Bill: I think that—opinions sort of vary with this but Brigham Young’s divorces where a sealing was involved, I think Brigham Young’s divorces that he granted were taken as dissolving the sealing.
GT: Theological? Ok.
Bill: Which is in perfect harmony with the idea that sealing. You could do it and you could undo it.
GT: As prophet he had power to loose.
Bill: Yes, so that’s another big point in the discussion of the book is that in the revelation it’s very clear that only one person at a time has this authority to decide you can be sealed, you can’t be. Or, you can engage in polygamy, you can’t, kind of thing. This has all evolved onto a single person. It even says historically, this is the way it has always been. I don’t know how serious to take that, but it supports the idea that it’s really a one-man job. So, who has the authority to decide? This is a huge issue in succession. Because obviously the guy who has this one-man authority is the guy to be in charge, right?
At one point, Joseph tries to separate his church presidency from his temple priest position as the one guy. People don’t like this. They are worried about it. They don’t want to accept Hyrum as the church president and Joseph as saying. Unfortunately, he is addressing a group, a very small group who is acquainted with his temple theology. The people who aren’t are really upset by this. “We don’t want Hyrum to be the prophet. You are.” He can’t be the prophet.
So, he takes it all back that afternoon. But yes, he is really speaking to this idea of where things are, and I can’t go into the background here, but his sort of presidency of the High Priesthood sort of vaults him into the position of the one guy. So, after he has died, after he is dead, the apostles weren’t in that tradition of High Priesthood. They weren’t in there at all. They try to write themselves in at first, and then they say you can’t really do that. It doesn’t work. So, we have to a new tradition about this.
Bill: Adultery is a really touchy point within the revelation. It’s a little bit confused. Also, the whole thing is tied up in this idea where I mention in Matthew about the binding and loosing thing. That is sort of Mark Staker’s thing about Peter, James, and John. That’s connected in there. So, the text is not perfectly clear. That’s another point I try to make about the revelation.
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