I know I’m behind the times. I don’t watch television very often, and I don’t have cable or satellite tv. But I recently got a Netflix subscription, and I discovered that Sister Wives was on. Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched all 18 episodes of season 1 and season 2. It really is entertaining. Over and over, I kept asking myself, “how do they afford such a large family?” Season 2, episode 3 answers the question. Read more…
D&C 132 was recorded on July 12, 1843. In this section, God revealed to Joseph Smith the Celestial Law of Marriage, and showed that a man could be sealed to multiple wives if done with the proper priesthood authority. On the other hand, women are not supposed to be sealed to multiple men. However, verse 51 offers a vague reference:
A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her;
The subject of polygamy was quite controversial with Emma. in a previous post, Richard Van Wagoner noted the issue of polygamy Read more…
You may think that we know all there is to know about polygamy in the LDS church. However, historians continue to debate the issue. A press release from Signature Books a few days ago let me know about some interesting developments. In 2008, George D Smith released a book called Nauvoo Polygamy – …but we called it Celestial Marriage. Apparently, the 2nd edition was just released with new charts and corrections.
As I understand it, the 2008 book caused a few waves among the Foundation or Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS–now known as the Neal A Maxwell Center). According to the release, FARMS reviewer “Gregory L. Smith criticized Nauvoo Polygamy for assuming the founder had sex with his plural wives.” The release notes the irony that “the reviewer then admitted Joseph Smith did had sex with at least nine women.” Signature has hailed the review as the “landmark 2008 review [that] constituted the first-ever admission in an LDS publication that Smith was sexually active with his wives.”
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I received a wonderful surprise in the mail a few weeks ago. I received an advance copy of The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History from Signature Books. It will be released on March 24, and I just added it to my Books and Movies page. If you pre-order, Amazon is offering it for 34% off. I haven’t been through the whole book yet, but I wanted to offer some initial impressions.
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I received a pingback from my previous post on Theosis from someone at Christian Forums. I have another post on President Lorenzo Snow’s famous couplet, “As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be.”
I’ve had a few exchanges with people over there. Since I spent so much time, I thought I would highlight some of these exchanges here and show a Biblical basis for Exaltation.
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After Christmas, we decided to finally upgrade our television, and got a new 55 inch HD LCD. It’s pretty nice. As part of the package, we are able to download Netflix directly to the television. The first Netflix movie I watched on my new television was Ken Burns’ America: The Shakers (1985). I picked it because I remembered that there was a mission to the Shakers in D&C 49.
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Today is Joseph’s 204th birthday. (He was born in 1805 for those of you curious about the math.) Since Dec 22 is the first day of winter, and the day with the shortest amount of sunlight, I’ve heard people say that Joseph’s birth was symbolic. Joseph was bringing light into the world after a period of darkness. That’s interesting.
As most of you know, Joseph died June 27, 1844 in a hail of gunfire at the Carthage jail, leaving behind a pregnant wife and 3 young boys: Joseph SMITH III (age 11 1/2), Frederick Granger Williams SMITH (age 8), Alexander Hale SMITH (age 6). Emma gave birth to David Hyrum SMITH on Nov 18, 1844, 5 months after Joseph’s death . (Emma gave birth to 10 children in all, though most of them died at or near birth. Don Carlos SMITH lived just 15 months from 13 Jun 1840 – 15 Sep 1841.)
Three years after Joseph’s death, Emma married a man by the name of Lewis Bidamon. Most astonishing to me is the day she picked for her wedding: Joseph’s birthday, 23 Dec 1847. Read more…
Kathryn Daynes tells a really interesting story about an infertile couple in her book More Wives than One. The Church Handbook of Instruction was leaked onto the internet a few years ago, and the church sued to stop it’s publication. The only reference I could find indicates that the Church strongly discourages members from participating in surrogate motherhood. I know someone who was considering becoming a surrogate mother prior to her marriage. While part of me respects such a decision, I always thought that participating in surrogate parenting was a strange idea. I remember a NJ woman refused to give up the baby she had carried for another couple about 10-20 years ago, so there can be some real challenges for people who choose to participate in parenting via this route. You hear about weird mixups like this one, and you understand the church’s decision on why it is a bad idea. As I read the following story, it seems Brigham Young probably didn’t have a problem with surrogate parenting.
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I have really been enjoying the book More Wives than One by Kathryn Daynes, an associate professor of history at BYU. In my previous post on the book, I mentioned that marriage wasn’t as regulated as it is today. There were no marriage licenses, blood tests, or even ceremonies required. If a couple said they were married, then courts ruled that they were. That was all that was needed. It seems that many of the marriage regulations we are familiar with today were influenced by the federal government’s efforts to stamp out Mormon polygamy. Daynes gives a history of marriage starting on page 58.
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Thanks to Tara, my recent post announcing my perspective on polygamy has received a recent boost of activity (and is my most commented post ever on this blog, currently with 97 comments.) We had been discussing some of the more controversial aspects of polygamy: (1) Was Joseph’s polygamy revelation really a disguise for his real motive as a womanizer (libertine)? (2) What is the true nature of the Fanny Alger relationship? (3) Was Eliza Snow pushed down the stairs by Emma? Let’s look at how does Richard Bushman, author of Rough Stone Rolling sees these issues.
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I have long avoided talking about polygamy on my blog. It is a source of tremendous discomfort for me, but it keeps coming up, so I want to give my impressions about this early practice in Mormonism, as well as my beliefs and reconciliations.
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Ok, it’s always nice to be creative when proposing. But hiding the ring in a milkshake, and then having a race to finish the shake is a really bad idea. Yep, she swallowed it! You can read more here. (Oh yeah, they’re LDS.)
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