86: The History is Never Settled w/ John Hamer | 132 Problems

I’m so thankful that John Hamer, a long-time leading voice on Joseph’s polygamy was willing to sit down with me to talk about the evidence. I hope conversations like these can continue to happen, and can continue to move us all closer to truth.

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Links:
[0:01:30] John Hamer: Joseph Smith and Polygamy

John Hamer: Joseph Smith III’s Unpragmatic Choice on Polygamy

[0:55:47] Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy, by Richard and Pamela Price (read for free online)

[1:06:50] Joseph Smith original journal entry 5 October 1843 (“No man shall have but one wife.”)

Revisions and additions to journal entry 5 October 1843

Revised text of journal entry 5 October 1843

[2:24:20] The Contributor (first mention of Whitney “revelation”)

[2:29:27] Joseph Smith letter to the Whitneys

[1:46:38] October 1842 Times and Seasons

[1:47:18] The Voice of Innocence, read by Emma Smith to the women of Nauvoo, March 1844

[2:27:08] Evaluation of 1842 Whitney “Revelation” by Rob Fotheringham

[3:17:30] Toronto Centre Place

Transcript:

[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy. I am so excited to bring you this conversation I was able to have in this episode. This is another one where I invited someone on who does not see eye to eye with me. But I thought that this was a great conversation. I’m so happy that John Hamer agreed to come on and talk to me. I’m really happy with how the conversation went and with how it ended. I always love when there are good feelings afterward. And I think we accomplished that in this discussion. So I’ll be really um eager to hear people’s thoughts after listening to this another long episode. But those of you who have been with me for a while, know, I always do recommend listening to episodes in order from the beginning. So you can understand the journey that we’ve been on and the things that we’ve already covered for those who are here for the first time. Welcome. Feel free to start here as well. And as always, I want to thank those who have been so generous and helpful to donate to this podcast. And I would invite anybody else too as well. If you feel so inclined and able, I really appreciate it. So, thank you so much for being here as we take this deep dive into the murky waters of Joseph’s Polygamy. Welcome to this episode. I am actually really excited to have this conversation with my new friend John Hamer who I’m just meeting for the first time and um uh a listener, I think actually a critical listener sent me one of John’s recent um presentations and lectures that he gave sort of to challenge me. And I found it very insightful to watch and interesting. And I reached out to John and asked if he’d be willing to come talk to me about it. And thank you so much John for being willing to say yes, that was really impressive to me. I always like when people are willing to um have conversations and kind of back up their words. So I appreciated that. So a quick introduction, John John Hamer. Um he has a very extensive resume in the community, Christ and the broader Mormon. And I would say probably post Mormon community. That’s where I’ve seen you the most. John. Um He has a very interesting religious story that I’m really looking forward to finding out more about. He was raised L DS but began doubting the church and left as a teen. And in what seems to me a fascinating turn of events 10 years ago or so, um joined the community of Christ that, that used to be the RL DS church now, the community of Christ. And he’s been serving, it seems very faithfully in that church. He’s now a 70 he’s the pastor, which I believe is similar to a bishop in our tradition. He’s the pastor of the church Toronto congregation and also I believe has a very large online ministry if I understood that correctly, John. And um and I, I will not be able to include everything, but I know that he writes and edits books. He speaks often, he blogs, he’s makes maps, he’s a photographer, he studies history. He runs organizations. He gives many online presentations and I really did appreciate your um presentation on schisms and Mormonism. I know there have been many others that you’ve done, but he has a lot of information and lucky for us, he also comes on podcasts. So welcome John Hamer. Thank you so much for being

[03:25] John Hamer: here. Thank you for that introduction. I’m happy to be here. Good. Well, I really appreciate it.

[03:33] Michelle: Thank you. And um I wanted us to spend a little bit of time. Maybe I, I know we have so much to get into so much to talk about. I have sent your presentation to my listeners. So hopefully, some of them already have gained um that information, the two presentations I watched on Joseph Joseph’s Polygamy and on Joseph Smith the third. So, so hopefully they should be up to date on some of those um some of those discussion points and anyone that is watching, if you would like to um pause here and go ahead and watch John’s presentations first, feel free to do that. They’re linked in the description box and then you will be able to come back and be a little more informed about the discussion, not necessary. But also, I think as we go through John, if we’re able to refer to that, I can give time stamps so people can go watch the portion that we’re talking about as well. So um so anyway, I’m I’m really happy to be able to talk to you. So I know we can’t spend long on it because we have so much to discuss. But would you be willing to share a little bit of your faith journey? I just find that fascinating what um specifically, I guess you can share whatever you’d like, but I’d like to know what reached back out to you and drew you to the community of Christ and kind of how your process has gone.

[04:46] John Hamer: Um So I uh like you say, I have a long roots in the tradition. So my ancestors joined uh back uh in 1832 1833 the winter of that and moved to Kirtland and helped build the Kirtland Temple. So we’ve had that whole long legacy and I grew up Mormon. Um but uh became a doubting teenager over um, about a bunch of the different faith claims. And so things like historicity of the book of Abraham Book of Mormon and that sort of thing. But actually the, uh, breaking point for me was, uh, uh, sexism in the church. So I just did not think that, um, uh, it, I didn’t agree with the position that only men should be in priest and that women shouldn’t be able to share their giftedness in that same way. Uh And so was that back in

[05:40] Michelle: the seventies?

[05:42] John Hamer: Yeah. Well, I mean, I’m not that old,

[05:46] Michelle: I’m sorry, you were born in

[05:51] John Hamer: the seventies. I was born in 1970. So, yeah. So, no, I was definitely an active L DS in the seventies. I left when I became an adult. And so that was uh in, in 88. It’s all right.

[06:01] Michelle: Ok. I just, I just was thinking how progressive you were already, that’s very forward thinking for a kid, a Mormon kid in the Midwest to be aware of that. That’s,

[06:11] John Hamer: well, maybe so. I, I don’t know, I feel like this was also uh this was a time, so the seventies was a time when I was growing up, it was a time when the Equal Rights Amendment was around. And uh and so definitely, um we were, I, I think we were very much in favor of all, all of that kind of equality. And so I was very uncomfortable as a child with the um uh the racist exclusion policy, you know, in terms of priesthood in the temple and all that sort of thing. Um And I was also, I was very comfortable even though that P I was happy that that was lifted and uh when I was a child again, but as a teenager going to seminary, um I was nevertheless taught uh by our seminary teachers, the same kind of um you know, racist preexistence doctrine or whatever as doctrine, it’s not necessarily doctrine, but whatever the, the law that went behind that. And so I was also um turned off by that in terms of uh being in the church. And so ultimately, that’s what just kind of led me to leave. I was uh um attracted al already into history. And so, um I went off and pursued my graduate studies in the University of Michigan. Uh and just left my entire Mormon identity behind. I started focusing on medieval history, but also ancient and classical history. And um and it was only much later um that I came back and found the movement when I started doing uh some of my own family history. And so, like I say, since my family history is all tied up with the restoration, um I actually went back and re explored uh Mormon history. So I had only been raised as a kid reading L DS history manuals and so forth things that had been approved by the church and uh, the church had a policy very much. The L DS church had a policy at that time of, uh, a lot of whitewashing and denying of its history and the manuals were made to be especially boring. And so I just assumed that, uh Mormon history was just intensely boring. And so I went to, um,

[08:23] Michelle: I mean, that sad, I think I probably felt the same way. That’s tragic.

[08:28] John Hamer: It was tragic, you know. And so, I mean, I love, here’s a kid who loves, loves history, you know. And so, and I, and I was having the struggles over my faith and I tried to get into it through the history. And so I went to Navoo when I was 13 and it was just an amazing for me to experience this place where, you know, my ancestors had lived where they had, you know, their house and all this kind of thing as they were trying to build like a perfect society and community. And, you know, they, I, I dreamed of wanting to, I had, I had, when I was on my paper out, I had dreams of how I could create, like how we could make a replica Nabu temple and put it back, you know, and get it rebuilt, you know. So how exciting when I actually did have a replica Nabu temple got built eventually. And um and yet, and yet, and I went home and I built Nabu out of Legos So, you know, in other words, I have like my entire, you know, this entire giant uh city of Nabu at like, because I was so interested in that. But unfortunately, um again, I couldn’t find anything to sink my teeth into the um the only thing out of uh the church history uh that I remember being remotely interested in. Uh and I can even remember when from early morning seminary is uh the one lesson where they actually mentioned that not everybody went west that there were these other churches, there were the strang its and these other groups. And that, and I was like, wow, that’s interesting. What, what is that about? You know? And so uh it was, when then I started doing that family history, I started going around uh the Midwest and visiting church history site sites. That’s when I really started to encounter all the smaller churches. And it was on my 30th birthday when I went to the Kirtland Temple for the very first time that I met members of community of Christ. And so then, um from that, I started also getting involved in the um church history community. And so I started uh uh uh attending the Mormon History Association meetings and the John Whitmer Historical Association meetings. Uh And I also because like you mentioned, I’m a uh have a background in history and also in um map making. I uh very early on uh did a project where I mapped all of the, um, settlement of Caldwell County, which was the latter day Saint County in Missouri at the time of the 1838 Marvin Missouri War. And so I showed up to my first JWH a, um, with a map of that that was like 7 ft long that showed every single piece of property that everybody owned. And so all of these, um, historians whose books I had read, you know, uh like Steve le swe the guy who wrote, you know, the 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, um like Jan Ships, you know, like, uh you know, all of these other just great historians who were there, they’re all like, who’s this guy who’s this guy?

[11:16] Michelle: Yeah, you just illustrated their, their work. They got to see it in.

[11:21] John Hamer: And so, and so that was nice for me because I had a nice foray into it right away. And so, um at that very first conference, even uh Jan Ship said, uh to me, you know, I am the incoming president of this association and I would love for you to serve on my, my program committee. And that just kind of brought me directly into uh John Whitmer, uh which is the community of Christ version of the Mormon History Association. And within a couple of years, uh my husband and I, Mike uh were made the directors of the Association and over time, the directors of it. And then, um and later when we retired from that and passed that on, I became the president of the association, but usually it’s an annual historian is the president each year elected annually. And, um, um, anyway, in the, in the course of that, I got to know members of community of Christ very well. And over time, uh at first II, I felt that uh the, the church had made all of these changes that were the kinds of things that Post Mormons are or liberal Mormons even also are constantly complaining about their, the L DS church. And I sort of was kind of listening to them. The internet had just barely started and, and I was uh meeting other former Mormons or inactive Mormons, Post Mormons or liberal Mormons on, on bulletin boards and things like that. And uh and so I was kind of always kind of saying you guys want all these things and this church over here has all these things. Uh maybe, maybe some of you should start joining this other church because it’s already done all the things that you want and your church is never going to do those things no matter how much uh the, the liberal Mormon um fever dream is that it’s just around the corner that all, all, you know, women’s ordination, all these things are gonna happen, they’re not going to happen. And uh and I’m sorry to say that I said that all the way back when I left the church and, you know. You know.

[13:20] Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don’t want, I don’t want to alienate. I mean, I, I’m, I’m up in the air about what should happen, what shouldn’t happen because I’m an active member. But I, but I hear you, I know that a lot of people do. A lot of people do leave the L DS church and go to the community of Christ, seeing it as a good next step. I think that that’s quite common

[13:41] John Hamer: and that’s what I tried to get people to have that as an idea. Right. So it really was hardly an idea 20 years ago when I started um promoting that among uh liberal Mormons. And so that’s been

[13:54] Michelle: you, that’s been you. That’s made that,

[13:58] John Hamer: that bridge. It’s not only me, but I’ve been certainly one of the people who pioneered that. So I kind of like to say that at a certain point. Um You know, there was a bunch of, let’s say liberal, um Americans who say if so and such and such happens, gets elected president again or something like that. I’m moving to Canada, you know, and, and Americans say that all

[14:18] Michelle: the time I was there. I couldn’t see either way. I could stay with either candidate.

[14:24] John Hamer: Yeah, exactly. So actually it happens both ways. I said liberal, but actually people say they’re moving to Canada either way. So one way or the other. And uh and in this particular case, then we started getting that to the point. Well, you know, people now got to say you started saying, well, if this is this the November policy, I’m joining the community of Christ or something like that, right? And so that became kind of a uh an awareness that is now made I think kind of there and that has now started happening. So there’s actually, yes, lots and lots of um wonderful um member, former members of the L DS church uh have all joined community of Christ. And I’m very happy with what they’re doing and how they’re able to be doing. Um uh having their, having their voice heard, they’re empowered, they’re able to do ministry that they just wouldn’t be welcome in the L DS church because the L DS church is so um intensely programmed. Uh you know, so that everybody is on the same page, you have your manuals, you’re supposed to be um you know, doing this particular thing on this particular Sunday and everybody all around the world has the same formula and that kind of a thing which is AAA way to do a church. And so give you grace is a very different way to do a church, you know, so the kind of uh pre uh correlation style latter day saints where uh essentially the individual congregations like this is my congregation here. I’m coming to you from the uh the church in downtown Toronto, Toronto Center place of the Toronto congregation. And we are, you know, really free and at liberty to do all kinds of stuff. Uh as a, as a congregation. Um that is just, it just would be inconceivable for the L DS church. So for example, we are a um uh incorporated as a charity. It is a, it is a subordinate charity to the, the national Church in Canada. But as a charity, we’re able to do all kinds of our own, you know, our own things, our own budget, elect our own officers, our own priorities, um deciding what we’re, what we’re going to focus on and so forth. So for example, as you mentioned, one of our major programs has been to uh have an online ministry which is, has now become the community of Christ’s largest online ministry.

[16:38] Michelle: OK. OK. Is that center point? Is it, is it center point that center place, I’m sorry, center place just like in the,

[16:48] John Hamer: in the revelation. Uh you know, the place of the city of Zion is, you know, at a spot in, in independence, not, you know, very close to the border or whatever. And the, and the the spot for the temple is that, you know, near the center place or whatever, this is kind of, you know, that that particular revelation from the DNC. So we’re playing off of that when we named, when we named our building here in downtown Toronto, the center place for the Toronto congregation.

[17:13] Michelle: OK. OK. That’s nice. OK. So I, I want, I don’t want to spend too much time on all of this, but I am, I did a um a discussion with a just lovely couple from the restoration branches of the um that broke off from the RL DS church. And um and then I got a little bit of pushback from some members of community of Christ based on. So I, so I wanted to be do a fair representation of the community of Christ. So let me just ask you a few questions about the community of Christ. My understanding and you can tell me if that’s accurate. So my understanding is, is there’s not, you know, there’s kind of a fine line like, like you said, the L DS church is very much um what’s the, I can’t think of the word like franchised in a way like it’s very coordinate, we all do the same things, you know, and then there’s a spectrum and it seems like the community of Christ is very much on the other side of the spectrum where there aren’t even standardized beliefs and ideas. Like it seems that you can, you know, like some people in the community of Christ do hold the book of Mormon to be the word of God and uh and scripture and other people very much do not. And some people hold Joseph Smith to have been a prophet and some hold him to have been, maybe it seems to me a larger portion hold him to be, have been a bit of a Charlatan more than that. Am I understanding that correctly? Like there’s a broad range of beliefs.

[18:33] John Hamer: So, so we’re non creedle, which means that we don’t have a, um, you don’t have to in order to join the church, say, um, uh, like the, for example, the nicene creed, I believe in one God in three parts and so forth, all that kind of thing. Uh And so that, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t uphold a set of basic beliefs. So community of Christ as a church has uh upholds a set of it even called the basic beliefs. And it also has other other um we also uphold other documents that are sort of like that. And so those include things like our mission initiatives. So we all share uh five mission initiatives and we have nine enduring principles, enduring principles of the restored Gospel. Um But we are not, we’re, we’re especially not legalistic and so when literal. And so in a lot of these cases, um we are interpreting both in terms of the uh description of the, the basic beliefs, but also in our, our mission initiatives and principles, we are interpreting the spirit of all of those as opposed to let’s say literal and legalistic interpretation of that. And so, for example, then we wouldn’t have, I mean, actually, I would even say go back and going back to, let’s say the doctor, uh the uh the word of wisdom, uh I would say if you actually were being legalistic about it and literal, you would, you would actually read it and it would say this is a word of wisdom, not by way of commandment or constraint, you know.

[20:06] Michelle: And so we should all be drinking beer and

[20:08] John Hamer: we should all be drinking beer in other words. So it’s not, it’s not, it’s, it’s interpreted legalistically and not literal in the L DS church. And, and as you probably know the history of that, which is that it became uh uh a test of faith in the 20th century, early 20th century after the L DS church abandoned Plym and needed some identity markers and so forth. Um And so, um, you know, like I mentioned Jan Ships when uh she was always tells in her first RL Ds story when she met, uh Bob Flanders is one of the great old um historians of the RL DS church or first RL DS person that she’d ever met. She, she’d had this experience, um you know, being AAA teacher and so forth in Logan, so kind of like uh old timey, you know, L DS times and, and so forth. And so she’s at this conference and Bob Flanders sits down with a, with a, a mug of coffee and she just looks at it like a, like a Mormon whip, like Oh my God, you brought the devil to, you know, to this table. And then Bob Flanders notices that and he looks at her and he says, and he says to her, you’ll notice that. I let coffee get cold before I drink it. Yeah. Yeah, that’s great.

[21:20] Michelle: I was like drinking my herbal tea. It’s now I might

[21:23] John Hamer: do so. So what I would just say about that is that so, yeah, there are members of community Chris, I’ve got a great friend, um Ron Romig, who is the former archivist of the church. He baptized me. So he um his interpretation of the word of wisdom is that you shouldn’t uh drink alcohol and coffee and tea and so forth and he doesn’t drink coffee, you know. And so, and he’s a member of the church and that’s his interpretation of it. And I think that that’s, you know, great, you know, um my interpretation of the word of wisdom is that we should look to what um contemporary science is telling us, you know. So there was a, there were folk concerns in this particular case about hot drinks and so forth at the time. Uh And that we should, and then in general, we should be following a principle of doing things that are healthy and, and doing things in moderation and so forth. And so I consider that to be a um I consider that to be words of wisdom still that are, that are appropriate and that informs my, my own spiritual practice and life, right? So, not try, trying not to um uh do things that are immoderate and therefore unhealthy and so forth. Uh But I don’t consider it like this, um, you know, one drop of alcohol or, or drinking a caffeinated coke or whatever it would be in, in other words, a sort of uh uh uh hard rules thing, but rather spirit of thing. And I would say that that’s in general how, how things are going. So in terms of you’re talking about Book of Mormon as scripture, Book of Mormon is scripture and community of Christ. So that is part of our canon of Scripture. So um um not the pearl of Great Price because the pearl of great price is actually a uh a compilation or pamphlet that was put together in, in England by the Brigham Church many decades after. Um the church is split apart. So that’s not part of our canon, but our canon is uh the Bible, Old and New Testament and then uh the Book of Mormon and then the Doctrine and covenants. And we have uh the shared sections that are from uh the nu- up through the NAV period, then the Eld church uh added a whole bunch of other sections that are based on Joseph Smith material in the late 19th century. That’s not part of our doctrine and covenants, but every subsequent.

[23:42] Michelle: So you don’t have section 132 anywhere as any. I know that our sections diverge. Yeah. So do you still have the traditional section? 101? You do as 124 I believe. Is that correct? Ok. So that’s like it’s kind of fun to see the differences between our two doctrines and covenant. That’s a fun if anyone wants to do

[24:00] John Hamer: that. Yeah. So DNC 132 like you say, so this is a um the document dates to nu but it was not presented to the church openly in nu um It was presented privately secretly to the high council and so forth, the presiding high council, but it was not um uh it was not brought before a church vote. And so our understanding of what becomes scripture in community of Christ is uh a prophet like um and we recognize Joseph Smith Junior as our founding prophet, the first prophet of the church of community of Christ. Um a prophet uh uh the what, what prophets calling is to bring inspired counsel to the body of the church, the body of the church then meeting in a what you call originally a general conference, what we now call a world conference. Um All of the delegates to that conference are called upon to be prophetic people and to discern whether God is calling us to add that to our canon of scripture. And so I have been a delegate to the world conference before while that we are considering adding inspired counsel to the scriptures. And when that happens, then, then that becomes scripture. And so and so and so that’s how so so when you’re talking about understanding the book of Mormon as scripture or not, we understand it as scripture, but people can understand each individual book and text of scripture in different ways. Then I’d say the more, let’s say literal way. I think that scripture is usually understood in, in the L DS tradition.

[25:39] Michelle: OK. So a couple of questions um just quick, like trivia, things are delegates elected by congregations. Is that how the delegates to the conference?

[25:48] John Hamer: So specifically though, um so my congregation will send delegates to our, our, what we, the mission level, which is like um um a district or something like that in the L DS tradition. So I’m trying to think of like uh if all the stakes are make up a district or an area or region or something like that. So, um so Eastern Canada is a mission center and so there’s about 43 congregations including mine and we elected delegates to that conference and we’re going to have our conference in a couple of weeks here. And then the conference, the conference, the Eastern Canada Conference elects delegates to the World Conference. So, yes, it’s elected.

[26:27] Michelle: OK. So it’s really interesting. Oh, you’re elected as pastor

[26:33] John Hamer: every year. We have an election. And so, um and so it is not like the L DS tradition where the pastors or the bishops or whatever appointed from above, but rather the congregation itself elects its own pastor.

[26:46] Michelle: Ok. That’s so interesting. See, it’s so interesting because, like, religion is tricky. Right? I mean, I think the L DS has very much gone to the side of, sort of, I hate to use the word authoritarianism but authoritarianism, you know, like that was kind of the Brigham, my tradition and the community of Christ seems to be almost in some ways, like to my L DS eyes, it looks more like a political organization in a lot of ways. I know that the, like the church became very, you know, liberal politically and, and it’s mostly involved in sort of political movements, not in terms of electing the president. But, you know, like it, it, it has a political cause feel to it and a political um way of. Right. So, so it’s, it’s, I, I don’t, I don’t know that there’s a right or wrong. It’s interesting to consider the differences, you know. And so, I mean, it’s

[27:33] John Hamer: hard not to make the analogy, right. So the analogy is when you take an organization, so we have a religious, these are two churches, right? So they’re religious organizations and operating uh you know, hopefully on faith and so forth and, and, and with, uh uh right, you know, in good intent on, on the fact on the part participants in the adherence and I think that that’s largely the case for all the members and in these, in these groups. Um But then when you make an analogy to a government, which is different, so then like you say, the one of them will look like, um you know, some kind of an authoritarian oligarchy that is passed on by seniority or something like that through self appointment. And the other one looks like a democracy where, and, and with all the problems of democracy, which is to say that you would have factions and what can be political parties. And when you, um and when you specifically talk to, um uh for example, you, you know, wonderful folks who are, like you say, restoration as people who um parted ways with the main line of the church, maybe in the eighties. Um It, it felt especially at that time period, like there were political factions and one whole faction decided that they couldn’t be part of the, of the body anymore, right? And, um and, and unfortunately, that caused a lot of uh uh uh hurt on both sides the way that all went down. And, um and I, I wasn’t a member of community of Christ at that time, but I have subsequently been, you know, a pastor within the tradition. And so, um I can say that 11 one blessing that we’ve had in my congregation is that um by having our online ministry by, by reaching out by having our services on online every Sunday, people have been able to watch without having the barrier to entry of having to go in a what is an alien church that you’re scared of maybe or mad at or angry about. And so there have actually been um a large number of um people who become restorations at certain points and for whom maybe that wasn’t as their objections weren’t as strong anymore. They’re in the pandemic. They start watching our services and they have rejoined the church. But being by being a member of the Toronto congregation, so that is another distinction between the um community of Christ and the L DS church in the L DS church based on where you live geographically, you are assigned a congregation or award in community of Christ. Again, it’s a um self directed. So the individual member can decide any congregation they want to have their membership with anywhere on the planet. So, so and so, in fact, actually, one of the times the recorder, the world church recorder um will just give us notices that, oh, these people are now members of your congregation, you know, so I’m like, oh, I’ve never heard of them before. So now we have to reach out to, you know, we reach out to them, you know, these folks in Michigan or these other folks that are in Arizona or so forth, are now part of the Toronto Canada um congregation. And so And so our, actually our congregation because of uh movement online, uh the majority of the, the members actually don’t live within driving distance anymore of this um, church facility.

[30:46] Michelle: So, well, that’s interesting. That makes it a very different thing than the, like I said in our, you know, when I was introducing myself, I serve in the nursery, you know, you can’t serve in the nursery when you’re not meeting. So it’s a very, that, that, that’s, it’s a very different feel, I guess, kind of continuing on from when we had to shut down. So. Ok. Well, thank you for giving that. Um Overall explanation. I think, I think like one of the things I’ve learned, I think that since um maybe this is the reason but, but since many people who are disaffected from the L DS church tend to go into the community of Christ. What I’ve, what I’ve been told is that the Salt Lake community of Christ tends to have a little bit more of an anti Joseph. Like I’ve been told, you shouldn’t judge the whole community of Christ by the flavor in Utah where, where there maybe is a little bit more um more free dismissiveness and criticism of, say Joseph Smith. And you know, because that’s one of the discussion points is um people who anyway,

[31:49] John Hamer: well, so, so people can be anywhere. So when I’m saying he is the founding prophet of the church, that doesn’t mean you have to have. So again, we don’t have this um perspective on prophets that that prophets are, are perfect or that prophets are directly talking to God the way um God talk, the way we talk to other people. God doesn’t talk that way. And so, um and so instead, what we’re talking about is everybody, we’re, we’re all called to be prophetic people. Everybody in the tradition is um called to receive personal revelation and so forth. The difference for the prophet is that they have an additional calling, which is to bring inspired counsel to the church. And then the church decides whether or not it, it’s going to become scripture. But uh but, but that doesn’t mean that they are perfect in their, in their personal lives. And so people in community of Christ are all over the place and everywhere, all over the place. And so, um and so people have had to come to terms with uh with what we call the new Mormon history, right? And so up until um up until the middle of the 20th century, when Von Brodie wrote uh you know, her biography, no man knows my history. Um There really had been almost no um there had been almost no actual like historians who’d done uh surveys of the movement. And so a lot of uh not trained historians anyway. And so there had been um uh in the L DS church, what we call, you know, you have church historians but, and we had church historians in the RL DS church, but these are not people who were trained in the academic discipline of history. And so they’re really what we would probably call Antiquarians, uh, which is to say they, they are collecting well or apologist to. And so, and so, you know, in other words, they’re collecting, um, old stuff and they’re combining it together. Um, and, uh, and, and then, and they’re telling the story, they understand it and, and so forth. And, um, and, and in general, those, none of those, mostly those folks, I’m not gonna say none, mostly those folks are, are, are coming from a position of, of earnestness and they’re telling it like, um they believe it. And so so in general where people are not being um uh on, you know, uh deliberately deceitful. And so, uh and that, and that starts to change um when, so when there’s a huge transformation in, in all of North American society at the end of World War Two, when, when suddenly, you know, the GIS come home, they’re uh they’re sent to colleges on the G I Bill and so forth and suddenly you go from a population where um whatever it would have been 3% or something like that of the population had a college degree to where we are now where, you know, it’s, it’s like three quarters or something like that. And, and so as a result of that, that changes. Um the number of people, for example, who have had uh training, for example, in the academic discipline of history. And that’s where we get for the very first time I mentioned Jan Ships, um and Bob Flanders, you know, meeting at the beginning of the um the organization of the Mormon History Association, which is, which happens at that same time period, you know, the late sixties, the early seventies, John Whitmer is that that old as well. So suddenly you have people who are trained in this and when that happens, then you suddenly have actual history as opposed to antiquarian memory and, and sacred story that had had developed, you know, and, and unfortunately, um people weren’t equipped for it and the early historians um because they were encountering uh such an entrenched vision of a sacred story, an identity myth that people that we had built up both in the RL DS church and in the L DS church because of those identity myths that are so central to how we understand ourselves because those are kind of rooted in the past, what we understand to be history but not, but not academic history. Then unfortunately, those were um susceptible to the actual uh the actual work of academic historians who unfortunately tended to be debunkers as a result, you know. And so von Brody is not writing her, her gray as a um with a pastoral care to the Mormon people. So you know.

[36:19] Michelle: Yeah. OK. That makes so, ok, there’s so many, so many things I want to talk about. So I guess, um we can start with a couple of points of agreement that I think that we have. And then I do wanna talk a little bit just going a little bit to the historians craft because I think that’s an interesting discussion to have and then, and then maybe we can go on to talking specific about Joseph’s polygamy. And so, so one thing I think that we do agree on that um that you mentioned is that we both think 132 for the most part is quite deplorable. And that polygamy as a whole is awful and was never of God, right? So I

[37:00] John Hamer: agree with that.

[37:02] Michelle: OK, so I, I like that, I like that there were some things that we agreed on and then as I was watching the presentations, um a couple of other things that we agree on is I think you did acknowledge that um contemporary evidence is important to establish the truth of stories. And, and I think agree that contemporary evidence um is more highly prioritized than legal reminiscences in general. And um especially if there’s um logical problems with the story, like you use the example of the, the women breaking up their China to put in on the, on the Kirtland Temple. And those are nice later reminiscences, but they’re not historically accurate for several reasons. Right? And because there

[37:42] John Hamer: are always about that because because because everyone loves the Kirtland Temple China story.

[37:48] Michelle: I actually loved hearing it wasn’t true. They were already so poor and why break China? Like you said, they like put some shards of metal in it.

[37:58] John Hamer: Yeah. So no, I mean that’s the idea. I think the truth of that story is that they sacrificed everything to build that and they sacrificed so much that they, they literally went bankrupt and they, they lost everything and they had to name Joseph and his, he had to flee Ohio for, for debts and so forth. And, um, and that’s certainly true. So my, my great, great, great grandparents, like I said, who were, who helped build it. They, they were loyalists. And so they moved to Far West with, um, with Joseph and Sydney. And, um, anyway, and so they lost everything too. They had to start all over again, you know. So, yeah,

[38:35] Michelle: so that was just an example of like the, the point I want to make was that contemporary evidence. I agree is much more, um is, is very important when we’re trying to seek historical truth. And, and then, um, I’ve really liked this quote, you said, nor should historians have conclusion driven, conclusion, driven apologetics where one starts with the conclusion first and then cherry picks the evidence to insist that because something is impossible to disprove it might have happened. And, um, I think that that is so accurate. And what’s interesting is as I’ve gone on this journey because, you know, two years ago, I very, less than two years ago, I very much believe that Joseph was the originator of polygamy and I very much don’t believe that anymore. And so it’s interesting to come to it from this direction and see what seems to be that happening on the other side at this point. That’s, that’s been my perspective. So that’s why I really wanted to talk about it. And another thing that I like that you said is primary contemporary accounts. I guess this is my summation of what you said, I’m not quoting you primary contemporary account should be prioritized over later accounts and that we need to take into consideration bias and motive when we’re evaluating accounts. And I, and, and then what I wanted to add that I think you would agree with is that if we do have any elements of sort of tangible and like tangible proof, hard physical evidence, that should be very high priority because that’s not subject to fraud or bias or anything like that. And then, and then I think that that should include things like when we can show a pattern of bias, forgery, falsehood, you know, that that should play into it. And I think we should also consider lack of evidence when we would very much expect to find evidence, especially when we do find it in the in in very similar situations with other people. Those are

[40:30] John Hamer: like negative evidence is like you’re saying. So even when you have negative evidence is still evidence. So for example, um when we are evaluating, let’s say the, the Christmas story that exists in the gospel of Matthew, so Matthew uh in creating that account, uh tells a story that her the great massacres, all of the Children in the area around Bethlehem. Uh and, and, and where there’s no evidence of that in any other source, it’s only, it’s the only found in Matthew that is not found in any other Christian source, any other source. And unfortunately, that story, you know, it was just a huge thing to have happened, you know, you’re killing all hundreds, at least of kids, right? And um and what we do have, unfortunately, so that why this is why I’m using this as an example of negative evidence. We have um a very detailed uh unusually detailed accounts of um that kind of time period in Judea Palestine because of the work of Josephus who wrote such an elaborate history of uh including the Herod, the great time period and is no fan of Herod, the great. So, so he is very, very eager to tell all kinds of um rotten stories about Harrod. So it’s not a propagandist for Herod who would be um who would be hiding that kind of a thing. And so historians uh are all pretty universally agreed there. Um I would say all no apologetic, sorry. So again, whenever you’re getting into things about, about religion, unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of um let’s say people who are, who are accredited scholars who are, let’s say Christian who are trying to um who would, who would like to have as much of the gospel account be real as possible, who might argue in favor of that because all we’re talking about in this case, we’re just talking about negative evidence, right? But the negative evidence is pretty overwhelming in that case that if that had happened, we would have some kind of confirmation somewhere. And, and instead, what we can say is the author of Matthew is attempting to um craft that gospel in order to make it mirror the Torah to make it mirror the five books of Moses. And, and what and how, how is Moses, you know, the Moses story uh you know, again begins with a massacre of innocence as Moses is put upon the river.

[42:59] Michelle: OK. II, I hadn’t studied that one. So that’s really interesting. I think that’s a great, that’s a perfect example of what we’re talking about. You. If you, if you don’t find evidence that you should find, then you can hold something in, in something becomes more suspect than it would otherwise be. And I do want to say also, I just have to push back a little bit on saying that it’s religious historians. I just think it’s people because I think it’s about belief and I think that belief goes way beyond religion. Often. There are scientific beliefs that people argue that, you know, like, like evidence is different than belief and it shows up everywhere. So I have to cut the, the religious people.

[43:35] John Hamer: Well, I’m just going to say, I mean, it’s not just them, I’m just saying in that particular case, that’s where you can see an agenda but behind some of those guys. Um But, but, but I agree with you that it doesn’t, it does not only religious at all because actually one of my major, um one of the major people that I end up arguing with, uh uh uh because I, I do, I also have studied a lot, the, um the historical Jesus, right? And so there is a, um all historians of the historical Jesus agree that there was a historical Jesus. So that is a, um we have sufficient evidence that everyone who has looked into this question with one exception. So, so here’s the problem. So in other, so there is a guy who is accredited, in other words, he’s got a, you know, a degree of phd and so forth and he um is a promoter on youtube of the idea that Jesus didn’t exist. It’s a myth that people later made up and it is a very popular thing for what I would say, a bunch of post Christians would like everything to be a total fraud or something like that. And so, and so they, they get it in their head and they think, oh, that’s a great idea. I want to believe that and it sounds very compelling as he’s saying all those things. Um, and so, and, and so I personally, he’s not religious, he’s an atheist. Now, in other words, I, I personally also see that in this particular case that the only way you can come to this conclusion is that it’s agenda driven. Um in other words, an apologetic position because it is so clearly not, we have the evidence. There’s, you know, that’s just, it’s not, you can’t draw this conclusion from the historical evidence, you know, that there was no,

[45:18] Michelle: yeah, that’s, that’s a good example of it. So, yeah, that’s, it’s so OK, so moving forward, I think the place where we disagree is that from what I understand? Um I, I, like I have now come to believe that Joseph Smith actually was not the originator of polygamy and was not involved in it. And I, it seems to me that you think that that is not a reasonable um that it, it’s not reasonable to conclude that based on the evidence. And so, so that’s what I think would be an interesting. Did I say that accurate? No, no, no. Yeah. Well,

[45:48] John Hamer: not only just not reasonable, but I’m just saying that all historians who have looked at it. So there’s a total historical consensus. In other words, historians have weighed in on this. And Joseph Smith is the originator or in the minimum. Joseph Smith is participating in polygamy even if you so originator, you know, we, we there may be some wiggle room on that. But, and so, so for example, when I’m talking about the existence of Jesus as a historical figure that doesn’t bring in on to it. Did he walk on water or all that kind of thing? That is not, that’s not the question, you know, but just the existence that is 100% where, you know, not 100%. But anyway, all all historians of the question, um think the mythic, this position is a joke. And so in this particular case, the evidence for Joseph Smith’s participation in polygamy in nu is uh is so overwhelming that all, all historians are agreed about it. And so, and so that’s what, that’s what I’m arguing. And so there’s not a place about. And so I appreciate that in the L DS tradition, especially, you know, and I talked about this, we, when we, when we were um even talking about our, our, our identity myths, our sacred stories that we have told that um in the L DS tradition, there has been a um an idea that, that pa the past is a place where we are allowed to have beliefs about it in other words, or rather that that’s where we should have that our faith can be resting on beliefs about the past. Um And, and, but that’s not where I would argue as a pastor in the latter day saint tradition movement that we should ever be. For me, that’s um for us that is like building um building our house upon the sand of history. And then when the historians come in and tell you, you know, the, the storm rages and everything like that our, our house of faith is going to collapse or it has or it’s gonna get so, um or it’s gonna get so eaten out and worn under that, that you end up with this, um let’s say limited geography book of Mormon theory where the nephites are 1220 people living in some cave in Guatemala because you’re trying to preserve the, the possibility that it’s actually historical. And so you misread the entire text, which is, which is a, which is a hemispheric um understanding, you know, of the, of the, with when it was written in order to try to preserve it. That’s like saying there was not a universal flood, there was a historical Noah, but he only got on a boat in one little tiny place. And there were maybe only, you know, not, you know, in other words, it wasn’t all the animals or whatever you want. You’re so desirous of making it historical that you lose the meaning of it. And so that’s why I would say instead that, that as a people of faith, we should be building, you know, our testimonies, you know, on the rock and that is, you know, our relationship to God and to Christ and so forth and not having, um, not building our faith on history. So that would just be my argument.

[48:42] Michelle: Ok. Ok. So there’s a lot I want to get into that. I, I want to first ask you a question because um I think, I think this would be interesting to me to hear you answer because as I said, I did just up until recently, even after I had studied polygamy. And III, I mentioned that I believed fervently in polygamy for most of my life and then started studying it in the scriptures. And the scriptures are what convinced me was never of God. Despite the fact that my grandmother was a polygamist, you know, in the L DS church

[49:12] John Hamer: post my ancestors too, by the way, polygamist. Yeah.

[49:15] Michelle: Yeah. And so, and so, but I still, you know, thought, of course, it was Joseph Smith. I just, he was wrong. And that’s fine. And my perspective was that was why he was allowed to be killed if you know, and I, and I was willing to struggle with Joseph Smith and be like, you know, that’s fine. I value the book of Mormon. That doesn’t mean I have to think that Joseph Smith is a great guy. It’s kind of where I was based on polygamy and some other things, right? And so it’s been my step. So I guess my question is I sorry, I should get to the question. Why do you think that this um I don’t know if I should call it a movement but this perspective is growing so quickly um among particularly L DS people. I don’t know, I don’t know beyond just my community. But in my, in the L DS community, this um perspective that Joseph was not involved in polygamy, but fought it is growing exponentially. And I’m curious to know why you think that is.

[50:09] John Hamer: Um So there’s a couple of reasons I think, why, why it’s growing so fast. So, one is the L DS church um when it became an anti polygamist church, which was not in 1890 in 1890 it became or whatever with the manifesto, the official declaration. Number one, it became again a we are lying about polygamy, uh you know, church, you know, and so it is only with uh the second manifesto and especially the third and final manifesto in the early 20th century that um that the L Ds church actually became an anti polygamist church. And then when it became an anti polygamist church, the L DS church, you know, went all out in a lot of cases and tried to, you know, um attack everybody who was continuing to be polygamist and, and trying to get them rounded up and arrested and, and it’s, and it still continues to be that and it also uh purged its history of all of this stuff. So it’s, this was not in the manuals, you know, it’s not in the movies if you, if you go and, and you look at the, all of the, the phony history that the L DS church presents of itself all the time, like when, in terms of the Statue Gardens, when you’re just trying to, you know, it’s like, it’s almost like you’re trying to make it. Um you’re trying to make history, you know, really be the way it is and you, and you make it, make it in bronze there, you know, and so it’s just, it’s just Joseph and Emma, you know, and, and, and that’s going to be true for everybody that doesn’t, you know, the, the teachings of the prophet Brigham Young is also not talking about all of all of his wives, you know, and so forth. And so it is, it, it got purged all, all, all across. So it’s not just about Joseph Smith and, and, and Ju and Brigham Young and uh everybody from Brigham Young to Wilfred Woodruff, you know, are, are in the period of time when the L DS church was openly living polygamy and, uh and was, you know, publishing it and so forth and, and pronouncing it and that it could never stop. So anyway, in other words, it was very open but it went to hiding it. Right. And so I grew up in the L DS church in the, in the seventies. Um I remember, uh, as a first grader, you know, some, some kid in, I lived in New Jersey, some kid asked me, oh, you’re a Mormon. How many, how many moms do you have? And I’m like, what are you talking about, kid? What are you talking about? I never, you know, and I, like, I went, I went home and I asked my mom about this. Is it true that uh that, you know, Mormons, you know, whatever were polygamous and things like that. And she says, she says, yes, uh it’s true and we, our, our ancestors were polygamous, but we are always descended from the first wife. And I’m like, this wasn’t a question that I had, you know what I mean? This was not a concern that I had, you know, are we from the first wife? I’m like, what? You know, so I mean, not only got this confirmation, you know what I mean again? Because it’s not something, I mean, I was like a studious kid, you know, ultimately, you know, on my way to be the deacon Squire present all those kind of things, you know, so I was aware of all this stuff, very active Mormon kid, but I’ve never heard of any of this stuff. And so, and so it was, it was only then like, I say when I confronted my mom and then I actually not only had that transmission that we actually descended, my, my grandparents and great grandparents, not grandparents, but anyway, great, great, great grandparents and so forth were polygamous. But there was even this transmission of what must have been a Utah cultural bias, you know, about which way are you from and so forth because that, that got transmitted down to me as a kid in the seventies even. So. Um So I guess what I would say is that, that why is this taken off now? So because on the one hand, um there has been a purging of this from the L DS church history in a way that actually people in the community of Christ are, are shocked by, they’re like, what, how is it that all of these Mormons don’t know that, you know, that Joseph was a, was a polygamist, don’t they always beat that over our heads with that? In other words? So we’ve never in community price in the RL DS church. We’ve never had the shift that Mormons have all made where they have purged this out of their collective memory. We never had, we never got on that page that we knew that that was happening. And I’ll tell you, we, we don’t, we’re not um up to date on a lot of stuff in, in, in the congregation. So a dear um lady here who uh we had a an L DS member that she was, uh, who was also a member of our church. He was a dual citizen and every, and he would keep on getting kicked out of his congre his Mormon ward when he would, because he wouldn’t give up coffee and then he’d come and hang out with us, but then he would get bored of us because he wanted to talk more about the book of Mormon and stuff like that. Anyway, so then you go back and every time you go back, um um this lady from my congregation um wanted to come up with all the old polemics about why Briga mis were wrong. And so she comes at me with, OK, well, tell me all about Adam God, the Adam God theory. And I’m like, no, that won’t help. You know that there is, we still, we still haven’t got the memo that, that, that the L DS church doesn’t have Adam God anymore. So, you know, and so anyway, so that, that’s kind of where we’re at. So what I would say is that’s how, that’s how that’s happened. And then, and then most recently what happened um in the same way that I kind of suggested to you that uh one person who is very active as a blogger or on the internet in podcasts and things like that can introduce into a people, hey, if this and this happens, uh I’m leaving the L DS church and moving to community of Christ, you know, if, uh, in that same way, um, a couple handful of people back in the early two thousands, like Rock Waterman and, and Denver Snuffer, um, got a hold of some old RL DS antiquarian stuff, non his history. And, um, uh, well, if you’re

[55:56] Michelle: talking about the prices, books, the prices, books, those were actually the first volume was published in 2000. So those weren’t old. I mean, I can see that you’re saying they were Antiquarian in their procedure from your perspective, but they’re not old like, OK,

[56:10] John Hamer: so Joseph is published in 2000, you’re saying?

[56:14] Michelle: Right. Right. And

[56:19] John Hamer: so what I would say, it’s all that is based on the RL Ds Antiquarian claims. So they, they, they published a new book that, that pulls that all together what the old RL Ds Antiquarian claims are. So, in other words, it’s not a historian book. It isn’t dealing with the historical evidence at all. It’s a, um it’s a polemic book that is based on old RL Ds polemics that all community of Christ historians understand are not legitimate. So,

[56:45] Michelle: OK, so I have a super a ton of questions there. So um so OK, I do want to respond but first I have to say like, like I know in our exchanges and in your presentation, I heard you say, um quite, you know, quite fervently and repeatedly that all historians agree and what I find interesting there as I was thinking about it. I, so in the L DS tradition and I think this has been different in the community of Christ tradition. But we have what I see as an unfortunate idea that, you know, that is still somewhat with us that once the prophets have spoken, the thinking has been done, right? And I, and I kind of hear echoes of that in this, once the historians have spoken, the thinking has been done. It’s, it’s a very similar kind of priestly class because as I look at it, see, I, I very much disagree with why this is growing so fast because I know my experience and I know those who I’ve been in connection with and it’s, we, all of us were absolutely knew about polygamy and absolutely knew about Joseph’s polygamy. I never didn’t know that Joseph was a polygamist and um and it’s actually been things like the Joseph Smith papers and it’s been this evidence pouring out that is available to us. Now, that wasn’t before. That has really been impactful. Like when someone um shares something um that, that’s impactful. It’s not a claim from, from, it’s not some polemics or as you, you know, like it’s not something the price is said, it might be something that the prices showed. But even there, we have a lot more now than when the prices started doing their work. And in fact, um I haven’t read fully the prices books but, um, people have sent me quotes from them or different pages from them or told me things to look up or, you know, I think the prices have just gathered things that were written earlier. I mean, in addition to, to their own things like by Edmund Briggs or, I mean, by Jason Briggs or, um, and Edmund, you know, and other writers and their claims have actually often been proven out by the Joseph Smith papers or the complete discourses of Brigham Young. And that’s been fascinating to me to see that in many ways, those are better um anchored by evidence by source work than um than the L DS claims that I was raised in. And so that’s what’s really been the transition for me is like, like I, so when, when now, when I’m told historians agree, I’m like, well, let’s not just talk about consensus, let’s talk about this source and let’s talk about this source and that I find to be more valuable,

[59:24] John Hamer: right? But that’s not a academically rigorous approach. So I appreciate that nonspecialists when they um get a hold of some source or other want to look at it and say, oh, well, this one, I can make this explanation about why I don’t think this is uh why I don’t think that this piece of evidence works because I think uh that this guy, I don’t believe this particular guy. And then, and then you’ve, you’ve dealt with that one in isolation and say, well, I don’t listen to anything that William Law says or whatever. And so then now you’re gonna say, well, um, now I’m looking at this source, oh, I also don’t believe anything that William Clayton is writing and, and so forth. Um, but I, but that’s not, um, that’s not how, uh, you look at evidence as a preponderance of evidence from the historical perspective. That is kind of a one on one as you are seeing some particular uh I don’t know, statement in the Joseph Smith papers or whatever it would be. You’re listening to the uh uh the revelation did it, did it uh dictated to Neil K Whitney. And you think that now Neil K Whitney is a, a liar always. And so he’s making this up, you know, later and, and to support Brigham Young or something like that, you know, each individual, one of those things is uh um this is an apologetic uh way of dealing with evidence as it comes up one by one by one by one as you’re looking at all that kind of thing. And so that’s where I would say it’s different.

[1:00:45] Michelle: OK, I hear you. I think I see. I’m glad we’re talking because my hope is that maybe it can be beneficial for both of us to kind of understand more about the other side because I do want to understand more about this historical perspective and why historians are sort of the, the gatekeepers of truth in a way. Right? And I think maybe it would be, and maybe I misstated that. I’m sorry if I said

[1:01:05] John Hamer: just historical truth,

[1:01:06] Michelle: historical truth. Ok.

[1:01:08] John Hamer: I mean, so for example, there’s a, there’s a beautiful city in, oh, I’m sorry, I, I’m sorry, I keep interrupting you. So I’m just so II I love, um, I’m just talking about how I love n, and I love this part of our ancestral heritage of going and trying to build utopia together, right? And so there’s a city in Illinois called Zion Illinois where a group of people got together. Um And they built a much more impressive uh city of Zion with a plot that had centered around a temple lot. Uh and they had built a giant Tabernacle there. And uh it was a church in the late 19th century. And um and that church, that community became very famous in the 19 twenties because one of their doctrines was that the world is flat. And so they advertised in, in popular mechanics. Anybody who could prove that the world is not flat, they’ll give them a million dollars or something like that. But I mean, there was no way to prove it because you can’t ever prove it to the satisfaction of these guys because they’ve already decided that it is. And so, and so in that case, the keepers of truth, in that case would be uh geologists geographers, you know, physicists and so forth. And so, because that would be a belief that is a religiously based belief, um, that, that particular church group had, they’ve since given up that belief. But, um, but in any event that was, it’s, it’s so, that’s what I would say. Historians unfortunately are in a position of sometimes, and sometimes they’re doing it gleefully. II, I disapprove of historians who are just going around and debunking things and who are trying to tell people. No, this can’t, you know, this didn’t happen in order to like debunk the I don’t never told that story about Kirtland Temple to debunk it. I, what I always am trying to do with everybody um is, is share additional insight so that we can understand our faith in a richer way, you know, so that we can. So, so I’ve come back to this, knowing all of these things about the historical problems and yet that has caused me to be want to be part of uh of a church that is approaching its history with integrity. And isn’t just saying, um man, I’m never putting that, I love the David and Goliath story. You know, where this young stripling, you know, shepherd boy with so much faith is able to fight the giant off with. Uh and I’m never putting in the story where he then uh just kills his servant Uriah the Hittite in order to because he’s already had an adulterous affair with the guy’s wife. You know. So in other words, there, we, that’s in the Bible. You know what I mean? Even though it’s not, it’s not historical anyway. Go ahead.

[1:03:41] Michelle: So, so just like, like I very much value truth. I think that the truth is always the best thing no matter what. So I’m just about wanting to find the truth. Like I said, I was deeply committed to polygamy. I’m on record teaching that polygamy was a beautiful thing and that cost me a lot to change and come out publicly and say no polygamy was never of God. And a and a similar process happened when I came out and said, OK, Joseph was not a polygamist. And so I’m just caring about truth and the thing that I think is um good to like, like I think if you’re not able to understand us, you’re not able to speak to us. And, and so when I hear you kind of represent what you think we’re doing, it feels very much like straw men to me because that is not at all representative of what I do, what I’ve been doing or what other people that I know. You know, we’re definitely not taking one point in isolation trying to debunk. We’re trying to look at the totality and find the various sources that this um that this perspective, this narrative is built on and see if they stand up to scrutiny and see what sources have been neglected because that’s what seems to me has been happening very much. Like I have so many examples I could go to. But um let me, let me ask you this one just quickly. Have you seen the, and I, and I should have it to show you. I can look it up if you need me to. But the um October 5th entry in, in Joseph Smith’s journal. And um have you, have you seen the edits in that through? Do you know which one I’m talking

[1:05:12] John Hamer: about? I’m not, I’m not, I’m not sure where precise. So you’re saying William Clayton is like taking a journal. Is that what it is?

[1:05:20] Michelle: October 5th? Oh my gosh, is the 1843 I believe the entry in Joseph Smith’s journal done by, I believe Willard Richards. And so, um, so are you familiar with that? Have you seen?

[1:05:36] John Hamer: Probably, but I mean, you have to point out but I’m not familiar with, I know that some of the entries in the journal um have indications that are that, that something’s going on, you know, they, they’re obfuscating a little bit about um you know what some of Joseph’s because they, they don’t want, you know, they’re keeping an official record here. But in some cases, people have pointed to journal entries and said that this is hiding a liaison or something like that. And so, and so that

[1:06:06] Michelle: let me, let me tell you this one and I’m a little bit hesitant to share it because I don’t want it to. Um I don’t want you to think this is the one piece of evidence that I’m glomming onto. You know, this is

[1:06:17] John Hamer: one, no, one piece of evidence is that, that’s not how it works, you know. So it doesn’t, nothing is hanging on one piece of evidence one way or the other.

[1:06:26] Michelle: So, what’s interesting. So, yes, October 5th, 1843 the we can see this now that we have access to the Joseph Smith papers. We were all raised with Joseph Smith saying I have always said no man shall have but one wife unless I say so for there’s only one man in authority that was in our manuals, we always read that. That’s what Joseph Smith quoted to say that he had evidence that Joseph taught polygamy in the RL DS L DS debate discussions and debates in, in those letters. And so, but if you look at the original journal entry and, and I’m not claiming that Joseph Smith’s journals are perfect or anything, but this is a very interesting little tidbit. The original entry says evening at home, walked up and down with scribe and gave instructions to try those who were preaching, teaching the doctrine of plurality of wives on this law. Joseph forbids it and the practice thereof, no man shall have but one wife, that’s the original entry. And then you can see the, the um the edits over time as it was changed and then what it became and you can see the different handwriting, you can see the cross out, you can see things left in. And we have on record many, many um accounts of Brigham Young, sitting with the historians that he appointed, saying that they were editing the history, right? Creating the history, like the things they cut out and the things that they added. So that entry became evening at home and walked up and down the street with my scribe, gave instructions to try those persons who were preaching, teaching or practicing the doctrine of plurality of wives. This is the part that we always read for according to the law, I hold the keys of this power in the 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. And so that became that that was added in by Brigham Young. Yes, and that’s one piece. But, but that pattern continually emerges. I have myself looked at four at least different documents and there are so many more that do this exact same thing that add these subtle little changes or alterations that are highly concerning, right? And I, and I don’t think I, I don’t think that, I mean, that’s just as I said 11 of many examples that isn’t adequately dealt with or even acknowledged by the like. So for me, when I hear this historical consensus, I think the historical cons consensus is outdated because as you said, it started kind of with Von Brodie and grew from there. Right. But Von Brodie knew that Children were an essential part of this argument. And she named many, many Children of Joseph Smith in her book that we now know she was wrong on all of those. Yeah,

[1:09:09] John Hamer: but ok, but no, it’s not, not an essential thing, but she was using that as a as what she thought was additional proof based on, based on several of the women, you know, there were some indications that they thought that that kid was Joseph Smith’s kid. And so in some cases, but in other cases, they were just some surmises. But in any event, I appreciate that. Yes, there is a uh there, the story is, is partially modeled because of competing RL Ds and L Ds apologetics. So, so because Joseph Smith the third promoted his particular view about uh Brigham Young being the originator of polygamy um that caused the Brigham Church and Brigham Young specifically to want to have lots of counter and competing evidence. And my view of Brigham Young is that he is a, a scoundrel, a liar, a bigot, a um a murderous person. He was a uh unindicted felon co conspirator. And after the fact that the minimum with the Mountain Meadows massacre. But is actually, I think the blood is sort of on his hands even though he didn’t personally necessarily order it to happen the way it actually happened. But he set the events in motion, I would say. And so could he, would he have told his, you know, his historians or would people who are in his, um, his orbit have, uh, doctored stuff to make it even better and so forth and also to um to bolster his claims, of course. So that so, so yes, individual, individual uh evidence has to be read in light of the biases for those sources. So that’s how when I’m reading um Brigham Young because I have, I have very negative feelings about Brigham Young and I don’t think that he was a good leader and all these kind of things. And so, and so II, I tend to be skeptical of things that he is saying because you have to read into it his own um his own claims and his own agenda in the same way that um II, I would wait the same way John C Bennett stuff as I write Brigham Young stuff, you know.

[1:11:19] Michelle: Sure. OK. So one thing I want to point out this journal entry was changed long before the RL DS claims it was changed early on. II, I wanna say before the 1852 before 132 was presented, I can’t, I can’t say that for

[1:11:34] John Hamer: sure. The very first edition of evidence, like the

[1:11:38] Michelle: very first edition of the church history included that, like, what it, what I have seen is that from the very beginning Brigham Young set on a course to alter the history to make it appear that Joseph was a polygamous like and, and what’s interesting is when I hear you say um your negative feelings about Brigham Young and, and how untrustworthy he is and yet you completely agree with his narrative. So that’s interesting to me because like William Clayton, the more I read of him, the more problems, tremendous problems I see with his account, I, I just did an episode um two times ago on the, the second part of the expositor. So it’s not that I’m just trying to throw out William Law, for example, I’m trying to get in and see what can we verify these claims on either side. And then I just did an episode last week where a guy named Jeremy Hoop who’s done a lot of work in this area showed the William Law diaries and I think really came as close as you can come to proving that they were not contemporaneous, but that they were later productions just like I believe that section 132 is. And so um so, so here, oh,

[1:12:47] John Hamer: go ahead for William Law though. I mean, William Clayton, I’m sorry, I thought you were saying

[1:12:53] Michelle: William Clayton’s journal because William Clayton desperately wanted to be in with Brigham Young. You know, he was a Brigham. Absolutely. And so it’s fascinating to me that while you have all these problems with Brigham Young, you completely agree with his narrative and the native created by those.

[1:13:11] John Hamer: So for example, he says that he had, you know, he said, for example, says that he has keys. Uh you know, let’s feel like they’re putting that

[1:13:19] Michelle: key native on polygamy.

[1:13:21] John Hamer: OK. But his narrative on polygamy is not merely his narrative. So we are talking about in all of these other, other factions that are also consonant and agree with this. So again, people who went off to become strang its who are absolutely opposed to Brigham Young, they also testified in the same way, the people who became white, its people who again, they are not in favor of Brigham Young people who left the movement altogether uh or people who became Rigdon Nights. Uh people who are all opposed to Brigham Young, their stories are also, you know, you know, bringing back to the same thing that polygamy is being practiced in nu it’s authorized by J Smith, whoever the originator of it is, it is not as something that makes any sense for all of these enemies of Brigham Young, if he somehow is the originator of it. And this is a secret cabal that he is running that um that Joseph is somehow fighting. Uh it, it it’s, it, it’s not all his faction that have done it. It’s all the factions who, who go back, look back to this, everybody, uh, mcclellan who is already left, you know, he comes in, uh, and talks to Emma and Emma, you know, confirms all of this that has happened.

[1:14:37] Michelle: So that’s one thing I wanted to get into because I, I would somewhat disagree with your framing of that. I would say that, um the, the categories it looks like to me and I haven’t studied this universally, but it’s sort of enemies of Joseph from all different camps from various ways or brims. And, and I know that there were several sects that um pursued polygamy, like, for example, James Strang. And um anyway, someone else I was going to mention, but I, I don’t think that’s mysterious. I don’t think it’s hard to understand why. Um Well, that’s something we can get into later. But why religious leaders tend to pursue polygamy is very, it doesn’t have to have been taught them by Joseph Smith. It’s a very natural thing for religious leaders to do as we can see from history, which in a way makes me that much more, I guess, surprised and impressed that Joseph Smith didn’t do that. And I know that we disagree on that. But as I look at it, I’m like, wow, he was a better guy than I thought that’s been my take on it. I, this is my this is my belief on polygamy and also blood atonement like men in power don’t like restraints, right? If, if you have unrestrained power, unrestrained money, you shouldn’t be restrained to one woman, wife’s eight. Like that’s a restraint. You can’t have men in the world like athletes, politicians, business owners, movie stars don’t have to worry about that. In general. They can have all the partners that they want. Religious men have a cons restraint that they need to find a way to get around. Right. So I think polygamy happens very naturally as God approved. Lack of restraint, one important area, just like I think blood atomic is

[1:16:17] John Hamer: similar. We agree claimed God approved not really got approved.

[1:16:22] Michelle: Right. Exactly. Yes. It’s like if you’re going to be a religious leader and not have that restraint, God has to approve it somehow and polygamy is the way that that happens. Just like I think if you are Brigham Young and there’s someone who’s very annoying to you and you need to get rid of them, you need blood atonement so it can be God approved. Um shedding people’s blood, right? I, I haven’t done my episodes on blood atonement yet, but I, I have researched it extensively. So anyway, so I don’t think it’s that surprising that that other religious leaders pursued polygamy and I haven’t seen where Jacob Strang said that Joseph taught it to him. Maybe I haven’t, maybe I’ve

[1:16:57] John Hamer: strang didn’t, was an outsider and so he wasn’t, he didn’t touch James Strang was an outsider. And so he wasn’t told what I’m saying is people who became strang who were insiders um still, still continue to testify that it was Joseph who, who had had taught it. And that’s what eventually convinced Strang who was initially an opponent of polygamy when he gathered enough insiders around him, then he um was persuaded to it. But he originally was, he originally actually had been a major opponent of polygamy because he was an outsider. You know, so unlike even though he had a very successful uh counterclaim to Brigham Young, it wasn’t from being an insider. It was because um Brigham Young wasn’t claiming to be a prophet. And so here, here was a guy who was saying, I’m a prophet, I’ve been appointed by an angel and so forth. I, I’ve got plates and things and so that became something that gathered people to him. And so for example, William Smith, who had been taught polygamy from his brother, who was continuing to act

[1:17:55] Michelle: as a polygamy. I haven’t seen, I haven’t seen where William says that he was taught it by Joseph.

[1:18:00] John Hamer: So we don’t have, we don’t have him claiming it that he does because actually when he writes stuff, he um perjures himself. He says that there was nothing like that was ever involved, but we know that he was involved with polygamy himself because he was caught at it. Um uh under with the strang its so the strang its kicked him out for being a polygamist and same thing, the early reorganized church, the precursor to the reorganized church twice caught him.

[1:18:29] Michelle: Um Yeah,

[1:18:31] John Hamer: and so, and so therefore, when he later says that nobody was a plaga, this is all made up or something like that. He’s, he’s not telling the truth. So he’s not a, he’s not a, he’s not a truthful witness as a result of

[1:18:43] Michelle: that, but he’s definitely a wild card in a lot of ways. So, but,

[1:18:49] John Hamer: but I also want to mention, ok, we’ve been talking about polygamy being bad and not of God. I do think that case for that in modern times kind of has to also be made because a lot of people say, well, what does it matter if consenting adults all decide they want to do whatever they want to do? Um Why are you arguing against um polygamy now? And so the case, the reason why um specifically uh religious polygyny is against, for example, the Canadian Charter of Human Freedoms, it’s understood to be not um something that it’s because polygyny specifically, in other words, where it is one patriarch with multiple women creates a system that demeans women and is inherently sexist. So for example, the way it works, people always ask, well, how would the Mormons have, do this, you know, throughout the 19th century, where, where you have polygamy and so forth how is it that they don’t have all these extra women for, you know, compared to how many men they have. And the way it works is that the marrying age for women goes way down the, uh, the marrying age for high status men, you know, is still low for low status men. It goes way high, low status men only have a couple wives and they can also get kicked out too in modern, in the modern times, in the smaller churches now that are still like me and so forth. And so that’s what I’m just, I just want to make the case why. Um like I say, I left the Mormon church over sexism. I’m still opposed to sexism. That’s why I’m also, you know, opposed to religious polygyny. Um You know,

[1:20:22] Michelle: I think the difference is, it’s not really consenting adults when you are told I speak for God and God says you need to do this, right? That’s a very different. Exactly.

[1:20:30] John Hamer: It’s an abusive authority when somebody is saying that. And so whether or not, whether or not you think Joseph Smith abuse that authority. We don’t, I can say for example, that Brigham Young and all of his successors all the way down, you know, until um Hebrew J Grants were all polygamous and Brigham Young and many of them, most of them also, you know, conducted underage marriages. Uh But that’s all in the historic record that is also not uh disputed. I think so. Right? A

[1:21:01] Michelle: very, a very good friend of mine who’s been a very faithful member of the church for all of her 70 plus years, just said to me and still is just said to me the other day, Brigham Young was a child trafficker. And so, you know, so we are able to grapple with this history because he, he really like he was a very troubling figure. He’s a very troubling figure in our past that we have to grapple with, which also should give some credibility to the fact that we’re not just wishful thinking. Because for those like me staying in the church, I’m willing to grapple with difficult history from our leaders, right? I just don’t see the evidence. So, so it’s not a, it’s not a motivated, you know, it’s not because I can’t handle the truth or I need to somehow save Joseph. I, I’ve said this, my, my listeners know this because I have said it so many times. It was actually studying Emma’s life that convinced me of this perspective. And I do feel, I feel a real closeness to Emma and a real desire to defend her because I do not like what this narrative says about Emma like that, that to me feels more personal, like that I’ll fight about, you know, because I have a tremendous amount of respect and love for Emma, what I understand of her. And so so can I there were three main points that I wanted to talk about from your presentation. But I don’t want to like if there’s anything you want to present, you

[1:22:21] John Hamer: know, I want to, I want to actually react to what you were just saying because actually, I really appreciate what you said in terms of grappling with the other leaders and you’re very aware of, you know, what they did and the, and the problems and you, again, I think we are like we said, we agreed that that’s not of God. And, and yet these guys are the prophets of the church who were doing that all the way, all the way through up until. Uh and so I, I appreciate that. And so I actually want to just as a um uh for your historical method, you know, as you, as you’re working on this, the, the direction now that you need to do in order to create um uh in order to create a different historical um narrative in order to actually have something that, you know, we’re not saying the historians are guardians of this and nobody’s allowed into the club or something like that. But what you need is a counter thesis. And so if it’s going to be something like Brigham Young created it, that the goal now is going to be to start um making all kinds of evidence that is showing that and like, um and, and so, for example, the evidence that you’re giving about Brigham Young uh forging the documents and things like that or like in his control that that’s going to be helpful for that. And so, and so that’s the, the, the, the direction as opposed to um working on explaining away all of the other Joseph Smith evidence. The you need the positive evidence of, of implicating Brigham Young is what I would just suggest you as academic focus

[1:23:57] Michelle: just so, you know, that’s exactly what I and many others are doing. Like we’ve gone extensively through um um Brigham Young, Brigham Young and Hebrew C Kimball’s and William Clayton’s diaries and letters in England in 1841 and showed that it preexisted and, and we have so many quotes of Brigham Young acknowledging and admitting that he came up that this was his doctrine, right? And we also have a lot of things to show that William Clayton’s accounts are just impossible. Um Like, like this is a little thing, but I think it’s an interesting one. For example, William Clayton, you know, it’s William Clay, this all rests on William Clayton. Really, we have his journals and then his affidavits. And that’s where we get the story of how 132 came about. That. Really, the only other thing we really have is the expositor with Austin Cowell saying it was read in the High Council. Everything else is kind of built on those earlier planes. Oh,

[1:24:52] John Hamer: go ahead in terms of in terms of contemporary evidence, what you’re saying,

[1:24:56] Michelle: that’s what I’m saying.

[1:24:59] John Hamer: Yeah. So I mean, we have, we have the same, you know, we have the same in terms of uh uh William Marks, you know, has testimony of that. It’s simply, but it’s not, we don’t have his contemporary testimony of it. So

[1:25:13] Michelle: we have, we have a very consistent testimony from him that I think is worth understanding. But I like including his, his later statements, clarifying his earlier statements as well. I think that we need to look at that as a totality as a whole because he gave that account made 4 to 6 times and, and in some of the later ones, he was like, hey, this is, you know, he clarifies what he was saying that that rings very true to me. And so I really like William Marks. I think he’s a man of integrity, you know, he’s very trustworthy. But um what I was saying is that, oh, so William Clayton claims in his affidavit, which we really based this all on and how 132 came about in the upper room of the brick store with just Brigham and Hiram and Clayton and you know that whole story. And then he says that a day or two, that two or three days after he wrote it, Joseph told him that he had let Emma destroy it because she was so whiny and pouty and wouldn’t leave him alone. And so just to get rid of her annoyance. He allowed her to burn it. And the only other copy was the one made by Kingsbury, kept by Bishop Whitney who nobody else knew about. Right. It was a secret copy. So that just, this is like I said, a little thing, but it leaves me to wonder, what exactly did Hiram Smith go across the street to get in August of that year to read to the High Council. That’s a really interesting question that I haven’t seen addressed adequately. And also that same day in the High Council July August 12th, I think if I’m remembering correctly when he supposedly read that the only notes we have, the only minutes we have are that William Marks was teaching with him. And so the fact that William Marks wouldn’t have known about 132 would have even had the question of whether Joseph was involved if Hiram read it that day in the High Council makes no sense at all. And these are just really basic parts of this narrative that fall apart with the slightest amount of investigation that I haven’t seen people like people just instead call it, call me a polygamy denier and tell me I’m a flat earther and a holocaust denier. And I’m like that. Ok, that’s fine. But can we just talk about the evidence? You know, because I think the evidence is

[1:27:18] John Hamer: worth, but even though if you are going to, so I think that you could make a bunch of different questions about the origin of 132 and whether or not we have the exact um there is a revelation that Joseph Smith gives whether or not 132 is, is that is a more detailed and nuanced component of the question, which is Joseph Smith. Yes. Is a polygamist. How much of 132 is, in fact the actual revelation that he dictated and how much of it is uh uh maybe totally different. Was it entirely a forgery and things like that? So that is not um that maybe what that testimony that you’re talking about may be core to the, the provenance for 132. But that’s not. Um That’s not what Joseph Smith as a polygamist is hanging on.

[1:28:11] Michelle: OK. OK. That’s fair. So, so I just like, I, I really appreciate us having this discussion because it lets us round out the, the conversation. So there were I, as I listened to your, um to your presentation, I did feel my feeling was if I had listened to this, you know, even five years ago, I would have found it very compelling. But now that I’ve studied so much, I found it from my perspective, like, like I just all the way through it was like, no, no, no. You know, I felt I, I really objected to a lot of it because of the study I’ve done. So, so it was hard to kind of narrow down. But there were two and maybe three main points that I kind of wanted to talk about. Not, they’re not the only things, but there are things I haven’t yet covered on my podcast. And so I think that’ll be interesting to the audience and then, and things I was excited to explore. So the, the three things that I wanted to talk about our first kind of the, um the claim that we don’t have Emma’s account. And, and, you know, you mentioned that we don’t have that we would love to, I think the quote was, if I can find it, we would love to have Emma’s own words. But we don’t, we only have the accounts of what she said to others. So I wanted to talk about that and then another one I really wanted to talk about and, and we can start with whichever one you want. But is Sarah and Whitney, I think that’s a great discussion to have because that is the one piece of supposed contemporary evidence that we have is the letter from Joseph to the Whitneys. And so, and then the other one I wanted to talk about was just briefly about, um, Fanny Alger and the sources that you used to tell, talk about Fanny Alger. So is that ok if we talk about those

[1:29:41] John Hamer: things? But I want to also, um I want to also state though for all of these cases, um this is also an issue. So with the Fanny, er, especially, or Fanny Alger, whichever you would prefer to say, I’ve heard it pronounced both ways. Um,

[1:29:57] Michelle: I grew up, I always grew up with Fannie. Er, I didn’t hear anyone say all

[1:30:02] John Hamer: but, um, yeah, but I’ll say is that there’s, there’s two different issues. Um, and this is also true when I’m talking about the historical Jesus. Right? And so when I’m doing, um battle with, you know, calling it battle because it’s a podcast and so forth or whatever with, with these mythicist guys, you know, on, on a, on a, on a youtube podcast or something like that. Um There is a big difference between what you’re talking about to shows that there was a historical Jesus and then once we’ve established that then going through and trying to unders trying to understand, well, what can we say about the historical Jesus? And um how can we, in the case of people for whom um they are, are members of Christian community, people of faith? Um When we’re, how can we be pastoral in talking about things that may not be historical like we were talking about at the beginning of this Christmas stories, which are not, not, which are the, which are made up by the evangelists, right? So the co stories are not uh part of the historical Jesus, right? And so, um and so, and so how do we do that pastorally? And So, what I’ll just say is the reason um for my focus especially on, on Emma is because I’m talking to a community of Christ audience. And so for um community of Christ people, they uh they, where they get to at the end of all this, they don’t care if Joe Smith abused his power. I mean, they do care, but in other words, they can get over it but, but they get sad about it because Emma is so central to um the reorganization community. Christ is Emma’s church. Um After uh after the church was reorganized, she helped us create the next two hymnals, you know, again, so, so four, there are four hymnals in our tradition that were from a a and, and so on. And so, and so it’s trying to be pastoral to try to understand for our members, why, why would Emma have, why is this published as Emma’s last testimony in the Herald, you know, in other words, because they don’t want to disbelieve Emma. And so that’s one of the, so that’s, that’s one of the reasons why I brought that up and talked about that. And then for the um

[1:32:12] Michelle: for

[1:32:13] John Hamer: Fannie Auger, this is not um this isn’t proof at all of anything. So, so what, so if, if, if Joseph Smith’s polygamy was limited to the kind of thing that he was doing with Fannie Auger, then um then I would just conclude it was an affair myself but you could conclude whether he did it or not, depending on whether you tend to believe Oliver Cowdery more than Joseph Smith in terms of your, and that kind of almost is coming down to your beliefs about the kind of thing that either one of them would do in different circumstances, right? Um But so, so that’s not a proof of anything. Why I, why I would talk about that is once we already understand that Joseph is a polygamist, then what I want to do is to explain to people for whom Joseph Smith is important. How did he get to this place? And so then, and so we hopefully are trying to and sometimes more so than others. I’m trying to be more pastoral or not on that too, even though I ultimately then will conclude that this is an abuse of authority. And we unfortunately have to um have as much or little pity for him as we want to depending on where we are and how we are feeling about what happened. So some people are very angry and that’s an appropriate response. Some people are saddened for him or whatever, but in other words, so I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be bringing that when I’m doing that, that one presentation and I’m talking about like him talking about it in the book of Mormon, The Layman Night Prophecy and all those kind of things that’s not proof because the, if it was only those things we wouldn’t, we would be able to dismiss it. Ultimately. What happens is, is, it becomes so widespread in NV, that the evidence is, is overwhelming. So that’s all. Ok.

[1:33:50] Michelle: So, ok. Yeah. So, so it would be good to talk about each of these because I very much disagree. I, I, so, so, I mean, I, I disagree with the perspective that it was so widespread in NV, that it’s overwhelming. I think it’s so widespread in Utah and the Utah testimonies are what this is all based in. And, and, and, and we can talk about believing women if we want to. I don’t find that to be a compelling argument because you don’t believe women in a totalitarian system whose only way is to, you don’t believe is Elizabeth Smart. And she says, no, I’m not Elizabeth. You don’t believe the FL DS women when they are saying no, this is my child and I was not under age and I don’t, you know, when, when women’s only way of existing is, is in the system, then you don’t call them liars. You look at them in the system that they’re in and take that into great consideration with the claims they make, particularly when you take the claims they make and try to investigate them and they fall apart terribly. They can’t be verified by history. That’s, that’s, that would be, is what my argument would be, you know. Yeah. So, so, but, um, and I did, I did appreciate your pastoral approach with Emma. You know, I didn’t really get what you were saying with Fannie. Like, I didn’t get that. You were trying to be pastoral with Joseph. That’s not how it came across to me. But I, but I did with Emma and, and I, um, but isn’t Joseph Smith the third also very central to, like, it’s even Joseph Smith the third’s church more than Emma’s because he was the one that had to make the decision to come and be the president, right? And Emma said that she would not advise him either way. So he seems very,

[1:35:22] John Hamer: let me show you here. I’m going to turn this we have on the wall here in the heritage in our library. There’s a, we have portraits of Emma and Joseph Smith the third. So, yeah,

[1:35:37] Michelle: that’s kind of the of the, of the community of Christ, the RLD. So

[1:35:41] John Hamer: we don’t have any pictures of Joseph on the walls here of his son. Yes. Um Joseph the third. So, yeah, so, yeah, no, of course, he and, and, and so, and so he has a very nuanced way that he approaches it. Um And, and says his primary and overriding point is that uh whatever was done, it’s not of God, right? And so if it had been done, it’s not of God. And so, and so, and so definitely he led the anti polygamy faction of the church. So lots of people have been opposed to this. No.

[1:36:14] Michelle: Ok. I personally believe he was 100% sincere and actually that he was 100% right. I don’t think that he was, I don’t see him the same way as trying to twist something. I think if you understand very much at all about um, religious leaders, like if you look at how well polygamous leaders they are raising up their sons, Joseph had planned for Joseph the third to be his successor from everything I understand. And it’s impossible for me to believe that he wouldn’t be teaching Joseph the third, the gospel as he understood it. I I 11 is pretty old, like in our tradition, he’s about to get the priesthood. He’s, you know, he would have been taught and also like the little house they were living in on um July 12th, 1843 when Hiram supposedly brought the revelation to Emma. Emma would have been so shaken up and upset. Like Jose Joseph Smith the third, always testified about how well his parents got along, how loving and kind their household was. And, and there aren’t these stories, we only get that from William Clayton. So, so, so for me, I tend to think, oh, wow, we should take Joseph the third’s testimony seriously. And then so I guess the question I had was when you talked about Joseph the third and um Emma’s final testimony, I got the sense that you were implying that Joseph lied about what his mother had said because you said we don’t have Emma’s actual words and she may have been Mires, but we,

[1:37:43] John Hamer: we don’t know what’s happening there. So we know that the testimony is false. Joseph Smith was a polygamist. So, and, and Emma, and we are aware that Emma was aware of it. And so in other words, we have plenty, all we have uh enough testimony that we know what was going on and we know that she was, had been lied to by Joseph Smith about it, that she had a limited participation around the time that the uh the revelation was dictated, the revelation seems to be geared towards her. And so whether or not you believe that that is the actual document, it does seem to be addressing the time uh and what we know about the time. And so then, so then she, in the end is aware of her son’s crusade that he has been on where he has um outlived most of the old members, uh the RL DS members who were in the know and who were opposed to his narrative. And uh and so at the very end of her life, um either she uh she lies for him uh because she knows that’s what he wants to hear, or she tries to give it a little bit of a nuance. And so some of it is uh is the kind of lie that her husband had been making. So Brigham Young changes the policy of that Joseph Smith junior had about lying about polygamy to being open about it and he changes it on the fly. So, um, you know, LL DS members are off in Europe, disclaiming polygamy and then, and then it, and then, oh, sorry about that. We, we, now we’re, now we’re coming clean. So, so there’s no reason for Emma to follow Brigham Young’s policy of not lying about polygamy. She could continue to follow her husband’s policy of lying about it. And so whether or not she was doing that or whether or not she was doing it to help her son or whether or not we don’t know, just the third wrote it himself. I don’t, I’m not saying that he would do that. But anyway, we don’t know what happened. I would think probably what’s happening is she’s following her husband’s policy and or, and, or saying what she want, her son wants her to say.

[1:39:47] Michelle: So my perspective is is that the lying for the Lord is a brig aite policy and everyone we have on record doing that is in the Utah tradition and the Brigham Young tradition, I don’t think that that came from Joseph Smith. And I think so. That’s why I want to investigate. This is because we start with the assumption like, like that quote, I read of yours earlier that we don’t start with the end in mind and then cherry pick. So it looks to me like that’s what’s happening here because it’s like we’re starting with the end in mind. And as we know, Joseph, we already have

[1:40:17] John Hamer: concluded though, we have concluded it from the evidence that Joseph is a polygamous. Now, we have to explain the tiny bits of counter meaning evidence. And so this is um a, a late statement, reminiscence or whatever of Emma, which is making a counter claim that is motivated by her church’s position, public position. And so, and so we can read the bias into this source as a late reminiscence and say this is a uh a biased reminiscence and we can see why it is uh it is contaminated in this way. Therefore,

[1:40:50] Michelle: OK. So, so if, if it’s OK, I looked up several statements we do have of Emma’s either firsthand, I only have two that are firsthand and then we have several that were reported in interviews. And I just wanted to share those because um because I think it’s important to get the whole totality. It’s not just her final testimony. And so I’m trying to decide which way. So, so um I guess should I start with that or start with William mcclellan? Because you kind of held up Joseph Smith the third versus William mcclellan, like you kind of said, we don’t have Amazon testimony, but we have what her son said about you

[1:41:20] John Hamer: have, you have other statements of Emma that would be more details than I maybe was aware of. But in any event, with the, what I will tell you before I hear them is the policy that she inherited from her husband was lying for the Lord. And that’s what they were doing in nu. And so if she is at any time doing that, uh you know, then that’s what she’s doing. So

[1:41:41] Michelle: and to me, that’s a huge assumption because I have never seen any evidence of Joseph teaching that saying that the only reason we say that is because the later U to testify of that and William Clayton testifies of it, I have never seen anything from Emma, from Joseph or from anybody else that says, and, and another thing that we always claim is that Joseph was using Brian Hills, calls them carefully worded denials saying it’s not polygamy, it’s celestial plural marriage. And I, I’ve never seen Joseph differentiate. He does everything he can from my perspective along with Hiram and Emma to lump them all in together and say no, this is all bad. So um so really quickly with William mcclelland, I was, I was actually astonished that um people take his testimony seriously at all even plausible because, and you can tell me if I’m wrong. But my understanding is that William mcclelland not only left the church but became very actively opposed to the church, was part of the Missouri mobs. And in fact, um we have accounts that he, um, ransacked and robbed Emmas and Joseph’s home in Barn when, um, when Joseph was in prison. And then we have accounts that he, um, this is a later Utah reminiscence. So I don’t, I can’t say for sure, but it’s in, it’s in the history that he asked the sheriff permission to flog Joseph while he was in custody. And so, um, so he was very much an enemy and yet he writes so, so just for my audience who’s not aware with this, I’ll fill the fill, fill them in really quickly that, um, William mcclelland wrote two letters to Joseph Smith, the third one in 1861 in 1872. And he said that his, that, that all you need to do is go ask your mother. And he said that he visited Emma in 1847 and that she acknowledged to him or affirmed to him several things that the revelation came from Joseph. She says that he says that Emma acknowledged to him that when Joseph the third was born, um Joseph, his father was having an affair with a Miss Hill and that she forgave him. She said, he said that, you know, it goes on and on and on. And I find it astonishing to think that Emma would sit and tell these things to William mcclelland who had literally robbed and ransacked her home in barn while her husband was in prison. That is I I like, I cannot believe we even give that the slightest amount of credits

[1:43:55] John Hamer: him to her son in terms of when the reorganization happens. And she thinks that he uh you know, so there’s a, there’s a letter where she is recommending him to be part of the reorganization. And so the implication, the reason why I mentioned it was because of that because the implication then was that they had to me was that they had uh uh whatever the, the kind of polemics and things that are happening in terms of the Mormon Missouri war period that in the aftermath of the N war, that the implication to me was that maybe they have had a, you know, they’ve come back together and, and, and settled things and reconciled in some way and that he is, and that’s why he was able to stay with them and visit with them. Uh in terms of this recollection that he has for Joseph the third. And so the only reason I brought that up then is because um Emma seems to have been fondly, you know, positively disposed towards him. And he is repeating Emma hearsay the same way that Joseph the third um does in terms of the final testimony, we, we don’t and as opposed to something that she’s written in her own hand, that we have her letter and her saying this or that and that, that was why I brought that as a try to trying to um for our L DS members who are especially um aware, the probably the only piece of evidence at all that they’re aware of. They don’t know anything about William Clayton’s journals or anything like that. Um That’s not part of our narrative. What they’re, what they know is what Emma said. And so what we’re just trying to understand for uh for them, you know, explain this final testimony that so called of Emmas.

[1:45:36] Michelle: And so you are aware, you are aware that your narrative comes from William Clayton, right?

[1:45:43] John Hamer: So now the evidence of Joseph’s polygamy is, is not only from William Clayton, you are, I I appreciate what you’re saying that maybe that is the um the major source for us understanding that DNC 132 is the revelation. But we have, we have amazing amounts of evidence contemporary and otherwise of Joseph Smith practicing polygamy and NA O it is not based only on William Clayton’s Clayton’s journal.

[1:46:09] Michelle: OK. So the only source I have seen other than the later Utah claims which are built on William Clayton, the only sources I have seen for the emergence of 132 or for the um troubles in Joseph and Emma’s marriage.

[1:46:22] John Hamer: Why 132? Well,

[1:46:24] Michelle: I was going to say also

[1:46:25] John Hamer: for before 132

[1:46:28] Michelle: but the troubles in Joseph and Emma’s marriage, William Clayton is also the only source I’m aware of for that, that’s considered to be contemporaneous. So but we can get into it. So, so let me, let me read some of these other quotes from Emma and then maybe it will help us to go on and talk about Sarah and Whitney because that’s, that is contemporaneous. So I’m assuming that’s when. So, um, anyway, and I can, I can just attach them below if you’re not interested in, you know, I don’t have to read them right now. So, um, so let’s see. Oh, ok, let me sorry, I’m finding my place. Um So Emma had this printed in the newspaper and I know that it’s easy to come to it with the bias that she was always lying for the Lord. But I think that that again is a confirma is a assumption that’s put on to evidence that we should at least consider what she is saying. So she had printed in the newspaper, we the undersigned members of the Ladies Relief Society and married emails to certify and declare that we know of no system of marriage being practiced in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Save the one contained in the Doctrine and covenants. And that was published in the October 42 times and seasons. And then also from the Voice of Innocence, that extensive article and that she had written in February and presented in February March of 44. So a couple of parts for it, she says, curse the man that preys upon female virtue. So I’m taking some pieces and putting them together because it’s so wordy spurn him from society. Kick the bloodthirsty pimp from the pale of social communion. Drive such fag ends of creation as was kin to the land of not dread, such canker worms more than the pestilence that walk in darkness and shun them as the serpent of the land and the shark of the sea. She goes on to say resolved unanimously that Joseph Smith, the mayor of the city be tendered our thanks for the able and manly manner in which he defended injured innocents in the late trial of, of Bostwick for slandering president hiring Smith and almost all the women of the city. She goes on to say while the marriage bed undefiled is honorable. Let polygamy, bigamy, fornication, adultery and prostitution be frowned out of the hearts of honest men to drop in the Gulf of fallen nature where the worms die not. And the fire is not quenched and let all the saints say amen. That was sorry. That was a long one. It’s a funny one to read. But then, and so those were during Joseph’s life. But then in addition to Joseph, the third final test of em that he interviewed, and I, I do think it’s quite a claim to even imply that Joseph the third would lie about his mother. Like that would be so controlling. You know, we don’t have any statements of her. Like if if she were acknowledging this to anyone, let alone William mcclellan, she Lucy was the closest thing she had to a mother. She absolutely would have talked to Lucy about it and she would have talked to her friends, you know, like it would be known. So it would be strange to say that Joseph was controlling her language. But, but anyway, we also have had

[1:49:10] John Hamer: a, he has had a multi decade agenda at that point to suppress all of these stories and argue against them and to, to make this particular claim that he created, but

[1:49:20] Michelle: to suppress his mother, to claim that his mother is trying to tell the, that Joseph was a polygamist. You know, she’s trying to say the truth about

[1:49:29] John Hamer: suborning the testimony of his uncle. So he, he writes

[1:49:34] Michelle: William. William is a tricky guy and was a wild card. And I anyway, I have it anyway.

[1:49:39] John Hamer: So unfortunately, he is subordinating testimony. And so he’s doing that with his mother as well and she is on board with his now agenda and, and is prepared to uh you know, lie for the Lord in this way that like she did in na so and so that na statements are the same. So, so either so so again, part of the, the situation with the women’s relief society as we know is that there is a um for a certain amount of the time Emma is being deceived by Jesse Smith in other words. So the the extent of the polygamy that is already happening, she is totally not aware of and she uh and she is being lied to uh continuously by him at a certain point. Uh for a very brief window, she is prepared to accept it. And then she later recants of that. Um and part of what she is doing in the women’s relief society is trying to root out uh uh polygamy and she is opposed to it, but it’s also the agenda of the church to publish denials which are false. And so that is one of the things that’s happening in those, in those contemporary accounts.

[1:50:48] Michelle: OK. And so I’ll go on and just mention a few more of these. I I also, when I hear people say that it’s so strange to me if you know anything about polygamous men, no, polygamous man would promote a disobedient wife to a high position and allow her to use her voice to speak against polygamy. That’s, that’s an impossibility from, in my perspective, from everything I have seen of controlling polygamist leaders as we have uh say that Joseph is that, that would be a very strange thing for him to do. Well, he’s

[1:51:19] John Hamer: introducing something and he’s doing it in a and he’s doing it in a surreptitious way. And so, unlike um unlike the later way polygamy is operated in Utah where it is actual polygamy. But what Joseph Smith is doing is, is having illicit relationships with women. And he is um is creating a spiritual, a secret spiritual function for it. He’s created ceiling, you know, the whole idea of celestial connections and this kind of a thing. But he is not, for example, building a giant house like uh Brigham Young had, you know, where, where everybody is all going to get to live in the house and, and he’s creating a system that uh that Emma is prepared to accept. He has started doing this completely on the fly from her and, and does not want her to know about it. And so, and so at different times, he is having, I think a very good relationship with her. And so in, in that sense, you are able to, um, keep that, keep their, um, per some of their personal fighting and personal issues away from their, their preteen kids. So, uh, so they’re not as aware of that. So I don’t think that they have actually a terrible relationship. I think that they, they have a pretty good relationship. Actually, one of the things that, um, um, William Law is talking about when he’s doing his later reminiscence, um, he is brought in and told about, uh, the principle and so forth during that brief window when Emma is on board. And so he, in his reminiscence is, uh, thinks that she is just as terrible a person as his opinion of Joseph Smith. And so that is a very, that’s why his recollection and not a Brigham, my recollection of a reform Mormon who later, uh, has, has lost everything and left. Um, his, his recollection is very anti Emma compared to, um, other recollections where, uh, where people think that Emma was, you know, was very much opposed to this. So it depends on the time period when, when they were part of it when, for example, um, my great, great, great, great grandparents gave their, you know, 14 year old, 15 year old daughter to um Joseph Smith to be a plural wife. This was um this was after, so this was after the time when Hiram was originally opposed to it. And Hiram had been running around trying to think that this was something that Bennett had started or something like that before Joseph brought him into the secret. And so, and so that he talked to um my great, great, great grandparents, eldest son, Benjamin Winchester because they were really good friends. And so Benjamin Winchester, who later went on to become a Rite apostle, he thought that Hiram was opposed to it. In other words, because of the time period when this was all happening. And so it depends on the recollection of when the person um impacted it in nu. And so then later, when, when it did happen, because his young sister had been part of this, he was very much opposed to the polygamy faction. And so he recognized Sidney Rigdon as a leader and he became a Rigdon and apostle and so forth. But the family, um uh who had already been part of this went to Utah and uh and the, the patriarch of that family took on pur of wives and so forth. So OK. Yeah.

[1:54:27] Michelle: And it’s interesting, I, I do see some similarities between William Law and, and Winchester Benjamin Winchester that I will be interesting. But let me just state these. So we have um interviews reported from Emma. The ones I was able to find were William Hepworth Dixon in 1869 JC Christiansen in 1872 Jason Briggs in 1874 Mark Forst in 1877. And then also Edmund Briggs and Harry, a Stebbins and they’re all in complete agreement. Emma gives report like all of them give reports of conversations that they had with Emma. They completely agree. And so, um so for example, Dixon was an English writer, he was an Englishman and a writer who was traveling through America and he wrote Emma Joseph’s wife and secretary, the partner of all his toil toils and all his glories, glories coolly firmly, permanently denies that her husband ever had any other wife than herself. She declares the story to be false, the revelation of fraud. She denounces polygamy as the invention of young and pratt, a work of the devil brought in by them for the destruction of God’s new church on account of this doctrine. She has separated herself from the saints of Utah and has taken up her dwelling with what she calls a remnant of the true church at Navoo. So that’s one of these consistent and um Christian Christiansen. It’s an interesting name.

[1:55:47] John Hamer: Tell me is the date of that one again. I mean, it’s obviously after they’ve reorganized the church and she is

[1:55:54] Michelle: 69 it’s published in 69. So I don’t know when the interview happened. Um And then Christiansen his interview, he says, Sister Emma, is it not a fact that your husband had other wives beside you? Emma says, no sir, I was his only wife to my to my knowing during his lifetime.

[1:56:12] John Hamer: That is also true to say it that way.

[1:56:14] Michelle: But, but I know, but we have to be careful because what this, if you look at that turn of phrase to my knowing, it was used in that time as my understanding is also to say, which I know for certain

[1:56:25] John Hamer: to say, yeah, no, I’m not saying it’s too annoying. I’m saying there were no other wives because these are all just affairs as far as is concerned. These are not, these are not legitimate. I’m just saying this is how you lying for the Lord. So you, you, you can say, OK, there are none of these are legitimate wives. This, there was no revelation. That’s a fraud. I can, I can tell you there is no revelation. It’s a fraud. There are no other wives. This is all just affairs. She was the only legal wife.

[1:57:00] Michelle: Yeah. But if she put hands in Joseph’s hand and performed a ceiling and Joseph considered them eternal wives. That’s what you know, and doctrine and covenants does say why? Section 132.

[1:57:11] John Hamer: So she did that and that was an abuse of power. That was a fraud. It wasn’t a legitimate marriage, it wasn’t legal and it wasn’t of God. So, so, so I could tell you as well from a religious standpoint, she is his only wife. In any real sense. There is a abuse of authority that is happening that where Joseph Smith is calling it a marriage, but I don’t call it a marriage in any real sense. You know, I mean, it’s an institution that develops later in other, in the, in the various factions that, you know, when, when it becomes open or at least practiced, you know, where you’re having, you know, multiple women living with the same, you know, and, and essentially it’s open within the community.

[1:57:50] Michelle: But all of the narratives that this is built on do very much say that they are wives, they do very much call it wives and, and polygamous societies consider them to be multiple wives. So Emma would be directly lying even if we want to twist what she’s saying. I’ll finish this one quickly. Um um He just said, could he not have had a wife without you knowing it. And he, she says, no sir, no one had a better chance and way of knowing it than myself. Sister Emma. Is it not a fact that Joseph Smith received a revelation, favoring polygamy and spiritual wifey? No, sir. There was no revelation given through him on either either spiritual wifey or polygamy. Nor was that abominable doctrine taught either privately or publicly by Joseph um before his death. And so, um oh, and then there’s, and then, and then in answer to his question about the claim that she burned it, she said that is a base falsehood made out of whole cloth, which is something that she says often to that question. And so we do have many consistent testimonies from her. And William mcclelland is the only one I know of that stands out in opposition that and then some other ones that I find similarly unreliable cons cons compared to her consistent testimony throughout. I think it’s impossible to believe that she would have said something different to William mcclellan even though she was such a forgiving.

[1:59:04] John Hamer: So it’s earlier, all of these testimonies that you’re reading with the exception of the contemporary ones. So the contemporary ones during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, where in the policy of the church was lying for the Lord, then the other ones she’s in keeping with the reorganization church’s new policy again, of lying for the Lord. So, um so, so unfortunately, you know, so, so So, unfortunately, that I agree with you. So, her policy is pretty consistent because we now are seeing it in the, in the different components. So now what she would have said in the intervening time when there is no church or when she’s not part of it, when she’s cast off to William mcclelland, it mean that you don’t have to believe that she actually confided any of those things with him, even in the kind of surreptitious way. He said, well, she would only nod or say yes or no or something like that, that you, you don’t have to credit that or not, doesn’t matter really. Um The issue again is that the policy that we existed when she was um in the church, when, when Joseph Smith, her husband was alive was that you lie for the Lord. And one of the ways you could, all of the ones that you just barely read are ones that unlike the last testimony, some of the things she says in that are harder to, to square in terms of this, um, Clintonian, I call it Bill Clinton type style doublespeak. You know, I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky because he’s defining sex differently. And so he’s lying in a way by saying he didn’t do he, he’s defining sex one way. And so therefore he’s, he’s speaking in a way which he’s saying is legally true, but, but it is meant to deceive you so none of these things were taught because it’s, um, because this polygamy would be an infernal doctrine. And so therefore, that wasn’t taught, there were no other wives because there’s only one legal wife and so on. You know. And so you could, those easily could be that kind of, uh, line for the Lord Clintonian statements. And it would just be that she’s consistent from the church policy that she inherited. And so there is no reason for her to adopt Brigham Young’s policy, uh post um whatever it is 1852 when they have the open policy. So,

[2:01:09] Michelle: ok, so I did find a quote from her and I won’t remember it. But where she told Brigham and Hebrew, she says that she told Brigham and Hebrew that the first two principles of their gospel are lying and deception. So, and she really, you know, so I, I don’t know that, I guess it sounds to me like there’s really nothing Emma could say that could be taken that could be seen as credible. Either she’s lying for the Lord or, you know. So that’s, so that’s an interesting perspective. So, um, so like her testimony doesn’t really matter which I find ironic when we’re told to believe the women and she’s really talk about believing

[2:01:44] John Hamer: the women. There’s all the other women who you already said, you’re not going to believe all of that. It’s not about spiritual wives. You said we’re not going to believe them, even though they all gave their affidavits, you discount all of everything they’re saying. And so we already said you just, you were, you were discounting at the beginning of this conversation. We’re not going to believe the women, you know.

[2:02:02] Michelle: So, no, no, II I want to clarify that, that, that I’m saying that if we are going to believe the women, let’s look at all of the women and look at their testimony and whose testimony can hold up to scrutiny the best? I don’t see Emma see, see, I see these women in a um power structure that does not give them their own voice, right? And, and for example, and the foster sisters is it Sarah and Maria Foster? No Lawrence, the Lawrence sisters. I’m sorry, Sarah and Maria Lawrence, they are claimed to be very important wives of Joseph Smith. In fact, the only claim that William Law can make against Joseph Smith is with Mariah Foster, but she dies in 1850. And Sarah Fo Lawrence, sorry, Sarah Lawrence comes to Utah to combat the claims that she and Jos she and her sister, we’re married, we’re Joseph’s wives and she denies it vehemently. And Emily Pratt says, oh, she’s so dark now, she’s lost the spirit so much that she lies about this and we believe Emily and not Sarah. And so it’s not that we’re believing the women. We’re not believing the women. So that’s why I’m the thing you have to believe the women. I’m not

[2:03:12] John Hamer: saying I, I guess when I was even talking about it in terms of believing the women are not. Um the reason why I even why I even brought that up in our predis discussion is I meant to say, as opposed to Joseph Smith. And so the reason why I meant that is because I think that um central to the um motivation of rehabilitating Joseph Smith is a um a personal belief and picture and image that they uh someone has of Joseph Smith and therefore not wanting him to have committed abuses of his authority in this way. And, and so, and so that’s all, that’s all I meant in terms of the, the testimonies that um so many of these women have not that every single, any, like we just have to automatically believe every single detail that any of any of these women are giving. Um because actually everybody is subject to the same different kinds of biases and so forth. So Emma has other kinds of reasons in addition to um the stated policy of her church, which is, which is a avowed partisan of Brigham Young church. Brigham Young is saying from the pulpit, just horrific things about Emma. Uh And so, and so what, it’s not only polygamy that she is accusing him of lying about, he, he has said hor horrific things you know about, about her and she has other contexts that she is also having to deal with, which is they are now in the very height of the Victorian era. And so her and any of these women actually talking about um personal uh intimate relationships, it is very difficult for them to even talk about. Are you wife in the full sense of the word that you know, in other words, as they’re trying to get around us in terms of Victorian um the Victorian era. And also also we are in a, in a time period when, because of the um the ending of the lying for the Lord about polygamy, they’re still lying for the Lord about a lot of the things out in Utah. Anyway, when the, when the, when the end of that policy happens, the the level of hatred for Utah Mormons that happens across the planet is crazy. People don’t even, people don’t realize the amount of um just total hatred in the United States for, for Mormons. And so for all of these Mormons that are living in the Midwest who didn’t escape, you know, we don’t even call ourselves Mormons because everyone that Joseph the third called himself a Mormon. You know, and all that came when the reorganization happened, the community of Christ happened. But after, after the name Mormon became so hated because of polygamy, um we, we even renounced Star and Mountain Meadows massacre and all those things we renounced our, our own name. You know, we, we now if you talk to community of Christ, even though, even though we consider Joseph, the Smith Junior to be our first prophet and we consider to be our history and all those kind of things, you know, we don’t even call, we don’t, we totally reject the word Mormon. If you ask community of Christ members, you know, on your restoration as friends too, you know, are, are you Mormons or how do they use the word Mormon? They use the word Mormons to refer to people in Utah only or also to our ancestors sometimes, you know, and so, and so it’s, it’s such a, it’s such a crazy identity freak fe that has happened because of the level of pressure and hatred. So, so for Emma to be, you know, you know, changing the policy that she had inherited uh from the public denials, which is what the policy was in. Nu to know. Yeah. Now I’m gonna openly admit it to everybody in the press and everything like that when I, when this is now being asked of me again on her own, I it would be, I, I think it would be strange for her to, to start doing that, especially when it was something that she was personally had been so opposed to and that she um and it was so shameful, you know, and it was nothing, you know, it’s like a uh she’d already the fact that, you know, her husband’s name is associated with the Mormon church. You know what I mean? There’s community of Christ at a certain point is so tiny that nobody’s considering us to anything, anything about us is we’re, you know, weirdo Mormons are just lumped in with Mormons, you know, and so, and so all of this was blanketing them. So anyway, so I think it’s very understandable why, why her testimony is that way and it’s not about believing her and not believing her. It’s understanding why um given where she was at, why she would make the statements in that way.

[2:07:27] Michelle: OK. Which is exactly what I’m saying about the women in Utah. Because from my perspective, I think Emma is truthful. I don’t think she’s dissembling or lying for the Lord, but I think the women in Utah are so it’s a different. So, so that’s why I think it’s useful to get into the nuts and bolts and, you know, at least consider what might be a possibility. But um oh, there’s 10, and I totally agree with you with the um the, what’s the word I’m looking for? Just the way that Mormons were viewed in Utah. And I think that help, that we need to understand that to help us understand William Law’s testimony. And Chesterton, I mean, and Winchester’s testimony, they really were trying to distance themselves from Joseph Smith or from the foundations. I think that’s a better way to understand where they were coming from at that point saying something good about Joseph Smith would not have been cool. So they distance themselves as much as possible. So, um anyway, ok, so going on, let’s see, there were other things I was going to, well, well, can we move forward to the um Sarah Anne Whitney? Sure um letter. And so do you want to explain that to the audience or do you want me to? I know most of them will know, but we can give it a quick recap. I will if you,

[2:08:34] John Hamer: we sometimes I think bring that to the four and it usually gets quoted at length because it is a contemporary document again. So, um uh it’s wonderful to have uh you know, the later affidavits, but like you say, some of those affidavits are collected by the Brigham White Church, others are um are not in other words. So they’re, you, you had to, you had to create kind of two categories because you either are Brigay or what you call enemies of Joseph Smith. Um And so that’s a broad category that involves all kinds of different, different people. Um But in any event, that’s the uh one of the things that we have in terms of going back to the contemporary evidence of, of loyalists who then later become Brigham mis um are uh this, this letter that uh it is from Joseph Smith to the, the Whitney family during, while he’s doing this, hiding out from the law and he, um, is hoping to have them come and, um, come and visit him. And so it is not explicit what about what it says, but what it is explicit about it is they can, they should not come to be there. He, he’s saying I’ve got my own room, it’ll be really discreet and everything like that. But don’t come if Emma’s around. So if Emma’s around do not, do not come, you know. And so, and so therefore, um uh it is read uh with the implication though, right? So in other words, it isn’t saying uh my dearest wife, I love you and all this kind of thing. And uh I can’t, I miss you. I want to have sex with you or something like that. But the um the implication is not very far below the surface. And that’s one of the reasons why it’s read a lot because it’s contemporary and then it was buttressed by um a revelation dictated by Joseph Smith in UK Whitney’s hand. Um And so then the question though then is uh because Noel K Whitney for people who are uh brigand might, he is later a loyalist to the, the Brigham my church. Um So the question is to what extent, you know, way you trust no K Whitney as a uh as a scribe for that kind of a revelation. And so, in that case, in other words, because it’s very explicit about the plural marriage between Joseph Smith and uh his daughter.

[2:10:50] Michelle: OK. OK. So this letter to the Whitneys to Newell and Elizabeth Whitney and company is written in Joseph’s own hand. And it, to my understanding is really the only contemporaneous piece we have written by Joseph that we can point to about his polygamy. That’s the main one I know. And then as you said, it’s buttressed by a revelation given to Noel K Whitney that includes the marriage ceremony. He is to the words he’s to say like it is very explicit, tells him what to say as he’s marrying. Um Joseph and Sarah Anne. OK. So, um so getting into this, what I find, well, oh, I have so many questions, but as historians, is it not really important to consider the context, right? Like like in, in investigating this letter, shouldn’t we read Joseph’s journal for this time period, for example? And, and so does that shape the way you view this letter? Well, and I’ll come back to that. I have one more question as well.

[2:11:55] John Hamer: Well, I think that for example, in that letter is fully quoted, for example, in George D Smith’s novel Polygamy, but we called it Plural Marriage or something or celestial marriage. And, and I think he puts even a, I think he even has a calendar of the Joseph Smith’s events or whatever right around there in order to give it that kind of a context. Um the place that I was quoting it from was from Todd Compton’s book uh in, in Sacred Loneliness, The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. And that’s one that I just recommend everyone to read. You know, we’re talking about um uh getting into, interested in the lives of the women involved, uh whether they become Brigham mis or not. And however much you want to believe them, at least you can also um understand the struggles of early Latter day saint women and pioneers. And we don’t often get to see those kind of biographies. And so the fact that uh Todd Compton, you know, put gathered those stories together is, is really worth reading. So

[2:12:52] Michelle: I, so I think Todd Compton is one of the best guys. He is such a nice guy. I super appreciate that he did this um the biographies of the women. I, one thing that I did push back with him on when I talked to him, I don’t like when historians state things as factual, they state their narrative as factual. And I think that that’s one that’s like I absolutely say, yes, read that book with the caveat of understanding that he is stating factual things that are based in very questionable evidence from my perspective. So, um but so, so,

[2:13:23] John Hamer: so one of the things that happens, I’ll just say one of the things that happens. And this is also like I said, the case when I just talked about this, right at the beginning with the historical Jesus, right? So there is a big difference between um if you’re gonna go through and just make the case where we can say thus, it has been demonstrated. There was a historical Jesus, there is a big difference from that argumentative case once that’s been demonstrated. Now, now we can go back and look at the the general sources, understanding that there’s a historical Jesus. Now, we can, what can we say about this historical Jesus? And we could say more about the historical Jesus then things that are being said about him or whether they’re not proofs that he existed, they are given that we know that he existed. This is what we now can say on him based on the sources that we have. And so what I would say that suggests that Todd is doing is not every single part of this is a book that is a proof. Joseph Smith was a plam that has already been conclusively shown by all of the evidence taken, the preponderance of evidence. The fact that this is the um the most likely narrative because the evidence is so great, both contemporaries before or after people who are Briga mights, people who are you call enemies of Joseph Smith. But in other words, people who are insiders who break with him, um people who uh continue in other factions, uh people and who continue to be therefore loyal to Joseph Smith. People who like Benjamin Winchester even if they’re not loyal to Joseph Smith have no loyalty to Brigham Young, they hate Brigham Young, you know, and so could have, if Brigham Young was the origin of it, he’d be very happy to have said so. So once we already, we have have that um the preponderance of evidence. In other words, where historians have established that Joseph Smith is a polygamist. Now, you, now we are telling the story based on, uh you know, what, what can, how can we understand it, you know, based on the other evidence. And so, and so that all I would just suggest to you, it isn’t this, this entire book is not a every single argument that he’s making about reconstructing lives that we can’t know as much about, right? So my great, great, great, great grandparents, daughter who is married to Joseph Smith, Nancy, Mariah Winchester, almost nothing is known about her other than our, our, our brief family um remembrances and so forth, you know, we don’t have a lot of those documents that like of this letter, you know, we don’t have, um we don’t have a revelation that Joseph Smith dictated to my great grandfather. We don’t have anything, we don’t have any writings from my great, great, great grandfather. You know, he, uh and so as a result of that, um it’s not a proof Todd Compton in order to create that has had to, um you know, women are not always as uh don’t always have as much of a role in history and make the documents in terms of so that we can reconstruct those lives. And so, and so that so if we only had my family’s reminiscence, we wouldn’t be able to prove a thing about Joseph Smith and polygamy, right. In other words, because it’s only in the context of the rest of the evidence that we can try to tease out Nancy’s story. And so and so that’s OK.

[2:16:25] Michelle: OK. So, so yes, but the interesting thing is usually Todd Compton’s book is used as the authoritative source and the proof. That’s how like even when I was contacting the church library, the church family history library and asking for documents and information, even they, their recommendation was read Brian Hale’s book and read Todd Compton’s book if you want to know about Joseph’s polygamy. So, so what I’m saying is we have these narratives, but we haven’t done the due diligence to question the assumptions underlying them. And I think that work needs to be done. So that’s what I’m trying to engage in now. But I want to go forward,

[2:17:02] John Hamer: we don’t maybe have a text that somebody has written. What you know, some historian would have to take it upon themselves to do that thing that I was talking about doing in terms of proving the existence of the historical Jesus where I have an art. I have a, I have a lecture that I did just that. Right. And I don’t normally do that. I’m normally talking about all that we can know about the historical Jesus. And so I, I could agree with you that, that probably hasn’t been done. And the reason why it hasn’t been done is because until you and all of the growing number of people who are, uh, are coming at it from the direction you are, it has not been necessary to do that because the, um it’s been demonstrated to the satisfaction of all the historians. And so therefore, nobody’s had to argue that we’ve already come to a place where we are now trying to explain it and so forth. Um But, and so, so I agree with you that maybe that book should be written.

[2:17:55] Michelle: OK. Good. Well, hopefully it will be. So, so I just want to move on. I know we’ve been talking for a while. So are we OK to go on to Sarah and Whitney? And, and uh so, so one thing I find interesting is you, you said that the revelation is in New? OK, Whitney’s hand. Have you seen that?

[2:18:11] John Hamer: So, so I was, I think, I think I was quoting Todd for that. I have seen it. I looked it up on the Joseph Smith papers, but I didn’t, but um, but I didn’t necessarily see what the Joseph Smith papers said, whose hand it is? So has it, is it in somebody else’s hand?

[2:18:25] Michelle: So what we have on the Joseph Smith papers, which is the most authoritative source that we have access to. We have a 1912 type written copy that that is what was presented to Joseph F Smith when he requested it from the family. And then the only other two sources we have are two manuscript copies that the Joseph Smith papers just says are circa 1918 70 with no um no explanation as to why they’re 1870. It just we have 200 written copies by unknown writers in 1870. It says, and then, but the type written copy is the is the one that was used to, to base this. So I I would be curious to know which came first. Where did they, you know? So we actually, and this was never mentioned at all until, oh, shoot, I have it here. I’ll have to find it. I believe it wasn’t mentioned until I want to say it was 1865 but I might have that year wrong. I’ll have to find it was the first time that a revelation was even mentioned and it was later than that. I’ll find it. And it was there was um man, I’ve got to find my notes published in a newspaper that um that this revelation existed but had never been published. But what’s really interesting is that before that newspaper article that said that um it it existed um Elizabeth Ann Whitney had written her autobiography, which was carried. So it was much later than that I will find the dates. But her autobiography was carried in the women’s exponent. It’s called a Leaf from A P A leaf from an autobiography I believe. And it starts in November of 1878. And not only does she never mention that revelation, which I would think would be a pretty important revelation because it’s, you know, she’s involved in it and it’s very important. But the, the story she gives in the autobiography directly contradicts the story in the um the the revelation, they can’t both be true. And so I think that is very high, a highly questionable source to use because we have to, again the context Elizabeth Ann Whitney absolutely would have mentioned it. And so in Elizabeth Ann Whitney’s autobiography, she says that it was when Bishop Whitney had the be made of, of section 132 that she, she read it and they fasted and prayed until they were willing to give their daughter to Joseph in the revelation that was given in 1842 a year earlier. I can’t remember what month off the top of my head. Um I’ll think of it maybe July but um but it said that this what you have agreed to is right. So it says that they had already agreed to give Elizabeth and Whitney. So I see no reason to not assume that this is also a later reproduction at some point in the Utah period either. Um you know, like, like some people hypothesize that it was Hebrew C. Kimball who came up with it, which is part of the reason that if it does, I mean, if it wasn’t just created in 1912 or in 1870 if it was copied from something, they’re not releasing what that was, it obviously made it across the plains if it was able to be copied in 1870. And most, some people really think it would be a Newell K Whitney’s handwriting based on misspellings based on using initials and words. So, so I wanted to point out this is a highly, highly questionable source. And

[2:21:58] John Hamer: so, like I said, for that one, like I, what I probably was doing was pulling uh because of the letter, you know, and uh and, and so, and because again, this is something that I was pulling out of Todd Compton’s book. Um So in this particular case, I appreciate that we go through and, and uh again, look at in every individual document which is really important to do. Um And it may well be um that a late reminiscence that somebody has, you know, you’re making an argument that, that late reminiscence for their autobiography, um where they, that you, that would be a negative evidence, right? That, that she would have remembered this or that would have been important. Well, you know, and people don’t always remember how it all, you know, you know what all the order of things are. So I don’t, I don’t, we would have to make the argument about that in, in particular case, like I say, I didn’t have that in that way because I’m not, um, I am not actually a front line historian in terms of the person who is, uh let’s say, looking at every one of these documents in the, um, in order to create a book like Todd Compton, Todd Compton will have been doing that. I uh I’m not doing that because it’s not, that’s not my focus of my work on, you know, but I’m instead taking, taking what is in the, in that case, the secondary sources and um helping people understand why historians have gotten to that place. And so, so I appreciate that we can talk about every particular individual uh piece of the different evidence. The reason why I’ll tell you that I, I used the, the letter, the letter is pretty compelling, you know, because it is a uh contemporary. Um and this other document, like I say, when I even introduced it to you to you, I was saying, you know, purports to be from the time whether but like you say, it depends on our understanding of it because of it coming through the, the briga my tradition, which is itself biased and pro polygamy. It wouldn’t be, I, I find it highly unlikely it would be something that be created in, in like 1912 because they’re not in favor of polygamy at that point. But anyway, but if you’re talking about, um, again, is, is the Brigham White Church prepared to forge evidence in the 18 sixties and 18 seventies and 18 fifties even? Yes, of course, they are. So, and all the

[2:24:21] Michelle: way up into the 18 forties. Yeah, the late 18 forties and early 18 fifties because I,

[2:24:25] John Hamer: all through that time period. Um Brigham Brigham Young, in my opinion, doesn’t have any legitimate claim to for his coup and he has to justify his coup in a bunch of different ways, you know. Yeah,

[2:24:36] Michelle: so, ok, so I found this. So, so the the Joseph Smith papers say that the earliest we have is 1870 those two manuscript copies, we don’t know who they’re by then. It was mentioned for the first time it was in contributor which I can show in January 1885 is the first time it says there’s this revelation that’s never been published, but it exists. So I guess

[2:24:57] John Hamer: what I had seen on the, on the on the Justice Smith papers is in fact the letter that not the not the purported revelation, right? So that’s, that’s what I was surprised. I was surprised by the letter being on there. So because I had never looked at it, I read the letter. So that, that’s what I guess I had seen on the Joseph Smith papers. Not, I hadn’t looked up the revelation. I looked at the

[2:25:16] Michelle: letter. So, ok, so, so then let’s talk about the letter because I think so. I hope that you’d like, understand why I see. It’s interesting you say the experts in this topic because really, Todd Compton wasn’t an expert either. He was an ancient historian, you know, and he was really surprised he was given the grant to study the, um, the journals. And so he’s also, you know, so he also was based, had this assumption when he did his work. So really the prices who I know you say they’ve been debunked. But I don’t like, I don’t think most people have even read them and considered the amount of information they have to deal with it. You have

[2:25:54] John Hamer: all this became such an issue because of the, because of the remnant. Um, you know, the, the gathering of the, whatever the remnant movement is called, you know, the snuff right movement because this became such a big issue, automatic way back in like the two thousands. Um uh I went and got, you know, Joseph fought polygamy and I, and I read through it and so forth so that I could be able to see what, what was being presented there. But yeah, OK,

[2:26:19] Michelle: I think that’s good because I think it’s like, like, um, if I, I mean, I don’t know that you want to speak to people like me. I don’t know like you said, I don’t know if that’s your expertise or your wheelhouse that you want to um present on Joseph’s polygamy. But since you are presenting on it, it would be good to know what the issues are. You know, because, because you are saying it with such certainty and that’s why I like started with that feeling that when the historians speak, the thinking has been done because that perspective doesn’t feel

[2:26:45] John Hamer: so it’s the dismissal, it’s the dismissal of whole washes of evidence. So in other words, if you’re going to like the prices, dismiss anything that Brigham Young touch and everything that is an enemy of Joseph. Well, then suddenly you’re left with no, you know, you’re not left with any honest evidence. And so and so because all you have is Joseph Smith lying and, and all of the other and, and so, and so that’s, and so that gives you, that paints you into the picture place that you want to be. So and that’s kind of,

[2:27:16] Michelle: well, so to clarify for me, um like I I’m not about dismissing evidence, I’m about investigating it. So for example, the Whitney revelation, I think that’s worth investigating. Yeah. Yeah. And I, yeah. So um so anyway, the, the thing that I find interesting with the letter is um so I have to link, I’ll link in the show notes, Rob Fathering Ham, who you might know because he’s, he’s made videos on this topic quite a bit and he did an excellent one on Sarah and Whitney and um, and this situation, so I get some of this quite a bit of this information from him. But um it’s interesting to consider the situation, the context again of that letter that I think helps us interpret it in much more um accurate ways. Right? And so Joseph, at this time, as you said, was in hiding because of the murder attempt on Governor Boggs. Right? And so the, the mobs were trying, I mean, the, the Missourians were trying to find him, which they all knew would be a death sentence if they found him. So he was very serious that he was in hiding. Right? And um he also, I just think it is interesting because, you know, he’s an extrovert. He’s like, you didn’t have a computer like this would have been a miserable, miserable time, right? He want, he, he would have craved seeing people. And so, um anyway, and so I guess I’m curious to know, first of all, do you have any evidence that Joseph and Emma were struggling in their relationship at this time or that he was, you know, other than just the narrative, I’m not

[2:28:42] John Hamer: making any claim that Joseph and Emma are struggling. I don’t, he doesn’t want Emma to know that they’re going to come visit because he’s having a clandestine relationship with Noel K Whitney’s daughter.

[2:28:53] Michelle: And so it’s

[2:28:54] John Hamer: not because they’re struggling, they’re not, he, he’s very happy to visit with Emma. He’s saying Emma might come some of the time and because, because, because she’s coming to visit him because they’re, they’re getting along just fine. I don’t, I don’t have this Brigham Young uh uh narrative where Emma was a hell, hell and, and trying to poison him and all of this, all these dumb Brigham young lies, I think that they are, are very good partners. But Joseph Smith is also abusing his authority on the side, on the sly in this way and deceiving her about it. And so, um ok,

[2:29:25] Michelle: that’s interesting. That’s interesting because the whole narrative we get of Joseph being deceptive and, and this polygamy comes from the same source that, that Emma as this crazy lady comes from, you know, it’s all it is all based in the William Clayton journals. And so it’s interesting to dismiss part of them and not, you know, you know, to take part of the narrative and, and dismiss

[2:29:50] John Hamer: a fight. She’s opposed to this polygamy

[2:29:53] Michelle: quick interruption. And then we’ll get back into the conversation. I realized that it would be important for the listeners to understand exactly what we’re talking about. So I’m going to read the letter written in Joseph Smith’s own hand marked August 18th by William Clayton, dear and beloved brother and sister Whitney and et cetera. Now, first, please note it’s addressed to beloved brother and sister Whitney and others. It doesn’t actually ever say Sarah Anne’s name, the assumption we have that this is Sarah Anne Whitney is based upon again, the later testimonies that I believe were built around this letter. I take this opportunity to communicate some of my feelings privately at this time, which I want you through eternally to keep in your own bosoms for my feelings are so strong for you since it, what has passed lately between us that the time of my absence from you seems so long and dreary that it seems as if I could not live long in this way. And if you three would come and see me in this my lonely retreat, it would afford me great relief of mind if those with whom I am allied do love me. Now is the time to afford me succor in the days of exile for you know, I foretold you of these things. I am now at Carlos Granger’s just back at Brother Hiram’s farm. It is only one mile from town. The nights are very pleasant. Indeed. All three of you can come in, see me in the fore part of the night. Let brother Whitney come a little ahead and knock at the southeast corner of the house at the window. It is next to the cornfield. I have a room entirely by myself. The whole matter can be attended to with the most perfect safety. Again, please note that the theme of this letter is how they can get there to visit him in safety without threatening his life by giving away his location. I know it is the will of God that you should comfort me. Now, in the time of affliction or not at all now is the time or never, but I have no need of saying any such thing to you for. I know the goodness of your heart and that you will do the will of the Lord. When it is made known to you, the only thing to be careful of is to find out when Emma comes, then you cannot be safe. But when she is not here, there is the most perfect safety. Only be careful to escape observation as much as possible, right? That’s the theme of the letter you can’t be seen coming to visit me and give away my hiding place. I know it is a heroic undertaking, but so much the greater friendship and the more joy when I see you, I will tell you all my plans, I cannot write them on paper. Burn this letter as soon as you read it, keep all locked up in your breasts. My life depends upon it. And who is his life in danger from, from Emma or from the Missourians? One thing I want to see you for is to get the fullness of my blessing sealed upon our heads, et cetera. You will pardon me for my earnestness on this subject. When you consider how lonesome. I must be your good feelings. Know how to make every allowance for me. I close my letter. I think Emma won’t come tonight if she don’t, don’t fail to come tonight. I subscribe myself your most obedient and affectionate companion and friend Joseph Smith. Now, back to the conversation. So, um, so anyway, that week, so we don’t actually have a date on that letter William Clayton later wrote in on the top of it, August 18th. And so I think it’s interesting to look at this week because um, we know from the journal entries and the letters at this time period that Emma was being closely followed by these people, these Missourians trying to find Joseph Smith, they had to do all kinds of different surreptitious decoys and, you know, send a carriage that way and send one this way, send a writer that way. And Emma got on the carriage part of the way, then walked at night because she was being so closely followed. Right? And so wouldn’t that be a very logical explanation of why? Um, they needed to watch out for Emma? Ok.

[2:33:48] John Hamer: I’m sorry. No, it’s not. That’s not what the, I don’t think that I read the letter that way at all. So, no.

[2:33:53] Michelle: So I read, I read a letter to two parents. It’s addressed to Newell and Elizabeth Whitney. And the idea and, and Joseph has one room in someone else’s house and he’s arranging a booty call with the parents who are going to be there while it occurs. That’s right. And that seems more likely to you knowing that Emma was being closely followed and that Emma was likely there when this letter was written and may have even been the one who delivered it because she was delivering letters for

[2:34:24] John Hamer: Joseph. And if, if, if, um, Emma would have delivered a letter like this, which ii, I doubt that a letter like this, which even says on it, I think burn this letter later. You know, don’t, don’t say this.

[2:34:40] Michelle: But do you know why, why do you think it says burn this letter?

[2:34:43] John Hamer: So that again, this kind of these kinds of clandestine communications are not coming to light. And so certainly, so that Emma doesn’t get a hold of these, these kind of letters. And so I, again, Joseph is deceiving his wife about these relationships. And so, and so what I, I don’t think that anybody is going through the, the risky, I mean, a risky behavior of having her actually deliver them like Rosen Grants and gil during style letters. And unless you really trust that she never opens letters. Um So no, I,

[2:35:17] Michelle: so on the night of the 17th, so we, I don’t know what day this letter was written. William Clayton adds the 18th, which maybe because there’s not a journal entry on the 18th. III I know that William Clayton was going through sources to craft his narrative. That’s, that’s something we’ve looked into very deeply. But um but on the, in the middle of the night, on the 17th, they moved Joseph in his place of hiding. Emma was with him. Emma came to tell him that his hiding place had been discovered and it needed to immediately move. And that’s when he went. Is it the grangers that he went to? I can’t remember what the letter says, but both his journal and the letter are in agreement in that and in the and so his hiding place is very important and in the letter, he says I am at this place, burn this letter.

[2:36:05] John Hamer: Yeah, so that would also be a good, that would be a good reason also to burn it. So in other words, he, he is in hiding and so therefore he does not want this correspondence to get out his hiding place. He doesn’t want to get out. But in terms of Emma being with him or not, the letter is also very clear, like you say that Emma is often going to be able to be at this hiding place. So, so the issue is not that he’s apart from Emma, but he is sometimes apart from Emma and that’s what he wants them to visit.

[2:36:31] Michelle: Ok. Ok. Except so Emma also said, so we have letters going back and forth between Joseph at this time as well. So she comes and visit hits him twice, once on the 11th and there’s that meeting on the island and Noel K Whitney is there and Emma is there and Hiram is there. Emma is the only woman there. And Joseph writes about his feelings that night. And so I think it’s on, in his, that meeting happened on the 11th and in his journal on the 16th, it says with what unspeakable delight and what transports of joy swelled my bosom. When I took by the hand on that night, my beloved Emma, she, that was my wife, even the wife of my youth and the choice of my heart. Many were the rev reverberations of my mind. When I contemplated for a moment, that many scene we had been called to pass through the fatigues and the toils, the sorrows and sufferings and the joys and consolations from time to time had strewn our ps and crowned our board. Oh, what a com of thought filled my mind for the moment. Again. She here again, she is here even in the seventh, trouble, undaunted, firm and unwavering, unchangeable affectionate Emma. So he wrote that on the 16th. On the 17th. She comes, she’s also with him all day, I believe on the 14th. And they talk about, you know, they, they got to have that time together on the 16th. He writes this on the 17th in the middle of the night she comes and moves him and on the 18th, he’s arranging a tryst. Yes, that’s what we claim. Ok. And, and, and it’s based on that,

[2:37:59] John Hamer: I don’t think there’s anything uncomfortable with. I’m sorry to say with that timeline even as you’ve outlined it because like you said, it’s, we’re not sure. But let’s say, let’s say that that date is correct, that is added and that’s the timeline. And he is even having those positive thoughts about Emma and his, uh, his partnership with her that is not precluding um, these relationships that he is having with these other women. And so what exactly he feels about those and what exactly the point of those is, is and so forth. But that does not, that’s not precluding him doing that. So, so it is not, uh, I agree that there is a, um, an attempt by, uh Brigham Young who is a big enemy of em, em, a big enemy of Brigham Young. Brigham Young is not even an important person at this point in, in, in nu I would say, you know, he, he

[2:38:48] Michelle: wasn’t there at that meeting with Joseph on the

[2:38:50] John Hamer: 11th. I mean, I mean, all of these statues that the L DS make of Brigham Young and, and Joseph Smith is giving him the plans to go west and all this nonsense. Um, you know, my, um, we have like a, in the recollection from Benjamin Winchester, uh, at, you know, at this time, uh, he apparently, uh, um, Joseph Smith said to my great, great, great, great grandmother, this is hearsay. It’s just what Benjamin Winchester says. He says that, uh, if Brigham Young ever gets a hold of this church, he’ll, he’ll lead it to heal. He says to her, you know, a lot of that. And, um, and, and I don’t believe necessarily that, that, that he told my great, great grandmother that because I’m not sure that Joseph Smith would have imagined that somebody as low and unimportant as Brigham Young would ever get a hold of a church because he’s just, in my opinion, he’s sort of like the head of Joseph Smith’s dirty tricks people, you know. So when Joseph Smith wants to do um, bad things like, uh assassinate uh bogs or any other illegal thing, he’s got a co a coterie of, of these yes men like Brigham Young who do the bad stuff for him. Um, but I don’t think that he would have thought of that guy as ever taking over, you know? So,

[2:40:01] Michelle: ok. Ok. So I, I want to throw this in because I thought it was interesting. So this isn’t directly applicable. But, um, some people have said to me that because Joseph’s, um, journal entry says the wife of my youth that he’s differentiating Emma from his other wives. But I think it’s interesting to recognize Joseph was so familiar with the Bible, right? He was quoting the Old Testament. It’s Proverbs 518, which is, which talks about the wife of your, of your youth. And explicitly says, like ban it, bans you from having relationships with anyone other than the wife of your youth. So I think it’s interesting that that was the scripture that he referred to in um in, in that letter. But another, so there are a couple of other points along these lines that I think are interesting because I see, I see what you’re saying that you are, you interpret this letter this way, but it’s based, all we have is the letter and it’s just our interpretation of it, right? And especially when we recognize that the revelation is so highly problematic. And like, II, I feel comfortable saying it’s absolutely a forgery because Elizabeth Whitney would have known about that revelation.

[2:41:09] John Hamer: So whether it is or not, it’s actually not, not in the end relevant to the, again, the preponderance of evidence. So the, the letter is read consonant to all of the evidence that we have contemporary and then later of everybody based on all of their different um you know, biases uh pro and against and often very anti Brigham Young, you know, and so, and so that’s why that’s why like, you know, you’re talking about it and you say, well, I’m reading it this way because the, because he’s writing this love letter to Emma, what he doesn’t have to be on the outs with Emma or hating Emma to be engaged uh in the system because he could have justified it to himself in any number of ways that he’s doing it. He’s, um, he is definitely, now, by this point made it a system so that he is justifying it religiously even. And it is also involving women who are older, who he’s probably not having physical relationships with. But it, um, is, a lot of people have tried to, like Richard Bushman have tried to suggest, well, what really this is like, it’s dynastic and so forth. And so when, um, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re saying it in a, in a very negative way, you know, he’s talking to the presiding bishop of the church and arranging a booty call or whatever is how you’re characterizing it. And I’m saying, sure we can call it that, but this is also, um, they’ve been sold to it, the idea that, uh, that they are now their family is being sealed to Joseph Smith’s family and, and, and himself specifically, uh in the eternities as he is now going to essentially being an exalted God man or something like that. And they are going to be brought into those glories with him. And that would have been the same reason why my great, great, great, great grandparents also as a couple will have given their daughter to Joseph Smith to be a plural wife. So in other words, it’s not, um, it’s not out of, he’s not doing it without talking to the parents. Um In this case, his parents are insiders, you know, like Heber Kimball or whatever, he, he propositions, um, you know, Hebrew’s wife or whatever, a couple times, you know, positions. Hebrew, they gave him his wife a couple of times, which doesn’t happen, but it’s like a loyalty test and then he gets the daughter right and so

[2:43:21] Michelle: forth according to Heber’s later reminiscence. But let me go on with this, um, this, these letters and then this is the last piece of evidence. I’ll talk about it this one. So um this is um August 16th Emma wrote it and Joseph wrote a letter that says, my dear Emma, I embrace this opportunity to express to you some of the feelings. So the 16th, right, we say the letters written the eight, she was there all day, the 14th, right? They moved on the 17th. So this is the 16th. I wanted to um first of all, I take the liberty to tender you my sincere thanks for the two interesting and consoling visits that you have made made me during my almost exiled situation. Tongue cannot express the gratitude of heart for the warm and true, true hearted friendship. You have manifested in these things towards me that it goes forward. Brother Miller again suggested to me the propriety of me, a company of my accompanying him to the pine woods and then he return and bring you and the Children. My mind will eternally revolt at every suggestion of that kind, my safety is with you if you want to have it. So anything more or less than this cometh of evil. If I go to the pine country country, you shall go with me and the Children. And if you and the Children go not with me, I don’t go, I do not wish to exile myself for the sake of my own life. I would rather fight it out. It is for your sakes. Therefore that I would do such a thing. I will go with you then in the same carriage for, I am not willing to trust you in the hands of those who cannot feel the same interest for you that I feel. I think if I could have a respite for about six months with my family, it would be a savor of life unto me. Tell the Children that all is well with their father as yet and that he remains in fervent prayer to the Almighty God. Um All right to God for the safety of himself and for you and for them, tell Mother Smith that it shall be well with her son, yours in haste your affectionate husband until death through all eternity. Forevermore, Joseph Smith. And the thing that I think is particularly interesting. I know you can hear that and just say sure he’s duplicitous. He’s saying this Emma while

[2:45:13] John Hamer: he loves his wife.

[2:45:15] Michelle: Yes. And he’s also he’s also making arrangements with her saying I want to be with you and stay with you and I’ll go where you go.

[2:45:25] John Hamer: If I have to escape to the pioneers, if I go to go to Wisconsin, I don’t want to go alone. I’m going to go with you guys because I want to take you to be with me and, you know, because I, and not just for any duplicitous reason, it’s because I, you know, I’m in love with you and I love their family and I love the kids, you know. So II, I don’t think that he’s in this place where this is happening as a result of him hating Emma or something like that. None of this is about um not liking Emma. Like I would even say, uh um William Law’s uh recollections are, are in fact that they’re in it together because of that brief period that he’s introduced to. This is when, when Emma is temporarily on board for a second about this. But it’s not because of, uh it’s not because of a bad partnership that he has with Emma, that this is happening. And certainly by the end, I think, uh even though again, and like you say, uh Emma later in her testimony denies this burning of the, of the revelation or the documents. Uh I think personally that, that at a certain point, he realized what a foolish thing that he had been doing uh in the end of his life and that they um burned this thing together. He took no new uh marriages and he was going to do the same thing that he did with John C Bennett, which is to say after the heat had gotten high, he was going to root it out of the church. He was going to make Brigham Young his scapegoat and he, and he was going to get enlist William marks in order to scapegoat Brigham Young. And if, and if Joseph Smith,

[2:46:58] Michelle: how do you know he was gonna make Brigham Young his scapegoat? I just am curious about

[2:47:03] John Hamer: speculation. I’m sorry, I’m speculating. So, so at this point, I’m saying he’s gonna make somebody a scapegoat. And so and so, and so somebody’s got to take the fall like John C Bennett took the fall. John C. Bennett had been his best friend. But anyway, at this point, John C Bennett had to take the fall on the first time around. And so now, you know the head of his um yes man, these guys that are doing his, you know, all of Joseph Smith’s stealing for the Lord and all those kind of things, Brigham Young. Um I’m just saying he’s the, he’s the head guy whose head is likely to roll. That’s just my, you know, my guess who he picked to take the fall that has nothing to do. But, but, but I do think that what he he he definitely tells, I think William Marks, we’ve got to root this out of the church and, uh, and he realizes that, you know, this, this whole path has been wrong. And so that’s how II I take Joseph Smith and it’s not because of a bad partnership with Emma or anything like that. And I actually, when you read that love letter, um, one of the, one of the saddest parts of, of, um, um, I don’t know the Brigham my tradition is, is if you just think about it, like for, for Joseph Smith, I mean, you, I think you have a high opinion of Joe Smith and like him and think back at him as the founder of this movement and who you’d like to have, you know, do you think positively of, right? Just think of this incredible betrayal of the Brigham my people in terms of ripping the whole institution away from this family who’s then left, right? You know, and so if you can imagine Joseph Smith, if he would have ever have said, oh, yeah, let’s just, let’s give this church structure to Brigham Young and leave my son alone, you know, destitute here or whatever in the, in the, in the midwest. I mean, and so in that way, I also, um I don’t wonder when we go back and look at these things, why then more, more people who are, where you’re at don’t then want to look at community of Christ and the actual inheritance of, um, Emma and the Smith family. That what Joseph Smith would have wanted um uh as a, as a different alternative. Yes.

[2:49:05] Michelle: So, well, my, my perspective at this point is, and, and you might not like to hear this, but I think that the community of Christ has betrayed Emma and Joseph Smith the third in the same way that Brigham Young did it. That’s what makes me like the doctor and covenants. We have, I think at section 122 I’ll have to look it up, but it says that thy friends will not be convinced by the testimony of traitors. And, and that’s what makes me sad is, I think that, you know, one of the biggest arguments in favor of Joseph’s polygamy is that the RL DS Church or now the community of Christ has gone along with this narrative. But I, I did an episode on that and, and so for me, it wouldn’t be like I do, I do believe we have a lot of problems in our history. Brigham Young is a very problematic and troubling figure. I, you know, I think that most of the Smith family was killed um because like um for the sake of a hostile takeover, right? And I think it’s tragic. And so it’s sad to me to see Joseph and Emma’s Legacy Church also go the same direction. That’s, and that’s why I wanted to bring up because because when you’re talking to me, I hear you um continually repeat the narrative, but I’m wanting the sources. I’m wanting the documents and all we have is this Whitney letter. And I would say if we look at like, like, well, well, we could, we, maybe we could talk again or we could do some more correspondence and bring up some other evidences because I would be very open to seeing them. The only things that I have seen are um much better interpreted in a different way with a better context. Like, um you know, like I, I read to you that the changing of the documents, the changing of the history cutting of our tradition in the L DS church when they prepared the um the history, not only did they change things, they just cut things out, they cut, you know, and so they have like, like our history includes John C Bennett’s claim. We have that happiness letter as a true part of our history and we’ve cut out Joseph and Hiram’s own words and own publications that’s shocking to me. And as I see it go forward, I’m like, let’s really look at this from a clean slate instead of wearing this briga my baggage and that has been pushed forward again and again repeatedly, we can look at this and, and with fresh eyes and say, what do we actually have, what is the actual evidence and what is the most likely conclusion within the context that, that we have for it? And we can set aside the later claims for not that we, not that we don’t take them seriously, but we should investigate them. Like, for example, Elizabeth Whitney claimed that her daughter was married to Joseph Smith, but it doesn’t match up with anything that we have. Right. And I know that you dismiss the problem of no Children. But for me, I, I have done deep research into the um contraceptive knowledge in that day and it convinces me that it is impossible to believe that he would not have Children. And I did another, I had um a fellow come on who’s done a statistical analysis of the probability. And Benjamin Winchester, your own great, great, great grandfather claims that um who was it? Louisa Beaman that Joseph came and visited her at least once a week in his own home. So we have tricky claims if we’re going to say, you know, we can’t make this all work.

[2:52:28] John Hamer: So that so in terms of contraception already in that time period, for example, the whole nation of France’s population stabilized. So, so one of the things that is happening is that people are able to, you know, we don’t have the modern pill, we don’t have that sort of contraception where we have um you know, systems that are always working. But if you are absolutely trying not to have kids, like Joseph Smith is trying not to have kids. So unlike Brigham Young and so forth and, and also frankly, the the justifications for polygamy, which are to raise up a righteous seed and all those kind of things that are maybe worked into the apologetics of why Joseph Smith is doing it. He is not wanting to have kids. And so I think that that is

[2:53:12] Michelle: shown by and again, I want to ask what you have for that,

[2:53:16] John Hamer: it is performed by the fact that there aren’t any. And so

[2:53:19] Michelle: and so so

[2:53:21] John Hamer: in other words, so, so therefore, he’s not trying, in other words, if, if, if he wanted to have a bunch of kids, he could have a bunch of kids because he’s fertile, right? And so, and so, and so, so there’s no reason to imagine that he wants to have a lot of kids. And so, and so he has a practice of spiritual wifey, whatever you want to call it celestial marriage, plural marriage where he is being sealed to all of these women and the women are giving affidavits in many cases after the fact, you know, like you say later where they’re saying that it was every kind of uh you know, every kind of wife or there was a physical relationship. Uh But uh but what we’d also contemporaneously is um for example, when they’re, when they’re making uh scapegoating Bannet, you know, one of the things that they say about him is that he was an abortionist that he was involved in, in buggery. And so, um so people have said that that’s a charge of Bennett being a homosexual, but actually buggery can refer to all non vaginal intercourse, right? And so one of the ways that you don’t have Children is fight, you have other kinds of manual or whatever, these other kinds of, of, of sex. Like we talked about Bill Clinton at the beginning of this in Clintonian line. So, so in other words, there’s that way of having sex and the, the way of reproduction that also prevents Children having is abortion. And so the, um, it’s hard to hear that in a modern L DS context where people have really adopted the evangelical uh position on abortion. But the original position taught by, um, the church in the 18 forties is that, um, that the spirit only comes into the baby in the quickening, you know, at the moment of the quickening. And this is why, um for example, even in Saturday’s warrior, um when the Emily is going to be born and there’s a miscarriage, it’s not that Emily, the spirit was already in that miscarried fetus, she gets in the next fetus, you know, and so forth because the original, um anyway, the idea is that the spirit enters either the quickening or at birth. And so that was a different Mormon position which would have justified abortion. So, um, ok,

[2:55:34] Michelle: so I have a lot of thoughts on all of this. Well, well, first of all, I think it would be worthwhile to if if you want to watch my episode on um, the insurmountable problem of no Children because I did a deep investigation of, of um, the knowledge of contraceptive concept at this time. And we can look, we have a very clear history of it. It’s worth exploring before we, before we make these claims before we claim that they could have that John Bennett was a capable abortionist. I think it’s worth that. But um, what’s more is that we claim that these are Victorian women who would be very embarrassed about saying they were Joseph’s wife and very deed and yet we are saying that they were engaging in anal sex, right? That’s bizarre to me, like, completely bizarre to me to like, so this is a

[2:56:25] John Hamer: big difference between the public, what you’re willing to say to the public and in an affidavit in court or in a, in a published newspaper and what you’re able or willing to do when the prophet of your church who is every single thing else to you, um, is telling you or instructing you whatever you’re doing. So,

[2:56:47] Michelle: yeah, I think, I think that’s quite a claim to make. And again, it’s only we have access to the same. It’s only based on a choice on an interpretive choice. You see the evidence of no Children and go to anal sex and 18 forties abortion. I see the choice of no child, the evidence of no Children and say the possibility that Joseph Smith, Emma Smith, Hiram Smith, all of them were telling the truth in their consistent story. And that Brigham Young and the later dedicated polygamist who we know fudged history completely and we know lied repeatedly about everything, lied about Joseph Smith because they needed to have the validation that this was Joseph’s church. And so I think that that is a completely plausible explanation and not only plausible but is a much better explanation for all of the evidence that we have. Like we know that Emma was being followed in the, the Whitney letter is the only thing I know of that’s contemporaneous and it

[2:57:44] John Hamer: doesn’t matter if it’s only contemporaneous. I’m sorry, contemporaneous is not the whole of the historical record. You can’t simply cut out all of the testimonies of all the people, including all of the non um non briga testimonies. And there is contemporaneous stuff which is to say, what does John C Bennett have to say? So he is an enemy of Joseph Smith at a certain point. But there that is all published contemporaneously as well. And it’s consistent with what then uh people who are enemies of Bennett are saying, including Brigham Young. So, you know, I I’m sorry to say this is not the only evidence that we have, we have a preponderance of evidence that is massive in total. And so then we have to. So my, my thing, what I’m saying is why, why no Children that is what given the fact that we’ve already shown that Joseph Smith is a polygamist. How do we explain uh why there are no Children? And so the answer is that he is not wanting to produce Children. And that may be again, part of his thinking that’s going into uh this polyandry thing. In other words, so that if there was going to be a kid that slips by, it’s going to be attributed to the husband that the woman is actually married to you.

[2:58:46] Michelle: OK. So, so let me, let me just add one and I know we need to go. But um the John C Ben thing is interesting because he gives us the initials, right? So he has LB, which is where we get Louisa Beaman, Louisa Beaman never claimed to have been one of Joseph’s wives. I think it’s important to recognize that the Brigham Mis absolutely had all of John C Bennett’s writings and we have a pattern of them building a narrative on these previous writings. Like I said, they include the happiness letter in their own history as coming from Joseph. And John C. Bennett is the only source for that. And so the LB is interesting because that’s where we get the whole story of Louisa Beaman. And now Dodd Bradley, who’s going to come on this podcast soon. He um has discovered that that could not have happened with the only claim we have for Louisa Beaman is Joseph Bates Noble and he says, you know, and Don Bradley has learned that his house was not built at the time that Joseph Bates Noble claims that he and Joseph Fates Noble who’s also just like all the rest of them. His testimony is everywhere. He does not sound credible. The judge in the Temple lot case did not find them credible in their testimonies. And so so Louisa Beaman has but but now because this narrative is so strong because the, the narrative is Joseph was a polygamist. We know that. So none of the evidence actually matters because we just twist it. So now they’re just saying that actually the Louisa Beaman must have been a year or two later than we thought. So she wasn’t the first wife. But really, it’s I would, I mean, it’s just as possible that John Bennett was making these accusations. There was no reason for him not to write the women’s names. It wasn’t the women who were going to sue him. It was Joseph who would have sued him. Joseph had a history of suing people and he’s making the allegations against Joseph. And um so the lb the Briga mis came up with Louisa Beaman to try to fill that in Joseph Bates Noble was willing to say it. Louisa Beaman was already dead by the time they say that. And now we’ve exposed that as a lie that Joseph Bates Noble said. So all of this, that that’s what I see happening is it’s continually like this piece of evidence. Oh, nope, it’s anal sex. This piece of evidence. Oh no, Joseph Bates Noble got the date wrong. This piece of evidence. Oh, no, it’s we already know the outcome. So all of the evidence will be twisted

[3:00:59] John Hamer: because the apologetic work on doing this is to go around and attack all the whatever the each and, and do a drill down on each and every little piece that’s going on. And then again, like you’re saying, insisting on pro Joseph Smith in his own handwriting, kind of things from his own time frame as being the the only thing that can really be trusted because anything that goes through uh anyway, somebody, somebody else is problematic. So, uh so anyway, I appreciate, you know, where you’re coming from and that you have done a lot of study on this. But it, it, it’s not, it’s not, not, none of this is convincing, you know. So the fact that if Louisa Beaman is, is not on the list, it doesn’t, you know, that’s not really particularly relevant, you know. So I appreciate if she is, let me

[3:01:46] Michelle: ask you one final question, what pieces of evidence am I missing that? I need to look at that. Like you, you have said, we have so much more evidence. I’m very aware of the of the later Utah testimonies. Like what critical pieces are you like? No, we have this and we have this and we have this, like, what comes to mind that you think is the best evidence because I guess I assumed you would have included what you saw as the best evidence in your presentation. So that’s what I addressed.

[3:02:11] John Hamer: So, no, so it’s not about me like, um, finding one little piece of smoking gun evidence or whatever. That’s what Joseph the third wanted as well. So in other words, he was willing, you know, uh you know, to do this as if, as if history is a uh a court case where we have to have like one piece of smoking gun evidence, like let’s say a genetic study. So that Josephine somebody, whatever had actually been a uh uh a DNA descendant. That’s not, that’s not how we get to where we are in, in history. You know, with the sometimes there is maybe, I guess a uh something that you want, that you would have that, that can’t be questioned. But in any event, it, what we are doing here is it’s the entire preponderance of evidence, the weight of all of the testimony from all the sources that are in fact uh biased and bigoted against each other. The fact that there is no way to make the counter narrative. In other words, that Brigham Young is doing this as a cabal, that evidence um is so anyway, late and flimsy and so forth that that is not that that isn’t that, in other words, trying to create a different narrative. In other words, that Brigham Young is the originator of this and that Joseph was fighting uh polygamy, you know, during his life, you have to have a competing narrative that has um more evidence that is all consistently waiting together so that you can um to make that case. And so unfortunately, that no, I mean, again, there is a historical consensus about this because that hasn’t been made and, and I don’t think can be made. And so and so yes, it has to be done if you want to, if you want to change the consensus,

[3:03:53] Michelle: is it possible that um that it has been done and is being done and you’re just not aware of it because if people aren’t open to looking, if, if you know, like I always say about like if we don’t, if we’re not willing to ask the questions, we can’t be given the answers. That’s one thing I think about faith when we already think we have all the answers, like the prophet can never lose the stray, we’re not open to learning more. And I think that’s also true with any kind of narrative, especially a historical narrative. If we are, if we are so certain of the narrative that we’re not willing to ask questions and be curious and look into it, how can we possibly learn more and how can people ever learn that they were wrong? You know, like, like a way this could be a situation where Galileo was saying, hey, look in my microscope, look at what I’m seeing about how the universe works and all of the priests saying no, we already know this. So your piece doesn’t matter that you have to look at the totality of what we know and that’s what this feels like to me. And so I’m, I’m curious like what would need to be done to help or to allow people like yourself to, to consider looking into some of this counter narrative, some of this other evidence that how, how would

[3:05:03] John Hamer: that, I mean, it would, it would take it, it would take, I mean, presumably a somebody who is uh you know, getting in a phd thesis, I guess, and who is, is going to be writing, uh you know, writing this narrative and going through uh you know, like all, you know, all of this evidence or something like that, in other words, you would. So history is not static, history is constantly being, um it’s not, it’s not only built on pre preceding narratives. The um certainly the uh you know, the, the narrative for a whole long time uh was that uh you know, outside of the Mormon tradition? So what was that? The Solomons Balding was the source of the book of Mormon and so forth. That is in every early document and everything like that. And um and that’s absolutely not the case, you know. So no, you know, there’s a historical consensus at this point that that is not the case, but it was, it was taken outside of the tradition anyway, before anybody had really done, you know, uh uh history on it that, that was taken for, you know, uh as gospel. And so it would have been repeated in, in, in indeed, what was, what, what um qualifies as the early historian sources, you know, people who really didn’t have access to the documents and things like that from the 19th and early 20th centuries and so forth. Um And so, no, it would be, it would be completely possible to have new historical consensus. And, um, and I certainly, for example, when I was, uh doing it in more, in my very precise, more, you know, like a little bit more front line field, like I’ve talked about in terms of like the historical Jesus and so forth. Um I would, I’m very open despite the fact that I’m a Christian pastor there. It is not, in fact incumbent upon me that there was a historical Jesus that does not have to have been the case because, um, you said before that you think that, uh you think that the community of Christ has betrayed Joseph the third? And Emma, in fact, actually, we don’t make historical claims as a church. You’re talking to me in part as a historian, right? So I am a historian, I’m telling you what, in fact, the entire um latter day saint historians community and people who study the, the field who are not uh Mormon or community of Christ or, or otherwise have concluded based on the preponderance of the evidence. But if a um again, a trained historian, we’re able to make the case, uh a counter case, it is completely always possible to change history, which is why I also suggested that you shouldn’t be putting your faith on the sands of history. You can, history is simply one of the things that we, what we learn as an academic discipline, how we understand the past. Um But we get confused by that very regularly in the latter day saint tradition. But in fact, in Joseph the third and Emma’s Church, we have rejected history claims as um as being the basis of our theology. So our theology is in the, the gospel and our connection to God, the restored principles of the, of the restored Gospel and so forth as opposed to making claims about history one way or the other. And so I have, um I have been speaking to my own people, you know, in terms of how can they uh pastorally, how can they struggle with some things that have become identity myths based on? Um how can they understand the, the historical consensus that has emerged on this? Um And so, and so it’s not that there couldn’t be another, um it would just be very difficult in this particular case because uh it’s very, uh there’s so much evidence so, and it’s not, you don’t have to look for it anymore. But I mean, it’s, in other words, it’s all of the different testimony that you’re aware of a lot of it. And as you said, you’re aware of lots of it. You’ve researched this a lot. Um But it’s not discounting um especially later testimony um including including people who are loyalist, even, even, even, even. So. Um it’s very difficult to produce a giant cabal that then encompasses all these people who actually hate Brigham Young as well. So,

[3:09:10] Michelle: OK, well, I appreciate you talking to me. I guess I do have maybe two requests. My hope is that in this conversation, at the very least there can be some light shed on people who do find this um evidence and this narrative more compelling that I’m hoping that there can at least be an understanding that it’s not, you know, I mean, we always like, like in our pre predi discussion, I think you compared me, you implied flat earther and holocaust denier. And you know, and I do think that II, I think that’s unfair. I, you know, I think it’s unfair to assume that we are motivated by a need, you know, that it’s wishful thinking or that it’s motivated reasoning or that it’s anything like that other than a careful examination of the evidence So I’m hoping that at least some room can be made in people’s minds and ideally in people’s discourse to allow for the fact that there are very intelligent, very honest and very studious people who find compelling reason to think that this narrative is more likely and, and, and whichever way you want to say that it’s, you know, I think that that’s a more accurate and, and will prove to that that’s a more accurate representation that will prove to um age better as the years go forward as this movement continues to grow. And so that’s the first thing I would ask. And then the second is, and, and you don’t have to, you know, these are my requests for whatever they’re worth. The second thing is that um we tend to set ourselves up as experts, you know, without like I really prefer talking about the evidence and I appreciate that you brought evidence forward in your presentation, you know, but as you said, Todd Compton was your main source. And um and, and there are problems with almost all of the evidence that you brought or with your interpretation of it. And so I think that we should all strive, I guess, to be more humble and circumspect in our presentation so that it’s not like this is what everybody agrees with, except the, you know, the flat earthers. That makes sense. So that’s my hope is that we can recognize the limitations each of us have on our knowledge and the support for our narratives. Like I would not say that Todd Compton is an expert on this. He took the assumption that he had and applied it to the evidence he had and only viewed it through that lens without any investigation or questioning the narrative. And I think that that’s important work to do. So I don’t know what you think of that.

[3:11:35] John Hamer: So I disagree with that on this question. So this is not um I, I appreciate uh I’m not saying that you’re having any, in any sense, a dishonest inquiry. Um But uh this is not a, this is not a thing that is uh we’re in a place right now where it is perfectly appropriate for historians to speak of this as a settled issue. So there we are, we can’t always say that there are lots of different things in history which are very open questions where we have to say there are multiple uh academically defensible narratives. Have that going back to the historical Jesus. Um Once we’ve agreed that the historical Jesus exists, which a couple of people don’t, but we essentially everybody who I consider to be legitimate scholars does, then there are multiple academically defensible reconstructions you can make. And so Bart Erman says that he’s a failed Apocalyptic prophet John Dominic Crossing says that he’s maybe a, a social reformer akin to uh uh a cynic philosopher in the Greek philosophical tradition. Right? And there are plenty more that can be made like that. So that is an open question. Um But this where we are at right now with Joseph Smith and polygamy is not an open question academically and historically. And so, and so it’s appropriate for historians, even when it’s not their central focus, which is not my central focus. I’ll admit, I, I actually uh don’t care about Joseph Smith very much myself. So I’m actually interested in the movement and I love the, the movement. I am. Uh I’m motivated by um you know, again that we built, you know, with that nou and going back there and trying to build up Zion and I’m, I’m connected to it that way as a movement. Um I’m probably the, the least Joseph Smithy Mormon historian that exists, you know, in that kind of a sense. Um But, uh but anyway, so that’s just, I, I think that we’re, we’re where we’re at in this particular, in this particular place. And so I agree with you that um we should not, uh I, I try to approach, I, I, I’m not always good and I don’t always accomplish this. I try to approach these topics pastorally and not by way of debunking. Um My goal always for um I have members of my congregation who grew up and of course, they all thought Brigham Young created polygamy and so forth and, and, and account, you know, uh the historical narrative when they actually hear it as opposed to our uh inherited identity, uh uh sacred story is, is rough. And so what I, and so again, I, what I’m always trying to do whenever I’m talking about that or, or telling, talking about different parts of the gospels that aren’t historical or something like that is, is to say, we shouldn’t be so focused on history in the first place. And rather we should, when we, when, when we do find out about these historical things, they should, these should enrich our understanding of the movement that we’re coming from and our background in our history. And so that’s, that’s what I want to do. And I, and I, and so I, and so I, I apologize for the flippant examples that I was using in terms of because I was trying, I was actually going to try to come up with a hypothetical one. So because anytime you mentioned Nazis, it’s you, you’ve lost the argument. So holocaust. And so yes, I’m not calling this shouldn’t mention that, you know, in others, there are holocaust deniers, there’s a historical convinces that the holocaust happened. But there are people who have that best on belief and they, in a lot of cases think that they have evidence or whatever that’s not relevant because I’m not going to make that comparison, but it’s not, it’s not nice and fair and then you lose the any, any kiss, you, you lose any sense of being remotely pastoral. So, what I would just say is I, um, appreciate also the conversation that we’ve had. I appreciate how much research you’ve done. You have a lot of information at your fingertips. It is really amazing. And I, and I really appreciate that and I also appreciate that, um, you’ve come to this place with honesty and integrity and, um, and like I say, it’s not that, um, history has ever done. And, and indeed, at the end of the day, um anything that’s been written about history now will have to be entirely rewritten in three or four generations because the things that people there, it has to be translated for a time and place and the, and the interest that they have, you know, uh 80 years ago um when history was written totally differently because nobody cared about, I’m not, you mean about it? But they, historians didn’t care about women’s perspectives now, or regular people, in other words, they only cared about political leaders. And so it would only be about the very much elite and what they were doing and so forth. Now, we care a lot. I think I care a lot. And so I’ve been part of the revolution of historians who is trying to see how is this affecting the regular people, not worried only about Joseph Smith, what was happening to everybody else, you know? And so, and so um and so well and so that’s where we are with history and it, and it’s ever moving forward. But, um, I guess my, my, my plea as a pastor who is also a historian is that we work on separating out our faith from our worrying about history and, um, my positions on history. People in my church don’t have to agree with me because we’re not a history club. Um, and so, and so, what I would just say is this church hasn’t abandoned Joseph the third and Emma. And so, and, and, uh, and despite my, um, my, my position is as a historian and it isn’t, in any way, I’ve got their picture on the wall here. Right. So it is not, I’m not uh um attempting to denigrate them in any way. I understand that they were people who went through a lot, what Emma had to go through, you know, I, I, and I’m, I’m, um, there are people who aren’t big fans of her like William Law, but I’m a big fan and I, and I, and I very much appreciate her and I think that um, her son is among the most successful and admirable uh figures that the restoration has ever produced. You know, so

[3:17:45] Michelle: John, I cannot thank you enough for this conversation. I really appreciate just engaging with honesty and integrity and willingness to answer the hard questions. Can you tell us where people can find you? Where do we find your broadcast and how do we engage with people that would like to join your congregation? What information can you give us?

[3:18:04] John Hamer: So, the easiest way to everything that I’m doing is to go to our website for, for the congregation is uh center place, but spelled the Canadian way. So ce ntre place dot C A and one of the things you’ll find there is uh you go center place slash lectures or just hit the lectures button. And I have um talked hundreds of hours on yes restoration topics, but also understanding all of Western history and in and indeed, uh Christianity, but from the grounding of a, a restoration pastor. So I don’t only see the time period of the last two centuries that we’ve had as a, as a restored church as being our only inheritance. How, how does the entire rest of the Christian tradition and everything else that went before it inform who we are um as Latter Day saints now in the 21st century. And so, uh I hopefully that will be of interest to uh people that you are also listening to your podcast. And I am so sorry that um I’m expressing a contrary position that I think a lot of the folks who listen to you maybe not like and uh and, and, and, and I probably also did so in a way that was very unconvincing. Uh But in any event, I, I,

[3:19:22] Michelle: I I’m just going to consider where the I’m going to start calling us the Galileo Club and we will just wait until we’re allowed to come out of house arrest. So that’s my, but thank you John, have a great day. I want to again very sincerely thank John for giving me so much of his time for being willing to come on and be um pushed with difficult questions and and be willing to engage. So um agreeably and honestly and vulnerably with someone who disagrees with him. So I really appreciate that. I’m hoping that we can have more of these types of conversations on this topic. But in society in general, I really appreciate being able to engage with somebody who is willing to engage even though we don’t see eye to eye. So thank you again, John and thank you for the to the rest of you for being here and sticking with us and I will see you next time.