How old were you when you first learned JS practiced polyandry?

[BlueHair]

I know I make alot of sarcastic comments on this board. I promise this isn't one of them. If Joseph Smith was truly a prophet, there is no way in hell he slept with married women. I can understand that no man is perfect, but adultery? Not the accidental adultery either. We are talking the pre-planned variety. Actually talking women into sleeping with him based on his status as prophet. I can't see any way to reconcile that. Either he was a smart, horny opportunist or he was a prophet. He can't be both. If so, God is a hypocrite. I can just imagine judgement day. God: Why did you sleep with your neighbor's wife? Adulter: I was following the prophet. I can't imagine the headaches some people must get trying to make this stuff okay in their mind. Sometimes the simplest answer is the truth. A prophet ceases to be a prophet when he has sex with someone else's wife. Can he be forgiven? Of course. But he's no prophet.

[SeattleUte]

Raised as LDS, there are usually two steps to understanding JS's "polygamy."

First, your mother tells you JS had multiple wives like Abraham, etc. She may add that God told him to do it and he hesitated, cause he was scared of Emma, but God threatened him with his life if he didn't do it. Then after he took multiple wives for a time he kept it from Emma because he was scared. My mother told me this much when I was a child. Maybe before I was baptized. I didn't really appreciate what all this meant (sneaking around with other women and being "married" to them jsut because he said so, the fact that some were but girls, wives of others, etc.)

Second, eventually, if you have any critical capacity whatsoever, you will come to appreciate fully how truly, enormously sordid this aspect of Mormon history really was. THat may not occur until you are an adult.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by BlueHair

I know I make alot of sarcastic comments on this board. I promise this isn't one of them. If Joseph Smith was truly a prophet, there is no way in hell he slept with married women. I can understand that no man is perfect, but adultery? Not the accidental adultery either. We are talking the pre-planned variety. Actually talking women into sleeping with him based on his status as prophet. I can't see any way to reconcile that. Either he was a smart, horny opportunist or he was a prophet. He can't be both. If so, God is a hypocrite. I can just imagine judgement day. God: Why did you sleep with your neighbor's wife? Adulter: I was following the prophet. I can't imagine the headaches some people must get trying to make this stuff okay in their mind. Sometimes the simplest answer is the truth. A prophet ceases to be a prophet when he has sex with someone else's wife. Can he be forgiven? Of course. But he's no prophet.

So do you deny it happened (despite the historical record) or do you deny he's a prophet?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

So do you deny it happened (despite the historical record) or do you deny he's a prophet?

Don't worry. He's one of your fellow apostates.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

Don't worry. He's one of your fellow apostates.

Yes, SU, embrace him. He's on your side.

Even in unbelief, I suppose Mormon doctrines have a way of lingering.

What a curse it must be for those that leave the church, but just can't shake it and move on with their lives.

Must be like being gay but not caring for the company of men.

Regardless, I do not shun our apostate brethren. They play a part in the big wheel, even if they do not know it.

[byukarl]

Originally Posted by BlueHair

I know I make alot of sarcastic comments on this board. I promise this isn't one of them. If Joseph Smith was truly a prophet, there is no way in hell he slept with married women. I can understand that no man is perfect, but adultery? Not the accidental adultery either. We are talking the pre-planned variety. Actually talking women into sleeping with him based on his status as prophet. I can't see any way to reconcile that. Either he was a smart, horny opportunist or he was a prophet. He can't be both. If so, God is a hypocrite. I can just imagine judgement day. God: Why did you sleep with your neighbor's wife? Adulter: I was following the prophet. I can't imagine the headaches some people must get trying to make this stuff okay in their mind. Sometimes the simplest answer is the truth. A prophet ceases to be a prophet when he has sex with someone else's wife. Can he be forgiven? Of course. But he's no prophet.

Blue Hair, I kind of agree with you but strangely I don't doubt those women who did admit to the RLDS church in 1892 that they were in fact Joseph's wife in every way. That simply doesn't mean anything but the fact that Joseph did in fact sleep with these wives.

Personally I don't think it invalidates the first vision or Book of Mormon. It does make me rethink ever taking anything pitched from the pulpit as 100% FACT. Anyone who doesn't explore the truth on their own needs their head's examined.

As for him being removed by the Lord, or the fact that he ceased to be the prophet. That's one I'm not going to touch yet. I've read allot already, but have much more ahead of me before I'll make any statement on that issue.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

This is funny. You think anybody will buy it?

Your exact words (my emphasis):

Oh brother. (Wake up, Sleeping in EQ, and pay attention here:) Those quotes are obviously about the speculation in this thread (and the salivation in the LDS community), and not specifically about anything in the Bushman book. Unfortunately I don't have your talent for divining what's in a book without reading it. Also, I said in one of my early posts that he is not the first to generate this kind of frothing-at-the-mouth among Mormons. I believe my words were to the effect: "Every generation has a few."

You are looking for a revelation as evidence that JS was guilty of something? That's a pretty bizarre expectation. And as for your "punishment" red herring, it was presented as pure speculation. If there was scriptural proof, it would be a moot point.

It's no red herring. The speculation in this thread is wildly out of harmony with what's in the D&C, and I'm criticizing it. That's a perfectly legimate position.

Bushman's book may be an absolutely accurate portrayal of the prophet. I simply have no way of knowing until I read it, and even then there is much that I suppose I must take his word on. But the crazy suggestions that it has led to in this thread deserve to be challenged. Mormons are all too eager to accept yet another volume of the "real story" behind the church, and in the process step all over the lessons in the scriptures themselves.

[SteelBlue]

I thought this quote from the PBS documentary tonight was applicable. Kathleen Flake said:

"Nobody is exempt from struggling with who he [Joseph Smith] is. Whether you're an insider or an outsider, thinking about Smith causes you to struggle. And that struggle brings as much of you into the question as it does Smith himself. He's a bit of a religious Rorschach test."

SU, I like to believe that I possess a critical capacity and here I am in the twilight of my 30's still believing that Joseph acted in a way he believed he was asked to act. I'm incredibly uncomfortable with polyandry. I think I have shown that I do not hide my head in the sand when confronted with that part of our history. But in the end I think Joseph was at least partly addressing this very issue when he said You don't know me; you never knew my heart. "No man knows my history. I cannot tell it; I shall never undertake it. I don't blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself."

[All-American]

Originally Posted by SteelBlue

I thought this quote from the PBS documentary tonight was applicable. Kathleen Flake said:

"Nobody is exempt from struggling with who he [Joseph Smith] is. Whether you're an insider or an outsider, thinking about Smith causes you to struggle. And that struggle brings as much of you into the question as it does Smith himself. He's a bit of a religious Rorschach test."

SU, I like to believe that I possess a critical capacity and here I am in the twilight of my 30's still believing that Joseph acted in a way he believed he was asked to act. I'm incredibly uncomfortable with polyandry. I think I have shown that I do not hide my head in the sand when confronted with that part of our history. But in the end I think Joseph was at least partly addressing this very issue when he said You don't know me; you never knew my heart. "No man knows my history. I cannot tell it; I shall never undertake it. I don't blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself."

SU would like us to believe that nobody capable of intelligent thought could possibly come to any conclusion that would so much as challenge his own frame of mind. As long as he insists on such a narrow view of the world, he will marginalize himself into the fringes of irrelevance.

The research and inquiries of many seem to suggest that Joseph was indisputably sealed to the wives of other men. With the research that I've seen, there simply seems to be no way around that fact. The nature of those relationships is anything BUT indisputed. I've not seen compelling evidence that he had sexual relationships with a woman who at the time lived as the husband of another man-- maybe it's out there and I just haven't come across it yet.

The fact of the matter is this: Joseph Smith continually confronts, challenges, and changes the views and opinions of those who study him. He is a controversial figure, and always was-- he attested to as much throughout his life. The definitive biography on Joseph Smith has yet to be written, and is not likely to ever be written.

" . . . when I am called at the trump and weighed in the balance, you will know me then."

[SteelBlue]

Originally Posted by All-American

The research and inquiries of many seem to suggest that Joseph was indisputably sealed to the wives of other men. With the research that I've seen, there simply seems to be no way around that fact. The nature of those relationships is anything BUT indisputed. I've not seen compelling evidence that he had sexual relationships with a woman who at the time lived as the husband of another man-- maybe it's out there and I just haven't come across it yet.

Yes, we've been down this road before. IMO examples like Sylvia Sessions and later Zina Huntington Jacobs with Brigham Young leave me personally with little doubt as to what the scope of those relationships were. And in the end, the sexual relationships that I'm almost certain occurred aren't even required for me to find the whole matter disturbing. But you and I come to the same bottom line and I suppose that's what's most important.