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Section 132 claims that Isaac was a polygamist. We’ll investigate that claim and try to understand where it might have come from.
Scriptures used:
Genesis 23 – 27

Summary

In this episode, Michelle Stone takes a critical look at the claim in Doctrine & Covenants 132 that Isaac was a polygamist. She argues that this is a glaring factual error, as the Bible consistently portrays Isaac as monogamous. The discussion explores scriptural evidence, historical context, and the implications of this mistake in LDS doctrine.

Key Themes:

  1. Doctrine & Covenants 132 Claims Isaac Was a Polygamist
    • D&C 132:1 and 132:37 claim that God commanded Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob to practice polygamy.
    • Stone points out that there is no biblical evidence to support this claim.
    • She sees this as a serious credibility issue, raising questions about the accuracy of D&C 132.
  2. The Love Story of Isaac and Rebekah
    • Genesis 24 describes the detailed and romantic story of Isaac and Rebekah’s courtship.
    • The Bible never mentions another wife or concubine in Isaac’s life.
    • Stone argues that if Isaac were polygamous, it would completely change the narrative—akin to finding out that Mr. Darcy was already married while courting Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.
  3. The Bible’s Detailed Record of Family Lineages
    • The Bible is very meticulous in recording the wives and children of the patriarchs.
    • Abraham’s multiple wives (Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah) are all explicitly documented.
    • Isaac’s lineage, however, only includes Rebekah—further disproving the claim that he had additional wives.
  4. Misinterpretation of Keturah’s Role in Abraham’s Life
    • Some LDS polygamy apologists claim that Keturah was a plural wife of Abraham, proving polygamy was essential.
    • Stone debunks this, citing Genesis 25:1, which states that Abraham married Keturah after Sarah’s death.
    • She argues that using Keturah to justify polygamy defies logic and contradicts the Bible’s clear timeline.
  5. The False Assumption That Polygamy Was Necessary for the Abrahamic Covenant
    • LDS polygamist theology often teaches that polygamy was necessary to fulfill the promise of Abraham’s numerous descendants.
    • However, Isaac, with only one wife, was given the same promise (Genesis 26:4).
    • Stone argues that the idea of needing harems and turning men into “studs” and women into “breeders” completely distorts God’s actual intent.
  6. Why Does This Error in D&C 132 Matter?
    • Some may see this as a small issue, but Stone insists it’s a significant error that discredits the validity of D&C 132.
    • If Joseph Smith truly received this revelation from God, how could it contain such a blatant mistake?
    • She suggests that God does not make these kinds of errors, and this should prompt LDS members to question the authenticity of the revelation.
  7. Final Thoughts: Recognizing Scriptural Truths Over Tradition
    • Stone encourages listeners to critically evaluate whether they blindly accept LDS teachings or take the time to compare them with scripture.
    • She calls on the audience to reevaluate long-held beliefs about polygamy, as errors like this may indicate deeper theological issues.

Transcript

[00:00:01] Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy, where we explore the scriptural and theological case for for plural marriage. Thank you for joining us. Please remember to listen to these episodes in order, starting with number 1 and continuing on from there. My name is Michelle Stone, and this is episode 9 where we’ll quickly discuss. Isaac’s polygamy. Thank you for joining us as we take a deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon polygamy. One of the first problems we encounter in section 132 is its claim that Isaac is a polygamist. This claim is made in the very first verse, and then again in verse 37, which is also the verse that claims that Abraham’s and Jacob’s polygamy was commanded by God. Again, with zero scriptural evidence to support that claim and everything in the scriptural record to contradict it. So this may seem like a nitpicky point, but I think if we sit and think about it for a minute, we can see that it’s actually a pretty big deal. It is a glaring factual error that I think should give us pause. I want to restate that the exact verse that claims that Abraham’s and Jacob’s and Isaac’s polygamy were commanded by God. are the same verses that claim is the same verse that claims that Isaac was a polygamist. So really big claims in that verse that all completely contradict what the scriptures actually say. So, so. I think, like I said, some people might not think that this is a big deal. I think it’s a big deal and I think it’s worth at least addressing. So um since we did an episode on Abraham and we’re going to do an episode on Jacob, I thought that we should at least cover and do a small episode on Isaac. So, um. That’s what we’re going to talk about and. Let’s get into it, OK, so. Many people who just. Uh, who just assert that 132 is unquestionably revelation and thus cannot thus they claim that it must automatically be correct in everything that it says. They try to make the case that Isaac must have been a polygamist, and the Bible just didn’t record it in the same way that they claimed that God must in fact have commanded Abraham’s and Jacob’s polygamy, despite the Bible clearly saying otherwise. So let’s look at that possibility, OK. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are some of the central characters of the Old Testament narrative. More detail and attention is paid to their lives, their courtships, their marriages, and their posterity than practically anybody else. We are told, well, focusing just on Isaac, we are told of Isaac and Rebecca’s love story in intricate detail, and we follow the story close. We follow the story of their lives together. Genesis 24, it’s where where we’re gonna start, and it tells the beautiful story of Rebecca fulfilling the prayer of Abraham’s servant at the well, at the well and revealing herself to be the chosen bride of Isaac. I I just love this story. I love everything about this story. It’s so like seeing the servants amazement and joy and having the Lord answer his prayer so quickly and clearly like I can relate to that. I love that feeling and hearing him relate the miracle, the miraculous answer to Laban and Rebecca’s family, and then. Hearing Rebecca’s response, her Rebecca, just her goodness, her loveliness, her faith and trustful willingness to venture into the unknown in order to follow God and to meet this husband that she’s never, never seen. It’s just,

[00:04:12] it’s just beautiful. It makes us really, really love her, at least it makes me just love Rebecca and then. The poetically romantic first glances between Rebecca and Isaac are almost magical. I really think that this is practically the foundation of the entire romantic genre of um literature because it is so beautiful. So I want to read Genesis 24:63, well, starting in verse 63. Just listen to how it sets the stage. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the event time, at the eventide, and he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, the camels were coming, and Rebecca lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel, for she said unto the servant, What man is that this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master. Therefore she took a veil. And covered herself, and the servant told Isaac all things he had done, and Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent and took Rebecca, and he and she became his wife, and he loved her and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. It just how he lifts his eyes. She lifts his eyes in this romantic setting that it sets up. It is really, really lovely. I think it does almost read like a romance novel. And then just like with Abraham and Sarah, we are told the details of their lives together, their painful 20 years of infertility, the birth story of their twins, including descriptions of each baby, they unfortunate favoritism, each having one son that they loved. They’re plotting against each other. So with all of the detail that we are given and the The effort to impart this beautiful story to us, claiming that the small detail of another wife was left out of this just beautiful love and marriage story. It that seems to me like it would that it would be like. Romeo having another girlfriend while he’s courting Julia that Shakespeare just failed to include in the story or like saying that Mr. Darcy was already married while he was falling in love with Elizabeth and Jane Austen just failed to mention that. It just doesn’t make any sense. Why tell the story if there is this crucial like. Central part of it that would change all of it. Why tell the story if you’re going to leave that out? It, it isn’t the story anymore. So it just seems so far-fetched like this impossible claim. Why, why would we claim that? And in addition, in addition to that, as if we need more proof, which I don’t think we do, the biblical record goes to great lengths to painstakingly record. The members of these families, these patriarchal families, even those that are excluded from the government from the covenant. So we are told in depth about Abraham’s wives, and it carefully lists all of his children, even including the children he had with Katura, the wife slash concubine, she’s called both that he married after Sarah’s death. OK, so. I guess I need to take a quick little detour here away from our subject of Isaac and the biblical record and include this as an aside, because um I’ve been accused of omitting Katura to, I guess, try to, you know,

[00:07:50] to try to bolster the claim that Abraham wasn’t a polygamist, and I, I honestly just didn’t even think of including Katura because it’s such a strange claim. So Polygamist apologists often claimed that Kara was another plural wife of Abraham and use her to bolster their claims that Abraham was a polygamist, that he had three wives, um, Sarah, Hagar, and Kara all at the same time. So I I just cannot understand this claim. It utterly defies logic and the very clear biblical records. So we’re going to go into that really quick. I know that we’re focusing on Isaac, so forgive me for going into Abraham, but I think that this should be addressed. So Sarah’s death is very clearly, we are told of Sarah’s death in 232. It leaves nothing in the question. It says, and Sarah died in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah to weep for her. I’m Doing a little ellipses for some of the harder to pronounced locations that aren’t pertinent to the story. So the last, OK, so that’s verse 2 of chapter 23. This, this part of the story at least is given chronologically. So the next chapter, the very last verse of the next chapter is the one we just read where Isaac mourns for his mother’s death and his and his heart is comforted when he is when he has Rebecca as his wife. So chapter 23. Sarah dies and Isaac mourns her death. The end of chapter 24, Isaac, or did I say Abraham, Abraham mourns her death. The end of the next chapter, Isaac is still mourning her death until he is finally comforted through Rebecca. And then the first verse of the next chapter, chapter 25, says, then again, Abraham took a wife and her name was Katura. I don’t know how it could be more plain that Sarah died. They mourn her death, and then Isaac remarried another wife, concubine Kaurra, with whom he had children. So, um, anyway, so I, I can’t understand how that claim is made. It it seems to me that when people argue that it either is just out of complete ignorance or out of dishonesty. So It’s, it’s disappointing that that keeps coming up, but there I have addressed it, so hopefully we can leave that to rest. And now we can get back to the subject of this episode, which is Isaac, and we are discussing whether it’s reasonable to think that Isaac was a polygamist, and that was just not included in the biblical record. So again, we’re going over the inclusion of all of the posterity of Abraham and how much detail we’re given about all of the families that come from him. So, and this includes the families even that are excluded from the covenant. So um we have, so Isaac’s older disowned non-covenant brother Ishmael, we are given intricate details of his family, so we only know a little bit about his wife from Genesis 21:21. We know that she was an Egyptian like his mother and that his mother Hagar chose her for him. And we are told the names of each of his sons. So Genesis 25:12 starts. Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, who Hagar the Egyptian,

[00:11:14] Sarah’s handmaid bear unto Abraham. And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael by their names according to their generations. The first born of Ishmael, Nebajoth and Kadar, and Adbel and Mibsam and Mishma and Duma and Masa, Hadar and Tema Jitter. Affish and Ketama. These are the sons of Ishmael, and the, and these are their names by their towns and by their castles, 12 princes according to their nations. So as an aside, it is fascinating and intriguing to me that Ishmael, like Jacob, was also the father of 12 sons who were each the father of a nation. I think that that is probably really important. So in any case, immediately after the generations of Ishmael are given, we are given a parallel account of Isaac’s family, which begins the exact same way. So verse 19, and these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son. Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebecca to wife. The sister to Laban the Syrian and Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren, and the Lord was entreated of him and Rebecca, his wife, conceived, and then it goes on to tell us that in-depth story of Rebecca’s pregnancy and birth, her difficult pregnancy and then the birth of her of her twins. And then it goes on with the trading of the birthright for right for the mess of pottage, Rebecca’s and Jacob’s deception of the aged aged Isaac and the stolen blessing, then Jacob fleeing Esau’s wrath and and the rest of the story. It gives all of this in-depth description of Isaac’s posterity in answer to saying this is Isaac’s posterity and never anywhere mentions any other wife or child. Even, even in death, Genesis 49:31 makes it even more clear because it says that Isaac is buried with his wife Rebecca. They are buried together as a couple, the two of them, um, and, and there’s no mention anywhere of another possible wife. So it seems as clear as it can be that Isaac had one wife, Rebecca, and two sons, Isa and Jacob. Now, OK, I, I just, I’m worried that maybe I have misspoken and said wrong names or wrong words. I am. I’m unfortunately very sleep deprived today, so if I have made mistakes, please listen to, I sometimes tell my kids listen to what I mean, not what I say, and I apologize if I have missed misstated things. If I catch any, I’ll put them in the notes and clarify if it’s anything that was important. But um, OK, so this is, this is pretty important and a pretty big deal and and extremely clear. It is, it just seems ludicrous to claim, no, Isaac was a polygamist. Based on what? How can we make that claim? And so, um, so I think the record is extremely clear that Isaac was a monogamist, had one wife, and this is interesting because again, the purpose we are given or the one of the central justifications that the early church leaders made about the necessity of polygamy is that it was to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant that was that that we are included in and And that is just, again, that seems to just expose a massive misunderstanding of what the scriptures actually say because Isaac was given the same promise

[00:14:47] as Abraham of infinite posterity. Genesis 26:4 says, and I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven. So Isaac with his one wife and two sons, but one covenant birthright son was given the same promise that Abraham was given, and in both cases it was very clearly meant to be fulfilled through one child and with one wife. The idea that we somehow need to, you know, turn our societies into, I, I don’t know, and that we need to have harems to fulfill this commandment of God, that we need to turn our men into Studs and our women into breeders like, like it just is so strange cause that is not at all what God did or what God meant. So, um, so again, I think that the case of Isaac receiving these problems, these promises exposes that that isn’t really what God was trying to get us to understand from them, from these covenantal promises and blessings. So, um, so I hope that like, That it that this is clear. I, I, I, I know that this is a little bit of a strange topic, but like I said, since we covered Abraham, we’re going to cover Jacob, I thought we should at least cover Isaac, and, and I do acknowledge that some people might think that this is nitpicking or just not a big deal, but, well, first of all, this is definitely not one of the main or central problems with 132. This is not the reason to hold it in. You know, and to somewhat question, what is happening with 132. It’s not at all the central reason, but I do think it it’s a mistake to just ignore this. It’s a, it’s a very glaring issue that we should at least acknowledge and pay attention to. Everyone can decide for themselves what it means, whether it’s important or how important it is, but um. I, I happen to think it matters because. It’s a big mistake. And so I tried to think for quite a while, like I tried to understand how this could happen. People who are very familiar with the Bible, how could they claim that Isaac was a polygamist, especially if the goal is to try to prove the validity of polygamy through the biblical record? I, I just couldn’t understand how they would make such a big mistake and um. But as I’ve thought about it more, I’ve, I’ve become a little bit more understanding of how they could just have assumed that Isaac, like his father and his son, must have just been a polygamist cause I think of all of the things that I have just known forever that I always knew that have actually proven to be wrong. So just, just to help us all understand how this could happen, I want to share a couple of these and maybe you guys can think of some for your lives, but um. Here are just a couple of examples. So I only learned after I was already an adult that cleanliness is next to the godliness is actually not scriptural, is not in the Bible. I always thought that that was a scripture. Um, same with moderation in all things, which is actually Like, kind of contrary to scripture in a lot of ways. It’s not scriptural at all, and I thought that they both were. Um, OK, we probably all have funny stories. I’ll share one of mine from when I was a child. I,

[00:18:08] I still remember thinking that heavenly Father’s middle name was Wichardton because to me it just sounded like a perfectly fine old man name. And I had often heard people begin their prayers, our Father, which art in heaven, so I just thought that was his middle name. Funny assumptions that we just make, right? Um, 01 that I just learned about last year that blew me away was I always thought that the lion shall lay down with the lamb is scriptural, that that is in scriptures, and it wasn’t until last year that I was looking that up. I couldn’t find it that I learned. That it’s not, that is not in the scriptures, I think what it comes from is Isaiah 11:6. But listen how different this is, and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and the little child shall lead them. That’s as close as it gets to our beloved saying with all of the artwork that we have everywhere of the lion shall lay down with the lamb. There are so many more examples we could get into and discuss, like um when I was prepping for a previous episode, I learned that Abrahamic test, the words or the concept of an Abrahamic test are not anywhere in scripture and in fact are found nowhere other than in Mormonism and stand and come directly from this issue of polygamy. That was amazing to me. I didn’t know that and just like I always just knew that polygamy was of God and was necessary for our exaltation and the law of Zaid and the celestial kingdom like. There are lots of things we can just know until we get in and go, 00, maybe not so, so, so I can understand how they just assumed that Isaac was a polygamist. That seems a very reasonable mistake for anybody to make, but I know that God does not make this kind of mistake. God bears with us in all of our our errors and all of our mistakes, but God doesn’t make. Doesn’t make these kind of mistakes. I’ve looked and I haven’t found anywhere else in in Scripture that a revelation from God or a teaching of God airs like this about what the scriptures say. Um, again, there are times that there is contradiction, right? And you have to go to the Lord and say, OK, show me the synthesis cause these seem to be contrary, but that this, this is a different thing, um. Well, well, let’s look. So talking about if there are other errors. I, I’ve looked up quite a few, and every time Jesus says it is written, it is in fact written. You can go back and find the exact scriptures that Jesus is quoting or referring to. Um, when the Book of Mormon or the revelations recorded in the doctrine and covenants harken back to scriptures or people, symbols or images from the Bible. They, they enrich, they enlighten, they add to the understanding we have from that previous scripture. They don’t simply contradict it in irrational ways with no support or explanation given and no additional understanding imparted. That I can’t find another case where that happens, but that is what happens with section 132. There are errors in it that are substantial and I think important for us to recognize and acknowledge. I can’t help I. I have wondered, I, I, I feel just a little bit of wondering if maybe God allowed these errors to be so clear and prominent to kind of give us additional bread crumbs to help us discern truth from error. I think that God

[00:21:57] often does that. So I’ve been thankful that there are these errors in it because it just gives us an easier way to see, 00, what’s going on there, right? And it gives us the opportunity to have our minds opened and to begin to seek and to ask questions. And so, So this is, we’re going to end this episode here. It’s just a short one, but I do just want to say that even if people want to just claim that this is a small issue, and even if you think I’m making a mountain out of a mole molehill, and we should just brush past and ignore or excuse away the fact that 132 erroneously claims that Isaac was a polygamist. I think that that is a mistake. I think it is clear that we cannot with any credibility pretend that the biblical record, which again, Joseph Smith had ample time and opportunity to correct if it was insufficient. We can’t just pretend that the biblical record record somehow admitted the fact that Isaac was a polygamist, given all that it tells us about him. So, um, I welcome your thoughts. I would love to know how, how you interpret this, what it means to you. Do you think it’s a big deal? Do you think that it’s not a big deal? I would love to know what you guys think. Again, I can very easily understand how anybody could make this mistake, but I do not believe that God would make this mistake, and I think that that is something that we should pay attention to. So anyway, thank you for joining us for this mini episode. Um, hopefully next time we will discuss Jacob’s polygamy. Again, I am Michelle Stone, and this is 132, 132 problems.