Book of Mormon Polygamy?
When Michelle Stone finally studied the Book of Mormon polygamy passages for herself, she was shocked by what she found. Michelle grew up believing plural marriage was God’s higher law, and now she calls the Book of Mormon “by far, far and away, the most anti-polygamy book of scriptures in the entire canon.” She is back on Gospel Tangents, three years after she first joined me to talk about her mother’s cousin, Mark Hofmann, and this time we start with her own story.
Don’t miss our other conversations on the Hofmann murders & forgeries: https://gospeltangents.com/people/michelle-stone/
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Gospel Tangents
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Righteous Polygamy?
Michelle was raised to believe that Zion would be built when the Saints were righteous enough to live polygamy and the United Order. She even taught those ideas in homeschooling circles. Polygamy ran in her family: she says Joseph F. Smith called her great-grandfather to Mexico to take a second wife, and he married her in 1906, well after the 1890 Manifesto. As a young mom selling her mother’s music, Michelle found herself in the homes of fundamentalist families. Women from the Apostolic United Brethren explained to her that the principle and the church were like a mother and a father, separated for now but destined to come back together. With her family history, she says, that made perfect sense.
Then she started reading the scriptures on her own. Michelle points to Jacob’s condemnation of David and Solomon, King Noah and his “many wives and concubines,” and Riplakish in the Book of Ether, and says the Book of Mormon “leaves no wiggle room.” She also notes that section 132, the one place in Latter-day Saint scripture that promotes polygamy, wasn’t added to the Doctrine and Covenants until 1876. That study became the heart of her Facebook group and, later, her 132 Problems channel.
Fundamentalist Enemy?
I asked whether this was a reaction against fundamentalism. Michelle says no: she simply wanted to know what was true. Still, some fundamentalists now see her as an enemy, which she finds sad, because she doesn’t see them that way. We compared her view with the old RLDS position that Joseph didn’t practice polygamy, but would have been wrong if he had, and with the Ericksons, who studied the same scriptures and reached the opposite conclusion.
Michelle credits fundamentalists themselves for sharpening her thinking: the best advocates for plural marriage joined her group and made their strongest arguments. As she dug into the history, she came to believe that writers like Ogden Kraut largely repeated Orson Pratt’s nineteenth-century arguments. She walks through one favorite proof text, Isaiah 4:1, where “seven women shall take hold of one man,” and argues that it reads very differently once you remember the destruction described at the end of Isaiah 3.
In Part 2, coming Wednesday, Michelle explains how studying Emma Smith changed her mind about Joseph Smith, and what happened to her channel when she said so out loud. Members can get the whole interview right now at patreon.com/gospeltangents. Listen to the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.
0:00 Introduction
1:21 Raised Believing Polygamy Was of God
3:00 Post-Manifesto Polygamy in Her Family
4:21 Fundamentalist Friends & the AUB
5:27 Studying the Scriptures
7:01 Pushing Against Fundamentalism?
8:54 Section 132 Added in 1876
10:36 King Noah & Riplakish
13:35 RLDS Views
15:06 The Ericksons
17:13 Isaiah 4:1 & Ogden Kraut
Don’t miss our previous conversation with Michelle and her sister Diane Smith!
761: Reviewing Murder Among the Mormons (Michelle Stone/Diane Smith)
760: Family Reactions to Mark Hofmann’s Injuries (Michelle Stone/Diane Smith)
759: My Cousin Was a Serial Bomber (Michelle Stone/Diane Smith)
You can also get a transcript of the previous interview: My Cousin Was a Serial Killer: Growing up with Mark Hofmann
Don’t miss our other conversations on the Hofmann murders & forgeries: https://gospeltangents.com/people/michelle-stone/
Copyright © 2026
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
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