gdemetz wrote:I am trying to satisfy you regarding this matter, Themis, even though I am much more comfortable discussing church doctrine than church history. A good example of this is that I was under the impression that Joseph had less than twenty wives, however, I have just now come across some interesting information from a man who has done perhaps more extensive research regarding this matter than I have heretofore seen. He has an 800 plus page book regarding the marriages of Joseph Smith, and He has documented thirty-three, and states that there could be as many as ten or more that he does not document. His name is Todd M. Compton, and the book is entitled, "In Sacred Loneliness." He appears to be, for the most part fairly objective, but he does state that he does not view Joseph Smith as being "morally perfect or receiving revelation unmixed with human or cultural limitations."
His is probably one of the best sources to learn more about it.
The main criticism for outside the church for the practice of polygamy, especially in regard to Joseph's has been for so-called polyandrous marriages.
Also from within the church. It bother members, you included. This is why your desire to believe overrides your desire for truth that you do not want to accept that Joseph has sexual intercourse with the married ones.
However, a review of the documentary work shows no evidence of intimacy in the eight listed so-called polyandrous marriages, with the exception of one.
Actually 11 polyandrous marriages, and we have two the second(Zina) we know intimacy went on.
As I stated previously, that statement could have been misinterpreted, and I believe that it was.
You can interpret it anyway you want, and while not impossible, it is not reasonable. The reasonable interpretation is she was saying to her daughter that she was literally Joseph's daughter. You would need more evidence to make your interpretation reasonable, but we see the opposite. She only tells the one child who is the only one who could be Joseph's biological child. That she does this on her death bed an only to one child makes your interpretation very unreasonable and obviously done to protect your beliefs.
As for as the other seven are concerned, the book states that; "Absolutely nothing is known of this marriage after the ceremony," or some similar statement, which is very strange indeed unless the obvious premiss is accepted which is that they were sealings intended for the hereafter.
Not at all, and it's 10. This practice was done in great secrecy, so little evidence exists even for the single ones. We get more evidence simply because the church wanted to counter the RLDS claims that Joseph was not a polygamous.
Your premise in not obvious since no evidence exists that Joseph or others considered them this way, and we have evidence of the opposite. You still have ignored BY and Zina on this issue. Your premise is an invention simply because some members needed to still believe and could not accept Joseph had sex with the married ones. That's the whole reason for this apologetic, although many apologists think he had every right to. At least you can recognize that marrying other men's wives is wrong, but we still haven't covered why Joseph went behind most of their backs, or other manipulative behavior. The smart ones see that this is not how God would go about this messy business.