What if they were more transparent? Because I don't think they are. And they emphasized how all seven of those
leaders, you know, Bighgam and John and Lorenzo and Wilfford and Zina and Eliza
and Basha were all lying for 50 years. Let's what if that was their primary emphasis?
So there is a lot of talk and a movement now within the church, especially online, of those that believe that
Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy, that this was started by Brigham. young. He made everything up. Carnal Desires
took over. uh he brought in his buddies, you know, and then the next several prophets going with John Taylor and uh
Wilfrid Woodruff and Lorenzo Snow all were in on this deal, all in in on this
conspiracy that they coerced the women throughout the church to comply,
to write affidavit, to write in their journals, to make statements, and it's just beyond
anything that I can imagine possible. Even now, this episode is brought to you by the Wavemakers podcaster cruise going
down the Baja in Mexico. This is November 15th through 22nd. We've got Jacob Hansen of Thoughtful Faith. We've
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for seven days. Go to quickdia.com cwycia.com up at the top at trips and events and
scroll down to wavemakers and put in the promo code quick CWIC5 for a 5%
discount. Now, back to the conspiracy. Just just logically think about this for
a minute. You've got a group of people that are saying that Brigham Young brought in polygamy, that he actually
made up section 132, that he had all the other prophets coming down all the way
with John Taylor, Lorenzo Snow, and and Wilfrid Woodruff all in on this. The quorum of the twel apostles, other
leaders of the church, coerced the women. This is not just a matter of a
fallen prophet or somebody with a bad idea. This is evil at its core. This
would require a tyranny so strong that everybody had to shut up or else. And it
just doesn't pass the test. It is not logical just on its surface. Look, there
are evidences that you could say if you're pulling up uh you're reading the Saints books or you're reading the
Joseph Smith papers, you're looking at all the stuff that we now have access to online. I get it. But these this
formulation is a regurgitated argument. In fact, the same phrases, the same specifics that the Reorganized Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made against the Latter-day Saints early on, these things were argued in the 19th
century. And now they're coming back through again. Brigham Young is evil.
Polygamy was never instituted by the Lord. And therefore, and not everyone
takes it to this point, but therefore the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a fallen entity. That's what
the Reorganized Church was saying. In this episode, I bring back Brian Hails. We talk about the second, third, and
fourth Relief Society presidents who all stated that Joseph Smith practiced
polygamy. And I want to make one more comment on this, and I know this doesn't apply to everybody that supports this idea.
But the inevitable end to this, I'm sorry, the inevitable end to this is
that the church has fallen. That we had 50 to 60 years of apostasy,
mass apostasy, and evil, evil, coercive, tyrannical men
making sure that everyone zipped their lips. That's what it requires to believe this.
And if that's where you want to go with it, fine. The problem is you start to lose faith. Many people will start to
lose faith over this. I can't tell you how many times on the very few times I've ever covered the topic of polygamy.
I get a sampling of individuals that can't stand Brigham Young. And I
don't mean they just don't like him as a person. I mean they call him vile things. They say that he is evil.
many that say that the church today has fallen because of this and that after Joseph Smith nothing really matters.
We've got the Book of Mormon. We just can rely on that. We've got Joseph's teachings. We can just rely on that.
I think it's a pernitious idea. I really do. And I know that's going to make people unhappy, some people, but I think
it's a very pernicious idea. Let's dig into this.
[Music]
So Brian, what do polygamy deniers not want you to know?
You know, the primary focus of the polygamy denials deniialists, deniers, I
don't want to be disrespectful in referring to them, but the their primary focus is on the period of of Joseph
Smith's lifetime. and they have their own version of church history and it only really deals with that. They don't
want you to look beyond Joseph Smith's death to recognize what the rest of
their narrative is telling people because what it does is it tells the
them for the next 50 plus years, the second, third, and fourth general relief
society presidents and the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth uh presidents of the church were all liars
because every one of those men and women said that Joseph Smith had taught them about plural marriage and that he was a
polygist himself. I I think let me interject here. I think it goes beyond that honestly because you
know lying is is bad enough, right? And people say, "Well, they were lying for the Lord, right? I hear that phrase a
lie. They're lying for the Lord." But it's worse than that because what you're really saying and the only way that this
version of history works is you're saying that they either forced or coerced
dozens of people in their writings and in their beliefs and everything else to say, "No, tell everyone,
put it out publicly in court and and elsewhere that you know, either you were
a polygamous wife with Joseph Smith or you knew that you're a witness to to uh
or that you were not a a uh yeah that you were a wife of Joseph Smith or that you're a witness of this and complete
coercion would have to be put into place and it and then it it leads also to
especially looking and focusing on Brigham Young that this was an evil man.
It was it was not he he had such carnal desire to sleep with several women that
that he was going to form the religion around this now that he was in charge.
Take it away from the spirits. Take it away from the commandments. Complete
severing if you will from God and and then coers all of these individuals into
saying these things and lying for the Lord.
that that's quite a conspiracy theory. Well, and they never want to talk about it. They they allude to it and then they
quickly will move off of the topic. Um I could give you a couple of examples. Um
I recently listened to a a video and it's not by one of the leading uh
YouTubers. I I'm not going to mention names, but it was from it was called Wo Unto You Scribes. And at the end, she's
talking about Eliza R. Snow. And she concludes with this sentence. She says, "Eliza cannot be considered a credible
witness." Now, that's a nice way of saying Eliza R. Snow is a liar. And then
that's it. They move on. They don't tell us, "Was she lying about other things? What would make her want to lie? What
was making her in in their version of church history? What was making Eliza Ars Snow lie?" And then in the other
example, there's a a uh an article that's been uploaded to the internet called Crafting a Sacred Story. And this
is where a lead YouTuber uh deniialist and another independent scholar whose
motives I can't begin to understand come together and they they try to to
intimate that the affidavits that Joseph S. Smith collected in 1869 really aren't
accurate. and they say u quote the affidavits may not have strictly adhered to personal recollections. In other
words, they're they're lying to some degree, big degree, small degree, but they're kind of lying. The affidavits
reveal more about the social political climate of the their creation than the
historical events they purport to document. So, the affidavits are lying. That's they're intimating again in that
statement. But then they go on and they say when the women appeared to participate, meaning they signed the
affidavit and and they're just appearing to participate. They really don't want to, but it says their agency was often
constrained. So here we have intimation that their their agency is being they're being
coerced. They're being compelled to lie and then they just move on. It's like,
well, who's doing this compelling? And as it turns out, as you know, as you just said, the the men that are doing it
are the second, third, fourth, and fifth presidents of the church. Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford, Wood, Lorenzo
Snow. And they are doing it, as you said, for motives that are probably based. Allegedly, they like sex so much
or something is making them want to do this. But the saddest part perhaps of
this whole story is that Bath Sheba Smith, the fourth general relief Society
president, Zina Huntington III, and Eliza Arseno II, are portrayed as these poor, weak women who couldn't stand up
for the true memory of Joseph Smith because these mean priesthood men are oppressing them. And if you study the
lives of these women as and I have and and maybe you have too, but it it's it's just a really sad story when you portray
these women as weak and as liars, which is an integral part of the second half
of the polygamy deniialists version of church history. The first half is Joseph was a monogamist, but the second part of
it they just want to ignore or just sidestep or uh you know uh sugarcoat
like they did. Well, somebody's oppressing them and they're not credible over here. I I I think we want to ask
the polygamy deniialists to be more transparent with their message. If their message is that Joseph was monogamous,
okay, but if they're also telling people that for the next 50 years that the top seven leaders of the church were liars
and that when they said Joseph personally taught them, they were eyewitnesses of Joseph Smith's polygamy,
that they are lies, come clean. Let's just let's just bring it into a full
package instead of trying to keep uh their audience from knowing the second
half because when somebody accepts the polygamy monogamous Joseph Smith is
a monogamous narrative, they may not even realize what else they're accepting.
And I think if again if you put yourself in in that period right you're talking from from 1844 to 1901 basically you
know almost 60 years of of living under this lie. And there's no one that has
come out and exposed it to you know of of the evil men. There's no one that's come out to expose all of this. you
know, these women that were coerced into writing these affidavit and others that were writing these affidavit or writing
in their own journals or whatever it might be. You know, that you there there's nobody that has said, you know,
exposed these evil men of of this conspiracy and that it was all a lie for
60 years. Uh it's it's it's such a stretch. I don't I understand, you know,
we've got this this new democratized information, scholarly
information available now on church history. You've going to saints, you've got the Joseph Smith papers, you've got
all of this information out there. And so you you can go out and everybody can look at it and you start compiling these
things and you can start, hey, you start forming a narrative maybe out of all of this information. I don't think that's
going to stop. And I don't think it's going to be just the polygamy deniers that end up with some of these strange
ideas from all of this information, right? And creating these narratives. We're going to go through a period of time until things again become more
codified and understood as lay individuals are out trying to form their
own history on on on church history. So, I get it, right? I I I I get that to to
a certain degree. But once you get to the point of the
the immense conspiracy level, I mean, just think putting yourself in that
position, the immense conspiracy level that would be required among all of the
people, all of them that that they had to have lived under for almost 60 years
in pretending, you know, that Joseph Smith started polygamy and and and not Brigham Young.
You know, it's it's it's it is it to me it's beyond belief. I I just that one
single point is beyond belief. I understand that they have some evidence. I mean, you go through Emma's words, you
go through Joseph Smith words, and of course, one of the arguments they have, it's a good argument in and of itself,
right? It's well, they don't we don't have anything in firsthand writing or statement from Joseph Smith or Emma on
saying that they approved of of polygamy. Great. Okay, there's something there. Put it in a court of law. That's
what you're going to submit as evidence. But but going beyond that into everything else to me is is
I I I it's just it's just unbelievable to me. Well, the uh the conspiracy aspect of it
is by my account the number of liars in the polygamy deniialist version of
church history. These are individuals who left handwritten or or you know spoken testimony is 75.
Now that's quite a conspiracy and as you as you've mentioned a couple of times to have a conspiracy with that many people
some of them are not members of the church by the way not a single one of them later spilled the beans. You know the bigger the conspiracy the bigger the
the more challenging it is to keep everybody you know with the same narrative. you know, it's a lie, but
they you want everybody lying the same way, but we don't have any of these 75 people afterwards coming forth and
saying, "Oh, it was all Bighgam. You know, we we just made it up." They they aren't revealing the conspiracy. Every
one of these people goes to their deathbed claiming that Joseph was a polygamist. And and that when it comes
to such a big conspiracy is is a remarkable finding. So, let's run through some of these uh
Relief Society presidents as an example. and and and some of the things that have been quoted and said of them. Do you
have that with you now if you want to go through some of this starting with Eliza or Snow? Yeah. Well, do you have that first JPEG
that I I sent over? If not, I can just describe it. Um, yes. You're talking about the uh the
handwritten note. Yeah. Yeah. This is a fun paper that Don Bradley I I had him working for me. It
was like 2008, so it's been a number of years ago. He's down looking at Andrew Jensen's uh papers and he received some
help from historians there. They said, "Don, you need to go look at this." But Don is looking at it and he's noticing
that there is uh a change in the handwriting on this piece of paper. Now, what the paper is is Andrew Jensen has
gone around visiting Nauvoo polygamists and he is writing down names of Joseph
Smith's plural wives and he has 13 names there. And then he interviews Eliza R. Snow. This is 188586.
We don't have an exact date, but Eliza Ars Snow apparently took the piece of paper and her own pencil and wrote at
least 13 more names. It's a little hard to discern some of them. There's at least 13 new individual names that Eliza
Arseno adds in her own hand. And the reason this is significant for the
polygamy deniialist is that in their narrative, Joseph was a monogamist. Anyone saying he's a polygamist is
lying. And here we have Eliza R. Snow lying in an in a remarkably elaborate
and detailed way. And most deniialists think polygamy is bad. So she's not only
lying, she's implicating or incriminating 13 other women as being
part of the conspiracy or as doing this bad thing called polygamy. And so again,
this this portrays Eliza in such a an elaborate liar. That's about the only
way I can I can state it. And and I would argue she wasn't a liar. She is
telling the truth. She's not making up these details. But their narrative
requires that she be a liar. There's no way she can be telling the truth. and Joseph still be the the monogamous that
the polygamy deniers uh insist that he was. Now, who is
who is Andrew Jensen? Andrew Jensen was an independent scholar at this point, but he later became an
assistant church historian. He also authored the historical record. There was an 1886 article on plural marriage
in there that is a just has a wealth of information uh that we we still quote from to help us understand what was
happening because he interviewed all these novel polygamists. And we also have his his uh research notes which are
invaluable as well. And this is the first list of his Joseph Smith's plural wives. I think there's three in the
collection. But the remarkable thing is that Don Bradley figured out that the bottom half there is Eliza R. Snow's
handwriting. And Jill Durr, who's an expert on on Eliza Arso, verified that
this is in fact Eliza's handwriting. And so there's no question that this is Eliza writing about Joseph Smith's
plural wives. But the only way to interpret that through the lens of the polygamy deniialist is that this is a
lie. These are lies. Lie number one through 13 from Eliza Ar. know the
second, you know, general Relief Society president, the woman who wrote Oh My Father, the the words to that hymn, the
one who organized the primary and did, you know, a whole bunch of remarkable
things, but she was too weak to stand up for the truth. According to the denialist, she if she'd have stood up
for the truth, she would have said Joseph was a monogous, but she said Joseph was a polygamist. So, she's lying. and she's lying because she's
oppressed by her priesthood leaders and and that whole narrative is it's false
and it makes me sad that anyone would imply that or state that as part of their overall history.
Now, Andrew Jensen, did he make any of this public? Was he going to go out? Was he putting an article out or anything?
Was he was he trying to put something out for public information or was he just compiling this for himself or for
the church? Good question. and and I I mentioned that there was a a uh monthly newspaper
periodical that would come out called the historical record. first four volumes I think are in Danish or
something and then he he switches to English and and he does have an article in 1886 just entitled plural marriage
and at the very end he lists I think it's 26 of Joseph Smith's plural wives
there and it came at a time when the church is being really persecuted and
after he wrote it um Wilfford Woodruff uh wrote him a letter and says you know
we know you're trying to do the right thing here but the timing is really bad. So, will you stop? And Don Bradley,
again, my dear friend who was researching, he theorizes that he stopped writing on plural marriage,
though he had anticipated doing more. But if you look at the index uh to the overall volume, you see he's
interjected additional details that Don thinks he had picked up for a second, you know, article and he's kind of
slipped them into the index because he didn't want it to get lost. So, uh, but yes, this is a very important document
from Andrew Jensen, 1886. So, he's got here I he's got 25 written
down here, but obviously Emma would not be in here because it's because she's not a plural
wife, so to speak. And so, it's so you've got the 25 and Emma. So, based on what Andrew Jensen and Eliza R. Snow has
put in here, and I don't know if she's even got all of them in here, but Joseph Smith based on Eliza Snow had
Emma as a wife and then then 25 others. You know that number 25 isn't really
accurate. If you look at the other there's a second column there and there there's more wives I think um on his
other sheets as well. But some he includes some he doesn't and we have additional evidence for some. I actually
go through all of this in a in one of the last chapters of my trilogy in volume two. And I have a big chart there
showing the different uh papers from Andrew Jensen, which wives are included, which aren't, what the final tally is.
Um, but there were, you know, quite a number of women who were sealed to him and and he's got most of them on there.
Yeah, you're right. I'm seeing maybe closer to 30ish or so that are that are on here. Okay. Um, so let's go beyond that. I
mean, we've now got some statements here. Can you go over these for us as we just go through them and talk a little
bit about each one of these these quotes? Well, what I did is I went through the
women's exponent and Eliza Ars Snow was a big proponent of getting that going
the in the very early days. And so I wanted to say did or I wanted to
identify did the general relief society presidents Eliza Snow, Zina Huntington, Bath Sheba Smith as they were serving as
church uh general relief society president did they talk about Joseph Smith as a polygamist? Okay, giving
their firsthand accounts and they all did. And what we're seeing here is just that um uh Eliza Ars Snow is saying that
and and somebody's recording it, but made some excellent remarks on celestial marriage told the large congregation
that the principle of plural marriage was taught her by Joseph Smith the prophet. That's some highlevel lying if
you're looking at it through the lens of the polygamy deniialist. And and we can read these others. Um, if
Hemma Hail Smith Bidaman actually said what Joseph Smith III
quoted her saying about plural marriage, she died with a liel on her lips
because Eliza knew that Emma knew because Emma was involved. She was involved with at least four of the
plural ceilings and and Eliza was well aware of of her being aware of it. And
then then a third one there is that um it just refers to Eliza being sealed to
Joseph as a plural wife. So we do have these public pronouncements from Eliza.
And then if you if you scroll down, Zina Huntington, she's the third general Relief Society president. And the first
one there, the prophet Joseph was chasened before he accepted the law of celestial marriage. An angel appeared to
him and threatened that God would take the priesthood from him unless he established that principle on the earth.
And the principle is, of course, the plural aspect of eternal marriage. Celestial marriage is a principle from
God. He commanded it and sent an angel to reveal it to the prophet Joseph. Treat it sacredly, my sisters, for the
spirit of the Lord is grieved when you speak against this principle. You kind of wonder, Zina is warning people, don't
speak against polygamy, at least as a principle and a practice. And yet, what are the denialists doing on a daily
basis? Um, you know, uh, the prophet knew of her faithfulness and saw by
revelation when he was in the Liberty jail that that Zion was to be his wife.
Okay, a plural wife. Again, this is talking and I go through this in my books if you want to read more more in
depth here, but it says, "Sister Zion became the wife of the prophet Joseph Smith in Naboo." So, she was a plural
wife. I believe it was an eternity only nonsexual relationship, but nevertheless, she was sealed to him. Um,
and then if we we can skip down to Bashaba if you would like. She's a little more general. Um, and if somebody
wants these charts, I'm happy to share all of this material. But Batha, fourth
general Relief Society president in 1886, she said she had also heard the prophet speak of plural marriage and
knew that it was revealed to him. And anyway, we can go on, but but you get the picture that if we're going to say
Joseph was a monogamist, the rest of the history after his death needs to be part of that narrative. And
that means they've got to interpret these statements through the lens of Joseph being a monogamous, which means
all of these women over the pulpit as as the highest women leader in the church
are are telling lies, deceiving their audiences. And I I I say that's not the
right interpretation. These women were devout. They were honorable. They were
hardworking. Um Zina Huntington went back east and she was vice president of
the National Council of Women. She's she's playing on a national stage back there and she's vice president. But are
we supposed to believe that she's coming back here and being oppressed to lie about Joseph? I their personalities were
strong. They did great service to the church and and so I I'm troubled by any
narrative that would portray these women as weak or as as deceivers.
Is this the only source here? I don't know enough about the visit of the angel
to Joseph Smith when he was basically trying to hold back on practicing and I
mean like anybody is is scared to death of what's in front of him here but
there's you know the story that the angel comes and he's got a sword and he says look you're going to you're going to practice this or else pretty much
what is the background to all of that and and are there more than one sources for that? Um, great question. I have an
article uh that I wrote years ago and at the end I had compiled uh 21 and I've
got two more from Lorenzo Snow. So, there's 23 now. Um, different accounts
from people who knew Joseph Smith. See, that's the key. I don't want secondhand accounts. These are people who knew
Joseph Smith and they related how he said that an angel with a sword had threatened him. Now, what he threatened
varies. Some people said he was going to kill Joseph's son. He was going to take away his priesthood like Zion said here
the church couldn't progress is another one of the things. But the angel threatened Joseph to go forward and we
have it from nine individuals at least 23 different accounts. One of those uh
witnesses is Mary Elizabeth Rollins and she added some details which are very interesting because she said the angel
came three times. The first time was in July of 1834. He's on Zion's camp. He's
going back to to try to get the Saints back to their properties in Jackson County. He's a thousand miles away from
her, but he learns that she's supposed to be his his plural wife. But that's when the angel first comes, which is why
I think he went to uh Kirtland. He's been commanded to do this. And there's
one account that says he thought about going to Benjamin Johnson's mom and asking her for one of her daughters. She
had three. But as it turns out, he instead asks Levi Hancock to talk to his
uh talk to his sister because she has a daughter, Fanny Algar. And Levi talks to
the his in-law, his sister and his brother-in-law. and and they he Joseph
is asking for Fann's hand as a plural wife and their answer is well it's okay
with us if it's okay with her. So he Fanny gets involved. See Joseph didn't just see Fanny and and fall into bed and
call, you know, ceremony kind of thing. No, this was a highly organized process according to the documents that we have.
And I believe it came in response to the July 1834 angel visit and that this
probably occurred in late 1835. Uh Don Bradley's written a wonderful article dating it after the restoration
of the ceiling authority which would have made it the first sealed marriage of this dispensation. We don't know. I'm
I'm not sure what to think about that if it was a priesthood marriage. It was just something God recognized even if
the state of Ohio did not. But it would have been a true marriage in everybody's eyes afterwards. And I don't know if you
wanted to get into Fanny Alger, but afterwards it's just kind of interesting because everybody that we can document
Fanny told about the about the relationship, they all talk about it as a plural marriage. But the people Joseph
taught, they're going, "No, Joseph, that was adultery. You know, this is Emma, his wife, and Oliver Cry. They're not
accepting it." But but certainly Fanny thought it was a a genuine marriage as did her family and the Hancocks and the
webs where she went to stay. So anyway, that's kind of a long story getting from the angel. But I wanted to add one more
thing that it wasn't a flaming sword. Okay, of all the 21 accounts, there's
one that is supposedly quoting Eliza R. Snow saying it was a flaming sword, but
it's through a non-member and it's in a New York newspaper and he's just sensationalizing. And I'm I'm very
confident because we have others from Eliza. It's not a flaming source. He's borrowing the the cherubam imagery.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, okay. All right. So, then we go down a little bit further here. I I want to
bring this up also because this is very pertinent to to what we're saying here.
Uh let's see here. This is under Bath Sheba Smith, right? But here in the
second quote here in 1903 toward the end here, I'll read this. It says, uh, "Did
Brigham Young reveal plural marriage, Sister Smith?" He did not. God revealed
it through the prophet Joseph Smith. I have tried to be one with my husband, and I was just as happy with him as any
woman could be, for I loved him dearly, and I knew why he practiced the principle of plural marriage. He knew it
was a principle of exaltation, and I wished him to receive as great an exaltation as anyone, and I expected to
share it with him. So here again, I mean, you've got a direct quote just saying, "Did Brigham Young reveal plur
marriage?" Because again putting it into context historically where we have here the conflict of uh what's going on
between the reorganized church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other factions in fact uh and the church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and and everything's coming down to trying to uh ad hominemum attacks essentially
on Brigham Y Young primarily and and trying to create this argument
of saying Look, Brigham Young started polygamy. We don't believe in polygamy.
And this is one of the major factions even before Joseph Smith III came in in 1860 to be the president of of the
reorganized church. You've got several individuals that had broken broken off. And I don't know if I said this right,
but the strangites and others that end up coming in and putting bringing together this body of individuals that
start the reorganized church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And what's so interesting to me, and I've gone back
and looked myself at some of these this documentation, I just did an episode on this in fact, but is that
the arguments made by the RLDS at the time, right, the
reorganized church, are almost verbatim the same ones that you hear from the
polygamy deniers. And so I can't help but think that as this research goes out there and Google
bringing in everything that it can that is pertinent to the phraseology and the the search words and everything else
that these arguments aren't being brought in and regurgitated
in in our time now be because it is it is focused on polygamy. It's focused on
Brigham I show exact quotes almost from
the reorganized church and their paper that they put out and what I hear on
several YouTube videos. It's almost verbatim the exact same thing.
And so it's it's like they're borrowing from what happened at the schism to begin the secession between Joseph Smith
and Brigham Young. But you know, it's also interesting because if you look at Emma and the
things that we have from Emma before 1860 versus the things that are after, we have contradictory evidence. We have
individuals like Joseph Culage and William Mlen who go and talk with her after Joseph's death but before 1860.
And they both relate how she was willing to talk about Joseph Smith and his plural marrying. We also have an account
from Leva Smith Walker who was her niece, Emma's niece. It was Hyram's daughter. And she also says that Emma
talked with her about Joseph's plural wives. But then once we get to 1860, see
her son has built his church on two ideas. That Joseph's heir should be his
son, Joseph III, and that Joseph Smith Jr. wasn't a polygamist. That that's
foundational for them. And so for Emma to then rei relate that she had was
aware of Joseph's polygamy, she would have been defying her own sons in a big way. And you'll notice also that most,
not all, but most of the denials from Emma are filtered through RLDS
missionaries or RLDS leaders. See, they are are being the spokes. They're giving
us Emma's words, okay? But they are words that they really need. need Emma to be saying at that time and place
and are they biased? Well, of course, everybody's biased. But we just have to beware uh about how far those biases are
going. And then we have to contextualize those to Emma's words before 1860 when
she freely is discussing the polygamy element with with several individuals.
Yeah. Interesting. I was speaking with a descendant of Joseph Smith and you know and I don't know enough about this but
it's they were saying that you know for all intents and purposes anyway and I don't know how how how how clear this
would be but that Joseph Smith III kind of starts to concede that Joseph Smith
had did practice polygamy toward the end toward the end of Joseph Smith III's
life. There's there's overwhelming evidence to show that Joseph Smith III knew. And
it's it's a it's a puzzling thing because I like Joseph Smith the third. I think he was trying to do a lot of good
things, but I think most people do. Yeah. Yeah. He he went out to California and talked to Agnes Kulb's daughter. Um and
I'm sorry, we have the account through the daughter, but when they went out and talked to Agnes, Agnes was one of Joseph's plural wives. and he told them
and David when he heard this from Aunt Agnes as they called her um they they
were dumbfounded. David was just I don't know if if having to deal with his cognitive dissonance was part of David's
overall mental challenges. Um, I'd like to think it wasn't, but you know, he he
spent the his last days in an asylum. But he was there with Joseph Smith III
and Alexander, his older brothers, and they heard right from Agnes that that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. But then
we have two letters from Joseph Smith III. Later in life, one is writing to William
Smith, his uncle, Joseph's brother, and William is saying, "I'm going to write a biography of Joseph." And Joseph Smith
III says, "Okay, go ahead and do it, but there are some things you shouldn't remember." You know, he's telling him,
"We've worked too hard to take away the the uh the label of polygamy to my
father to have it disrupted." Now, I'm paraphrasing what he says. And then there's another uh even more revealing
letter from Joseph Smith III to EC Brand. EC Brand is a is a missionary in
Salt Lake City. and EC Brand apparently had been asked to to get the names of all of Joseph Smith's plural wives that
he could discern because he's out here Utah. He writes back to Joseph Smith III
with a list. And then in this letter, Joseph Smith III is writing the name and then commenting on that woman on what he
knew about her. Could she have been a wife? And and so he goes name by name.
It's one of the sources of Joseph Smith's plural wives that we use to try to get the full list. And it's in Joseph
Smith III handwriting. And so there's just no question that Joseph Smith III knew
about this practice even though his public stance was against it. So, you
know, I I don't know. We don't want to judge Joseph Smith III, but there's a cognitive dissonance he's dealing with.
It's pretty profound. Yeah. Because again, the founders, he's not really the founder. I mean, they
kind of brought him in actually. And and the founders were all very much antipoly. They had gone to the
Strangites and others and then they started practicing polygamy also. So they left them and came over and and uh
so yeah I I I I figured that was probably true in in what they were
saying. One more thing here from Bashiba Smith that I want to put in here is is your last quote that you've highlighted.
Go down to what you highlighted. Sister Emma, she says talked to us a good deal on the subject of plural wives. I
believe that was a true as true as any principle the prophet taught. So again,
you're you're saying, "Okay, well, she's lying about this." She says that it wasn't just like, "Oh, she mentioned
something on it. She talked to us a good deal on the subject of plural wives."
So, it's I you have to ignore all of these things
in in order to say that not not mentioning the the mass conspiracy that
it would require to to pull all of this off. It's it's just it's just such a
stretch to me. Well, you know, the the thing that we need to also emphasize here, and I really haven't mentioned it
yet, is it have you ever have you ever signed an agreement online or or on
paper and and it's got lots of of small print, but you don't read it and then something happens and you go back and
you go, "Oh my gosh, I just agreed to all this stuff. I didn't even realize it." And then it works against whatever
you're you're trying to do. I think a lot of people will hear the polygamy deniialists version and and just a
couple weeks ago there's a new video out on on DNC32 and I listened to the first
part and the presenter was masterful as a spinmeister. You know, he had
cherrypicked his evidences. He went beyond the evidence when he needed to. He ignored a small mountain of evidence
that contradicted it. He had speculated at the right part. If you just listen to this narrative, you go, "Wow, that's
pretty convincing." And so if somebody hears that and then they hear the church's version, which is that Joseph
was a polygamist. Nobody likes polygamy almost. So you just say, "Well, I think I'm going to go with these the Joseph
the monogamous group." Okay. What they may not realize is when they hit that accept button in their brain or in their
faith that they are also accepting that Brighgam and Zina and Eliza and John
Taylor and Lorenzo and Wilfford and Bashuba were all liars for the next 50
years and they're leading the church. It's, you know, how does true authority,
how does the mantle, prophetic mantle, make it through this period of darkness with all these leaders who are liars and
the men are oppressing the women. So, they're they're not just lying, they're doing it with force and compelling these
women, coercing. They're evil. I mean, the way around it you cannot conclude. But what what I've
heard often is is well they're lying for the Lord and and and there there is a uh
u you know you kind of fall into a bad practice and then it becomes a reality and you know all these different things
but I mean you you the what is required for this to happen is pure evil. It is
absolutely pure evil that that that has to prevail among the leaders the the the
quorum of the 12 the first presidency and everybody else. It is absolute pure
evil what what is happening here if if you believe that and and this is the other thing is there's an argument um
that says look it's okay you know you can you can have bad people as leaders
fine okay uh you know you've got a testimony of the church you've got a testimony about a prophet leading the
church uh you love the church fine uh and that's goes into a lot of the uh the
biases that you have in supporting that history, the history of the church. But
again, you take all of that away. I don't care if you are a non-member, you look at church history on your own, you
look at everything and you come in, you cannot get away from the logical explanation of a mass, this would be the
largest conspiracy in the history of the world. It is it is to to have hundreds
of thousands of people buy in and say they're all going to be, you know, no
one's going to break out. No one's going to call somebody out uh on the conspiracy. Everybody's in on it. You
know, it's kind of a it's uh um I'm trying to think of the uh the
movie. I'll come up with that and put that in another episode. But it's it it's it's beyond anything that can be
logical to me. It's not just a matter of well, there's a bunch of people that don't want it to be true from a logical
standpoint. How can you possibly stretch yourself that far to put this in
place because you don't feel good about it? Yeah. Because you don't like polygamy. But
because you don't like polygamy. I get that part. I mean, yeah, we all get that. We don't like polygamy. But but let's flip the uh the
discussion. What if the polygamy deniialists instead of emphasizing that
Joseph was a monogamist, what if they were more transparent, because I don't think they are, and they emphasized how
all seven of those leaders, you know, Brighgam and John and Lorenzo and
Wilfford and Zina and Eliza and Bashiba were all lying for 50 years. Let's what if that was their primary emphasis? What
would we do? We would call that an apostate message. We would call that antagonistic, anti- Mormon. But you see,
it's hidden. They don't talk about it. The second part of their narrative is is
an apostate message. And it's important because people accept the first part. They may not even realize what they've
done. when they hit that accept button in their head is injected into their their belief system, a faith killing
virus, if you will, because the next time they hear about Brighgam or John or something or Eliza, they're like, "Wait,
those guys are liars because they said Joseph was a polygamist." You see how it
undermines faith today? It's bringing people out of the church and they don't
even realize they're signing up for this narrative when they decide, "Oh, I like the monogamy version of Joseph better.
Yeah. And you don't know where that leads. I mean, I can't tell you how many people have messaged me on this topic.
And and and and inevitably, not inevitably, but a number of them get to the point of Brigham Young. Young was
evil. Um and and in fact, he and others,
John Taylor and others were all involved in a conspiracy to kill Joseph Smith, and they're the ones responsible for killing Joseph Smith.
And that is more prevalent than people realize. If you haven't heard that before, I'm telling you, I get these
messages. And and and it's it's
look how look where you end up. Some of these people end up with this. It's it's it's
very concerning. And comparing uh one of their favorite things to do is to compare Brigham Young. Young with King Noah. I I don't know where they get
that. I mean, that's a very odd thing, but they love to compare Brigham Y. Young to King Noah,
and they're basically the same person. Wow. Well, it's a spirit of apostasy. It's
darkness. I I think uh how can we I mean, I've had people write to me and they said, "Look, I've heard this stuff,
but it didn't feel right." I've had two or three use those very roots. It didn't feel right. There's a spirit to the
polygamy monogamy or to the Joseph Smith monogamy narrative. And just be careful
because make sure we realize that it's it's it's a lens that says everybody's a liar between 1844 and 1901 who's leading
the church. And if that isn't speaking evil of the Lord's anointed or or if
that isn't something that that you know is going to incite an apostasy feeling of apostasy, I don't know what else
could. And for local leaders, I've heard of local leaders who just they're not going to be bothered with with you know
worrying about this. But if somebody wants to believe Joseph Smith was a monogous, they just say, "Okay, that's
fine." What they need to do if these people are vocal is also ask those individuals, well, do you think that
Brighgam and Zina and Eliza and all of these leaders are liars? Because that brings out the feelings that they that
they really are conveying it. It takes away the veil. It brings transparency to
the whole message instead of letting just this question of of Joseph Smith's polygamy prevail. We need we need to
throw back that that curtain and and and demand or at least hope or invite the
polygamy deniialists to become clean on this on this part of their narrative.
Yeah. And you can see that the church has seen that several people have grabbed on to this this idea because they just came out this week with a new
section on plural marriage specifically specifically saying Brigham Y. Young did
not start polygamy. Joseph Smith started the doctrine, right? And just trying to
put things straight with people because it's necessary. I mean, it's
it's got to be put out there. There has to be a check on these things. And if you've done research and you've seen,
you know, I'm talking to the audience here and and and you've you've thought about this and wow, I wonder if
this is possible. You know, we all go through that kind of thing. We all go through through levels of of trying to
understand something new and and things we have to put on a shelf or things that we just aren't sure about. But I I would
just suggest that you look at where this leads for a lot of people and and what it requires you to believe. When you
pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other. Yeah.
I I couldn't say it any better. I I loved how you you summarize it. So I I
and I would just encourage us all to to look at the whole message that the polygamy deniialists are sending and
make sure that we want to believe that the church went through this period led by liars and oppressors and weak women.
And I it's it's not true. These were strong women. And you know, you got to scratch your head and say, is it that
bad to believe that Joseph Smith restored the practice of plural marriage for a time? He didn't want to do it. If
people will study the documents, you discover that the first set of the the the eternal ceilings in it, plural
ceilings that he performed for himself were all to legally married women. They were nonsexual. Okay. I I hope we
finally got that established that these it wasn't true polyandry. A woman can't have two genuine husbands on earth. But
these were ceilings to satisfy the angel and not to offend Emma. That's what I believe. So, he didn't
want to do it. He didn't want to to cross that line. And then the angel came the third time. And only was the the uh
sword uh made manifest in that third visit, we're told by Mary Elizabeth
Rollins. And so, the angel means business. And then after that date, and it was early in February of 1842,
according to Mary Elizabeth Rollins, after that date is when Joseph is starting to be sealed to young women who
aren't already married, with whom we can document sexuality with some of them. Not very many, but at least it's after
that date. Okay, so Joseph saying, "Okay, I guess I guess I'm in. Okay, the Lord wants this restored. We don't
understand. It doesn't seem necessarily fair or anything that we we can fully
get our heads around, but but God had his reasons. And and is it that hard to
believe Joseph would have been instructed that way? Is it is that more difficult than believing we have 50 plus
years of liars leading the church? Um, you know, I I don't Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Well, I I fully
agree with you on it. Um I I hope this spreads a little bit of light for some people as well. Uh, by all means, if
anybody here in this audience has a chance, go to look at Brian Hell's website. Brian, where do they go to?
Well, I have a couple. There's josephsmiths polygamy.org, and my late wife Laura actually put most
of that together with some research that that I'd done. U, there's also one that I was surprised to see referenced on
this latest statement from the church's newsroom. Um, it's moronpolygamydoccuments.org.
and you can just go there and and just see all the documents. What I did is I had spent actually quite a bit of money
um hiring Don Bradley to go get a lot of documents and purchasing documents from
other collectors and things. And after my books were published, Fair Mormon came to me. They're now Fair, but they
said, "Brian, do you want to upload your stuff? We've got a place for it." And they helped me. They got it all ready.
They got it all going. And then a few years later, I took it over and I'm maintaining it myself. But it was fair
fair Mormon who wanted to get all this stuff out there. Transparency, that's what we call it. And so it's
moronpamydoccuments.org. And it's just a collection, but it's an index with several thousand entries in
there and you can just pull them out and see. But there's so much evidence that Joseph Smith did introduce this that
that for those who who say he didn't, I think they just they're not accurate.
They're they're spinning the data. Yeah, appreciate that. Brian, thanks so
much for your time and the research that you've done. Really appreciate that. Offering some clarity on these things
and, you know, we'll probably have you back. We'll see. Yeah, I'd love to come. Thank you, Greg.
Appreciate it.
