grindael question?

[_grindael]

Do we have anything in the way of paper work, other than journals, that verify the original marriages or sealing.

NO, except perhaps for Emma ... and one other. This is very curious because Smith went on and on about the sealing power, when he was writing a revelation about it in relation to Baptism for the Dead. He claimed,

Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning your dead: When any of you are baptized for your dead, let there be a recorder, and let him be eye-witness of your baptisms; let him hear with his ears, that he may testify of a truth, saith the Lord; That in all your recordings it may be recorded in heaven; whatsoever you bind on earth, may be bound in heaven; whatsoever you loose on earth, may be loosed in heaven; For I am about to restore many things to the earth, pertaining to the priesthood, saith the Lord of Hosts. And again, let all the records be had in order, that they may be put in the archives of my holy temple, to be held in remembrance from generation to generation, saith the Lord of Hosts. I will say to all the saints, that I desired, with exceedingly great desire, to have addressed them from the stand on the subject of baptism for the dead, on the following Sabbath. But inasmuch as it is out of my power to do so, I will write the word of the Lord from time to time, on that subject, and send it to you by mail, as well as many other things. I now close my letter for the present, for the want of more time; for the enemy is on the alert, and as the Savior said, the prince of this world cometh, but he hath nothing in me.

First, note the date: September 1, 1842!!! He waited this long to document something on Baptism for the Dead. While that was going on, he was marrying other men's wives left and right. Why is this ^^^ so important? Because it is about SEALING. If it is not done, Smith claims they are INVALID. And there are absolutely NO RECORDS at all, except for the sealing of Elizabeth Ann Whitney in relation to any of Smith's sealings to women. Five days after Smith wrote the above, he wrote some more on Baptism for the Dead... (He was keeping that he began applying the sealing power to marriage a secret - and this had only been since January of 1842).

I wrote a few words of revelation to you concerning a recorder. I have had a few additional views in relation to this matter, which I now certify. That is, it was declared in my former letter that there should be a recorder, who should be eye-witness, and also to hear with his ears, that he might make a record of a truth before the Lord. Now, in relation to this matter, it would be very difficult for one recorder to be present at all times, and to do all the business. To obviate this difficulty, there can be a recorder appointed in each ward of the city, who is well qualified for taking accurate minutes; and let him be very particular and precise in taking the whole proceedings, certifying in his record that he saw with his eyes, and heard with his ears, giving the date, and names, and so forth, and the history of the whole transaction; naming also some three individuals that are present, if there be any present, who can at any time when called upon certify to the same, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. Then, let there be a general recorder, to whom these other records can be handed, being attended with certificates over their own signatures, certifying that the record they have made is true. Then the general church recorder can enter the record on the general church book, with the certificates and all the attending witnesses, with his own statement that he verily believes the above statement and records to be true, from his knowledge of the general character and appointment of those men by the church. And when this is done on the general church book, the record shall be just as holy, and shall answer the ordinance just the same as if he had seen with his eyes and heard with his ears, and made a record of the same on the general church book. You may think this order of things to be very particular; but let me tell you that it is only to answer the will of God, by conforming to the ordinance and preparation that the Lord ordained and prepared before the foundation of the world, for the salvation of the dead who should die without a knowledge of the gospel.

He continues,

Now, the nature of this ordinance consists in the power of the priesthood, by the revelation of Jesus Christ, wherein it is granted that whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Or, in other words, taking a different view of the translation, whatsoever you record on earth shall be recorded in heaven, and whatsoever you do not record on earth shall not be recorded in heaven; for out of the books shall your dead be judged, according to their own works, whether they themselves have attended to the ordinances in their own propria persona, or by the means of their own agents, according to the ordinance which God has prepared for their salvation from before the foundation of the world, according to the records which they have kept concerning their dead. It may seem to some to be a very bold doctrine that we talk of—a power which records or binds on earth and binds in heaven. Nevertheless, in all ages of the world, whenever the Lord has given a dispensation of the priesthood to any man by actual revelation, or any set of men, this power has always been given. Hence, whatsoever those men did in authority, in the name of the Lord, and did it truly and faithfully, and kept a proper and faithful record of the same, it became a law ON EARTH and in heaven, and could not be annulled, according to the decrees of the great Jehovah. This is a faithful saying. Who can hear it? And again, for the precedent, Matthew 16:18, 19: And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now the great and grand secret of the whole matter, and the summum bonum of the whole subject that is lying before us, consists in obtaining the powers of the Holy Priesthood. For him to whom these keys are given there is no difficulty in obtaining a knowledge of facts in relation to the salvation of the children of men, both as well for the dead as for the living.

To use the sealing power and for it to be binding, one must keep a proper record. If not, it was not a "law on EARTH and in heaven". Hence, without doing the proper paperwork every one of Smith's sealings were not recognized by God or His Priesthood. This is the two or three witnesses thing run amok. But Smith, because of his own paranoia, did not follow God's sealing instructions in relation to his wives, and therefore they were not valid. NONE OF THEM, except perhaps as I mentioned above, the marriage ceremony/revelation of the Whitney transaction.

Why do you think they went to all that trouble to later redo all of Smith's sealings? They knew to make them legitimate, they had to have been done with witnesses and recorded, which they then did by proxy. But the damage was already done, according to his own criteria Smith committed adultery with all of them, because none of them were authorized sealings.

[_Markk]

Didn't the 1835 D&C say all marriages had to be recorded>

[_grindael]

It says,

The clerk of every church should keep a record of all marriages, solemnized in his branch.

And,

All legal contracts of marriage made before a person is baptized into this church, should be held sacred and fulfilled. Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy:3 we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again. It is not right to persuade a woman to be baptized contrary to the will of her husband, neither is it lawful to influence her to leave her husband.4 All children are bound by law to obey their parents; and to influence them to embrace any religious faith, or be baptized, or leave their parents without their consent, is unlawful and unjust. We believe that all persons who exercise control over their fellow beings, and prevent them from embracing the truth, will have to answer for that sin. [p. 252]

This is one of the more appalling footnotes of the JSP:

3 It is unclear who made such charges or in what venue they were made. Some evidence suggests that the doctrine of plural marriage was known to Joseph Smith in 1831, prompted by his reading and questioning of the practice by Old Testament prophets during his detailed work in Genesis as part of his Bible revision. He may have begun sharing the concept with a select number of individuals in 1832.a Later accounts indicate that Joseph Smith married Fanny Alger as a plural wife before or shortly after this 1835 statement was published. Following that marriage, Joseph Smith likely did not marry other plural wives until 1841. The documentary record of the relationship between Joseph Smith and Alger is fragmentary and contradictory.b Other reminiscences insist that Cowdery also practiced plural marriage at this time. These records claim that when Cowdery heard of the doctrine, he engaged in the practice without authorization from Joseph Smith.c The statement’s explicit disavowal of polygamy led to its removal from the Doctrine and Covenants in 1876 when it was replaced by a July 1843 revelation explaining the concept of plural marriage.d

The unfounded rumors of Cowdery practicing polygamy are a red herring and have no place here, it is simply to discredit him as a witness to Smith's own adultery.

There is something to the 1831 claims of "polygamy", but it was in relation to the Indians, but... Joseph was teaching that "adultery was no crime", as he was likening himself to the prophet David and felt he could do what David did. (See Ezra Booth Letters). The link with Smith to David continues on, even to the Nauvoo Era.

It was the practice in the U.S. and other countries to record marriages, I don't think it being in this Section is anything remarkable.

Joseph would uphold the idea that all marriage contracts (ALL OF THEM that were not "sealings") were valid until death and could not be revoked, except for some sin with one of the partners. He would affirm this in a First Presidency Address in 1842. So what he did with other men's wives would have been adultery. But if he looked at himself as a David, then perhaps he had some kind of special status in his own mind, but as Vogel has pointed out, D&C 132 has Joseph repenting for his polyandry, and then he claims that only "virgins" can be plural wives.

This is why I believe that Joseph stopped "marrying" other men's wives in mid 1842. So all of those polyandrous relationships would have ended there. He then goes on to marry only single women after this time.

[_Dr Exiled]

Got to hand it to Joe. He went from taking his followers' wives and daughters to only taking their daughters, after he supposedly repented. Sure looks like a motive to get and retain "religious" power to me. And it is obvious he started the practice to have sex with other women, Dr. Hales. You can put your head in the sand and simultaneously cover your ears, but, that doesn't change the obvious conclusion that rational people reach.

[_grindael]

Exiled,

I've pretty much buried myself in the Smith Family's early history, and I can't see how Joseph comes out of it more than a religious pretender. I've tried to see how he could have gotten serious about everything and become a bona fide prophet. But I keep going back to what he would later claim, and how disingenuous it was.

I can accept that perhaps Joseph would have had second thoughts about the money digging and "repented" and then wrote the Book of Mormon (as pseudepigrapha) to bolster his cred as some kind of prophet.

But then he just flat out lies about his past. He claims that he saw Jesus in 1820, then got into a little trouble, then repented and then saw Moroni and was a good little boy except for digging for a silver mine as a paid laborer in 1825, and that Moroni was teaching him how to run God's "Kingdom" every year until he got the gold plates.

But that is not what happened. He lies about when other members of his family join the Presbyterians. He lies about the revivals (when they took place). He lies about seeing only one person in his first version of his "first" vision. He lies about the Book of Mormon story. He obfuscates that he used a peep stone to "translate" the Book of Mormon.

It goes on and on and on and on. It's all indisputable evidence that he was a fraud. And the Mopologists can't dismiss it like Nibley tried to, there is too much out there now, they try to claim that what Smith did (the "folk magic") was CHRISTIAN! Everyone was doing it, so therefore there was nothing wrong. The same argument they use for the "Curse of Cain" stuff and the justification for slavery and blacks as inferior. It's mind boggling.

I can't ken it. Compound that with what he did going forward and how can one believe in this person as a real prophet? I can't get there. All I can do now is present the evidence and let people decide for themselves.

[_Dr Exiled]

Exiled,

I've pretty much buried myself in the Smith Family's early history, and I can't see how Joseph comes out of it more than a religious pretender. I've tried to see how he could have gotten serious about everything and become a bona fide prophet. But I keep going back to what he would later claim, and how disingenuous it was.

I can accept that perhaps Joseph would have had second thoughts about the money digging and "repented" and then wrote the Book of Mormon (as pseudepigrapha) to bolster his cred as some kind of prophet.

But then he just flat out lies about his past. He claims that he saw Jesus in 1820, then got into a little trouble, then repented and then saw Moroni and was a good little boy except for digging for a silver mine as a paid laborer in 1825, and that Moroni was teaching him how to run God's "Kingdom" every year until he got the gold plates.

But that is not what happened. He lies about when other members of his family join the Presbyterians. He lies about the revivals (when they took place). He lies about seeing only one person in his first version of his "first" vision. He lies about the Book of Mormon story. He obfuscates that he used a peep stone to "translate" the Book of Mormon.

It goes on and on and on and on. It's all indisputable evidence that he was a fraud. And the Mopologists can't dismiss it like Nibley tried to, there is too much out there now, they try to claim that what Smith did (the "folk magic") was CHRISTIAN! Everyone was doing it, so therefore there was nothing wrong. The same argument they use for the "Curse of Cain" stuff and the justification for slavery and blacks as inferior. It's mind boggling.

I can't ken it. Compound that with what he did going forward and how can one believe in this person as a real prophet? I can't get there. All I can do now is present the evidence and let people decide for themselves.

Keep it up. I'm a fan. Incidentally, did you and Jeremy ever respond to Bennett's supposed debunking of the CES letter? It seems from his discussions with Bill Reel that his supposed "debunking" is merely an emotional response to the Book of Mormon that he thinks is a testimony along with some snark. Time and time again, in the podcasts with Reel, Bennett fled to his supposed testimony of the Book of Mormon, like we were taught to do as young missionaries. Pretty empty.

[_grindael]

Exiled,

I've pretty much buried myself in the Smith Family's early history, and I can't see how Joseph comes out of it more than a religious pretender. I've tried to see how he could have gotten serious about everything and become a bona fide prophet. But I keep going back to what he would later claim, and how disingenuous it was.

I can accept that perhaps Joseph would have had second thoughts about the money digging and "repented" and then wrote the Book of Mormon (as pseudepigrapha) to bolster his cred as some kind of prophet.

But then he just flat out lies about his past. He claims that he saw Jesus in 1820, then got into a little trouble, then repented and then saw Moroni and was a good little boy except for digging for a silver mine as a paid laborer in 1825, and that Moroni was teaching him how to run God's "Kingdom" every year until he got the gold plates.

But that is not what happened. He lies about when other members of his family join the Presbyterians. He lies about the revivals (when they took place). He lies about seeing only one person in his first version of his "first" vision. He lies about the Book of Mormon story. He obfuscates that he used a peep stone to "translate" the Book of Mormon.

It goes on and on and on and on. It's all indisputable evidence that he was a fraud. And the Mopologists can't dismiss it like Nibley tried to, there is too much out there now, they try to claim that what Smith did (the "folk magic") was CHRISTIAN! Everyone was doing it, so therefore there was nothing wrong. The same argument they use for the "Curse of Cain" stuff and the justification for slavery and blacks as inferior. It's mind boggling.

I can't ken it. Compound that with what he did going forward and how can one believe in this person as a real prophet? I can't get there. All I can do now is present the evidence and let people decide for themselves.

Keep it up. I'm a fan. Incidentally, did you and Jeremy ever respond to Bennett's supposed debunking of the CES letter? It seems from his discussions with Bill Reel that his supposed "debunking" is merely an emotional response to the Book of Mormon that he thinks is a testimony along with some snark. Time and time again, in the podcasts with Reel, Bennett fled to his supposed testimony of the Book of Mormon, like we were taught to do as young missionaries. Pretty empty.

I was never involved with anything like that, I read a little of Bennett's long rant, but I couldn't stomach it. He just touts the Mopologist BS over and over again and it doesn't work as we saw with the Reel Discussion where he got spanked with the actual evidence. I loved it when he tried to convey the story of Lucy Walker from his Mopologist reading list, and Reel dug up all kinds of other accounts that he had no idea existed. "That's Lucy Walker??" he asks incredulously. I was really impressed with how Bill stuck to the evidence and just hammered him with it. That's the way to go.

I'm trying to finish up Pt. 1 of "Ghosts & Angels" for my blog, but it's at 50,000 words now and not an end in sight, but it's detailed and linked to everything on the internet. You can read it an I link to everyone's stuff, all the Mopologists, other Historians, accounts, JSP everything.

Jeremy did post a transcript of the Reel/Bennett discussions on Google Docs and I'm editing the Polygamy parts to make sure it's accurate to the tape. I think Bill's response disposes of Bennett very adequately... although I would love to footnote it.

[_Markk]

grindael,

Do you have a bio on M.Scott Bradshaw? What type of attorney is he? I have searched and can't find a thing on this guy.

[_grindael]

grindael,

Do you have a bio on M.Scott Bradshaw? What type of attorney is he? I have searched and can't find a thing on this guy.

In relation to what? Not ringing any bells at the moment...

[_Markk]

grindael,

Do you have a bio on M.Scott Bradshaw? What type of attorney is he? I have searched and can't find a thing on this guy.

In relation to what? Not ringing any bells at the moment...

M.Scott Bradshaw wrote a paper https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Jose ... in_1844.22

I am in a debate over the 1833 illinois law with a LDS friend...and he insists this guy is an expert in 19th century law, but refuses to cite how he knows this.

All I can find on the guy is that he got his John Dehlin in 89 at BYU.

He did a few book review on the Hale's also. You have his name on your website also (which I love).

Who is this guy!