s not because I’m wrong. It’s because we have different lenses on and we’re trying to find a way to see through each other’s lenses. So that’s what my request is rather than just give in to the cognitive dissonance and assume. And, and that also cognitive dissonance also makes you want to call people names. That’s, you know, that’s part of why you just want to mock people is because that feels better than going. Ok. This really feels awful to try to see what they’re saying, but I don’t know a better way to do it. So that’s um that’s what I’ll say. I, I do want to say for those who are still objecting, our biases often usually can be so strong that we are not at all aware they exist. So some of you will be familiar with this famous picture. I love this picture. It’s an award winning picture and obviously it’s just this kind of normal picture of camels in the desert, right? Pretty basic, pretty normal. So, um, I want to now switch it and give a little bit different perspective. See if you see something different, right? When you zoom in or when you do a closer examination, you realize that what you are actually seeing aren’t camels, they are the shadows of camels from A p taken from the air, right? Isn’t that amazing? I think this is such a good demonstration of exactly what I am talking about. It’s so easy to see things and of course, everyone knows that’s camels. How can you be so blind? So dumb? It’s Camels. Right? And what I’m trying to say is maybe on some of these issues, I’ve zoomed in a little more closely to where I can see. Oh, those are shadows, those are shadows of something else and maybe the same is, is, is this, maybe it’s true in reverse. So I think it’s useful to have this dialogue in a respectful way. Recognizing that we just have different biases. Right? And I do want to say that while, um it’s, it’s, I think it’s essential to keep in mind always that I might have a blind spot. I might have a bias. Absolutely.

[00:19:26] I shouldn’t say I might, I do, I do have tons of bias that I’m not familiar with that. I’m not aware of. Right. But I can, once I have, um, thought these were shadows for a long time in this picture and then zoomed in. Once I’ve seen that there are camels, then I can eliminate thinking that, um, once, then, once I’ve seen their shadows, if I thought they were camels, when I’ve zoomed in, I can eliminate that and go, oh, I have done the work there. So I know that those are shadows, not camels. Right. So there are things we can check off, but there might still be another perspective that I’m not aware of that would throw the whole thing on its head again. So I don’t think it’s true that we can’t know anything. I think the mistake is thinking we know more than we do and being closed minded to what other people might think. Right? If, um, if we’re having a discussion and I’ve already eliminated those as Camels, I can show you how I see them and how their shadows, right. So I think that that’s useful to do, but then maybe you can show me something else that I hadn’t considered. So relating this back to Joseph’s polygamy when we have this huge pile of evidence, all of these things that have been amassed for well over a century. All of the like it seems so obvious when we look at them, of course, they mean that Joseph was a polygamist just like, of course, those are Camels, right? And so that’s just what I’m wanting to hopefully help people understand is that when you consider these different lenses, everything shifts and you see things in a very different way and two critical um facts emerge, I shouldn’t call them facts. But central points emerge that I have come to strongly believe. First is that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist. He didn’t teach or practice polygamy. In fact, he fought against it. I know that sounds crazy. But that’s because there’s also piece number two, the second piece that emerges is there were many dedicated efforts to paint him as a polygamist. It was a dedicated effort in my opinion, by two main groups, right? These completely disparate groups that had this one huge thing in common. The first group were various people during his life who opposed and hated him and used claims of his polygamy as a smear against him. So we can call those people antagonists or we could call them anti Josephs, right? If we want to use the book of Mormon Vernacular, we can take our pick either one. And then the second group is the people who after Joseph’s death led what was become the Utah church and centered their gospel on polygamy and use the claims of Joseph’s polygamy to justify their doctrine, right? So we can call those people apologists, um polygamy, apologists or we could call them Brighams, right? So we have the antagonists and the apologists or the anti Josephs and the Brigay. Those are the two groups that are so different in so many things and yet seem to be completely united in this one thing in the fact that Joseph was a polygamous and that’s what’s so amazing is that tho those were the two groups clear back from Joseph Smith’s life and they’re the exact same groups today, right. In fact, it’s incredible that these two podcasts came out one day, one after the other, um, two days in a row uh with this exact dynamic, right? The first one that came out was woman discussions, which all of those people have rejected Joseph Smith and see him as pretty, a pretty bad guy. Right? And they are, um, I think very committed to this picture. They have of Joseph Smith as a bad guy, but that’s the people I’m trying to talk to, right? And then this other, the second day Brian Hills episode came out, which was the apologist, right? Which was Joseph was a polygamist and it’s what God wanted him to do and, and it’s, and all of the other prophets lined up behind him in a good way. Right. So, so interesting to me and again, we have this amazing agreement between these two camps. In fact, um I, you know, I’m sure I’m sure there’s nothing to it at all. But it is interesting that those podcasts came out one day after the other and that so many of the arguments are the same and they rely on exactly the same sources, discard exactly the same sources, um prioritize the same points, discount the same points. And in fact, they both, well, I would say, you know, they, they share their proof texting, right? I think probably all of us are guilty of proof testing texting. I tried really hard. I’m sure many of us do but I sure see it in these presentations that look what looks like proof test, test, proof texted to me as well as a lot of circular reasoning. And so, so we’ll get there. But this, I want to give one example of like the congruence between these two groups that I just find amazing. Um Some of you will remember that when Brian Hall was on my podcast, I brought up doctor and covenants 101, the one that was removed from the doctor and covenants in 1876 when section 132 was added, right? And when I read it inasmuch as this as the ch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy.

[00:24:33] We believe that one man should have one wife and one woman but one husband in except in the case of death. Brian pointed out that there kind of some coded language possibly in there that it says that butt is like this magical but that changes the meaning. So when it says we believe that one man should have one wife and one woman, but one husband, it means that saying you should have one wife doesn’t really mean one wife you have to say, but to make it really mean one. So that struck me as I can’t even explain it well, because it’s so silly in my mind, it’s so ridiculous. And when Brian told me that I, I just was like, wow, wow. And to my amazement, RFM, who I generally really like and respect. No, no hate RFM. But really, really made this point. It astonished me at like one of my favorite um, comments that someone made is if I tell my child, you can have one cookie. You know, if my Children are begging, please, can we have cookies? You can have one cookie. I really mean, you can have at least one cookie. You can have all the cookies I have to say you can have. But one cookie in order to make myself clear, I think what I probably would need to do is tell my sons you can have one cookie and tell my daughters you can have but one cookie and I’m sure they would all know exactly what I mean. Right. Like that is like they agree on that. That is shocking to me and amazing. And is an example of how deep I see this desperation to try to make these things say what they don’t say in order to paint a picture that I think we will see is shadows of camels, not actual camels. If we get into it. So anyway, there, there, there we go. Um And all of the agreement. One other thing I want to say that I find surprising is that the antagonists, the anti Joseph fights really tend to claim that the church lies about everything, right? They um discount the church on so many things and, you know, I mean, fair, there are some valid points that we do have some problems. However, um it’s amazing to me that they completely agree with and accept all of the churches sources and interpretations and you know, there was even a lot of quoting from the um in my opinion, very biased descriptions and explanations on the Joseph Smith papers or uh uh um in the um what is it, the prefect prefixes the header to the scriptures like I was like, this is amazing. This is the one area where they’re like, nope, the church is right. The church is true. The church is right. So I think it’s really interesting. So both of these two groups back in of state and today, maybe even more. So today, unite against a third group which um they have labeled polygamy deniers, right? That’s the group that I now fall into. And again, showing their similarity. Both groups use that term polygamy deniers from the first time I heard that was from Brian Hales. I think he came up with the term in, let’s be honest in his effort to demean mock shame. And silence people who don’t believe in Joseph’s polygamy. It’s, um, he, he likes to now that it’s not a pejorative, which I think we can all agree is ridiculous since it’s in the exact same vein as Holocaust Deniers, Climate Deniers, Science, Deniers, flat earthers, anti-vaxxers. Right on and on and on. We can go on forever. That’s, that’s what those terms are intended to do. And so, um, like most of these terms, the term polygamy denier is both inaccurate and quite meaningless because no one is denying that polygamy happened, right? Um So its only purpose is as a pejorative. The question isn’t whether or not polygamy happened. The question is who is responsible for it, Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. And as I said, last week in my um discussion with Jeremy Hoop, which I hope all of you who have not dove in deeply to this topic will watch because I think it speaks to some really important things that um that will help you understand this perspective. Again, I um I get really frustrated. That’s part of my uh when watching things when people set themselves up and claim to be like defenders of women. And uh you know, I get, I get really heated about that because it implies it’s kind of like using your woman card to say people who don’t agree with me aren’t real women or don’t really love women. I just, I don’t like that at all. I also feel, feel very strongly that if we want to speak on behalf of women and recognize people in general, but also women who have been victimized, we need to hold the right perpetrators accountable. It does not give a woman justice when you put the wrong guy in prison for rape, right? You have to get the right guy. So I think that it’s really circular reasoning as well as sort of this weird manipulation to kind of set yourself up and say, I, I want to help the women and believe the women and therefore anyone who wants to do that has to see it this way. I really, really strongly disagree with that.

[00:29:48] And also if we care about women today, I um have had several conversations on going with Tanya Tule since my um conversation I had with her on the podcast. And one of the things that she said to me is if, if this is true that Joseph wasn’t a polygamous that it didn’t start with him. And if you can get this information out there, it could help so many women and Children, it could help them today. Right now, the women that are suffering, please watch those two episodes with Flor Jessup and with Tanya too. And she was, she was very free to, if this is true, it would be a game changer. And so I think that’s an important thing to consider if we want to talk about women to you know, have respect for Tanya Tule and listen to what she is saying again, not motivated reasoning, but maybe there is good to considering this perspective that you hadn’t even thought about. Maybe it could help save more people. And I think that that’s something worth considering. So that is the point I’m trying to make. The question. Isn’t, did polygamy happen or did it not the question? Is, was it Joseph Smith or Brigham Young who is responsible? That’s what we want to get into. So I’m very briefly, I think, I think I am going to get into the videos as quickly as I can. But I think that this set up, this framing is important. So people can understand as I am answering the point by point details, which I’m going to do later on in the video. So please stick with me. But um when I’m wearing my polygamy lenses, right? A whole different list of priorities emerges that are huge overwhelming these massive concerns that um I think have not been at all adequately addressed. They are generally either completely ignored or just dismissed away in ways that I find to be not only not compelling but actually concerning, right. And so when in the polygamy lenses, different things seem more important, but you know, I’m gonna try and let you see through my monogamy lenses, what answers I need to be able to put my polygamy lenses back on, right? Or at least what things you could speak to, to help me be more convinced, more compelled. Right. So I’m going to very briefly outline each of these. I cannot, each of these has hours of content dedicated to it. I’m sorry, we are having a massive thunderstorm right now. So if it’s loud, that’s why um we’ll pretend it’s the gentle rain sounds that can, can help calm all of that cognitive dissonance discomfort. I’ve been trying to wait out this rain, but it is not letting up. I kept going until the thunder started pounding, but looks like we’re just doing a podcast with background noise. So anyway, I’m going to like, as I said, very briefly cover each of these topics and I would recommend digging in deeper to each of these things because I’m not going to do them justice. There is just so much information available. I strongly recommend all of Rob Fathering Ham’s excellent videos. Whitney Horning books are a great resource. Of course, I think my podcast is valuable and um there are some other projects that I’m super excited about that are forthcoming that um I think I think that if you guys think this is growing fast to this point, I think you have not seen anything yet for what is going to happen. That’s I’m not a prophet. So that’s not a prophecy, simply a prediction from what I understand and what I am seeing and the evidence before me. So again, here are the top issues for me with my monogamy less lenses. The number one, I’m sure you can guess is no Children. There are no Children from Joseph with anybody than Emma. Let me, I’m gonna, I, I wanna do an entire episode on this but, um, just really quickly again to try to spell it out. Polygamist leaders have many Children with many wives. It follows the pattern, right? The, in the polygamist cults, David Karsh, um Father Yad, then you know, we have Warren of Brigham Young and every single other polygamous leader, they all have many, many Children. And I agree that polygamy is about power. I think it’s about self glorification to an exalted degree, right? It is absolutely about power. Part of that is power to have sex saying polygamy is about power doesn’t remove the fact that polygamy is also about sex and about having Children. And Mormon polygamy more than any other polygamy was about having Children, right? It’s a big deal. Both of these podcasts amazingly didn’t even include this in the presentation for both of them. It was the last question that happened to come in the very last question and they addressed it and I thought it was not addressed. Well, so um I think that we need to not only look at P at Joseph, not having Children, but also Hiram did not have any Children or many, many other of the top leaders that would have been. Well, we we call them polygamy insiders. I would think it’s, well, Brian Hales has labeled them polygamy insiders. We polygamy deniers and polygamy insiders. Right. I, I have a different term, which is

[00:35:04] the polygamy conspirators. Right. I made that second point of what I believe, a very careful effort to paint Joseph as a polygamist. The polygamy conspirators were the ones who had Children. Right. There were a few that we think were possibly born before Joseph’s death but not very many. All of a sudden Joseph is gone and all of these polygamous leaders that I would call the polygamy conspirators all of a sudden started having babies left and right. Right. They were in the exact same situation that Joseph was in, in Navoo. They had every bit as much stress, every, as much danger and opposition from the mobs. In fact, they were being chased out, right? That it was not, it had to be secret from the people still. They didn’t have time. I mean, look at how many times Brigham Young had to come back and forth and he was moving like to far west as well as to um the, the Salt Lake Valley and like to claim that the circumstances were so much more favorable for Brigham Young and Heber C Kimball and others than they were for Joseph Smith doesn’t make sense to me. Someone has to explain that to me because what I see as the limiting factor of Children was Joseph Smith. When Joseph Smith was alive, I have only found evidence of two possible Children. Augusta Cobb was the woman who left her husband and came with Brigham and married him and had a little baby boy that passed away and his name was Brigham. And then there’s a similar story with Hebrew C Kimball that III I it’s slipping my mind but we’ll have to into it. Those are the only two I that I think are quite suspicious before Joseph’s death. But as soon as Joseph dies, all of a sudden babies start popping up. So that’s the question was the limiting factor, the mobs, the secrecy, the busyness, the women everywhere, or was it Joseph Smith? I think that’s a valuable question to consider. I haven’t had heard a good answer. I also think that um I, I want to have a friend. Come on. He has done a statistical analysis of the likelihood of a polygamous leader not having Children using very conservative numbers for what we can, what we claim Joseph Smith did and it doesn’t hold up. Well, also, may I point out that we can take this point of no Children and add it as another huge point of evidence in the conspiracy claim in the effort to paint Joseph as a polygamy camp because we have many claims of Children, right? We know the DNA testing was done for the eight best cases including Josephine Lyons, which turned out to be dishonest. And I will argue forever that to claim, oh, it gets me frustrated with everything I’m going to read. Right to claim. Well, it shows that it could have been. She didn’t know who the father was. No, that doesn’t work. She didn’t say your father might have been Joseph Smith. She said your father was Joseph Smith, right? She said that matter of fact, we claimed that forever as one of the strongest evidences of Joseph’s polygamy. Of course, look, we have a child. I will tell you this. If there was one child, that’s the smoking gun. If there is one child game over, we at least know that he was unfaithful if not completely polygamist. If there was one child, I would think Joseph was a polygamist. You can’t overcome that, but at the same time, you got to do a lot better to overcome the fact that there are no Children. That is huge. OK. I’m going to go on. I think I have something like seven points. I, I don’t know how much I’ll, I’m trying to hurry. So the second one is the relationship between Joseph and Emma. And I will add to that Emma’s calling as the relief society president. So, um I did an episode on Joseph and Emma, which is the first one that started to really make me think Joseph wasn’t a polygamist. That’s where I got really um brave enough to say that publicly for the first time. Even though it wasn’t the focus of my episode. But, um, just a couple of things to go over quickly. I really hope that people will watch that episode. So, Emma got pregnant pretty much every two years. Right. As people who are fertile in a functioning and hopefully happy marriage do. Right. That’s, that’s generally what happens and that was their, was their pattern, even though he was gone so much and imprisoned so much. And even with all of the stress and all of those things happening, the homelessness, the stress Emma was under both of them. She managed to get pregnant every two. He man, they, they managed to get pregnant every two years. We’ll say that. Also, I want to point out that this goes up until the time of his death. Emma was pregnant at the time of his death and no other woman was, I think people don’t pay enough attention to that, right? Especially with the stories that we want to claim about Emma and Joseph and what was happening in their relationship, which I will say is completely in direct opposition to all of the evidence that we actually have. And so um I think that to believe that Joseph was a polygamist. You have to disregard everything we know from Joseph and Emma themselves and believe all of these crazy insane stories that were told by Brigham Young once they were in Utah about Emma being basically a crazy person. Emma trying to murder Joseph, literally

[00:40:29] poisoning him and trying to have him be killed by the mob Emma pushing Eliza down the stairs. And all of these just crazy stories that do not fit in at all with anything we know of Emma, any reports about her, anyone that knew her, her character that is revealed throughout her life, it tells a very different story. Also their letters, right? And their Joseph Smith, the third’s testimony of what life was like in their home. And then also, so there’s a lot more that could be said on that. But also Joseph called Ordained Sustained Ma as the relief society president, the highest calling for any woman and actually quite unique to Mormonism. Most other um religions didn’t give women roles like that as I understand it, it was quite a big deal. You show me any polygamous leader in any group, Mormon polygamy or any other group who does that, who takes a woman, especially their first wife, who is disapproving of all of their other wives and is fighting against polygamy, fighting against what they’re doing and not only honors them but puts them on a pedestal, elevates them, elevates their voice, magnifies their voice, right? I think that it’s really useful to compare the way that Brigham Young looked at and treated his first wife and wives in general, women in general compared to how Joseph Smith looked at, treated and honored his wife. It, this is one that does get me a little emotional now that I’ve studied it. Now, I have some real connections with Emma. Um She really got me through some hard times in my life. So I have a deep love and respect for her and I think we do her a great disservice when we make these names because we’re making them about her as well. It just doesn’t fit. And so I want to just compare Emma’s um Joseph’s words about Emma to Brigham’s words about Emma, right? The things that Joseph said about Emma were so elevating, loving, wonderful. The only negative things we have that we claim that Joseph ever said to or about Emma come from Brigham Young decades later, right? So anyway, we can, I’ll, I’ll let that go right now, but there’s a lot more to it. So um oh, I guess I was just gonna say, yeah, compare Brigham Young’s treatment of his wives and especially treatment of women who didn’t support his polygamy to how Joseph treated Emma. That is not a polygamist man. I can’t make sense of that. And then number three, all of Joseph’s words, his entire body of, of um what he produced, right? All of the scriptures that he either revealed or received through um translated or created composed, whatever your perspective is, all of the revelations that he either received or made up, whichever your perspective is, are solidly solidly opposed to polygamy, profoundly opposed to polygamy. He was a horrible polygamous leader. Right. You compare Brigham’s revelations, Brigham’s sermons and Hebrews and all of these other polygamous leaders that you can look at in all other camps and cultures and their language does not fight against what they are acting doing. And it’s so silly to claim, well, he had to keep it secret, ok, then keep it secret. But still the revelations would be hinting that it was ok. Right. They would be not going in direct opposition to it. The Bible already does not command polygamy. 132 is factually incorrect on that. But the book of Mormon is the strongest anti polygamy book of Scripture we have and the Doctrine and covenants is also massively anti polygamy and pro monogamy. I’ll just read one of many verses. I’ve done episodes on each of these topics, but Doctrine and covenants 40 42 22. Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart and shalt cleave unto her and none else, it just goes on and on. So, um also remember that Joseph Smith Reran the Bible, right? He had plenty of opportunity to give Adam a bunch of wives to give Noah a bunch of wives to actually give Moses more than one wife. So it’s clear that he’s a polygamist, but I think it’s clear that he’s not if you study it deeply to give God to have God command polygamy somewhere. So it at least matches with 132. He, he ret translated the Bible up until his death and didn’t add anything about polygamy. And then we have to add to that all of his sermons, his letters, his articles, his actions. Like I understand that we have this picture of Joseph as this hypocritical liar who’s, you know, doing all of these things. But that is circular reasoning. We think he did that because we claim he did that right. Like it’s worth considering if these are the actions of a polygamist. And I would argue very strongly that they are not. And then we also know that um the same is true of Hyrum, right? It gets really interesting. Number four. And this one, we are going to take some time to get into because it’s very important. And I think that I demonstration will help you understand what I’m talking to talking about. It is the large and growing body of evidence of conspiracy. The effort to paint Joseph as a polygamist. As I said, this happened from the very beginning. Um One example, Mormon discussions brought up the Johnson farm tarring and feathering and how the Johnson boys that were responsible for that

[00:45:59] claimed that there had been sexual impropriety. And I just find that ridiculous to just assume that’s evidence, right? That’s like so polygamy lenses because to me, when you are going to beat someone and to hard and feather them, you’re going to come up with every excuse you possibly can against them. And I find myself wondering, Sidney Rigdon was also beat and hard and feathered, he was unconscious. And what was he also guilty of sexual propriety like he deserved it as well? Is that the point we’re trying to make? I think they also strangely use section 101 as evidence against Joseph. Like they say there was something in the air like these rumors all are therefore justified. And I also think that’s insane. We know that at this time there were many, isn’t it Lawrence Foster that wrote the book um Religion and Sexuality. I can’t remember what it’s called, but we know the Cochrans, the Oneida community, the shakers went the opposite direction. There were lots of groups playing with marriage and sex and relationships. It was kind of like I’ve heard it described as similar to the sixties, the hippies, right? So that would be a very apt easy and logical accusation to make against a religious leader that you hated at this time period, right? It’s not, it’s strange to take it as evidence. We need stronger evidence than that I would say. So I don’t think that those claims hold up, but I want to look specifically since both sides tend to use them at the um Brim. Um I, I guess I, I was going to call them fraud, but the conspiracy from the brim, that’s the one I’m more interested in. We’ll talk about the Ben John Bennett and the others in a little while when we get into it. So let’s go into a couple of these things. This first one is a little pamphlet called The Peacemaker. And um most people who argue that Joseph A was a polygamist abs just completely ignore this and throw it off and say it doesn’t matter at all. It actually matters a lot. Let’s look at it. It was printed as it says very prominently on the front cover in Nauvoo Illinois by J Smith printer 1842. Right? I will say I um I didn’t know this. I didn’t realize this until after I had done some investigation and learned some things about it. I haven’t found any other pamphlet or book that has the printer published that prominently on the front cover that seems unique to me. Um Right. Maybe a little suspicious. A couple of things I want to point out about this. First of all, it’s awful terrible when I read it, I read it when I still was kind of with my, you know, I guess when I was kind of going back and forth is when I read that one and I um i it was one that put the polygamy lenses back on me solidly because I was like, how can people claim that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist when he printed this? But then I read it and it was awful. It’s so bad. Like I, I just kept thinking, OK, Joseph was a polygamist and he was, you know, a bad guy in all of these ways, but he wasn’t stupid like he wasn’t this stupid. So it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. But, um, I actually imagine my surprise when I found out that December 1st 1842. This is what I notice that Joseph printed in the Times and Seasons. There has been a book printed at my office a short time since written by Edie H Jacobs on marriage without my knowledge and had I been appraised of it, I should not have printed it. Not that I am opposed to any man enjoying his privileges, but I do not wish to have my name associated with the authors of in such an unmeaning rigmarole of nonsense, Fol Folly and trash Joseph Smith. So that, that pamphlet is actually important. It is one of the things I think maybe one of the main things that the Lafferty brothers found that um you know, took them down the direction that they went, which wasn’t good. So I, I think that it’s important to recognize you can’t just throw this off and say, oh, that’s not good evidence. No, it’s not good evidence of Joseph’s polygamy. It is good evidence of the attempt to the conspiracy to paint Joseph as a polygamist. One other thing I’ll say really quickly about this. Um It was printed at the time it was printed in 1842. So that was after the sudden, rather violent, like, violent sickness deaths of, um, Don Carlos Joseph’s youngest brother and, oh, I’m forgetting his name. Thomas. Mm. Robert. Robert B Thom Thompson who were the printers of the, um, Times and seasons. They were the ones who did print that till their very sudden untimely deaths. Um, a short time after which John Taylor moved in and assumed responsibility for the times and seasons and it was under John Taylor that this was printed. So I, I think that that’s something interesting to consider. We shouldn’t throw it off quite as lightly as we do. So, um anyway, there’s something else. I, I will say this, this has happened so many times that I’ve seen something and that’s made me go oh my gosh. And then I dig in a little deeper and go oh my gosh. Right.

[00:50:57] That I’ve, I’ve kind of come to expect this pattern because it happens so frequently. So we are going to talk about something that Brian Hales talks about in his journal and I, I don’t want to be mean, but when Brian Hales talked about this, um my husband, I had him watch the video with me, my husband who’s still on the fence. He, he, you know, he has some really um hard questions after the Mormon Discussions podcast. I really dug in and hopefully he’ll like what I put out here. But um anyway, he, as he was listening, he just kept looking at me going. What is he saying? What is he talking about? Does this make sense to you? Like II I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s good. I just think you have to do better, Brian, you have to do better help us with this one. So this is the October 5th journal entry, October 5th, 1843 and this has become a big one once this was revealed, right, you can look at the original I’ve spoken about it before many people have. And again, there are problems with the journals that we will talk about. But this kind of shows the process that these documents underwent. That is what those of us on in my camp. I again, I can’t speak for myself. Not everyone agrees. But from my experience, these things matter to us. So the original says, gave instruction to try those who were preaching, teaching on the the doctrine of plurality of wives. On this law, Joseph forbids it and the practice thereof, no man shall have. But one wife pretty clear right now, when I have always read that in the past, when it says on this law, my natural assumption was Joseph forbids it, Jose like I’m laying down the law, here’s the law, Joseph forbids it. If we want to say there’s some other law, well, we could say on the law of God, right? Or we could say the law of the land, there are lots of different laws that are very clearly elucidated that Joseph has a lot of respect for if you honestly read his words. And um so, so I, I just wanted to say that’s pretty clear right there. It was changed and you can see the draft copy where it was prepared for publication in the history of the church. This is also the thing that Joseph fielding Smith quotes when he’s, when the cousins are arguing. When he’s like, I know Joseph promoted polym. This is the one thing he can find to pull out. It’s changed to evening at home and walked up and down the streets with my scribe, gave instructions to try those persons who were preaching, teaching or practicing the doctrine of plurality of wives on this law. For according to the law, I hold the keys of this. Oh for a according to the law, I hold the keys of this power in the last days for there is never but one on earth at a time on whom the power and its keys are conferred. And I have constantly said no man shall have but one wife at a time unless the Lord directs otherwise, that’s astounding, right? Amazing. I I’m sorry, Brian, I disagree with your claim that it was just improved that it was a prudential change to fill in the law that Joseph was talking about. It doesn’t work, especially as we see the pattern continue in other documents. That we’re going to look at. So the next one I want to look at is the April 8th 1844 sermon that Hiram gave before a council of elders. He explains, this is his reason for calling the council of elders together is to put a stop to this, put a stop to the rumors going around saying Joseph said you can have more than one wife. There was clearly something going around with Joseph’s name attached to it. They were saying it was Joseph, right? And he like, like this speech is so important for so many reasons. One, it helps us understand what was happening. I think that all of these things help us understand, you know, like even I want to point out one thing like Joseph says, um the plurality, the doctrine of the plurality of wives, Joseph forbids it, right? So Brian, another thing that you talk about is that Joseph always opposed publicly polygamy and spiritual wifey, but he never post celestial plural marriage. Well, you have to show me a single quote where Joseph said the words celestial plural marriage, right? It doesn’t work like it’s got to be better than that. Show me one quote where He differentiates between the two because everything I say, see he does everything he can to lump it all together, to say everything except God’s law of one man. One wife is, is, is wrong and forbidden and we do not approve it. So I do. Let’s go into this speech of Hyrum. This is one of the clearest, most profound denunciations of polygamy. It leaves no wiggle room to pretend that, um that, that it’s carefully worded denials. You can’t, you can’t even try that with this. And I think it’s interesting, um, in Brian’s um episode, he says that he’s absolutely certain that Joseph is not a bald faced liar. He’s a little more concerned about some of the things Hiram said, which I think is astonishing that he’s willing to call Hiram basically a bald faced liar. You know, and I think that this sermon is one of the things he’s talking about, although there’s a lot more.

[00:55:59] So this is interesting. This was originally recorded recorded by Thomas Bullock. And um, we’re gonna go in and talk about it a little bit more. Unfortunately, I can’t show you the transcript. I’ll explain that in a minute. I would love to. So let me just read some, some parts of this. I am authorized to tell you from Henceforth that any man who comes in and tells any such dam doctrine to tell him and to give up his license. None but a fool teaches such stuff. The devil himself is not such a fool and every elder who teaches such stuff, note the elders are teaching such stuff ought to have his nose rung. Anyone found guilty of such teaching will be published will be published and his license will be taken from him. I wish the elders of Israel to understand it is lawful for a man to marry a wife, but it is unlawful to have more. Maybe, maybe he didn’t put the butt in the right place. Maybe it would have been more clear if he had said this is lawful for a man to have but a wife, sorry, I’m going back to that. Ok. We’ll keep going. Um And God has not commanded any of you to have more. And if any of you dare to resume to do any such thing, it will spoil your fun for, you will never have the spirit to preach the gospel. I despise a man who teaches a pack of stuff that will disgrace himself. So for a man to go into the world and talk of the spiritual wife system he has and as empty as an open sepher, I would call the devil my brother before such a man. He has a lot more to say he really goes into it. So I want to paint the timeline of this, right? This was April of 1844 just a month or two before Joseph and Hiram’s death, right? It’s eight months after he read the revelation before the High Council, which I agree with you. Hiram read a revelation in front of the High Council. This talk helps us understand what that revelation was. I think it becomes very clear that there was a revelation received under tr marriage. Hiram acknowledges that in this talk and I, I think it’s important for everyone to go read this talk. Um He acknowledges that and talks about it and says it’s not a doctrine to be spread abroad. It’s just like, like something to be kept sacred, kind of how we talk about the temple, right? And um and then he goes on to anyway, I have always thought it was fascinating that Doctrine and covenants verse one is, is this huge polygamy thing. And then it goes on and talks about eternal marriage in many, many verses, only monogamously very clear monogamous language. I’ve done an episode on that how it couldn’t work in any other way, right? And then there’s a bunch of more polygamy stuff thrown in it. So, so it does seem to me that there could very well be some amalgamation here. A revelation Joseph received that Hiram read before the City Council and then whatever this was that was being spread around in Joseph’s name that people like the laws would have seen people that like, right? Like that. That’s what makes the most sense to me that I think was happening. And I think we can talk about and see what is the most likely you can disagree, but we should at least engage fairly with the ideas. So anyway, Hyrum does go on to talk about the Doctrine of Eternal Ceiling. I, I guess my question that I wanted to ask was, is it plausible? Really that Hyrum would stand up in front of the entire High Council with this super secret doctrine that they weren’t going to talk about that everyone was already wanting to kill them for that. There were already all of these rumors going around. He would stand up in front of them and read it aloud to them, especially with all those parts about Emma thrown in for good measure. Why? Right. And then eight months later, he would stand up in front of those same men and say this and denounce it in this way, right? And the men in the crowd yell, amen, amen. Like I think the only reason, the only way to believe that is to believe the to come to it with the circular reasoning of believing that high that, that they were just liars because we know they were liars. So this is what they did look at it a little more honestly and see what seems to make the most sense. That’s my suggestion. I know that we have soy and some different things. I, I will get into all of those either in this episode or in another one. I’m going to cover as much as I can. This is just already going very long. So um Hyrum does go on to talk about this eternal ceiling but and says it is a doctrine that is supposed to be kept sacred in Navoo. And he says, almost every principle. Well, he, he accuses the elders of, of, he accuses the teachers of polygamy, turning the truth of God into a lie and says almost every principle that is communicated to us is made to have an ill effect through the foolishness of some who seek to build up themselves to de, to destroy the truth of which they are ignorant. Oh, ye foolish elders. Right. That is what he’s saying to these people. And I think uh it just, it gets me because we accuse these men of being liars. And when you get in and see it in this different way, your heart kind of breaks for them. Like when you reread Joseph’s May 26th sermon when he is just bleeding with all of his heart, he’s so done with these accusations. When you read it through monogamy lenses, it is heartbreaking. Your heart really breaks for these people

[01:01:07] with all of these accusations continually. And it makes that much worse that they continue not only after their death, but 100 50 years after their death. You know. So anyway, OK, so we’ll go on to this a little bit because I, I explained how I think that this all makes sense. Hiram goes on to say no spiritual wife doctrine ever ori originated with me. If there is any man that has no more sense and will make a base story of such a fact. His name shall be published. I think the reason he’s saying this, well, he makes it quite clear, Hyrum had a unique situation. He was a widower, right? This in this sermon, he talks about being sealed to his dead wife. And the language is a little bit ambiguous. He talks about Jerusha, the mother of his five Children. And then, and then talks about being concerned and saying Joseph, what can I do? And Joseph says you could be sealed to her in the same way that you can be done with baptism for the dead. You can do a ceiling for the dead and Mary can stand proxy. And it’s a little ambiguous about if somehow in that process, Mary would also have an eternal ceiling. It’s not very clear, but once it goes through the hands of the editors, it tells a very different story. So this is after it was prepared by Brim Young’s team for publication. All of a sudden he has Hiram saying I named the subject to my present wife and she said I will act as proxy for your wife that is dead and I will be sealed to you for eternity myself for I never had any other husband. I love you. And I do not want to be separated, separated from you. No, be before nor be forever alone in the world to come. So it adds that section to paint. Um Hiram as an eternal polygamist when you could read it that way. But it’s very unclear. They added that to it. Right. But then they go beyond that and decide. Nope, even with that edition still is too, too strong. So they just cut the whole thing out and don’t include it in the church history. So it would have just disappeared from our church history and never have happened in what they, you know, are presenting to us as a comprehensive church history. So that’s important to see the steps that things took as they were created. Um A couple of other things to talk about. There’s a little bit of a back, an ongoing story here. Um The first time, the first person I know that found this was Whitney Horning in her research and she wrote it in her book. She’s talked about it several times since then. It’s been on other podcasts. I’ve talked about it. So it’s going around quite a bit. I saved my link and I went to get it for this episode and the link was broken and no forwarding address. And I have tried to reach out to people in the know I’ve that they um these are some interesting points. There’s a new address that I found quite easily that includes all of these notes by Thomas Bullock and purports to be a the complete um you know, his complete notes of this conference, but it doesn’t include this sermon. So it has disappeared yet again. It seems like we’re still having this happen it’s so sad when I’m hoping that it was just a mistake. You know, I, I’m being accused of being like conspiratorial. It’s a little weird because this kind of stuff happens a lot. And so that sermons gone interestingly, William Clayton also took a, kept a record of this conference and took notes. He didn’t record Hiram’s speech and his notes are available. Also, the notes of the, um, edits and alteration is still available that was cut out. But the original speech without any of the edits, you can’t get anymore. And um I think that that’s an interesting thing to note. So, ok, we’re going to go on to another example. This was a letter written to the Relief Society by Joseph Smith. Um and read by Emma to the Relief Society. It’s another of the strong, strong denunciations of polygamy. I um I just think it must have killed Brigham and Heaver and any of the others to have to affix their names to this. And so if you haven’t watched my last episode, I did with Jeremy, hope, I really hope you will. I probably mentioned that before. Sorry. But um this is some of what it says. We do not want anyone to believe anything as coming from us. Contrary to the old established morals and virtues and scriptural laws regulating the habits, customs, and conduct of society and all persons pretending to be authorized by us or having any permit or sanction from us are and will be liars and base impostors. Can you hear the lengths they’re going to, to put down what the are doing? Right. It could not be more clear and then it goes through the transcription process and here’s what it says after that. Well, at least when it’s recorded by Willard Richards this time, we don’t want, I believe it’s Willard Richards if I got it wrong. It’s, it’s one of them. I think it’s him. We don’t want anybody to believe anything is coming from us. Contrary to the old established morals and virtues and scriptural laws regarding the habits, customs and conduct of society.

[01:06:03] Unless it be by message delivered to you by our own mouth, by actual revelation and commandment and all persons pretending to be authorized by us or having any permit or sanction from us are and will be liars and bas impostors. Do you see the pattern putting these little additions in like they did to Joseph Smith’s journal like they did to Hiram’s speech like they did to Joseph’s letter into the Relief Society, right? It’s quite astounding what starts to emerge more and more as you dig into this. The pattern should be very clear. And so, um there’s a little bit more I just want to go into, I know that this is a long segment, but I think it matters. I think it’s important those who have studied, I know the troubles between um Brigham and Emma after Emma’s death, I, I have an episode that I want to do on that. I just haven’t been able to get to it yet, but there were a lot of troubles. Right. And one of the things we know is the, the dispute over Joseph’s papers. Right. As the widow, Emma should have had her husband’s papers. The wife keeps the papers. Right. But Brigham Young took all of the papers, the histories, the records, even their personal family things. And he was desperate to get the translation of the Bible that Joseph was working on. I think he worked intensely on it up through 33 so well into the polygamy years and, and then still was making edits to it until the time of his death. And Emma wouldn’t give it to him. I was astounded when I learned that there were attempts to burn Emma’s house down. I, from what I have read, she was given a threatening letter telling her she had so many days to leave her house or it would be burned down. They were trying so hard to get, um, the transcript she felt or the, yeah, the, the Bible translation, she felt strongly that her best protection was to stay in her home and that God would protect her as long as she had the Bible in her home, Joseph’s translation of the Bible. And, um, and so that’s what she did. And, but then she saw evidence of them trying to burn her house down and what felt to her like divine protection. She saw where the fire had, had been started and had burned up the side of the house but had gone out and they, because her Children were in the home and when they were told they were going to be burned out, that’s what she felt she had to do. I, that really confused me because I was like, why would they burn the house down with the Bible in it? They wanted it so bad with Joseph’s translation of the Bible until it dawned on me. Oh, just like all of the other records they either needed to alter them or destroy them, right? How useful would it be to have a Joseph translation of the Bible that gave Adam a bunch of extra wives that gave Noah a bunch of extra wives that God commanded. Like I’ve already talked about that aligned with 132. That would be really useful, right? So, if they couldn’t get it, which was their desire, I think so that they could change it. The next best thing was to destroy it. So then they could later on claim what it said, which is the pattern that they seem to follow. So, you know, they could magically maybe pull it out of a desk drawer that, that it had been locked in for eight years or something along those lines. So that’s an interesting one. So anyway, that’s point number four. Now we’re going to go on to point number five, which is the serious dearth of any actual evidence of Joseph’s polygamy that isn’t subject to these previous problems, the framing fraud and forgery, right? We have a couple of clear actors that are central in this and I know it’s disputed, but William Clayton Willard Richards, they’re highly problematic. I’m trying to think if I’m not think of anything but off the top of my head, everything I can think of that ties Joseph to polygamy. What comes through those sources. Kingsbury. Kingsbury is very as well and I will say I have episodes planned on them. Um Jeremy Hoop already came out and did Brigham and Heaver. I think our next one is going to be Clayton and Kingsbury if I’m remembering, right. So it’s coming, we’re going to get into it more and do the deep dive. It’s important information to understand if you want to understand it. I think that if as we get more and more access, right? As information becomes more and more available, we should assume we get closer and closer to the truth, right? The thing that is happening is that the evidence of Joseph’s polygamy is decreasing and the evidence of the conspiracy is increasing. The exact opposite should be the case as we have the ability to DNA test, we should find Children and um not not find that all of the claimed Children were actually not true, we should find more, we’re getting more and more information and this is the trajectory we’re going on. That is the picture that is emerging very clearly. I think that matters also. I think it’s interesting to pay attention to all of the things. We don’t have all of the journals that are missing, all of the records that are missing, that should be there somewhere and we don’t have them. I think it’s interesting that they were all turned into Brigham Yang and we know

[01:11:07] that from his own words, that they went through this process of being arranged to fit the new order of things. So that’s interesting to consider. And I think rather important point number six is the known character of what I will call the polygamy conspirators versus what I can find of the character of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and Emma Smith from their own words, scriptures, letters, actions, et cetera, like just going on. It paints a very different picture. Um And I’m talking about the Joseph Smith that emerges from his own words, not from the version that was painted of him by the conspirators, right? That’s an important distinction. So I want to give a couple of examples. Um let’s just talk about how Joseph and Hiram viewed marriage, right? Um If you study about their family, two of their sisters were in very difficult marriages, married to men who were just not good guys. And a polygamist would marry his sister to a better guy. A guy with bigger keys. Right to, um, would, would, would improve her situation by marrying her to someone who mattered more. That is not what these brothers did. They, they just worked with those men and tried and tried and tried to help and, and improve those marriages. They seem to really honor the sanctity and union of marriage. And then another thing, um, this is a letter that I have to thank those really quickly who have sent me things. I’ve been working on this. I haven’t had time. You probably can tell how sleep deprived I am. I’m trying to stay awake to finish. So I have, I have enlisted my friends to say, can you please send me this? Can you please send me this? Because I just didn’t have time to find all the resources. So I want to thank all of you who helped me, you know who you are and I appreciate it so much. So this was sent to me by a friend Whitney. Thank you. And um it’s the letter that Joseph and Hyrum wrote to Parley Pratt to give to all of the Saints in Europe and abroad. And it is based, well, it’s actually really important for a number of reasons. I will put the link in the description. I think everyone should read it because it has a lot of important things to share. I’m just going to read little snippets of it, whereas in times past persons that have been permitted to gather with the saints at Nauvoo in North America such as husbands, leaving their wives and Children behind described situations, wives, leaving their Children, husbands, leaving, you know, it goes into that a bit. Um talks about a spouse leaving their other spouse because they are an unbeliever. Then it says all this kind of proceedings we consider to be an error and for the want of proper information and the same should be taught to all the saints and not suffer families to be broken up on no account, whatever if it is possible to avoid it, suffer no man to leave his wife because she is an unbelieving nor no woman to leave her husband because he is an unbeliever. These things are an evil and must be forbidden by the authorities of the church or they will come under condemnation. He, he then goes on and accurately quotes and applies scriptures as Joseph did accurately apply scripture unlike his predecessor and that not his predecessor is the one that came after. He then warns that spouses that are separate, will open themselves to temptation and goes on to say, and there are several instances where women have left their husbands and come to this place. And in a few weeks or months, they have found themselves new husbands and they are living in adultery and we are obligated to cut them off from the church. They are, there are men who are also guilty of the same crime as we are credibly informed. We are knowing to, we are knowing to their having taken wives here and are incredibly informed that they have wives in England, every man and they absolutely forbid that. So that speaks directly to polygamy, right? Every man should tarry with his family until Providence provides for the whole. We pro we forbid a man’s leaving his family behind because he has no means to bring them. If the church is not able to bring them and the parish will not send, then then let them tarry with his f then let the man tarry with his family live with them and die with them and not leave them until Providence open a way for them to all come together. And we also forbid that a woman shall leave her husband because he is an unbeliever. We also forbid that a man shall leave his wife because she is an unbeliever. If he is a bad man, the um there is a lot to remedy that. Oh, this is why I included that. If he is a bad man, there is a lot to remedy that evil. And if she is a bad woman, there is a lot to remedy that evil. And if the law will divorce them, then they are at liberty. Otherwise they are bound as long as they too shall live. Is that amazing? Have you heard that before, right. Kind of important to understand what they were teaching to me. I like, I can’t help but compare this for those who have watched my episode on the emergence of 132 or just go read the general um the um deseret news report of that entire conference

[01:15:58] and they spend the whole first half of the conference sending men on missions and telling them when you go on a mission, forget that your wife have a wife at home. Don’t look back, don’t think about your wife and Children if they suffer and die and if they start to death, so be it. They’re in God’s hands and all of these men would go off and bring, come back from their missions with a new wife with a new non non English speaking Scandinavian wife pregnant or with a baby on her lap home to the wife who has been, you know, like trying desperately to keep her family alive in frontier Utah. That’s a pretty big difference in the character of how these people viewed marriage and then also how they viewed women. If you, we’re going to go into it a little bit more when we answer some of the points. But if you look at how Joseph and Hiram viewed women, read Hiram’s letters to Mary when he’s in prison, Joseph’s letters with Emma, like Joseph relied on Emma so much with his business dealings with his decision. She was a true counselor. To him and not the case with Brigham Young. So it’s hard to choose which quotes to share. There are so many, but um I just grabbed a few. I tried to do ones that I haven’t read before. I know I’ve read this one once in one of my many episodes, but I just think it’s important to get a sense for the difference between these people. So this is, this is a polygamist if you want to understand, right? This is Brigham Young September 21st, 1856. It’s journal of discourses volume four pages 51 through 57. Now my proposition, a lot of you will be familiar with this one. It is more particular for my sisters as it is frequent as it is frequently happening. That women will say they are unhappy. Men will say my wife though most excellent woman has not seen a happy day since I took my second wife. No, not a happy day for a year says one and another has not seen a happy day for five years. It is said that women are tied down and abused, that they are misused and have not had the liberty, they ought to have had that. Many of them are waiting through a perfect flood of tears because of the conduct of some men together with their own folly. I wish my own women to understand that what I am going to say is for them as well as others. And I want those who are here to tell their sisters, yes, all the women of this community and then write it back to the States and do as you please with it. I am going to give you from this time to the sixth day of October. Next for reflection that you may determine whether you wish to stay with your husbands or not. And then I am going to set every liberty and say to them now go your way, my women with the rest, go your way. Now this some people honestly interpret this to see, look how liberal Brigham Young was. He would just let anyone have a divorce. Remember that this is under the threat of so many things. These women had no means of protection or being provided for. We always use that as an excuse for polygamy, right to provide for the women be no, that’s prostitution. But anyway, the other thing is um these women had been taught that their entire salvation and exaltation was based on their marriage, these polygamous marriages, right? So you’re giving them the freedom to damn themselves is what you’re doing. It’s kind of like when um the the polygamist now threaten the young men straighten up or you’re free to leave, right? And they become a lost boy. What? Like that’s, that’s a great option, isn’t it? Do not misread this to think he’s being generous here. Um And my wives have got to do one of two things, either round up their shoulders to endure the afflictions of this world and live their religion or they may, they may leave for. I will not have them about me. I will go into heaven alone rather than have scratching and fighting around me. I will set all at liberty. What? First wife? Two. Yes, I will liberate you all. I know what my women will say. They will say you can have, you can have as many women as you please. Brigham. But I want to go somewhere and do something. Oh, and he’s saying, but I want to go somewhere and do something to get rid of the whiners. So they’re saying it’s not fair. Brigham. You can have all, all the wives you want. He’s like, I’m getting, I’m getting rid of the whiners. I do not want them to receive a part of the truth and spurn the rest out of doors. I wish my women and brother Kimball and brother grants to leave and every woman in this territory or else say in their hearts, they will embrace the gospel, the whole of it. Tell the gentiles that I will free every woman in this territory. No language. I will free every woman in this territory at our next conference. What the first wife? Two. Yes, there shall not be one held in bondage. All shall be set free and then let the father be the head and, and then let the father, be the head of the family, the master of his household and let him treat them as an angel, would treat them and let the wives and the Children say amen to what he says and be subject to his dictates instead of their dictating the man instead of their trying to govern him. See, this was before keep sweet had been really embedded. These, these women weren’t yet perfectly trained in the subtle art of keeping sweet.

[01:20:46] It’s he had to get them there, right? And then he makes a false promise that he would provide for them people. Like to point this out to we have enough examples to see how Brigham Young was with money, how he treated people he wasn’t happy with or didn’t agree with. We even have wives who divorced him and tried to get a settlement. We see we see how, how amenable he was to that, right? So, so no, no, Brigham often makes a point of stating his generosity when he never actually has to live up to it. So now recollect that two weeks from tomorrow, I’m going to set you at liberty. But the first wife will say it is hard for, I have lived with my husband 20 years or 30 I’ve raised a family of Children for him and it is a great c trial. Um Sorry, this is hitting me. It is a great trial to me for him to have more women that’s the woman, that’s the older woman, right? That first wife that’s older is the husband is marrying teenagers. Then I say this is his response to those um heartbroken first wives, the older women. Then I say it is time that you gave him up to the other woman who can’t, who will bear Children. If my wife had borne me, all the Children that she ever would bear. The celestial law would teach me to take the young, to take the young women that would have Children. Do you understand this? I have told you many times that there are multitudes of pure and holy spirits waiting to take tabernacles. Now, what is our duty to prepare tabernacles for them to take a course that will not tend to drive those spirits into the families of the wicked where they will be trained in wickedness, debauchery in every species of crime. It is the duty of every righteous man and woman to prepare tabernacles for all the spirits they can. Hence, if my women leave, I will go and search up others who will abide the celestial law and let all I now have go go where they let all I now have go where they please though, I will send the gospel to them. Um That’s a threat just so you know, this is the reason why the doctrine of plurality of wives was revealed that the noble spirits which are waiting for tabernacles may be brought forth. I know that that was a lot to read, but it’s also important to understand a little bit about this doctrine that we’re going to go into a little bit more. Oh, there’s just a little bit more. I have sisters. I am not joking. I do not throw out my proposition to banter your feelings to see whether you will leave your husbands all or any of you. But I do know this, that there is no that there is no cessation to the everlasting whining of many of the women of this territory. I am satisfied that this is the case. And if the women will turn from the commandments of God and continue to despise the order of heaven, I will pray that the curse of the Almighty may be close to close to their heels and that it may follow it. It may be following them all the day long and those that enter into it and are faithful. I will promise them that they shall be queens in heaven and rulers to all and eternities. He continues on and on and on, but we’ll leave it there. So you get a sense, right? And um we can say all we want. Well, um Joseph had to keep it secret. I want to make it clear there is a polygamist way of being a man, right? And I know that offends some people, I I know there are good men who are suffering under polygamy as well. But the mindset of the polygamous man is something unique. Like when I’ve had people tell me that um even, and the cosmos, um you know, testifies a polygamy because we have one son and nine planets that orbit it because of course, the son is the man and the planets are the women. I mean, it’s just insane, the things that the way that their brains work, right? And so you have to compare it. Does Joseph have that polygamist mindset? I would argue very staunchly that he does not, I’ll do another one. This is just because I think it matters. This is Hebrew C. Kimball, November 9th, 1856. Talk on partaking of the sacrament worthily. So that’s what he’s talking about is those who were the worthily partake the sacrament. I do not consider that one of my wives or one of my Children has the right to partake of these emblems until they make a full and proper restitution to me. If they have offended me, why is this? So you’re not worthy to take the sacrament if you’ve offended me, unless you have made a full restitution. And I’m no longer upset with you because I am their head. I am their governor, their dictator, their revelator, their prophet and their priest. And if they rebel against me, they at once raise a mutiny in my family. I forbid all unworthy persons partaking of this sacrament. I and if, if such do partake of it. They shall do it to their own responsibility and not on mine in partaking unworthily a person is, is, um, is corroding and destroying himself, not me.

[01:25:15] Do you think a wife is contending against her husband with a good spirit when she is commanded to be subject to her husband? Even as we are to Christ, I want to know what good a wife is to me unless she will let me lead and guide and let me govern her by the word of God. Um Then he says, when a wife is obedient to her husband, there is union, there is heaven, there are many kinds of sin among which is the sin of confusion. And I will tell you there is plenty of confusion in a family where each wants to be head. And then I do not want to see a man or woman partake of Sacrament when they are living in open rebellion against God against his government and against his servants. I have no wife nor child that has any right to rebel against me. If they violate my laws and rebel against me, they will get into trouble just as quickly as though they had transgressed the councils and teachings of Brother Brigham. Does it give a woman a right to sin against me because she is my wife? No, it is her duty to do my will as I do the will of my father and my God. It is the duty of a woman to be obedient to her husband. I want to clarify that when, when he says my father and my God, I’m not at all certain if he’s talking about God or if he’s talking about Brigham, based on many other sermons that they’ve given in their perspective, just wanted to clarify that it is the duty of a woman to be obedient to her husband unless she is. I would not give a damn for all her queenly right and authority, nor for her either if she will quarrel and lie about the work of God and the principle of plurality. I tell you as the Lord God Almighty lives, my sword is unsheathed and I will never sheath it and tell those of you who have done wrong, repent of your evil deeds. Some of you have found fault because I am so plain and severe. No man can rise up here with his sophistry and silver on his lips and have the Holy Spirit for a moment. So anyway, the reason I wanted to read those is so you can sense the difference. Show me a single sermon of Joseph Smith. That was anything like these right? Polygamist men preach their doctrine. They preach it at nauseum on and on and on. They assert their authority. It doesn’t make sense that Joseph would have brought forth the revelations and scriptures that he did would treat Emma the way he did. We go into that a little bit more. If he was a polygamist, it does, it just doesn’t hold. And the seventh and final point that I’ll just briefly mention is the complete inanity of the doctrine. Just the fact that none of it makes sense. There’s no consistency to any of it. There’s no through line. The, um, the polygamists in Utah, they were very clear on their reasons for polygamy. Right. But they, it had nothing to do with anything Joseph ever said or ever taught or the things that we ever claimed that he did, they couldn’t stretch it far enough to make it fit him. It has nothing to do with section 132. It has nothing to do with any of Joseph Smith’s scriptures and it has nothing to do with even what we explain are the reasons for it today. There was just, there was nothing but excuses and justifications by the following leaders. And I think that Joseph as the one, the originator of the doctrine, the originator of the scriptures could have made it make a lot, lot more sense. If he had been the author of it, it would have been better. I don’t mean things would be, I mean, it would have been done better, it would make more sense. It would have a through line and have some, some stability and something that made sense. So anyway, those are the quick things I wanted to go into. And so now, I want to get into the videos finally right now that we’re an hour in. And so the first thing I want to address is the accusation of motivated reasoning, right? If we just desperately need Joseph to be innocent again, I, I hope that people will reconsider that because it is very offensive. It’s like telling people who have left the church that they just wanted to sin, right? It is invalidating them and their reasons. Sure, maybe there are people who just wanted to sin and left the church and maybe there are people who just need Joseph be innocent. And so so don’t do any of the work. That’s not me. That’s not most of us that are into this. I, so, so I wish that we could have a better dialogue than that just very quickly for those who know my story knows, they know like it took me a long time to change my mind. I actually was at pretty much complete peace with Joseph being a polygamist. As I said, I have publicly changed my mind many, many times. And for a long time, I knew once I knew that polygamy was not of God, I just thought, OK, that’s why Joseph lost his spiritual protection and was allowed to be killed. And that worked for me just fine. I I was perfectly comfortable with my polygamy lenses on, right? Um It was the evidence that changed my mind. It was very much the evidence that changed my mind. And I will say actually, I um I was fine changing my mind. It was stunning astonishing. It’s like when you discover the camels instead of the shadows, you’re like, whoa, everything just completely shifted and changed and how I see it,

[01:30:10] other people who have had big, like if you’ve had a phase transition, you know how that goes, right. This is mild compared to that. But it’s a similar thing. I however, had worked really hard to um try to have some credibility, some validity, right? I um this podcast is really important to me for many reasons that people watch. It will understand and um it was really hard for me to risk all of that to come out and say, I don’t believe it, right? I um I knew what could happen and I will say it was the evidence that convinced me, but it required spiritual guidance and confirmations and encouragement to give me the courage to be willing to come out and say it, that was my process. And so I think that um we need to do a lot better in how we address this. So, but yeah, like II, I did my podcast for a year before I sincerely acknowledged and, and found other pieces that gave me more confidence to be able to make this claim. And I’ve been digging more and more into it since then. But um it’s not fair to accuse me of motivated reasoning anymore than it is a fair to accuse any of you of that, right? Or just having deep motivations. And so next is the accusation of being conspiracy theorists. This one’s fun and easy. The fact is when it comes to polygamy, all of us are conspiracy theorists, whichever set of lenses you have with the polygamy lenses, you believe that Joseph Smith and all of the others conspired to hide his polygamy, right? And with these, you believe that the later leaders and the anti Josephs conspired to paint Joseph as a polygamist. It goes both ways. You can’t have it one way or the other. So again, it’s not a useful title. We just have to believe which conspiracy has better evidence to back it up, not just more evidence to back it up because remember things were destroyed and changed, but better evidence to back it up. So, right. So we’ll go on to that. Ok. Now, first, I’ll just really quickly go into Brian Hall’s video. I’ve, I’ve addressed it a little bit. Um It’s shorter and less meaty than the um than the other one. So it’ll be easier to get into. And so, um this is also, this video is mainly addressed to what I’ve called the antagonist, the anti Joseph fights, right? And so, um so right now I’m responding to Brian’s um following is the apologist, the Brigham Mis and so that’s who I’m just going to be really quick to respond to this, um, post by John Hay who I’ve had on the show and who’s going to be coming on again very soon was one of the funniest Facebook posts I’ve ever read. Maybe so, I’m gonna leave it here. I, I recommend the group Hemlock Knots for those of you who are interested in this discussion. It’s a great Facebook group where, um, and my kids wouldn’t join it because, you know, grandma’s on Facebook. I’m a grandma. So, but, um, but it’s a great Facebook group where there’s just a lot of information you can get on and ask questions. They really like to keep the topic on point. So they have pretty strict rules of what’s allowed to be posted. But I really recommend going to that group and if you do search J Hayek and find this post and it’s well worth the read. It. It starts by saying the most concise polygamy debate ever. Brian Hall debated himself and lost and I don’t mean to be mean at all. I don’t like that, but it was, it just made me laugh as he goes through a rundown of the debate. A couple of things I’ll mention really quickly is, um, well, I’ve already talked about in the last episode I mentioned how you sometimes learn that you need to see people’s accusations as their confessions, right? I think that this was a pretty clear demonstration of that. You also learn that you see people’s defending themselves against things as their confessions as well, right? The mom, I didn’t need all the cookies example, right? And so I think that those are both at play in this video. And so just a couple of things, um he says the word transparency, I think at least 20 times, right? And um while ignoring all of this evidence that I’m presenting, right? While never addressing any of the things like, of course, he’s transparent about all the things that paint Joseph as a polygamist. But he doesn’t, he completely avoids everything from the other side until it’s been brought up so much that he feels like he has to address it like the um journal entry that he tried to address. So I don’t think that that’s terribly transparent. It’s also interesting that he said that while papers are being deleted from the Joseph Smith Papers project, which is very sad to see us potentially. I hope there’s just a mistake. That’s what he told me, but it doesn’t look good. So I’d like to hope that we are going for transparency. So, um I’ll really quickly just say, um, Brian starts out by talking about amateur historians versus trained historians. It just, it just was delightful to watch. It was so fun because he, you know, after going on about his big diatribe about amateur historians,

[01:35:08] he very quietly and quickly admits that he also has one, but he took part of one class but then had to drop out but it hasn’t re enrolled. Oh, he also took that part of one class after he’d already written all of his books and done all of his website and everything. But, you know, he, he is an amateur historian but he really tries to act like a trained trained historian. So anyway, it’s, it was, it was pretty amusing to me. He says the amateur historians choose their conclusions, then search the historical record for supportive documents. Hm Who does that sound like, who knows from the outset that polygamy was commanded of God that everything Joseph did was right. And you know, except for the things he would have done differently and right. So I thought that that was a little bit i ironic. And then he said, and then they take things out of context that he, he explains. It’s called proof texting. Exactly. It is called proof texting, texting. I have been engaging with polygamists long enough to know how expert they are at it. For example, their reading of Jacob 230 or of any of the rest of the scriptures. If you like, like it’s pretty fun to engage in pro texting and people who want to claim that polygamy was of God or for example, claiming that you have to say, but to only say 11 only means one of you say, but what? Right. And so there’s a lot of that going on and then um and then, you know, he, he talks about how trained historians search all the evidence and then form their conclusions on all of the evidence. I will say. That’s me, that’s what I try very hard to do. I’m here engaging, right, looking at all of the evidence, the very best I can. And so anyway, it goes on from there. He, it, it really does, in my opinion, take circular reasoning to just a whole new level. I’ve already talked a little bit about it, but I do have to point out one thing because this, this got a little bit versatile. It was pretty funny. He um he gives a time stamp of some video from some podcaster without saying her name. I’m guessing it’s me. My husband told me I had to play this clip. You all know exactly who I am, say my name. I’m, I’m actually just fine with him not saying my name. That is not a problem to me at all. I was actually scared that I was gonna be mocked and excoriated. It’s so easy to mock me. So I’m, I would rather not be mentioned than be publicly mocked and humiliated. But it was about me quoting something from Phoebe Woodruff from the anti polygamy standard. So I want to go into the whole thing, but I won’t. But I will just say this. He claims that the, the quote I used from the anti polygamy standard is saying that Phoebe was coerced, felt coerced to say that she loved polygamy when she did it. He uses other sources that were official church publications that Phoebe was likely coerced to do to say no, look, she loved polygamy and the anti polygamy standard isn’t a good source because they were fighting against polygamy. And he is correct that it just says a friend, the people at this time did not feel safe to come out. Right. So it would have been better if they had a name and a date. I confess all of that. However, it is in keeping with what we know of Utah and this time and the women and the people and they wouldn’t have. And anyway, I like, I just read that quote from Brigham Young talking about how much the women loved polygamy, right? So it’s interesting to me that he chooses this one to pick on. They are like, like it was really funny to me. I also want to say I’ve done lots of episodes on women in Utah, the testimonies of women. I would recommend those videos. My episode on Jenny Anderson Frey, I love that video. Jenny Anderson Frey is the one who did the anti polygamy standard and she is in the vein of Tanya Toole, a woman living in Utah seeing what was happening and gave freely of her own immense energy, time talent money to try to help. She was like constantly begging subscriptions, begging for donations to try to help um the women in Utah. So I ask you who’s more motivated to say things that maybe were not exactly right. Right. Like this power structure where they had to prove polygamy or a woman just here trying to help. So anyway, I shouldn’t have gone on to that. It just got a little bit personal and I thought it was a little bit funny. I will defend using that source and I believe I acknowledged the problems with it. So, um anyway, then he goes on and he hits Denver Snuffer and Rob Fathering Ham in ways that I think are unfair. I’m really excited. Um Denver Snuffer, I hope is going to come on my podcast soon because I want to give him a chance to speak for himself because I think it’s very unfair for him to be effectively silenced by becoming a pariah because of excommunication. And then to have Brian Hales keep hitting him and completely straw manning his argument. I don’t think that’s fair at all. So I’m excited to have Denver sneer come on and be able to speak for himself instead of being spoken for. But anyway, um he really, really, this is a funny claim. He accuses them of reductionism for saying the question

[01:40:03] is, do you believe Joseph and Joseph and Emma and I add Hiram or do you believe Brigham? And it’s funny because he’s being so reductive to reduce their entire point to that and then claim it’s reductive. Again, the accusations are the confessions, right? There’s just so much more to it than that. And it’s such a straw man. And then, and then, um, I’ve, I’ve talked about it a little bit more but I will say he ends with this ludicrous claim that I see everywhere from the, um, apologists, the Brighams, right, that they say, and, and it’s funny I’m calling people brims. I just mean those, I don’t mean those who were in the church because I am in the church. I mean, those who hold to the doctrines of Brigham. I don’t like the church now doesn’t even hold to the doctrines of Brigham. So those who do are the ones I’m calling Brims, the F LDS, the fundamentalists and the pro polygamy Mormons are who I’m talking about with that. And so anyway, um, he again claims that Joseph Smith denied spiritual wifey and polygamy, but never denied a marriage. So I went into that before. Still show me a quote, show me where that happened. And then just like in the other one doesn’t even address the question of Children until the very last, very end when it happens to be asked him as a question. So I didn’t find it compelling. I’m sorry, I didn’t. And now we’ll get on to the Mormon discussions because that’s the media one. And that’s what I think we’re really here for. So there, ok, there is a lot here it was a 2.5 hour podcast. I’m already what? At an hour and a half. So I’m going to do my best to respond. I, I have just put my notes in order, gone through point by point by point. I think I’m going to have to do it in two episodes to really get into it fairly. And so I will say that because of all of what felt like to me the accusations, the attributing motives to me and other people, I know it was really frustrating to listen to, right? So you’re not the only ones experiencing cognitive dissonance and um some anger, I’m trying really hard not to attribute motives. I apologize if I do. But um but that, that I think is unfortunate and I think we need to do better in our dialogue. So and then um it did feel to me like a lot of circular reasoning, a lot of weak evidence. However, there were a couple of things that really took me back that were like, oh, I need to dig into that. Like if I’m really, you know, it’s easy to just kind of ignore the things that don’t, that don’t fit your lenses, I tried really hard not to do that. And so that’s what I want to spend the most time on. Actually, the things I really dug into are the things that I hadn’t dug into yet. So I’m excited to share them. I actually it’s fun to dig in because I found things that, that really were cool to find. So, again, the pattern held true for me, it continues to hold true that I see a lot of smoke. That’s, that was what I thought about Joseph. There’s so much smoke, there has to be fire. But I just end up when you’re getting close, you see a lot of smoke bombs, you know, you see a lot of shadows instead of camels. And so that’s, that’s what’s happened again. So, OK, both podcasts, I will say Straw Man, the question of 132 Providence. So I want to be brief on this because we’re already going so long. But they both claim that the issue is that we don’t have the original. That is not the issue at all. It’s a complete straw man. They both claim it’s one of the best documented revelations that we have and I will adamantly disagree with that for so many reasons. But first of all, let’s just say this, Joseph’s revelations, almost all of them were printed during his life. They were printed in the Times and seasons. They were included in the Book of Commandments or in the Doctrine and covenants. They weren’t hidden in a to be magically pulled out eight years after his death. They also didn’t require other sections to be taken out so that they could be added because they were so contradictory to everything else that Joseph taught they weren’t filled with these kinds of problems. Also, we so what we have no other source for it other than this little team of conspirators of the polygamy conspirators, right? It’s based completely on the credibility of the cons um polygamy conspirators, which I think is highly problematic. And so that’s um those are some of the things that we can talk about. But I think that claiming that section 132 has some of the best provenance of any of the revelations is an extremely weak claim. I am not convinced by that. And so um then they talked about um Clayton’s diaries. I already did an episode with John Hayek on that. I’m um I’m planning another episode um upcoming on Clayton himself that we’ll really talk about. So anyway, the question is, were Clayton’s diaries um like diaries he carried around. I think that word diaries is really confusing. I I want to go in today to a little bit of Joseph Smith’s diaries and I’ll talk a little more about William Clayton’s diaries. But in general, when you hear diaries don’t assume that it’s like the little book that they wrote in every night or carried around with them to write things in. That’s not what it meant, right?

[01:45:06] All of the diaries we claim we have of women are later reminiscences if they have any, they, they might have been diaries of their day to day in Utah. There are no diaries that exist any longer of their time in navoo that report anything having to with polygamy. So diary is a tricky word draft book, coffee book, we’re maybe getting a little bit closer. So, um anyway, OK, then both sides also point to similarities between section 132 and other sources like the law’s testimonies or um Clayton’s books, Clayton’s Diaries, right? And so let me restate just in case it wasn’t clear that isn’t surprising to me because I believe there was a revelation about eternal marriage that wasn’t pub published because it was meant to be held um private and sacred. You know, it was not meant to be published abroad. As Hiram said, that was read to the High Council. I also think there were things going around as they complete, continually tried to date, um to put down that had, that were said to be done and taught by Joseph Smith and that he was constantly denying. So it’s not at all surprising that these ideas show up, right? And so we can get in later to talk about motives of these different people. But I just want to say that’s not surprising to me. That’s exactly what like I, I think that makes the most sense of everything when I look at it. Ockham’s razor tells me that’s the most likely scenario until I see more evidence. That gives me a better scenario. That’s what I think it was. And so, um, anyway, they were obviously not afraid to change, um to change things to change revelations to change. You know, Brigham talked about his historical team getting everything to fit the new order of things. So I think that that’s what’s happening. Things were being done behind Joseph’s back during his life and without his authorization after his death, like, you know, it’s not, not very good. So anyway, I’ve already in another episode. Shared, well, I think my first conversation with Whitney Horning shared my thoughts about Fannie Elger. I um they just mentioned it briefly. So I’m just going to mention one thing here because they said it again. They bring it up in the 18 hundreds affair had zero sexual connotation. The word affair had nothing to do with sex. The 1828 dictionary, this is pretty basic research. The Webster 1828 dictionary is the dictionary that defines the words that would have as they would have been used at that time. Right? You can look up a fair, it has a very long entry. I showed it on one of my episodes. Very long entry. Not none of the many, many possibilities of that word have any sexual connotation. So what happened was the word scrape was used and then was crossed out an affair added not to make it more correct that it had a sexual connotation. But because scrape was too much of a slang word. And so they wanted to use a better word at least that’s one of the explains I’ve heard that makes more sense to me. Affair does not mean sex in the 18 hundreds. Can we set that out? We just need to accept that and move on and then we can talk about it. So, another thing that I want to say is that Emma was a strong woman. Emma spoke up to men. Emma voiced her opinion. Emma had already left her family and become fully estranged from her parents and most of her family she didn’t ever see again because she, um, you know, she, she had a mind of her own and was willing to express it. I don’t think that Emma would have put up with what we claim. Emma put up with. I do have my feelings about what happened with Fannie Alger, but I think it is not what is claimed definitely isn’t evidence of poly. I mean, the only thing you can do is just put these lenses on so thick that nothing has to make sense. All we need to know is Joseph was a sexual predator. So nothing else matters. We’re just looking for evidence of that everywhere. So anyway, I’m not going to go into that more right now. But that’s, that’s that part right now. Ok. So the happiness letter is the next thing that they bring up. And I’m actually, um, I went ahead and watched the episode, that Bill, that Bill real suggested that he did on the App of Happiness Letter. And I’m actually like chomping at the bit to do a response video to it. I think that’s going to be really fun. But in the meantime, so I don’t take too much time now. I highly recommend Rob Fathering Ham’s excellent video on Martha Brotherton and the Happiness Letter. And um I, I think it’s really good and um if you want to get a very compact understanding of this entire perspective, watch his first video. That’s I think it’s called something like um first polygamist Joseph or Brigham. And um and, and while you’re at it just watch, watch his videos, I think that they’re really good and since he’s already spelled that out so well, I’m not going to take time to do it here, but here is his list of the main problems he finds with the happiness letter that he discusses when

[01:50:04] I do my podcast on that I’ll be able to dig into some other things more specifically. So it will add to the body of knowledge because I have different things that I’m planning to address. So anything. Anyway, I think that’s pretty useful. That’s where I would recommend you go for an understanding of a different way to see the happiness letter that rings more true to me. And then um the next source they talk about is John C Bennett, right? And um some things to know about Bennett as a source in general and we all agree on this, right. He is a known pathological and very convincing liar. He was able to weasel his way in everywhere with anyone. He with everyone, he was able to, you know, get be a member of, wasn’t he a member of the first presidency as well as the mayor of Nauvoo and weasel his way into many women’s beds in Nauvoo. And um he was already a womanizer before he ever came here. So he is just problematic from top to bottom. The thing that’s interesting is a lot of what he did had a lot in common. I mean, he again, he had the same goals as um the other, the other side that wanted to have Joseph be a polygamist as well. So I kind of this is funny but I can’t help wonder if there was maybe some sort of collusion, you know, um They were, what, what Bennett was doing wasn’t all that far off from what many of the other elders were doing behind Joseph’s fact. So just like, I wonder about like, you know, my strange conspiracy brain just wonders if there happened to be conversations going on about, hey, I’ll do a podcast on this topic and you do a podcast on this topic because we have to get rid of the Joseph f um polygamy scenario. Oh And here are some sources you can use. Oh And by the way, you have, I have to say, but to me, I haven’t mean just, but like there are just a lot of crazy similarities that I wonder if there are ever conversations, I don’t know, maybe not. Same thing. I wonder if there ever were some kind of collaborations, I guess, is a better word here. But, um, anyway, I think that it’s interesting that he does have the initials and the wedding dates. That’s, I think as are the, um, not just some of the, some of the initials, the weddings with the person who performed the healing. I think that is interesting. Yeah, there’s, you know, I have to think about that hard but when I take this other complete body of evidence and compare it to this, I, it’s kind of like this, it’s like when you watch a magician on the stage, like saw their assistant in half, right? And then, um, and then she comes back out of the box and its whole from all of my experience. I know that women aren’t saw it in half and then in a, in boxes and put back together. So my brain starts going, I wonder how the magician did that? Not like, oh, my word, he’s magical and he just saw a woman in half, right? So I do have that bias. Now, I confess I have that bias now. So when I see something like these affidavits, I’m like, this seems way more likely to me any of these scenarios. So I’ll share a couple of them with you because I I would say that with, with this bias proving the Children is a lot harder, right? So what I actually think is the most likely case here is that John Bennett did seduce many women and was perhaps if not colluding, at least collaborating with many of the men. He had dirt on them, right? It’s like Epstein and Glen Maxwell, right? Like you’re gonna do what we want you to do because we’ve got dirt on you. I think that that is a far more likely scenario. They claim in the Mormon discussions that, that he used the initials so that perhaps he wouldn’t be sued. I think that’s ridiculous. It wasn’t the women who would sue, it was Joseph Smith who would sue and he had no problem naming him. Right. In fact, we do have cases when Joseph Smith sued over libel. And um I think that it’s that they just haven’t come up with any good explanation of why he just used the initials. I think it was to like, like send a message, you know, one way or the other. Like I’ve got your back, you’ve got mine or I’m going out you or whatever it would be. That seems possible to me, we, we have sources including Brigham Young that tell us that John Bennett was having an affair with Sarah Pratt. Right? And so there’s, there’s a lot going on there again. I’m not the ultimate expert on this. So if I get some, you know, if someone wants to add something, that’s great. I would like to study these things more. I’ve put a lot of, I, I think I’ve studied more than 99% of the people who were screaming at me that Joseph was a polygamist because I don’t consider studying, being, reading the books that people prepared. I consider it getting into the actual sources and really examining the evidence.

[01:54:36] So anyway, that’s what I think was the most likely explanation. I also think it’s not hard to see that when these later reminiscences were coming out. When the um the um storyline, the narrative was being crafted in Utah, they had full access to everything that John Bennett had published. It’s not that hard to make some of the details match. So we’ll um anyway, leave it there. I know that won’t be convincing to some of you. But like I said, you’ve got a lot bigger problems to solve on your side. And to me, I think it is pretty, the fact of how problematic Bennett is as a source should give everybody some concern who wants to rest their hat on him as evidence. So anyway, we’ll leave it there. But um Martha Brotherton, even though her story comes through Bennett, I do believe her story and it makes me so angry. I really like, oh, I just want to go to battle for Martha Brotherton. I hate what happened to her and I think it matters that we have the right perpetrators, right, that we accuse the right people. So again, it’s, it’s covered in Rob’s video. But I’ll just explain really quickly my thinking and a couple of things when you read through Martha Brotherton’s affidavit, a couple of things become very clear. She had never met Joseph Smith. She never seen Joseph Smith. She didn’t know who he was. There’s this really weird time crunch that seems to be happening this full court press. That’s almost like hurry, hurry decide. Maybe because they only had the free use of the store for that long until Joseph would get back from wherever. Maybe he was. This is what seems like the most likely scenario to me when I hear Joseph Smith, when I hear Martha Brotherton’s report of what Joseph Smith said, it does not sound like Joseph Smith. This is just a small thing and I don’t want people to make fun of it. I’m just throwing it out there because it’s the easiest one to explain. But so I have read through quite a bit and I’ve never heard Joseph Smith call anyone sis, right? He calls her sis and he’s kind of got this attitude. It’s weird. I think that Brigham and Heber had access to the store and there was a third collaborator who was pretending to be Joseph Smith. And yes, you can say that’s insane. That’s crazy. I think it makes perfect sense and it fits so well because it’s really hard to make sense of this one. I know we talk about the pattern and it fits into the pattern. But again, please consider that is circular reasoning. You believe the pattern exists. So you see the pattern because you know it exists. So you think that the pattern gives these things more credibility? I strongly disagree with you. And I think you should consider that level of circular reasoning. And if there are other things that would be better explanations, again, I’d like to dig into this more and I recommend Rob’s video, but I think it’s worth considering. It doesn’t convince me. I think that both Martha Brotherton and Joseph Smith were telling the truth. I think Martha Brotherton was telling the truth in her affidavit. And I think Joseph Smith was telling the truth when he was like, I didn’t do this. I cannot figure out why she’s saying I did this. I believe both of them because I think that there were other people causing problem. It’s like, you know, when there are those people that just cause problems and everyone’s kind of a victim of them because they sow all this dispute, they triangulate everyone, right? So anyway, it makes a lot of sense to me. And I think that for Martha Brotherton’s sake, we need to hold the right men accountable and not blame the man who I think was innocent. So anyway, Now this is one that I did dig into because it was one that threw me for a loop. So I’m super excited to share it with you. Now, the Melissa Lot Bible was the next issue they brought up. I hope everyone is aware that I’m going through systematically issue by issue, not skipping anything so that you can’t accuse me of cherry picking or proof texting. I really do want to cover each of these issues. So that’s, that’s what I’m trying to do. I just, I can’t elucidate all of it here. So I’m referring you to other sources on some of them, but I hadn’t seen anything done on the Melissa Lapp Bible and I was like, oh, that looks bad. So I dug into it and I’m super excited to share what I found. So for those, uh hopefully you guys that are watching this have watched the Mormon discussions. I’ll have it in the link below. If not, you’ll just get some more information about some of the things that the, that the um anti Joseph fights and will be the antagonists and the apologists, the anti Josephs and the brims argue on their side against us. So this is the family Bible of Melissa Lott’s family. She was the oldest daughter of Cornelius and Permelia lot. And um you’ll see, it’s really interesting. I, I dug into this a ton. So I’m gonna try and zoom it in. I’ll let you see at the top. It has the wedding, the initial wed when Cornelius and Permelia got married, my speculation that it’s easy to just assume this is that this was maybe a wedding gift and they recorded their

[01:59:38] marriage many years later when the next entry was made that says Cornelius Lot married to Permelia Darrow for time and eternity. September the 20th, 1843 by Hiram Smith, uh by President Hiram Smith with seal of President Joseph Smith. That’s where it gets really interesting because right after that, it says September the 20th C and P lot. Um oh Cornelius lot and Pamelia Lot gave their daughter Melissa to wife. And so that’s, that’s the damning evidence right there because they gave Melissa to wife that day, the day that they were sealed and it doesn’t have a groom listed. And then we have our narrative now of Joseph’s secretly polygamy so his name couldn’t be listed even in a family Bible because I guess that the Moers were going around opening people’s Bibles to find who if anyone was married to Joseph, you know, like we have Hebrew and um Brigham writing letters, we have William Clayton recording all of these things in his journal about his, his own self. And I, you know, we have all of these other things but their family Bible had to not have Joseph’s name in it is the, is the scenario that we have based on this secret narrative. And then it becomes even more damning because on the next um column at the top of it, you see, it says Melissa Smith enlists her next wedding. So those two pieces of evidence look really bad. And um I I was like, oh, that’s so interesting. What is going on there and sure enough you dig in and those camels sure turned into shadows. So we’re gonna let me, let me explain a couple of things. The first things I think that are useful to do when trying to get to the bottom of this story. Two things that I did is first actually look at the Bible do spend some time time doing some basic analysis of it, both of handwriting and dates and second spend, I don’t know, 30 minutes to an hour, maybe less researching the lot family on family search and all of a sudden a whole new picture emerges and it’s quite amusing like, wow, this was something else. So, ok, first, before we go into the rest of that, I want to fill us in on who Melissa Lott was. I realized I might be doing a disservice to the people who aren’t familiar with all of these arguments. And I haven’t watched those episodes because I’m just assuming people know what we’re talking about. So if you don’t, it’s ok, eventually you will and this will make more sense. But Melissa Lott claimed to be Joseph Smith’s wife, right? And um she’s a really important one because she testified at the Temple Lot case. She wrote an affidavit. She’s one of the few who, um, like outrightly claimed to have had sex with Joseph. And so she’s an interesting one. So a couple of things. So I’m also planning a future episode on another one of the testimonies of women but referring to the Temple Lot and to the other affidavits. Melissa’s testimony is just filled with problems. It’s actually kind of uh kind of amusing to read it. It’s just so um uh reading through, I like, I maybe I have my lenses on too big but reading through her temple lott affidavit should be enough to convince every one of the problems here. And um I think that the judge, he really was being kind the judge of the Temple Lot case. He is being kind when he says it perhaps would be uncharitable to say of these women that they have borne false testimony as to their connection with Joseph Smith. But in view of all the testimony and then he basically says, well, it is difficult to escape the conclusion is part of what he says. So um so yeah, II I, I’ve like Brian Hall talks about her in his video, Todd Compton talked about her in my interview and they both just kind of say we believe her. And I’m like, OK, I don’t and um I, I like, let’s discuss it, let’s talk about it, right? Let’s go through her testimony and see why you think she’s believable. So, an interesting thing is it was her that Joseph Smith the third, she was one when Joseph Smith the third came to Utah. Melissa lot was one that he stopped and talked to and they both gave very different reports of that meeting Joseph Smith. The third printed her his in the um true Saints Harald, I believe it was called at that time. And so Melissa lot came out with hers and sent it everywhere. And you know, and to me, it’s so clear, this story emerges of like, oh no, I have to fix this. And you know, that seems to be an ongoing theme that you have to get into the evidence more to see why I’m seeing that pattern, but it’s definitely a pattern that I am seeing. And so, um I think that the things that are interesting to me about this interview, there are many things that are interesting and the differences between them and I’ll let you guys read them on your own. But when Joseph asks, do you have any evidence that you were married to? My father? Melissa immediately goes and grabs the Bible and is like, look. And um that’s interesting to me, you know, that it’s not like what could be evidence, like what could possibly be evidence of marriage.

[02:04:44] Well, first a child, right? And then you know, any number of other things. But um but there’s a Bible and it’s a really strategic, helpful Bible to prove this. And so I, um I want to break this down a little bit because they talk in Mormon discussions about how, how important the things are that aren’t listed like the name of the groom. I agree with them that it’s very important to see the things that aren’t listed. So let’s look into a couple of those. Um, the first entry I already went over. Let me see. I’ve got to find my place again because I went out of order. But ok, so I think that that entry where they were sealed eternally could very well be legit. I have no idea. I think that if you examine it and look closely, you can see that Melissa where Melissa Lot is married right under that it’s clearly different. There are some basic things you can see the letters are a little bit closer together, but the most clear thing is the check out the essay and how different those are, right? So that entry was not made at the same time by the same hand. I think it’s pretty safe to say we go on from there. The entries get less and less detailed. The next one only says John Lott was married to Mary Fawcett, April the eighth. Um I had to go on family search to find the year because it’s not listed in the Bible. That’s really weird. It’s really weird to leave the year of the marriage off. I’m not sure what that’s about. And then there’s just one more in that column. Mary Lott was married to Abraham Loy, November the 12th, 1848 that one list the year. So we have so remember those dates are important, April the fifth and I looked up 1846 and then November the 12th, 1848 set. Then the top of the next column in a brand new and much nicer hand in a completely different style. Um That also completely perfectly matches the next entry as where it says Melissa Smith was married to Ira Willis May 13th, 1849. So, ok, a couple of things by Melissa’s own admission as well as everything that we very well know her own admission at the Temple Lot Trial. She was never known as Melissa Smith. She never went by that name. None of the supposed wives ever took Joseph’s last name. Now in Utah, in real polygamy, that’s very different. Even in Nauvoo when they married polygamous le, they took the name right? I I believe I’m not sure about Nauvoo. I better not speak. I I need to do that research, I’m realizing, but in Salt Lake they absolutely did in Utah, no polygamous wife ever went by sister Smith. The only sister Smith was Emma, right? So to name her sister Smith, Melissa Smith is really weird just already, but it gets more interesting. So let’s talk about the things that were recorded. Um There is Melissa Cornelius is lots Cornelius lots. Marriage to Elizabeth Durphy should be the next entry before the marriage of John. He took a second wife, Elizabeth Durphy, January 25th, 1846. So that should have been listed right after Melissa’s groom marriage. But um maybe it wasn’t something worth remembering. I think she was an older woman and they didn’t have any Children And you know, but, but that was apparently the marriage, but something far more important is also admitted, omitted and that, that should have also been included before John’s year marriage. So we have Melissa’s groom marriage, then John’s year marriage in between that we are missing Cornelius’s second marriage and we’re listing missing Melissa’s second marriage. That should be listed right there on February 8, 1846. So before John’s marriage, Melissa married, she became the seventh wife to the 47 year old John Milton Bernheisel. And so she was Melissa Bernheisel, very well established, very well known. She was married to John Bernheisel. We do have those records and so that wasn’t included in the Bible. That’s interesting. Right. We can completely skip over a marriage and then we fraudulently list Melissa Lot Bernheisel. You could choose either of those, list her as Melissa Smith, a name that she never would have used at all and certainly wouldn’t have used after her marriage to John Bernheisel. However, it is very interesting that this happened. I want to also point out that these all could have been added at any point. There’s no, like by the time Melissa Smith, that marriage is recorded that, you know, I mean, these other marriages could have been added at any time. We don’t know, but it’s fraudulent to claim. Look, the dates are listed. So we know it’s listed then because it’s really important to note what is missing, that really matters. But the thing I find interesting is like the potential reasons why this would have happened. Everything that I understand is that you had to be like there’s only one who hold the key, holds the keys, right? So they had power to seal and also the power to unseal as Brian Halls likes to say, so you had to get permission to get a divorce um in this time period from everything I have seen. So it’s really interesting to consider what might be going on here. I don’t know it. Todd Compton tells us that like Melissa’s father

[02:10:16] was holding out for um that there were some other quarters quarters people courting her that came to call and he was rude to them, brush them off because he was holding out for like bigger keys. And so that’s where John Bernheisel came in. I don’t, it’s hard to know how much of Todd Compton’s book is fiction or historical, you know, facts. It’s not very clear to me, but in any case, it was not a happy marriage she wanted out of it. And I can’t help but wonder if part of the bargain you can get out of this marriage and marry this other guy. You like if we do this addition to your family Bible, of course, purely speculative. I know I’m a big fat conspiracy theorist. So, you know, who knows? But it’s an interesting thing to consider. Why was this listed in the Bible? It looks to me like it was in a very intentional effort to plant evidence to create evidence that Melissa then knew to go immediately to get when she had to prove that she’d been married to Joseph Smith. Right? And so I think it’s interesting that she married um I A Willis the 13th of May 1849. They had many Children together and that’s, that’s what, that’s the story with that. So I um I chuck that one. I mean, if you guys want to keep it in the pile of evidence of Joseph’s polygamy, go ahead to me. It pretty clearly just swapped over to the pile, the growing the quickly growing pile of manufactured evidence. Ok. This is getting really long. So I’m going to skip over one, but I will do another video. I think I’m only going to cover maybe one or two more things and then I’ll have to save the rest for another video, but I really want to get into the deeds, the deeds are a really big one. And so, um, we’ll, yeah. Yeah, let’s, I, I know I should address Lucy Walker. I hate skipping over it, but we will get to it. Just, the deeds were just like the lot Bible. This was the other one that I dug into because I was like, whoa, how do I explain that? It’s, it’s really getting fun to dig into these things. I’m not getting enough sleep but, but I’m learning a lot. And so, um, ok, so the claim is that Joseph gave many deeded land to his wife or to his wives, in any case that the land deeded to women is evidence of his polygamy, right? That Joseph deeded land to women, therefore, they were his wives is how I interpret what they’re meaning by this. So, um, again, people hear this, how it’s explained and just take it as solid evidence and then come against those of us who don’t believe in Joseph’s polygamy. And they’re like, how can you deny this? There’s so much? Well, let’s dig into, let’s dig into this piece now, right? So I, I confess I did not go through every single lot, every single deed said lots. I think I’m still on Melissa lot. And um, every single deed would have taken me way too long. I stayed up past three o’clock in the morning, going into this. And so I, um, like I said, I’ve spent more time studying than I should have this last couple of days, but it actually was pretty fun. So, what I wanted to see is, you know, what is happening here? I wanted to get as much understanding of it as I could. I have not done anything like the comprehensive analysis that I would like to do because that would take a lot more time. But let me just tell you what I was able to see so far. First of all, there is way more land deeded to men than to women. I would say I didn’t count. It’s somewhere between 10 to 1 and 5150 to 1. Maybe even more men to women. That land is, lots are deeded to, right? And we don’t claim with all of those men that were deeded lots that there’s some, you know that they were adopted and were Joseph’s sons or anything like that. So, so I want to just set that off how this is like the polygamy lens. We already have accepted all of these other things. So now we’re just looking to find more evidence to back it up, right? So, um, then I, I, what I decided to do was to just look for the women and like I said, I searched one part of one of the records, but I found a giant list of women who were deeded property who never were claimed to be Joseph’s wives. So what I’m going to go over the list but this partial list I have so far. The thing I want to point out is you cannot find correlation here. You can’t say the women that were deed lots were Joseph Smith’s wives and Joseph Smith’s wives were needed lots. Right. It doesn’t work either way. We should be able to say, OK, all of the women that were his wives were the women who got lots and, and it should match up. It doesn’t at all. It, it’s kind of like, oh, we know that these women were living in Nauvoo. Therefore they were Joseph Smith’s wives, right? Like, like it, it just doesn’t match. It’s not a fit. And since they were Joseph Smith wives, they were living in Navoo. So that’s evidence that they were his wives, right? Like there were lots of women living in Navoo. So there were lots of women in these land deeds

[02:15:28] and we have these later claims about several of them. So, um let me go through the partial list I found so far going through it. There is land deeded to Sally Allred Mary Ann Price. Elizabeth Matthews. The two that I found that were claimed to be wives were Patty and Avia Sessions. Those were the only ones that I have found so far. And I do want to point out that at least is it Sylvia is we know that she lied. I’m sorry. I know that that’s a hard thing to say. She told her daughter Josephine that she, that, that Joseph was her father and I, I do not have much patience at all for the claim. Well, she didn’t know who the father was as if she was committing adultery and sleeping with both of these men and she didn’t tell her Joseph might be your father. She told her Joseph is your father and Joseph wasn’t her father. So we already, you know, like can kind of know that they’re not the most. Um They don’t have the best case to be wives because Josephine was the best case to be one of Joseph’s Children. Um Let’s see. I’ll go on Amanda H Hartson, Cynthia Durphy, Sarah Anne Billings, Roxana Sophia Billings, Marianne Bosley, Lavina Murphy, Elizabeth Matthews, Mary J and CL Smith. Julia M Smith, that’s Joseph’s and um Emma’s daughter, she was needed four lots. So what does that say about her? Right. I mean, come on and then um Sarah Foster, Janetta Richards, Harriet Parker, Lucy Smith, that’s Joseph’s mother, Polly Sherwood Elizabeth and Whitney by this time, um after researching of these women, because I had to research each of them and see who they were, how they were connected. Were they wives? Right? So that’s where I stopped because it says it says in my notes, it was after 3 a.m. But that is the point I wanted to make. First off, there’s not any kind of correlation. It is really ludicrous to use this in any way as evidence of marriage. And so, um, I think it’s more useful to investigate, to try to understand what might be going on on here. Right. What are these deeds about? Why were the deeds left to who they were and why were deeds left to women at all? Especially, I thought it was interesting because one of the panelists, um, pointed out repeatedly that women couldn’t hold property without their husband. As if I’m not even sure if that Panelist understood the point they were trying to make because the women who were Joseph’s supposed wives who were deeded property were not married to Joseph legally. So they couldn’t hold property legally. Like, like I don’t understand the point with that, that thing that was said frequently. I think it is interesting to try to understand why Joseph was dealing lots, especially to women. And as we get into it more, I think that it becomes, um, well, I don’t know, a possibility emerges that seems more plausible to me than ignoring all of the rest of this, not trying to understand or explain any of it and just going, oh, some of the women that were treated lots claim to be married to Joseph. So therefore, it’s evidence of Joseph’s polygamy. Like I just like that is, those are some thick polygamy lenses in my opinion. And so, um also I think that it’s pretty thick, like anti Joseph lenses to claim that these were some sort of shady deals. That’s the other thing that they’re saying. And I think that to look at, um, Joseph’s the, the work that Joseph did with the church to look at that as some sort of a money making scheme is just sadly lacking of, um, critical thought and information. For example, that Joseph was in bankruptcy court when he died, that all of they pointed this out in the podcast that all of the debts were listed to Joseph personally, which means that they would go on to Emma and Joseph the third, which they did and all of the assets were held by the church, which is just not a very financially prudent thing to do if your goal is to use the church to enrich yourself. Right. It’s not what L Ron Hubbard would do, for example. So I think anyway, let’s ok. Let’s get into this because I think the other thing that really did throw me for a loop were the land deeds to Emma. I, I was like, oh, yeah, I’ve seen like, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been aware of this, but I haven’t really dug in and considered and said what that’s going on there. And so that’s what I wanted to do. And I want to share and again, I’m not trying to convince anybody I’m trying to let you see what I see. And so that you can understand it a little bit better, right? Because so first of all, I was going to go into um the issues with the journals with what we call journals again, a tricky word because it implies something that is not the case with any of these records. But our, our entire interpretation of the land deeds in all of them to the women. But in particular, these given to Emma are all subject to the narrative created in my opinion by William Clayton and Willard Richards, mainly William Clayton.

[02:20:29] And so I think that that’s something to consider if we can recognize. OK, I, I, like I said, I was going to go through a bunch of the reasons that I don’t trust that, but I think we’re all probably exhausted. So I’m going to save that for another time and just tell you that I think that there are very good reasons to, to hold those with a lot of skepticism. So if we can step away and just look at the landing and consider what might be going on and then we can consider the two scenarios. One. Yeah, I mean, you know, all I can do is hypothesis by speculate about some other possibilities, but we can still say what’s more possible, what’s more plausible, right? And so, OK, the first thing, well, so for, for anyone who’s not cut up, um who hasn’t watched the other one, our claim is that on July 12th, 1843 that’s the day that Joseph got the, that he revealed. Section 132 Hyrum showed it to Emma. She ripped it up or burned it, I think. Right. And then there was all of this dealing. And then on that same day, Joseph deeded all of the unencumbered lots to Emma. And so, um, we’re going to look at that and then on the next day, well, we’ll get into that as well. The next day it says that in the journal has some other things listed, but it says that he spent the entire day with, with Emma. So our claim is that Emma was going to divorce him. I think I, if I understand it correctly because it’s not perfectly clear to me. But like in a desperate attempt to keep her from divorcing him, he gave her all the property. Is that what it is? Someone can clarify that for me because I think it’s basically just like, oh, and not really thought through as clearly. At least that I have understood. So that’s how I understand the issue. So I want to dig into it and see what happens if we take away Clayton’s claim of what happened on August 13th. Right? So, the first thing I think we should consider is that this is not the first time or the only time that Joseph deeded property to Emma, if you see right here there is a deed that is to Emma Smith on the 13th of June 1842. And, um, that’s really interesting. So we could look at that with our polygamy lenses and say, oh, you know, he must have married, he must have made her mad. And that set the precedent to give her property when she was mad at him because, well, we’ll, we’ll into that in a minute. But anyway, I, I think that if you dig into the records it’s a little bit, a different thing emerges right here. Right. So, um, Joseph’s journal for these days is a mess. It’s all a lot of blank days and a lot of days that don’t match up with other dates. But if you get into the Relief Society, no minutes, um, on June 9th, it says President Smith then said that he would give a lot of laughs to the society that the society may build houses for the poor. And so that’s interesting. It says that in the notes four days later, this deed is given to Emma who’s the president of the Relief Society, right? So I think that that explains that pretty neatly and, um, that, um, so we can dig in and see, oh, there could be innocent reasons for these things to be done, right? So, if we look now back to, well, a couple of points, I think I already just pointed out that it took four days to get that done, right? It was set on the ninth and it took until the 13th to get the deed which I think is in keeping. That’s actually pretty fast for like official, that kind of official work to be done to, to get a, a land deed. Right. And so, um, let’s go back to now, 1843 I agree that something was happening leading up to July 12th, 1843. The question is, what was it? And can we know? And, um, do we have any other information? And so anyway, this is, these are the records that we have for um that day in, in Joseph’s journal kept by Willard Richards that we call a journal, right? Says Wednesday, July 12th received a revelation in the office because in, in the office, in the presence of Hyrum Smith and William Clayton and then it leaves seven lines blank and then it says this pm George J Adams and David S Hollister returned from Springfield and then it says Gl Wiley called for an interview. So I’m gonna talk about Joseph’s Day this day, right? And um what, what he had time to accomplish on this day. So he’s having an interview in the morning with, I mean, he’s meeting in the morning and Hyrum is begging him to get that revelation according to William Clayton. So he reveals this long revelation. Has William Clayton read it back to him, approves it, right? They, and they’ve all and they’ve decided to do it. So that’s a, that’s quite a bit of time right there, right? And then Hiram takes the revelation, reads it to Emma, there’s that Hullabaloo. Right. And then Joseph would have to spend a lot of time talking to Emma working this out. I would think to come up with the resolution of land deeds will solve the problem. Somehow, somehow that fixes polygamy. I don’t, I don’t know how, or, or that she’s going to divorce him and he’s like, oh, you’re going to divorce me.

[02:25:26] Ok, then take all of the church property so that you can divorce me. I, I don’t understand that either. Right. And so, um, and then also anyone who has, you know, anyone who’s married, we’ve all had struggles to work out. But these things that are, I have not had anything even approaching the vicinity of this hard in my marriage. And yet still these conversations take sometimes days at least hours and hours. And so he had time to do all of these other things in his journal and then go have these hard conversations with Emma come up with the resolution that it would be land deeds, then still have time to go to the land deed office, I guess. Maybe it was just downstairs in the brick store wherever it was. But go find who they needed to do land deeds and have all of those. It’s, it’s, if you read the deed, it is complicated. They had to get into the book, figure out every lot, list it individually, right. And get that all signed sealed written up. They did that all in one day. That’s like, amazing. That’s amazing. And, um, and then it was the next day in the journal that it says, um, spent most of the day talking to Emma, I’ll have to find where that is. But it, it says Joseph did a couple of other things and then spent most of the, most of the time he spent talking to Emma. So they resolve it on, on the 12th, they didn’t really have time to talk. It was too busy of a day, but they came up with a resolution to the land deeds that’s done. And then the next day they spend talking all day and also keep in mind this is a polygamist man, right? Remember we’ve talked about the polygamist mindset. Uh So can, can you see why I have some questions here? Why I think that Clayton’s and Willard’s narrative might be dubious, right? Especially I’ve shown you the previous list of uh uh the, the record of altering records, right? And so I think that there might be something else going on here. So, oh, here it is. I um I am conversation with Emma most of the day is what it said the next day. So again, they had their long difficult conversation after the land deeds were done. I just, someone maybe you can help me understand. Maybe I’m kind of dense. I mean, I have been married for a long time but, but maybe there’s another way to view this that I don’t see. I’m just not, it’s not making a lot of sense to me. And so again, and the more you study of Emma and Joseph, like we have to get out of the mindset of the crazy Emma that pushed Eliza down the stairs and tried to poison Joseph and the crazy Joseph who had to slap Emma across the face to get her to stop screaming at him like this was not who these people were according to anything that anyone ever said about them. And so including Joseph Smith the third, who was 11 when his father died. You’re old enough at 11 to know if your parents were screaming at each other all the time. Right? But also look at Lucy’s State, what she said about Emma. Right? They, they weren’t these crazy people that Brigham painted them to be. I just really don’t think so. So, um, I think that another thing that is important to recognize is that there’s a critical difference between these two affidavits. The one done in 42 and the one done in 43. Um, the second one that’s done in 43 isn’t just to Emma. The wording is almost identical in the two deeds. Just the one in 43 is way longer because it’s not just one lot, it’s a lot of lots and lots of lots. And, um, so this is the wording, it says, um, the second deed doth hereby grant, bargain, sell, convey and confirm unto the said Emma Smith. Julia M Smith. Joseph Smith, Junior, Frederick G DJ Frederick GW Smith and Alexander Smith, their heirs and assigns forever against the and then at the end against the claims or the claim or claims of all and every person whomsoever do and will warrant and for ever defend by these presents in testimony. Whereof the said Joseph Smith party of the first part hath Hereunto set his hand and seal. So the first deed was only to Emma. The second one was to Emma and all of Emma’s and Joseph’s Children. That’s really interesting as well. So I think that I can only speculate, I can’t prove anything. But we do know as I said, the debts were in Joseph’s name, the properties were in the church’s name. We don’t know what my, what might have been happening, but we do know that there were false brethren. There was all of this rhetoric happening. There are people that had become enemies, people that had left the church, they already also had experienced the horrors of Missouri been chased off of their land. Had so many of the men killed at Hans Mill. I in this, it is easy for me to see here an effort to protect the women and the Children, an effort to try to make it so that if the men were killed or arrested, the women could hopefully keep their properties and not have them taken from them. I see a real effort to protect Emma and her Children. When I read these land deeds, I don’t see division and strife. I see unity and care from everything.

[02:30:52] I know if we take out and again, I’m not, don’t straw man to say that they say, don’t listen to anything after Joseph’s life. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying all we have is Clayton’s account of what happened here. And Willard’s, I think manufactured journal to try to back it up, right? If you look at the church history narrative that was put, it uses William Clay. I mean, it uses Willard Richard Richard’s journal, but then adds the entire revelation and pretends that was the original journal. So we know that they did this, right? So I that’s, I think a much better interpretation, especially when you consider it would take a while to get this la these land deeds prepared. It couldn’t have been done in a late afternoon as it was the only time that would have been available on this busy day. I don’t think it could have been prepared that quickly. I think that there had been maybe some warnings, some fear for Joseph’s life, some fear of what the brethren were doing. We know according you know, we know that there were things happening all around. So anyway, that’s my interpretation of this. And then I think the next day spent in conversation makes so much more sense when you’re trying to plan and decide what to do with these lots that you’ve been given and what to do in the, in different circumstances. So anyway, I’m going to move on. I had more to say on that, but it is getting, this is getting long and it is getting late. So, um I think that that is much more in keeping with also. Ok, I have to say it again. I keep saying it, but we need to come back to the polygamist mindset. A polygamous man does not deed all of his property to any of his wives, let alone his first wife. If he’s going to give any property away, it’s going to be to the woman he’s trying to woo or to his newest favorite wife like Brigham Young with Amelia’s Palace. Right? There are plenty of examples we can give Joseph’s pattern doesn’t fit, it doesn’t work for a polygamist man in any way. And so then I just want to point something else out about the different just to look at which is more plausible, right? This point of a polygamous mindset is really important. They would never allow a woman to have this much influence on them. So um here, here, here are just a few things for Brigham from Brigham that he taught for a man to follow a woman is in the sight of heaven disgraceful to the name of man. That’s um the complete discourses of Brigham Young volume three page 441. And here, here he says, I can show you wife where you where to put everything in your house. And then on the next page, the servants of God in any age have consented to follow a woman for a leader, either in a public or a family capacity. They have sunk beneath the standard that their organization fitted them for when a, when a people of God submit to that, that their priesthood is taken from them and they become as any other people, I shall humor the wife as far as I can consistently. And if you have any crying to do wife, you can do that along with your Children for I have none of that kind of business to do. Let our wives be the weaker vessels and the men be men and show the women by their superior abi ability that God gives husbands wisdom and ability to lead their wives into his presence. Getting a sense of what I’m talking about, right? Like, and this is part of why I don’t want Joseph blamed for Brigham’s crimes and sins. It is so clear to me what is happening. And I think it’s a big problem that we let Brigham off the hook when we attribute all of this to Joseph. And then don’t really look at Brigham because we claim that he’s just following in the foot steps. It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t make sense. We also know that Joseph really relied on Emma as I’ve already talked about. And that Brigham blamed Emma for Joseph’s death and blamed Joseph for listening too much to Emma. Right. They had a really different mindset, a really different paradigm. And that quote, I just read of Brigham’s. I want quick, quickly compare it to something that Joseph brought forth. Right? Jacob 231 and 32 for behold, I the Lord have seen the sorrow and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem. Yeah. And in all the lands of my people because of the wickedness and abomination of their husbands and I will not suffer saith the Lord of hosts that the cries of the fair daughters of this people which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem shall come up unto me against the men of my people. Saith the Lord of Hosts. There’s more I was going to read, but Joseph brought that forward. That is not, those are not the scriptures that a polygamous man would bring forward. And then I’m, I’m just, I’m too exhausted to cover every topic. It’s just too much. So I hope you can see I have gone as systematically as I can through them, not avoided any of them. And um I hope that I have at least given you an in a view, I hope that at the very least you can have a little more respect for people who have come to find the, the monogamy glasses to be a better fit.

[02:36:00] I am happy to continue to engage in, in, um, conversation. I’m happy to come and have a conversation with anyone. I wanted the chance to spell things out in a, um, more methodical way. It takes a lot of time as you can see. But, um, I want to really quickly, uh, well, so let me just say the rest of my list. What do I have? Leonard Soy, the High Council Minutes, the Laws and the expositors. Yeah, all of those issues. Um I, I want to address the rest of those. I just think it would be more prudent to do it a different time. Um I think maybe, yeah, I’ll save William Marks as well. There’s a really easy answer for William Marks. So anyway, that’s all I can fit for now because I think it’s really late and this has gone really long. I hope it has been useful. Please don’t judge the totality of the argument on this side by whatever I might lack in this one. presentation that I tried really hard to put together in a few days. It was a lot of work and I’m doing it by myself and I have a ton of kids. I hope so. Anyway, all of my excuses. I don’t mean that I just, I want to open a dialogue, not make myself an object of ridicule and I do feel that danger. So I want to address it. Um, I also want to say Bill, you, you would issued what sounded like a s a sincere invitation to engage with people who watched your episode and what you consider to be sort of a, you know, steel, steel case and still aren’t convinced and I’m, I’m not convinced and so I would love to continue to engage and hear more thoughts and, you know, that’s right. That’s what I think is valuable. I really do think when we engage with people who disagree with us, we find more truth. Usually being the underdog helps you be much more thorough in your research, right? Because you’ve got to knock down the the big to, you know, what everybody already knows to be true. And so that’s what hopefully we can gain here is all of us can learn more and learn more how to see what other people are seeing. I think it’s useful. So anyway, I’m going to just stop. And with this one last picture that I love, this is also from, from brain games and I just think it’s so good and right, this is so obvious. Of course, we can all see it. We don’t have the full picture, but we don’t need it to see what it says because our brains can fill in the rest. But I want to point out that this, we have half of this picture. We have way less than half of the picture of polygamy. We have just a little bit that we are trying to, to find. So we can’t be too quick to jump to conclusions. Let me play this little clip. So if this sentence doesn’t say jumping to conclusions, then what does it say? Let me reveal what’s there, you’ll see it. Our brain is really good at working with limited information to try to understand what might be out there. Of course, sometimes it makes mistakes. So again, that’s where I’m gonna leave it. I wanna thank all of you for staying tuned this long. I really appreciate it and I will see you next time.