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You have to wonder, if Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon, why he would put something in that was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do?

As I see it, there are 2 possibilities.

1. He had no intentions of polygamy when he created the Book of Mormon. It wasn't until later that he got the balls to ask another woman to be his plural wife.
2. He copied the Book of Mormon from another source. Perhaps this source was the spark that prompted Joseph Smith to institute polygamy.

Scottie wrote:
1. He had no intentions of polygamy when he created the Book of Mormon. It wasn't until later that he got the balls to ask another woman to be his plural wife.

Every man has sexual urges. Some result in extramarital daliences. Could it not be that the doctrine of polygamy get tacked on to explain away (and perpetuate) these daliences? The downside of institutionalized polygamy is that you end up still buying the cow for extra milk sources.

It could just indicate that a partner wrote that portion of the Book of Mormon.

He didn't begin his earnest study of the Bible until after he wrote the Book of Mormon. The "restoration of all things" idea came later. However, he was clearly mulling the idea about since he added the the caveat allowing polygamy at a future time in the Book of Mormon.

I see it as a study of Joseph's temptations towards ideas he believed were wrong. The Book of Mormon is clearly anti polygamy, and to put something like that in a ancient text is kind of out of left field. So it was clearly on someones mind.

The same goes with the anti Masonic rhetoric of the Book of Mormon. The condemnations of "secret combinations" and the Gadiantion robbers. That's a strange subject matter to approach in this ancient "scripture". Again it was on someones mind.

Do those seem like subject matters that would be covered in a actual history of native Americans? Or imprints from the mind or the author?

Phaedrus

Scottie wrote:You have to wonder, if Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon, why he would put something in that was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do?

As I see it, there are 2 possibilities.

1. He had no intentions of polygamy when he created the Book of Mormon. It wasn't until later that he got the balls to ask another woman to be his plural wife.
2. He copied the Book of Mormon from another source. Perhaps this source was the spark that prompted Joseph Smith to institute polygamy.

John Larsen has the correct answer (see above). Why was baptism for the dead not taught in the Book of Mormon? It was first publicly taught in 1840, and the source for it was the New Testament. Joseph Fielding Smith taught that Baptism for the dead would "undoubtedly" have been instituted by Christ, and practised after the time of Christ, and one would assume that Christ would have taught it in his post-resurrection visit to the Nephites, yet it wasn't until after 1840 that it becomes another cornerstone doctrine, one which is rejected "at the peril of your salvation".

The Book of Mormon has nothing to say about it.

Scottie wrote:You have to wonder, if Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon, why he would put something in that was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do?

He had planned to write it to appease one person who really didn't want him to be unfaithful (hint: Emma)?

Scottie wrote:You have to wonder, if Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon, why he would put something in that was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do?

As I see it, there are 2 possibilities.

1. He had no intentions of polygamy when he created the Book of Mormon. It wasn't until later that he got the balls to ask another woman to be his plural wife.
2. He copied the Book of Mormon from another source. Perhaps this source was the spark that prompted Joseph Smith to institute polygamy.

Would these questions make more sense if you assumed Spaulding/Rigdon authorship and then accounted for the fact that Joseph Smith later came across the work of Emmanuel Swedenborg with regards to Celestial Marriage?

You tell me.

Phaedrus Ut wrote:I see it as a study of Joseph's temptations towards ideas he believed were wrong. The Book of Mormon is clearly anti polygamy, and to put something like that in a ancient text is kind of out of left field. So it was clearly on someones mind.

The same goes with the anti Masonic rhetoric of the Book of Mormon. The condemnations of "secret combinations" and the Gadiantion robbers. That's a strange subject matter to approach in this ancient "scripture". Again it was on someones mind.

Do those seem like subject matters that would be covered in a actual history of native Americans? Or imprints from the mind or the author?

Phaedrus

I see this as most likely. It's similar to preachers who rail against porn and turn out to have loads of it hidden somewhere; or homophobic, closeted gays (Larry Craig?). They are preaching or crusading against their own hidden desires and temptations.