Polygamy skeptics complain that their work isn’t taken seriously. I’m going to issue a challenge to them to get peer reviewed. We’ll also talk about the charge that some people complain that saying Joseph Smith was a polygamist impugns his character. What does Mark Tensmeyer say about that? Check out our conversation….
GT 2:53:40 Well, I think this all brings us up to the idea that if the polygamy skeptics want to be taken seriously, they’ve got to become peer reviewed. Don’t they?
Mark 2:53:52 Yeah, if they want to engage the academic community, then they absolutely do. Because that is how you engage the academic community. Up until the 1970s, it was that common belief that Joseph Smith was the founder of the priesthood ban. It was Lester Bush, and a few other people that challenged that academically and we’ve got to respond to that is now the consensus that he was not.
GT 2:54:14 Right.
Mark 2:54:15 So, if you want to engage the academic community, if you want them the academic community to respond to you, that is how you do it. That’s how it happens for any discipline.
GT 2:54:25 You’ve got to start writing in Dialogue or Journal of Mormon History, or John Whitmer, or something.
Mark 2:54:29 Not even that. I mean, just write in any kind of peer review [journal.] Write in, like a history of Illinois journal, just somewhere.
GT 2:54:44 Yeah.
Mark 2:54:45 If you really want to engage…. I think one of the arguments for positive evidence of forged documents is History of the Church. In History of the Church, things are changed quite a bit in the Nauvoo period. There’s one quote from Brigham Young. He’s completing the History of the Church. He spent all day revising the history of Joseph Smith. There’s a journal entry, it’s in October 1843, 1842, I don’t remember, where it says Joseph is walking up the street and he’s saying how to handle people that are teaching plurality of wives, and that it’s his position that a man should only have one wife. In the History of the Church, when that got written and published in the 1850s, they changed that to say a man can only have one wife, unless he’s been commanded to otherwise by revelation from he who holds the keys. That was added. So, they say, “Well, that’s proof of forged documents.”
Mark 2:55:50 Well, you have to understand that there’s a difference between writing a history, a secondary source, and changing primary sources. There’s a big, big difference there. That was a pretty common way of telling history and producing documents. Joseph Smith, himself, did so extensively, when he started the History of the Church. He rewrote things and he put the 1835 versions of revelations in, as if those had been how those revelations had gone since the 1820’s, from the beginning.
GT: Yes.
Mark 2:56:32 With no explanation, he completely removed Jesse Gause, who was the first 2nd counselor in the First Presidency.
GT: That’s right.
Mark 2:56:32 He [Jesse] had played a major role in the establishment of the United Order. He [Joseph] completely removed him and reworded everything that originally Frederick G. Williams had… He did stuff like [that,] and that was, actually, a fairly common way of writing history at the time. The documented history of George Washington, which came out about the same time, did a very similar thing. People just wanted to create a cohesive narrative. So, that’s really what that was. I don’t see how that discredits the Utah era of Mormonism and discredits Joseph Smith, because they both did it. Also, it doesn’t mean that because they did that, that they actually went and changed the primary documents, themselves.
GT 2:57:31 I mean, how do you even do that?
Mark 2:57:33 I guess you could. They didn’t. Because we have the History of the Church. We know what they want the documents to have said to have matched their thing. We also have Joseph’s journal. They don’t match. So, again, if they’re going to go through all this trouble, why even keep the original documents around to show that you had forged things, if you’re going to go to that effort to do it.
GT 2:57:58 Right.
Mark 2:57:59 I mean, again, it goes back to, they did go through so much effort to do all these things, when it’s a conspiracy. So, I don’t really think that’s [credible.] Yeah, so [the story on] forged documents. I mean, later documents, you can classify them as what they are, as Utah-era documents, but as far as primary source documents being forged, I don’t see a case for that. I mean, all these documents would have to be faked and there’s not really good evidence that there is.
GT 2:58:31 I just want to throw out a challenge to all the polygamy skeptics out there. Get your stuff peer reviewed and I’ll be more than happy to talk to you.
Mark 2:58:43 Well, yeah, because the fact that it’s peer reviewed, doesn’t mean it’s true or false. It’s on a bandwagon, where people will argue. But, if you want to at least engage the academic community, that is how you do it. If you’re of the opinion that objectively that position is reasonable, that it’s not a religious apologetic, then I think it’s a fair expectation that you should be able to make the case through using academic standards.
GT 2:59:20 Alright, one more thing I wanted to talk about was, you know, there are some people that get very upset when you talk about Joseph Smith practicing polygamy, and will say, “You’re impugning Joseph Smith’s character. He would never have done something like that, or he couldn’t have been a prophet.” How would you respond to those kinds of accusations?
Mark 2:59:46 Well, I’ll tell a quick story about that. About three years ago, I was with the family. We were at the Temple Lot, and we stopped and we visited the Temple Lot. I wish I had caught his name, the name of the gentleman that was the guide there. I assume he’s an elder or something.
GT 3:00:01 Was it Randy Sheldon?
Mark 3:00:02 Oh, no, this is after he died.
GT 3:00:05 Oh, Randy’s dad died. Yeah, I’m trying to remember what his name was, but Randy’s still there.
Mark 3:00:10 Oh, maybe. Possibly. So, one of the things I said to him was,, “I’m really impressed by how your church has had a commitment to tell the truth about our history, regardless of damage.” Now, remember, the Temple Lot Church is about as anti-polygamy as they come…
GT 3:00:31 That’s, right.
Mark 3:00:32 …in the Mormon world. They are, in terms of primitivism of not having newer revelation that contradicts older revelation, they do that more than anybody. I mean, they reject a lot of Joseph Smith’s revelations. They reject the three degrees of glory, because they say that contradicts the Book of Mormon. They reject offices that aren’t in the Bible, or the Book of Mormon. And they reject polygamy as being a true doctrine, but they’ve always maintained that Joseph did it.
Mark 3:01:09 So, I mentioned that to him andb said, “I’m really impressed that your church-and always has been committed to tell the truth, no matter what.”
He said, Absolutely.” He said, “Our job is not to be here to defend Joseph Smith. The gospel is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel of truth.” I would add that you’re not slandering Joseph Smith, by telling the truth about what he did. If it’s something he did, it’s not slander. If it’s true, it’s not slander. The definition of slander is things that are not true. So, I fully understand that there are people that look not only at polygamy, but the circumstances about how it was introduced, and how Joseph went about it, that can look at that and say, “Wow, that shows that he’s not an honest person. We can’t trust anything he says.” I can understand that. I don’t feel that way. But I can see how people would and I understand that. But because something challenges a deeply held conviction of yours, or is uncomfortable to you, doesn’t make it not true. Personally, I would much rather look at Joseph Smith as he was, and decide from there, if that’s somebody I can believe in as a prophet, than have to imagine somebody who wasn’t, in order to believe in him as a prophet. I suppose that’s my thoughts on that. I’m saying, it’s a tough thing.
Mark 3:03:07 Another thing, I don’t think him being a prophet, if we’re looking at this as polygamy being a crime, something that discredits him or impugns his character, I don’t necessarily think it does. But, if we’re going with that, I don’t think he’s entitled to any more benefit of the doubt than any other person would be. I mean, if you’re looking at this body of evidence, and if it was anybody else, and you would say it’s obvious, then it shouldn’t be any different for him. If it’s something he did, and that’s what he did. If the evidence shows that’s what he did, then that’s what he did. I would love it if it was really the Indians who massacred the settlers in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and it wasn’t the Mormons. Those poor people still would have been killed, but at least it wouldn’t have been my people that did it. But that’s not what happened. I’d much rather look at the reality and come to terms of that truth, and come to a full reconciliation. I’d rather find the truth, accept the truth and then decide where I go from there, than try to argue that, that that’s not what happened. So those are my thoughts on that.
GT 3:04:25 All right. Was there anything we missed? Was there anything that polygamy skeptics bring up that kind of blindside people who aren’t familiar?
Mark 3:04:35 A lot of things that brought this up, and, I guess, really quickly on this, it’s the supposed admissions that Brigham Young made that he actually is the one that had the revelation on polygamy.
GT 3:04:47 Okay.
Mark 3:04:48 Now, let’s go over one of them. This is one people point to. It’s an 1875 conference where he said, when he was in England, “The Lord manifested to me visions in the spirit that I did not then understand. I never opened my mouth to any person concerning them until l came to Nauvoo. Joseph had never mentioned this. There had never been a thought of in the Church that I ever knew anything about at the time. But I had this for myself, and I kept it to myself.” He’s talking about polygamy. So, he’s saying that he had this revelation, independent of Joseph Smith, that polygamy was a true principle while he was still in England. So, they think that’s an admission. But, even then, maybe Brigham Young did, maybe he didn’t. Personal revelation is a thing in Mormonism. Having revelation about something that’s going to happen in the Church is a common thing. In that same speech of Brigham Young’s, he goes on a length about baptism for the dead being something that he had revelations about before Joseph did, and that was something Joseph implemented what the apostles were in England.
Mark 3:05:56 There’s actually contemporary evidence that in England, the apostles had thought about baptisms for the dead before they heard that Joseph was doing it. So, I don’t think it does. He says that he didn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t until he came home and Joseph explained it to him that he understood what it was that that was about. So, maybe he did. That’s a common thing.
Mark 3:06:22 Lucy Mack Smith writes about that sort of thing all the time in her book, about how one of them or how Joseph Smith, Sr. had this revelation that later or something showed up in the Book of Mormon or things of that nature. I mean, it happens. I don’t think that that’s an admission.
Mark 3:06:40 The other one is a quote from Schuyler Colfax, who was a congressman at the time, and he later became the Vice-President of the United States. He visited Brigham Young in 1865. They had a conversation. Schuyler wrote about it. Well, he suggested that Brigham Young abolish polygamy, And he says he pointed to it. Then, Brigham Young said he’d be glad [to abolish polygamy] if he could have a revelation, suspending polygamy. It had been a great trial for him to submit to it, that the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants point to monogamy, but that polygamy is a later revelation commanded by God to him and a few others, permitted and advised to the rest of the Church.
Mark 3:07:29 So, basically, all that Brigham Young says is that the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, which at the time was the 1844 Doctrine and Covenants, that didn’t have section 132 in it, that still had the old article of marriage that said that monogamy was a standard. He said that the revelation on plural marriage came after those revelations. That is really all he said. He says, “It was commanded to me and a few others to take plural wives.” He doesn’t say that it was a revelation he had. That’s from a journalist of Schuyler Colfax that was published later. I found another source on this, how Colfax had written a letter to the War Department, at about same time, and he recounts the same conversation. In that one, he says that Brigham Young says it was Joseph Smith that had the revelation on plural marriage. [Note: I have been able to find this document since, but have found an 1865 article from Albany NY’s Country Gentleman
GT 3:08:23 Okay.
Mark 3:08:25 The quote I read earlier, he doesn’t say that it was him and not Joseph. He just said it came later. These are the things that people look at as admissions, as kind of your smoking gun type things that Brigham Young started polygamy, not Joseph Smith. I don’t think that they are. I don’t see how looking at them like that, you can come to that conclusion. So, there you have it.
GT 3:08:53 All right. So, that’s it. (Chuckling) After three hours, that’s it.
Mark 3:09:00 Yeah, I think we covered a lot of the stuff that’s in there.
GT 3:09:08 Well, Mark Tensmeyer, I really appreciate you sharing with us all this knowledge about the polygamy skeptics on how we can talk about those. Do you have any upcoming articles or books? Can you remind us about that?
Mark 3:09:23 There’s the one I wanted to talk about. It’s a chapter that’s going to be in a book by Signature Books that’s just about early Mormon polygamy. My chapter is about some of the things we’ve been talking about. We covered a lot more things than I talk about in that chapter.
GT 3:09:40 Oh, wow. So, we got the comprehensive view.
Mark 3:09:43 Yeah, I didn’t want to leave too much out. But, then again, there’s always stuff that’s left out, so it’s my hope and my expectation that this will be followed up by more things, either by me or by somebody else that covers things like Cochranites, all kinds of things like that.
GT 3:10:08 Do we have a name of the book yet?
Mark 3:10:10 I don’t know if we do. It’s by Signature Books. There might be a name for it, but I don’t know it.
GT 3:10:16 You don’t know what it is, yet. No release date or anything?
Mark 3:10:19 It’s going to be year after next, at least, at the soonest.
GT 3:10:25 Okay.
Mark 3:10:26 So, I’m glad that we have this interview here for people to use in the meantime.
GT 3:10:35 Yeah, that’s great.
Mark 3:10:38 I might follow up about this with other things. I might follow the paper up with just an article just goes over miscellaneous arguments people had made, because there’s a lot of other stuff we covered here today. I don’t go into in the article, and I think it’d be good to just have someplace where the work could be. Who knows? Maybe somebody else will beat me to it for that, which I’d be happy about. I think that would be fine.
GT 3:11:13 All right. Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me here on Gospel Tangents. I really appreciate it, Mark.
Mark 3:11:20 I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
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