Response to LDS Discussions: Overview of Polygamy, Part 1 — Background and D&C 132

A systematic scholarly examination of the historical, textual, and theological claims advanced by ldsdiscussions.com concerning the origins and scriptural basis of Latter-day Saint plural marriage.

Introduction and Method

The ldsdiscussions.com overview of polygamy is an emotionally forthright document. Its author acknowledges upfront that the subject “makes me angry, disgusted, and embarrassed” and that some of its content “transcends just the historical problems.” Such candor is useful because it signals that the presentation is shaped by affect as much as by evidence. A response measured strictly by documentary, textual, and logical standards is therefore necessary.

This article does not minimize the complexity of early Latter-day Saint plural marriage. It does, however, require that every factual claim be evaluated at the highest evidentiary standard — and that methodological failures, omissions, and logical non-sequiturs be named as such. The standard applied here is the same standard any historian should apply: weigh sources by proximity, corroboration, and internal consistency; distinguish between evidence and inference; and distinguish between moral assessment and factual demonstration.

The ldsdiscussions.com Part 1 overview advances the following primary claims, addressed in sequence below:

(1) The 1831 polygamy revelation is unsupported and contradicted by its own context. (2) The Fanny Alger relationship was an affair, not a marriage. (3) The 1835 anti-polygamy statement in the D&C proves Joseph Smith was lying. (4) D&C 132 contradicts the Book of Mormon’s Jacob 2. (5) D&C 132 was composed on-the-fly by Joseph Smith to coerce Emma. (6) Joseph Smith’s “no sin if no accuser” teaching was an abuse-concealment mechanism. (7) Polyandrous marriages serve no legitimate theological purpose and indicate sexual exploitation.

Claim 1: The 1831 Revelation on Plural Marriage Is Unsupported

LDS Discussions argues that the Church’s claim that plural marriage principles were known to Joseph Smith as early as 1831 is unsupported, and that the evidence actually shows a racist mission instruction rather than a genuine plural-marriage revelation.

Several points require careful separation. First, the 1831 instruction — recorded by W.W. Phelps and corroborated by antagonist Ezra Booth — does document Joseph Smith raising the subject of plural marriage in connection with the Lamanite mission. The racist framing of that instruction (intermarriage to produce “white, delightsome” offspring) is historically troubling and inconsistent with later theology, but its existence as a primary-source record of early plural-marriage discussion is not in dispute by mainstream Mormon historians.

Second, D&C 132’s own heading states that “evidence indicates that some of the principles involved in this revelation were known by the Prophet as early as 1831.” The Gospel Topics essay on “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo” corroborates this, noting that “people who knew Joseph well later stated he received the revelation about that time.” LDS Discussions correctly identifies that these witnesses include W.W. Phelps and others — but then uses the embarrassing content of that 1831 instruction to dismiss the entire evidentiary record. That is a non-sequitur. The content of the 1831 instruction may be problematic on independent grounds; it does not retroactively erase the testimony that plural-marriage thinking was present in 1831.

Third, the Doctrine and Covenants Central historical resource for D&C 132 confirms that “Joseph Smith likely began contemplating plural marriage during his Bible translation project in the early 1830s,” which would place the intellectual genesis of the revelation precisely where the Church’s documentation claims it.

The claim that the 1831 connection is not “supported by the evidence” overstates the case. There are two independent sources — one friendly, one antagonistic — documenting plural-marriage discussion in 1831. The content of that discussion raises other issues, but the 1831 origination point has corroborated documentary support.

Claim 2: The Fanny Alger Relationship Was an Affair, Not a Marriage

LDS Discussions presents three possibilities for the Alger relationship (marriage, affair, or something in between) and then argues at length for the affair interpretation. The argument rests on: (a) absence of contemporary marriage records; (b) the lateness and second-hand character of the Mosiah Hancock account; (c) Oliver Cowdery’s characterization of it as “a dirty, nasty, filthy affair”; and (d) the logical problem of Joseph using the relationship as a “bargaining chip” in the Hancock account.

These are legitimate evidentiary challenges, and they have been acknowledged by faithful historians. Brian and Laura Hales, in their comprehensive three-volume 2013 study Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, conclude that the Alger relationship was almost certainly “for time” only — predating the April 1836 restoration of sealing authority by Elijah. This means that even if a ceremony occurred, it would not have constituted an eternal sealing under later LDS theology. The Hales’ conclusion is corroborated by Richard Lloyd Anderson and Scott Faulring in “The Prophet Joseph Smith and His Plural Wives” (BYU Studies).

However, several evidentiary points go unaddressed in the ldsdiscussions.com account:

Oliver Cowdery’s characterization is not conclusive. Cowdery used the word “affair” — but the word carried a different semantic range in 19th-century English than it does today. More critically, Cowdery was excommunicated in part for accusing Joseph Smith of “criminal conduct.” The 1838 charges against Cowdery included “seeking to destroy the character of President Joseph Smith jr by falsely insinuating that he was guilty of adultery.” The charge is consistent with Cowdery genuinely believing it was adultery — but it is also consistent with Cowdery being wrong about the canonical status of a ceremony he was not present for.

The Hancock account’s late date must be weighed — but not dismissed. LDS Discussions is correct that Mosiah Hancock’s autobiography dates to 1869, thirty-six years after the events described, and is second-hand through Levi Hancock. This reduces its evidentiary weight substantially. However, its existence as a ceremonial account — one that predates the formal Brighamite-RLDS schism LDS Discussions invokes as a motive for fabrication — means it cannot simply be discarded. LDS Discussions offers no specific evidence that Mosiah Hancock fabricated the account for post-schism polemical reasons, only the assertion that he had “motivation” to do so. That is not evidence of fabrication; it is an argument for heightened scrutiny, which this article applies.

The absence of records is not evidence of absence. The 1830s frontier produced notoriously incomplete documentation of informal ceremonies. The Gospel Topics essay’s note that “several Latter-day Saints who had lived in Kirtland reported decades later that Joseph Smith had married Alger…after he had obtained her consent and that of her parents” is not wishful apologetics — it is a statement about the character of the available historical record.

The FAIR analysis of the “barn” account (drawn from William McLellin’s letter to Joseph Smith III) is also relevant here: McLellin was explicitly antagonistic, was writing nearly forty years after the event, and the account is second-hand. Both the pro-marriage and the anti-marriage witnesses in this case share the same evidentiary limitations that LDS Discussions applies only to the pro-marriage side. That asymmetry is not defensible methodology.

Claim 3: The 1835 Anti-Polygamy Statement Proves Deception

LDS Discussions argues that the 1835 article on marriage — inserted into the Doctrine and Covenants stating “one man should have one wife” — demonstrates that Joseph Smith was actively deceiving the public about polygamy. LDS Discussions also notes that Todd Compton, a faithful LDS historian, described the statement as “an effort to counteract scandal.”

This claim contains two separable assertions: (a) that Joseph Smith oversaw insertion of a statement denying polygamy while practicing it, and (b) that this demonstrates intentional deception. Assertion (a) is largely accurate. Assertion (b) requires more careful analysis.

The 1835 statement must be evaluated against what Joseph Smith understood himself to be doing at that time. Even granting a ceremonial character to the Alger relationship, the practice of plural marriage had not yet been formally systematized, publicly authorized, or institutionally communicated to the broader Church. Joseph F. Smith later explained that D&C 132, when finally written in 1843, “was for a special purpose, by the request of the Patriarch Hyrum Smith and was not then designed to go forth to the church or to the world” — the revelation encoded knowledge Joseph considered to be in development.

The charge of “intentional deception” also requires a standard of knowledge: deception requires that Joseph Smith knew, at the time of overseeing the 1835 statement’s insertion, that he was practicing a fully authorized, publicly suppressed principle. On the basis of the available evidence — disputed early practice, no systematized doctrine, and no formal claim of sealing keys until 1836 — that standard is not clearly met. It is equally consistent with the record that Joseph Smith understood a developing private practice and a public ecclesiastical norm to be two separate things. LDS Discussions correctly notes this tension as historically real; the leap from “tension” to “proven deception” requires a level of certainty about Joseph Smith’s internal state of knowledge that the 19th-century record does not supply.

Claim 4: D&C 132 Contradicts Jacob 2 in the Book of Mormon

This is perhaps the most frequently cited textual objection to LDS plural marriage, and LDS Discussions presents it clearly: Jacob 2:24 calls David and Solomon’s many wives and concubines “abominable,” while D&C 132:1 states that the Lord “justified” those same men “as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines.”

A careful textual analysis does not sustain the claim of flat contradiction.

The Exception Clause in Jacob 2:30

LDS Discussions acknowledges but minimizes Jacob 2:30, which states: “For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people.” FAIR’s analysis (Fordham) demonstrates that this exception clause is textually integral: Jacob 2:27 states the monogamy rule; Jacob 2:30 immediately provides the condition under which God may override it. The structure is conditional, not absolute. Reading Jacob 2 as a permanent, unconditional prohibition on plural marriage requires ignoring the qualifying verse that immediately follows the prohibition.

David and Solomon: The Nature of the Condemnation

Both FAIR’s biblical analysis and the Fordham/McGuire reconciliation distinguish between what specifically was condemned in each text. Jacob 2:24 condemns David and Solomon for the manner and disposition of their polygamy — specifically, David’s unauthorized taking of Bathsheba (adultery and murder of Uriah; 2 Samuel 12:9) and Solomon’s politically motivated marriages to “strange women” who “turned his heart after other gods” (1 Kings 11:1–4). The biblical condemnation of these specific actions is not a condemnation of the institution itself: Nathan the prophet explicitly told David that God had “given” him “thy master’s wives” (2 Samuel 12:8), indicating the practice itself was divinely acknowledged.

D&C 132:38–39 addresses precisely this distinction: “David also received many wives and concubines, and also Solomon and Moses my servants…and in nothing did they sin save in those things which they received not of me.” The condemnation is for unauthorized, not authorized, plural marriage. The apparent contradiction resolves when the texts are read at the level of their actual claims rather than at a summary level.

The Biblical and Academic Framework

Michael Coogan’s God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says (2010), cited by FAIR, states: “If the Bible provides authoritative models, then a man should be allowed to have more than one wife” — noting that Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon practiced plural marriage “with no hint of divine disapproval” in the narrative texts. Deuteronomy 21:15–17 regulates inheritance rights in plural households, presupposing their legitimacy. Deuteronomy 25:5–6 mandates levirate marriage regardless of the brother’s existing marital status, making plural marriage legally required in specific circumstances. God would not codify regulations for an absolutely forbidden practice.

The ldsdiscussions.com account treats the biblical justification as circular (“Joseph invented it”) without engaging the specific textual data above. The biblical data does support conditional divine sanction of plural marriage — whether or not Joseph Smith’s particular implementation in every case met the conditions stipulated.

Claim 5: D&C 132 Was Composed On-the-Fly to Coerce Emma

LDS Discussions makes two interlocking arguments here: (a) D&C 132 was spontaneously composed by Joseph Smith at Hyrum’s request with no prior written source, and (b) its content — particularly the “threats” directed at Emma and the instruction in verse 51 — proves the revelation was tailored in real-time to address Joseph’s domestic crisis rather than being a pre-existing divine communication.

The Stylometric and Historical Evidence for Authenticity

The Interpreter Foundation published a landmark study: “Historical and Stylometric Evidence for the Authorship of Doctrine and Covenants 132” employing Stepwise Discriminant Analysis comparing 221 function words across 6,000 randomly sampled text segments. The result: Joseph Smith’s revelatory voice, compared against Brigham Young’s texts and all available scribal materials, matches Section 132 with “100% correct classification and 100% correct cross-classification.” Three-dimensional confidence ellipsoids showed complete separation between Brigham Young’s revelatory style and Joseph Smith’s, with Section 132 aligning with Joseph’s Kirtland and Nauvoo revelatory corpus. This study refutes the “Brigham fabricated it later” variant and establishes that the revelation is linguistically consistent with an extended Joseph Smith revelatory development spanning multiple years.

The Chain of Custody

The manuscript provenance of D&C 132 is unusually well-documented for a 19th-century religious text. William Clayton recorded the dictation over approximately three hours on July 12, 1843. Joseph reviewed and approved the text. Joseph Kingsbury copied the Clayton manuscript, which Bishop Newel K. Whitney verified as accurate. Multiple High Council members — including three who opposed the revelation (Austin Cowles, William Marks, and Leonard Soby) — provided independent testimony about its contents and authenticity at the August 12, 1843 meeting where Hyrum read it. The fact that opponents of the revelation also attested to its existence substantially weakens any conspiracy-of-fabrication hypothesis.

The “Memorized Without Seer Stone” Problem

LDS Discussions makes much of Joseph Smith’s statement that he “knew the revelation perfectly from beginning to end” without the Urim and Thummim, infers this is implausible unless he was improvising. This inference rests on an equivocation between memorizing verbatim text and knowing the substance of a revelation deeply enough to articulate it in real time. Joseph did not claim to have memorized a transcript; he claimed to know “the revelation” — its substance, principles, and structure. A person who has internalized a body of theological content over twelve years can articulate it fluently at length without that constituting fabrication. Doctrine and Covenants Central confirms: Joseph had been teaching, practicing, and privately discussing these principles since at least the early 1830s. Twelve years of accumulated doctrinal development does not require a seer stone to produce at dictation.

The Emma-Specific Passages

LDS Discussions argues that the Emma-specific verses (D&C 132:51–56) prove the revelation was composed to address an immediate domestic crisis. Joseph F. Smith anticipated this objection, explaining that the revelation “contained…material that are not relevant to the principle itself, but rather to the circumstances which necessitated its being written.” A revelation that addresses both eternal principles and immediate pastoral circumstances is not thereby disproven as revelation. The claim that specific contemporary application undermines a revelation’s origin is a logical non-sequitur — pastoral specificity is a feature of biblical prophetic literature generally. Furthermore, D&C 132:51 describes what Joseph “commanded you to offer” Emma as an “Abrahamic test” — a theological structure coherent on the divine-revelation model and awkward on the self-serving-fabrication model, since describing one’s own coercive offer as a test designed to evaluate another person’s faith serves no obvious manipulative purpose.

Claim 6: The “No Sin if No Accuser” Teaching Was an Abuse-Concealment Mechanism

LDS Discussions characterizes Joseph Smith’s November 1841 teaching — “if you do not accuse each other God will not accuse you” — as a coercive silence mechanism, then compares it to rhetoric used by Warren Jeffs, David Koresh, and other convicted abusers.

The comparison to criminally convicted polygamists and cult leaders is a rhetorical move, not an argument. The existence of abusers who use similar language does not establish that anyone who uses similar language is an abuser. This is the genetic fallacy — dismissing content by associating it with discredited actors. Its evidential value is zero.

The teaching itself — that mutual charity and non-accusation are virtues — has a straightforward and ancient theological pedigree. 1 Peter 4:8 states “charity shall cover the multitude of sins,” the direct biblical source Joseph is paraphrasing. James 4:11–12 warns against speaking evil of one another. Matthew 7:1–5 establishes the logic of mutual non-judgment. What LDS Discussions presents as a uniquely sinister manipulation tactic is, in plain text, a quotation from the canonical Christian ethics of mutual forbearance. That Joseph may have had self-interested reasons for invoking this teaching is possible; but the teaching itself is not evidence of wrongdoing, and inferring that it was specifically designed to suppress abuse requires evidence beyond the text that LDS Discussions does not supply.

Claim 7: Polyandrous Marriages Serve No Legitimate Theological Purpose

LDS Discussions argues that the Church’s “dynastic/kinship bond” explanation for Joseph Smith’s sealings to already-married women is implausible, because (a) if it were truly about kinship, Joseph would not need to marry both sisters or a mother-daughter pair; (b) the Law of Adoption allowed male-to-male sealing without female intermediaries; (c) the secrecy of these arrangements refutes their claimed virtuous purpose.

These are genuine historical puzzles. The scholarly response has several components:

The “eternity-only” interpretation has evidentiary support. The distinction between “time-and-eternity” and “eternity-only” sealings was functional and documented in the early 1840s sealing theology. The claim that all polyandrous sealings included sexual relations is an assertion by LDS Discussions, not a demonstrated historical fact. The BYU Religious Studies Center analysis notes that “no unambiguous documentation for genuine polyandry in Nauvoo has been located” in the sense of documented sexual relations with already-married wives. This does not mean such relations did not occur — but it means the “they were all sexual” claim is an inference that goes beyond the available evidence in multiple cases.

The Sylvia Sessions/Josephine DNA evidence is unsettled. LDS Discussions cites Compton’s account that Sylvia Sessions told her daughter Josephine she was “the child of Joseph Smith.” However, Josephine Lyon’s own 1915 affidavit has been read as identifying herself as a “spiritual daughter.” DNA testing of Josephine’s descendants by Ugo Perego and colleagues did not confirm biological descent from Joseph Smith. This does not settle the question; it introduces substantial uncertainty into a picture LDS Discussions presents as settled.

The secrecy argument cuts both ways. The legal, social, and ecclesiological environment of 1840s Illinois made public acknowledgment of any plural marriage practice legally dangerous regardless of its nature. Secrecy in that context is not per se evidence of moral wrongdoing; it is evidence of a practice operating in an environment where disclosure carried serious legal consequences.

D&C 132’s own authorization requirements. Verse 61 of D&C 132 specifies that in plural marriage the woman shall be “a virgin” and “not vowed to any man” — meaning the revelation itself, on its face, does not authorize the polyandrous sealings Joseph practiced. If Joseph authored D&C 132 purely for self-serving purposes, it is remarkable that he simultaneously wrote explicit terms he then violated in multiple marriages. The more parsimonious explanation — that the recorded revelation represents general principles while the practice evolved in real-time theological complexity under conditions Joseph understood as divine direction — is at minimum as plausible as the calculated-deception model.

Methodological Assessment of the LDS Discussions Overview

Beyond the specific claims, several methodological patterns in the ldsdiscussions.com account deserve explicit identification:

Asymmetric source standards. Late, second-hand, antagonistic sources are accepted against Joseph Smith (McLellin’s letter, Ann Eliza Webb Young, Chauncey Webb) while late, second-hand, friendly sources are dismissed (Mosiah Hancock, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner). The standard for acceptance appears directional: sources that confirm the preferred narrative are accepted; sources that complicate it are dismissed or minimized. Rigorous historical method demands a consistent evidentiary standard applied equally to sources on both sides.

Conflation of moral assessment and historical demonstration. LDS Discussions repeatedly describes how the historical evidence “makes me angry” and “transcends” historical analysis. This blurs the line between “this is morally troubling” and “this proves Joseph Smith was a predator.” Those are different claims requiring different evidence.

The non-falsifiability problem. The overview’s interpretive framework operates such that any evidence consistent with sincere religious practice is reinterpreted as manipulation, any claim of divine commandment is evidence of predation, and any scholarly defense is dismissed as motivated apologetics. A framework under which no evidence could count in favor of the Latter-day Saint position is not a scholarly framework; it is a predetermined conclusion.

Selective engagement with scholarship. The Brian and Laura Hales three-volume study is the most comprehensive existing scholarly treatment of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages. It is referenced in passing but its specific arguments — on Fanny Alger as a “for time” relationship, on eternity-only sealings, on the absence of unambiguous polyandry documentation — are not engaged. The Interpreter Foundation’s stylometric analysis of D&C 132 is not mentioned. FAIR’s detailed Jacob 2 / D&C 132 reconciliation is not addressed. A scholarly response demands engagement with the strongest available version of opposing arguments.

Conclusion

The ldsdiscussions.com Part 1 polygamy overview raises historically genuine tensions in the record of early Latter-day Saint plural marriage. The Fanny Alger situation is poorly documented. The production of D&C 132 was complex and contextually entangled with Joseph Smith’s domestic circumstances. The polyandrous sealings present theological puzzles that have not been fully resolved by any party.

However, the specific evidentiary and logical claims advanced in that document do not hold at scholarly scrutiny. The 1831 origination point has dual-source corroboration. The Fanny Alger evidence is genuinely contested, not definitively anti-marriage. The Jacob 2 / D&C 132 contradiction resolves on careful textual reading. The D&C 132 production is authenticated by stylometric analysis and a multi-source chain of custody including hostile witnesses. The biblical framework for conditional plural marriage is textually sustainable. The polyandry evidence for sexual relations in specific cases is inferential, not demonstrated.

The honest scholarly position is that LDS polygamy presents real historical complexity requiring careful, evidence-calibrated analysis — not that the evidence conclusively demonstrates Joseph Smith to have been a predator operating a systematic abuse network under religious cover. The former position is defensible. The latter is not supported at the level of evidence LDS Discussions presents.

Parts 2 and 3 of this response will address specific proposal accounts and the final apologetic summary section of the ldsdiscussions.com series.

Primary Sources and Scholarly References

Brian C. and Laura H. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: History and Theology, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013).

Brian C. Hales, “Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding,” BYU Studies Quarterly 54, no. 1 (2015).

Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst-McGee, “Historical and Stylometric Evidence for the Authorship of Doctrine and Covenants 132,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.

Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997).

Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).

Michael Coogan, God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says (New York: Twelve, 2010).

FAIR Latter-day Saints, “Plural Marriage and the Bible,” fairlatterdaysaints.org.

FAIR Latter-day Saints, “Contradiction Between Jacob and D&C 132,” fairlatterdaysaints.org.

Doctrine and Covenants Central, “Historical Context and Background of D&C 132,” doctrineandcovenantscentral.org.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo,” Gospel Topics Essays, churchofjesuschrist.org.

Joseph Smith Papers Project, “Revelation, 12 July 1843 [D&C 132],” josephsmithpapers.org.