My musings this morning while recovering from minor surgery. (This is by no means comprehensive, but it is a good start.)
I welcome my polygamy supporting friends to sincerely consider and answer these questions. And I would be happy to consider any questions you would like to propose.
I welcome my like-minded friends to contribute to my lists of questions in the comments. I would like to prepare an episode asking the best questions, and perhaps an official letter for leadership, and I welcome your help.
List of questions #1 – Polygamy and God
1. If God uses polygamy to raise up seed (Jacob 2:30) why did God always establish and command monogamy along with the command to multiply and replenish? (Adam and Eve, Noah and his wife, all their sons and all the animals, Lehi and Sariah, and all their sons, etc.)
2. If polygamy is of God, why was the first scriptural polygamist a descendant of Cain, a murderer, a son of perdition, and the second Master Mahon? (Genesis 4:19, Moses 5:44)
3.A. If polygamy is of God, why is the birthrate perfectly designed for monogamy?
3.B. What should happen to all the surplus boys and men?
4. If polygamy is of God, why are humans biologically, psychologically, sociologically, emotionally, economically, developmentally designed to do best in monogamy?
5. If polygamy is of God, why do the scriptures universally preach monogamy? (Among many others: Genesis 2:23-25, Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7-8, Jacob 2-3, Mosiah 11:2, Ether 10:5, D&C 42:22, “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else,” etc.)
6. D&C 132:61 says, “if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another… he cannot commit adultery.” How can a man desire or court a plural wife without committing adultery when Jesus taught, “I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28)
7. When 1 Nephi 7:1 says Lehi’s sons must “raise up seed unto the Lord” and 1 Nephi 16:7 makes it clear that they each took one wife, and Jacob 2:34 makes it clear that God commanded Lehi and all of his people to have only one wife, why do we claim Jacob 2:30 says if God wants to raise up seed he will command his people to practice polygamy?
8. When God’s primary reason for forbidding and condemning the abomination of polygamy is because he has “seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning” of his daughters, and because the “sobbings of their heart ascend up” to him and because many of their “hearts died, pierced with deep wounds,” why would God ever command polygamy when it always does this to his daughters?
List of questions #2 – Polygamy and Joseph Smith
1. If Emma burned the revelation two days after Clayton wrote it, and the Kingsbury copy was secretly tucked away, what was Hyrum showing around town and what did he read to the high council?
2. If Joseph’s polygamy was too dangerous to record or leave one shred of evidence of, why do we have so much evidence of others’ Nauvoo polygamy, including all the Nauvoo temple sealing records?
3. If Joseph was the one and only one on earth who had the keys for sealings, why did all of his plural sealings need to be redone by proxy after his death?
4. If all of his sealings had to be done by proxy after his death, why wasn’t his marriage and sealing to Emma redone after his death?
5. If the purpose of polygamy is raising up seed (Jacob 2:30) why didn’t Joseph have any children with polygamist wives?
6. If one purpose of polygamy was the restoration of all things, why didn’t other OT cultural practices need to be restored?
7. D&C 132:34-35 and 65 state that God commanded Abraham to practice polygamy. Verse 37 claims that God also commanded Isaac and Jacob to practice polygamy. Please provide scripture references to support those claims.
8. D&C 132 verses 1 and 37 state that Isaac was a polygamist. Please provide the scripture reference to support that.
9. Were Joseph’s enemies, such as John Bennett and the other contemporaneous voices we rely on as evidence of Joseph’s polygamy, (Joseph Jackson, William Law, Austen Cowles, Orsamus Bostwick, Oliver Olney etc.) polygamy insiders or outsiders? If insiders, why weren’t they given permission to take additional wives? If outsiders, how did they know who Joseph’s secret wives were? How are those not the “testimonies of traitors”? (D&C 122:3)
10. Considering D&C 132:61-62, how was Joseph justified in marrying non-virgins and other men’s wives? (61 And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else. 62 And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.)
11. Brigham Young, John Taylor, Orson Pratt and many other early Utah leaders clearly and repeatedly taught that plural marriage was absolutely essential for exaltation. Were they wrong? If they were wrong about their understanding of the necessity of polygamy for exaltation, why were they right about the necessity of polygamy at all?
12. Joseph, Emma, and Hyrum Smith each vehemently and openly rejected, forbid, condemned and denied all forms of polygamy in the strongest language possible dozens of times, with no exceptions. This included canonized scripture, newspaper publications, letters, numerous public sermons and speeches, private teachings, affidavits, court testimony, interviews, and personal testimonies. Most were erased from church history (or fraudulently edited) but are now available for verification. Why do we as a people claim our founding prophet and president, his chosen and elect wife and our first Relief Society president, and his prophet and president brother continually lied in everything they ever said or published on this subject, yet claim that later leaders and members couldn’t and wouldn’t lie?
