A friend forwarded me a blog post, Evidence that Joseph Smith was a Sexual Predator. For those familiar with the historical sources, one can see that the author is playing fast-and-loose with the historical data. Fortunately, Brian Hales, author of the 3-volume Joseph Smith’s Polygamy (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), who, like Fred Pages, is an expert in the field, responded; here I will reproduce his comments:
This list is unfortunate because it reflects such a narrow interpretation and misses many details.
1. Helen also said she was too young to understand what Joseph said. This conversation took place in front of Helen’s parents, neither of which recalled this supernal promise.
2. Secrecy was sometimes required, but polygamy insiders were free to talk to each other as in the case of Sylvia Sessions attending the sealing of her mother Patty to the Prophet.
3. This is misleading. No wife reported Joseph saying he would be killed if they personally did not comply.
4. The promise is if “a man marries a wife.” It is a promise of eternal marriage not plural marriage—Monogamy not Polygamy.
5. It is true Joseph was revered, but we know of at least five women who turned him down without at repercussion.
6. Within days Joseph allowed them to speak to each other.
7. Joseph told them all to pray about everything. Several reported angels and other divine witnesses.
8. This is a misrepresentation. It speaks of a woman committing adultery after she is married. Being “destroyed” is to not receive exaltation.
9. This is a misrepresentation. Vv 16-17 explain that without eternal marriage, a person lives eternally without exaltation. An eternal marriage performed by proper authority, including a plural sealing, makes a person eligible for exaltation. Consent is unimportant. Obedience is.
10. It appears you haven’t read much of what Emily wrote. She considered herself Joseph’s wife in every way.
11. Joseph knew that many of his followers had received a testimony of his divine calling as a prophet and eternal and plural marriage came as revelations, just as the Book of Mormon.
12. This is dramatic. Initially, Emily told Joseph to not bother her and he complied, but on her 18th birthday he asked again and she was then willing. Since Emily lived for many decades, her experience with Joseph is well documented and this version problematic.
1. Helen also said she was too young to understand what Joseph said. This conversation took place in front of Helen’s parents, neither of which recalled this supernal promise.
2. Secrecy was sometimes required, but polygamy insiders were free to talk to each other as in the case of Sylvia Sessions attending the sealing of her mother Patty to the Prophet.
3. This is misleading. No wife reported Joseph saying he would be killed if they personally did not comply.
4. The promise is if “a man marries a wife.” It is a promise of eternal marriage not plural marriage—Monogamy not Polygamy.
5. It is true Joseph was revered, but we know of at least five women who turned him down without at repercussion.
6. Within days Joseph allowed them to speak to each other.
7. Joseph told them all to pray about everything. Several reported angels and other divine witnesses.
8. This is a misrepresentation. It speaks of a woman committing adultery after she is married. Being “destroyed” is to not receive exaltation.
9. This is a misrepresentation. Vv 16-17 explain that without eternal marriage, a person lives eternally without exaltation. An eternal marriage performed by proper authority, including a plural sealing, makes a person eligible for exaltation. Consent is unimportant. Obedience is.
10. It appears you haven’t read much of what Emily wrote. She considered herself Joseph’s wife in every way.
11. Joseph knew that many of his followers had received a testimony of his divine calling as a prophet and eternal and plural marriage came as revelations, just as the Book of Mormon.
12. This is dramatic. Initially, Emily told Joseph to not bother her and he complied, but on her 18th birthday he asked again and she was then willing. Since Emily lived for many decades, her experience with Joseph is well documented and this version problematic.
13. This quote from Eliza (who wrote very little) doesn’t mention Joseph so it isn’t an example of what “Joseph taught” his “victims” (and I expect Eliza would bristle at the idea that she was a victim).
14. Joseph initially sought non-sexual eternity sealings after an 1841 sealing to Louisa Beaman but reported a February 1842 visit from the angel commanding polygamy. Thereafter he entered time-and-eternity sealings without telling Emma. Emma learned in the Spring of 1843 and participated in four including sealings. It seems unfortunate that Joseph didn’t tell Emma sooner and perhaps this is why D&C 132:56 tells Emma to forgive Joseph, which she did
15. This is the only reference to a relationship that began in the pre-mortal existence. Nothing more is known about this possibility.
16. You speculate what “gate” would be closed. It could be destruction or simply the opportunity to be sealed to Joseph. Other women turned him down and he said, “I will pray for you—Sarah Granger.” Eternal marriage is required for exaltation but not plural marriage or being sealed to Joseph Smith.
17. This is very misleading. There are two sealing dates for Marinda and the more reliable is after Orson returned. The “Spring 1842” date was over a year after Orson had left on his mission, hardly consistent with the idea that Joseph had sent Orson (as a member of the Twelve) away so he could be sealed to Marinda).
18. We marry people we know. This seems meaningless.
19. This is speculation. None of the men complained against Joseph or accused him regarding his plural sealings.
20. This again is speculation. Joseph did approach Lorin Walker, Lucy’s brother, for permission to be sealed to Lucy before he approached her.
21. This is simply not true. Five women turned him down without any repercussion. When Nancy, Martha, and Sarah Pratt went public, Joseph publically denied the false accusations.
Joseph was sealed to 35 women and none of them left any criticism of him, even the seven that left the Church. Personally, I think they would be very displeased with accusations as those published in this list.
14. Joseph initially sought non-sexual eternity sealings after an 1841 sealing to Louisa Beaman but reported a February 1842 visit from the angel commanding polygamy. Thereafter he entered time-and-eternity sealings without telling Emma. Emma learned in the Spring of 1843 and participated in four including sealings. It seems unfortunate that Joseph didn’t tell Emma sooner and perhaps this is why D&C 132:56 tells Emma to forgive Joseph, which she did
15. This is the only reference to a relationship that began in the pre-mortal existence. Nothing more is known about this possibility.
16. You speculate what “gate” would be closed. It could be destruction or simply the opportunity to be sealed to Joseph. Other women turned him down and he said, “I will pray for you—Sarah Granger.” Eternal marriage is required for exaltation but not plural marriage or being sealed to Joseph Smith.
17. This is very misleading. There are two sealing dates for Marinda and the more reliable is after Orson returned. The “Spring 1842” date was over a year after Orson had left on his mission, hardly consistent with the idea that Joseph had sent Orson (as a member of the Twelve) away so he could be sealed to Marinda).
18. We marry people we know. This seems meaningless.
19. This is speculation. None of the men complained against Joseph or accused him regarding his plural sealings.
20. This again is speculation. Joseph did approach Lorin Walker, Lucy’s brother, for permission to be sealed to Lucy before he approached her.
21. This is simply not true. Five women turned him down without any repercussion. When Nancy, Martha, and Sarah Pratt went public, Joseph publically denied the false accusations.
Joseph was sealed to 35 women and none of them left any criticism of him, even the seven that left the Church. Personally, I think they would be very displeased with accusations as those published in this list.
With respect to Helen Mar Kimball and the quotation Fred Pages employs in is article, Brian Hales dealt with this issue in an online article (pity Pages did not bother to research these issues in any meaningful depth; had he any intellectual integrity and honesty, he would have at least interacted with this and other issues):
A third area of controversy involving Helen Mar Kimball arises from a statement she wrote in an 1881 autobiographical letter written to her children:
I heard him [Joseph Smith] teach and explain the principle of celestial marriage. After which he said to me, “If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation and exaltation and that of your father’s household and all of your kindred.” This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.12
This quotation is sometimes cited by critics as solid evidence that the Prophet promised exaltation to at least one of his plural wives and her family if they would agree to the marriage. Typically omitted from such accounts is the fact that one year later Helen clarified that she may not have understood everything correctly: “I confess that I was too young or too ‘foolish’ to comprehend and appreciate all” that Joseph Smith then taught.13
Contemporaneous evidence from more mature family members who were better positioned to “comprehend and appreciate” the Prophet’s promises to Helen demonstrates that her statement reflects her misunderstanding of the blessings predicated on this sealing.
Just weeks after Helen Mar’s plural wedding to Joseph Smith, Helen’s father, Heber C. Kimball, in a July 10,1843, letter to her from Pittsburg, expressed concern for her soul, reminding her that salvation in the next life would depend on how she lived this life: “My child, remember the care that your dear father and mother have for your welfare in this life, that all may be done well, and that in view of eternal worlds, for that will depend upon what we do here, and how we do it.”14
Helen’s mother, Vilate, had written to Heber a month earlier on June 8, 1843: “I am yours in time and through all eternity. This blessing has been sealed upon us by the holy spirit of promise and cannot be broken only through transgression or committing a grosser crime than your heart or mine is capable of.”15 If fourteen-year-old Helen Mar understood her eternal sealing to the Prophet ensured her exaltation, she was apparently alone in this understanding.
Thirteen months after her sealing to the Prophet, he was killed. Years later she reflected:
I am thankful that He [Heavenly Father] has brought me through the furnace of affliction and that He has condescended to show me that the promises made to me the morning that I was sealed to the Prophet of God will not fail and I would not have the chain broken for I have had a view of the principle of eternal salvation and the perfect union which this sealing power will bring to the human family and with the help of our Heavenly Father I am determined to so live that I can claim those promises.16
Helen died in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1896, a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Notes for the Above
12 Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Autobiography, 30 March 1881,” MS 744, CHL. Typescript and copy of holograph reproduced in Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History(Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997), 482–87.
13 Helen Mar Whitney, Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph: A Reply to Joseph Smith, Editor of the Lamoni Iowa “Herald”(Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882), 37.
14 Heber Kimball to Helen Mar Kimball, July 10, 1843, reprinted in Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Scenes and Incidents in Nauvoo,”Woman’s Exponent 11, no. 5 (August 1, 1882): 39–40. See also Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997), 198–99.
15 Vilate Kimball to Heber C. Kimball, June 8, 1843, CHL.
16 Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Autobiography, 30 March 1881,” MS 744, CHL. Typescript and copy of holograph reproduced in Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History(Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, BYU, 1997), 482–87.
A friend of mine on a facebook thread also made the following comment which is rather á propos:
Contrast Joseph Smith with John C. Bennett's "spiritual wifery" scheme and *actual* sexual predator activity.
Also, how many sexual predators have others witness their marriage ceremonies, and then command them to live the same law? How many sexual predators only marry the young daughters of other men after their fathers come up with the idea and ask them to?
While much more could be said about this issue, it is clear that this article on the 116pages blog is an utter travesty of the truth and reflective of shoddy “research” skills.
