Quotes from Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith and Plural Marriage
Fawn Brodie’s . No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet has created a primary reference point for unbelievers who wish to learn about Joseph Smith. In her interpretation, Joseph smith is considered a calculating fraud whose lies built up momentum throughout his life until he finally believed them. His success was based primarily on his incredible genius that allowed him to spew forth the Book of Mormon, one line after another, and also to general many complex theological creations completely from his own imagination.
“The source of his power lay not in his doctrine, but in his person… He was a mythmaker of prodigious talent.”[1]
“hampered by meager education”[2] “He had only limited formal schooling after leaving New England.”[3] “Whatever initial misgivings may have troubled Emma vanished before the substantial stream of prose that flowed from her husband’s lips. She could fathom neither the sources of his ideas nor his marvelously fecund imagination.”[4]
At the time of the writing of the lost 116 pages, “Joseph had yet to learn to write.”[5]
“Joseph had developed a remarkable facility for dictation. The speed was not ‘far beyond his natural ability’; it was evidence of his ability.”[6]
“Far from being the fruit of an obsession, the Book of Mormon is a useful key to Joseph’s complex and frequently baffling character… Its structure shows elaborate design, its narrative is spun coherently, and it demonstrates throughout a unity of purpose… The book can best be explained, not by Joseph’s ignorance nor by his delusions, but by his responsiveness to the provincial opinions of his time. He had neither the diligence nor the constancy to master reality, but his mind was open to all intellectual influences.”[7]
“The facility with which profound theological arguments were and led is evidence of the unusual plasticity of Joseph’s mind. But this facility was entirely verbal. The essence of the great spiritual and moral truths with which he dealt to agilely did not penetrate into his consciousness.”[8]
“A careful scrutiny of the Book of Mormon and the legendary paraphernalia obscuring its origin disclose not only Joseph’s inventive and eclectic nature but also his magnetic influence over his friends.”[9]
“But Joseph had more than ‘second sight,’ which is commonplace among professional magicians. At an early age he had what only the most gifted revivalist preachers could boast of – the talent for making men see visions.”[10]
“According to the local press of the time, the three witnesses all told different versions of the experience, a fact that makes it all the more likely that the men were not conspirators but victims of Joseph’s unconscious but positive talent at hypnoses.”[11]
“For Joseph’s vigorous and completely undisciplined imagination the line between truth and fiction was always blurred.”[12]
“And at an early period he seems to have reached an inner equilibrium that permitted him to pursue his career with a highly compensated but nevertheless very real sincerity.”[13]
“His talent, like that of many dramatic artists, was emotional rather than intellectual.”[14]
“The young prophet was himself molded by the insistent demands of his audience.”[15]
“At times he appropriated the lyrical style of the Bible so expertly that the instrument sounded under his touch with astonishing brilliancy and purity of tone.”[16]
“[Joseph Smith] appealed as much to reason as to emotion.”[17]
“The intellectual appeal of Mormonism, which eventually became its greatest weakness as the historical and ‘scientific’ aspects of Mormon dogma were cruelly disemboweled by twentieth-century scholarship, was in the beginning its greatest strength.”[18]
Section 76 considered in four paragraphs on pages 117-118.
“The best evidence of the magnetism of the Mormon religion was that it could attract men with the quality of Brigham Young, whose tremendous energy and shrewd intelligence were not easily directed by any influence outside himself. His conversion had been intellectual rather than emotional, since it was the Book of Mormon that had attracted him to the Church.”[19]
“Kirtland was full of converts who had left behind them spouses who could not be persuaded to join the church. Since divorce was always difficult and often impossible to obtain, a critical social problem developed.”[20]
“In August 1835 the church issued the first of a series of official denials of the charge of polygamy.”[21]
“If in 1835, after eight years of marriage to a woman somewhat his senior, Joseph began to yearn for variety and adventure, he must soon have realized that for a prophet it is easier to change marriage laws than to contravene them. Since the wrong was but a wrong in the world, and the world lay in his hand, he might easily make it right.”[22]
“Cowdery had seen visions that were more real to him than meat and drink.”[23]
“[In 1839 it was] doubtful if Joseph was yet clear in his own mind about just what the ideal marriage order should be.”[24]
“What had overpowered Josiah Quincy, as indeed it did most of the prophet’s visitors, was Joseph magnificent self-assurance… Any protests of impropriety dissolved before his personal charm… He was gregarious, expansive, and genuinely fond of people.”[25]
“Whenever I see a pretty woman, I have to pray for grace.”[26]
“Joseph was no careless libertine who could be content with clandestine mistresses. There was too much of the puritan in him, and he could not rest until he had redefined the nature of sin and erected a stupendous theological edifice to support his new theories on marriages.”[27]
“Joseph was not given to self-searching or he might have been troubled by the intensity of his preoccupation with the nature of adultery.”[28]
“When [Joseph] described the new patriarchal order of marriage to Parley Pratt during their weeks together in Philadelphia in 1840, it was with the freshness and enthusiasm of a man who had stumbled quite by change upon an ancient treasure.”[29]
Exodus 22:16
16 ¶ And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife.
“Joseph could with a certain honesty inveigh against adultery in the same week that he slept with another man’s wife, or indeed several men’s wives, because he had interposed a very special marriage ceremony. And who was to say him nay, since in the gentilre world the simply pronouncement of a few timeworn phrases by any justice of the peace was all that was necessary to transform fornication into blessed matrimony. The spoken word stood between him and his own guilt. And with Joseph the word was God.”[30]
“The denials of polygamy uttered by the Mormon leaders between 1835 and 1852, when it was finally admitted, are a remarkable series of evasions and circumlocutions involving all sorts of verbal gymnastics.”[31]
“[William] Law believed Joseph to be not a false, but a fallen prophet, led into iniquity by the teachings of John C. Bennett and his own hot passions.”[32]
“In spite of the elaborate metaphysics he had created to justify polygamy, in spite of all the Old Testament prophets who had lived it and the success of his own experimentation, the crisis found him soft-willed. He was empty of conviction when he needed it most.”[33]
TC “Brodie emphasized the sexual dimension of Joseph marriages almost to the exclusion of other motivations.”[34]
Dialogue, Vol.7, No.4, p.76
Brodie Revisited: A Reappraisal
Marvin S. Hill
“With regard to plural marriage, where Brodie is so confident that the real Joseph Smith, the pleasure lover and sensualist, shows through, there is no evidence in his writings to suggest that he thought of it in other than religious terms. Had Brodie seen more of what is in the archives she might have hesitated before adopting her thesis of intentional fraud.”
Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997, had produced a remarkably researched text. He describes Joseph Smith as “charismatic”[35] with an “enormous psychic presence”[36] who “experimented with plural marriage”[37] as he “developed the principle of sealing ordinances.”[38] Doubtless by design, Compton portrays Joseph as uninspired and following his own intelligence, and perhaps his own hormones.
Chapter
Joseph Smith’s Theology and the Powers of Procreation
Without understanding the revelations and teachings that Joseph Smith was sharing with his listeners and theological ramifications they brought, evaluating his plural marriages would be insufficient. In many ways, we would only be treating a caricature of the man. Danel Bachman has identified one of many weaknesses of the antagonists approach to Joseph Smith “They have… failed to take Smith seriously as a theologian.”[39]
As discussed above, most of the theories advanced by detractors to explain Joseph Smith’s conclude that at some level, a desire for sex and power were at its core. This explanation invariably ignores the other aspects of Joseph’s life and theology, which were emerging at the same time as private teachings of plural marriage.
Perhaps the first time the Prophet addressed the issue of sexual immorality was when he translated The Book of Mormon. Published in 1830, it gave strict extremely strict guidelines respecting the law of chastity. Alma the younger emphasized to his son Corianton, that while abuses of our gift of procreation can be forgiven, they are nevertheless “an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost” (Alma 39:5).[40] Placing certain sexual sins next to murder elevated it seriousness beyond that generally believed by Christians in the 1830s.
Corresponding to this doctrine, in February of 1831, Joseph Smith received a revelation in the presence of twelve elders that stated:
Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.
And he that looketh upon a woman to lust after her shall deny the faith, and shall not have the Spirit; and if he repents not he shall be cast out.
Thou shalt not commit adultery; and he that committeth adultery, and repenteth not, shall be cast out.
But he that has committed adultery and repents with all his heart, and forsaketh it, and doeth it no more, thou shalt forgive;
But if he doeth it again, he shall not be forgiven, but shall be cast out. (D&C 42:22-26).
This revelation also contains guidelines on dealing with adultery:
Behold, verily I say unto you, that whatever persons among you, having put away their companions for the cause of fornication, or in other words, if they shall testify before you in all lowliness of heart that this is the case, ye shall not cast them out from among you;
But if ye shall find that any persons have left their companions for the sake of adultery, and they themselves are the offenders, and their companions are living, they shall be cast out from among you.
And again, I say unto you, that ye shall be watchful and careful, with all inquiry, that ye receive none such among you if they are married;
And if they are not married, they shall repent of all their sins or ye shall not receive them.
And again, every person who belongeth to this church of Christ, shall observe to keep all the commandments and covenants of the church….
And if any man or woman shall commit adultery, he or she shall be tried before two elders of the church, or more, and every word shall be established against him or her by two witnesses of the church, and not of the enemy; but if there are more than two witnesses it is better.
But he or she shall be condemned by the mouth of two witnesses; and the elders shall lay the case before the church, and the church shall lift up their hands against him or her, that they may be dealt with according to the law of God. (D&C 42: 74-78, 80-81.)
These verses were published by the Prophet many times during his lifetime. They were found in the July 1832 issue of the The Evening and the Morning Star, printed in Independence, Missouri.[41] They were also publishedin the Book of Commandments in 1833[42]and in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants[43]and again in 1843 in the Times and Seasons.[44]
Three months later, the Lord though Joseph Smith reiterated his condemnation of sexual sin:
There were among you adulterers and adulteresses; some of whom have turned away from you, and others remain with you that hereafter shall be revealed.
Let such beware and repent speedily, lest judgment shall come upon them as a snare, and their folly shall be made manifest, and their works shall follow them in the eyes of the people.
And verily I say unto you, as I have said before, he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, or if any shall commit adultery in their hearts, they shall not have the Spirit, but shall deny the faith and shall fear.
Wherefore, I, the Lord, have said that the fearful, and the unbelieving, and all liars, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, and the whoremonger, and the sorcerer, shall have their part in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
Verily I say, that they shall not have part in the first resurrection.
And now behold, I, the Lord, say unto you that ye are not justified, because these things are among you. (D&C 63:14-19.)
These verses were published in The Evening and Morning Star, in February, 1833[45] and again in the Times and Seasons in March 1844.[46] Joseph Smith sent out a clear message that adultery and sexual improprieties would not be tolerated in the Church.
On February 16, 1832, both Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon received a divine visionary revelation. They testified:
And while we meditated upon these things, the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about.
And we beheld the glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of his fulness;
And saw the holy angels, and them who are sanctified before his throne, worshiping God, and the Lamb, who worship him forever and ever.
And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all which we give of him: That he lives!
For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father--
That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God. (D&C 76:19-24.)
In that vision, they saw the inhabitants of the telestial kingdom:
Last of all, these all are they who will not be gathered with the saints, to be caught up unto the church of the Firstborn, and received into the cloud.
These are they who are liars, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and whoremongers, and whosoever loves and makes a lie.
These are they who suffer the wrath of God on earth.
These are they who suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.
These are they who are cast down to hell and suffer the wrath of Almighty God, until the fulness of times, when Christ shall have subdued all enemies under his feet, and shall have perfected his work; (D&C 76:102-106; emphasis added.)
As a consequence of Church members attempts to live the law of consecration, detractors asserted that wives were also being shared within the united order communities. To assuage these fantastic unsubstantiated claims, Joseph Smith taught: “When a man consecrates or dedicates his wife and children, he does not give them to his brother, or to his neighbor, for there is no such law: for the law of God is, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery already in his heart. Now for a man to consecrate his property, wife and children, to the Lord, is nothing more nor less than to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the widow and fatherless, the sick and afflicted, and do all he can to administer to their relief in their afflictions, and for him and his house to serve the Lord. In order to do this, he and all his house must be virtuous, and must shun the very appearance of evil.”[47]
In March of 1842 Joseph Smith wrote a letter to Mr. John Wentworth, editor and proprietor of the Chicago Democrat. He included thirteen Articles of Faith, the thirteenth which reads: “We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul--We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”[48]