Back to the Essays- ......"Kirtland and Nauvoo"

[deacon blues]

Researching church history is my hobby, and as I research I keep coming back to concerns that the essays don't clarify. I started to read the Plural Marriage essay and each of the first two sentences either avoids issues, or misrepresents Bible scripture. For example:

Sentence #1. "Latter-day Saints believe that monogamy-- the marriage of one man one woman-- is the Lord's standing law of marriage." This ignores the fact that many probably thousands of, (including for example:Elder Oaks and Nelson) current members are convinced this 'standing law" doesn't apply to them. Because they are married to more than one wife, they are essentially practicing polygamy now, even though only one of their wives is on this side of the veil.

Sentence #2. "In biblical times, the Lord commanded some of His people to practice plural marriage-- the Marriage of one man and more than one woman." I will concede that the Lord allowed plural marriage, but to say that he condoned it is to rely on a private interpretation of scripture, that of Joseph Smith. To say he commanded it, and then to cite Genesis 16 as a reference is unfair and disingenuous.

Any thoughts?

[AllieOop]

Researching church history is my hobby, and as I research I keep coming back to concerns that the essays don't clarify. I started to read the Plural Marriage essay and each of the first two sentences either avoids issues, or misrepresents Bible scripture. For example:

Sentence #2. "In biblical times, the Lord commanded some of His people to practice plural marriage-- the Marriage of one man and more than one woman." I will concede that the Lord allowed plural marriage, but to say that he condoned it is to rely on a private interpretation of scripture, that of Joseph Smith. To say he commanded it, and then to cite Genesis 16 as a reference is unfair and disingenuous.

You are correct. To state that "In Biblical times, the Lord commanded some of His people to practice plural marriage" is blatantly false. Nowhere in the Bible is it recorded that God commanded anyone to live polygamy.

Some of the Levirate marriages may have involved a man taking more than one wife (if he was already married before his married brother died), but they were not specifically commanded to live polygamy.

And, nowhere in the Bible is there a record of polyandry (and at least 1/3 of Joseph's plural marriages were polyandrous).

[LSOF]

God didn't command it, but neither did he forbid it. He only regulated it (Lev xviii), saying "These are the people whose nakednesses you may not uncover".

[Zack Tacorin Dos]

So I'm too lazy to research this, but I'll think it out loud and accept your correction as it comes. I'm thinking of what this restorationist movement means. They claim the current dispensation is the dispensation of the fullness of times in which all will be restored. Does that include all non-essential ordinances from past dispensations? I mean in their heart of hearts, do they really think that the law of Moses with its intricate details will be restored? Will we again have animals sacrificed in the house of the Lord? (I actually think I remember that they claim some sacrifice will be restored before the grand finale, so maybe I've got this wrong.) At this point isn't it just about restoring salvific ordinances? If so, then logically plural marriage would only have been restored if it were salvific. Clearly this was taught as part of the gospel necessary for eternal life for decades. D&C 132 teaches that if a man does not marry by the law of God, he cannot receive exaltation (verses 15-20). Then throughout the parts specific to plural marriage, it refers to this being the law of God. I don't know how they can, with any integrity, make it sound like "plural marriage was just this temporary thing--we're not really sure what that was about."

So yeah, I think they're avoiding an issue with that. And of course they're misrepresenting the Biblical references to polygamy. I'm still amazed at the proof texting I see in a lot of fundamentalist Christianity including Mormonism.

(Not sayin' I didn't fall for those proof texts )