Any LDS or previously-LDS Mamas have a copy they could spare? It's for a bookclub I'm in at Feminist Mormon Housewives. LOL.

Kerri

Ohh, I want that book too. Sorry don't have it. And it is pretty $$ to buy brand new. I am especially interested in Zina H. Jacobs. That is who my daughter is named after. :)

I wish I had it too.

vewy vewy intewesting stuff

LOL! Maybe I should just buy it and make my money back by renting it out! It's around $30 to buy new, maybe I'll get it. I know in many places you could probably get it from the library, but none of ours in a 2-hour drive have it.

Kerri

I wish our library had it. I should buy it anyways, but I don't have any extra money right now. I am going to ask for it for Christmas, but doubt anyone in my family will buy it for me....they don't like to talk about that stuff, lol.

I find this fasinating. Zina H. was married to Henry Jacobs and pregnant with his child when Joseph Smith married her. Then after Joseph died, Zina (still married to Henry and pregnant again with another child of his) was married to Brigham Young. Henry got the boot, sent on a mission to England and Zina moved in with Brigham. Henry lost his wife and kids. He wasn't able to see them again. I think that is so sad. He was still in love with her and his letters are so sad to read. He would tell Zina to make sure she tells his boys about him....sniff sniff. Poor Guy.

Anyhoo....I need to get that book.

In Utah, all of those books are at the library, but I'm nowhere near Utah, lol.

Yes, Zanymom, those early polygamy stories are a bit crazy.

When we were on vacation in Utah earlier this summer, I got into this conversation with dh's aunt. For some reason, I started telling her about this stuff concerning Joseph Smith, such as the fact that he was married to at least one 14 year old girl and also he was married to a few women who were currently married to living men. Dh's poor aunt freaked out and accused me of being naive and believing lies. She launched into this huge lecture about how I have to be careful about believing anything and everything I read, etc. etc. Sigh. I was absolutely correct in everthing I said, but I just shut up and let her say what she wanted and I didn't even defend myself. She said that she had read 4 books about J.S. and that she knew everything about him and I was just naive and I need to be careful. Whatever. My family and her family both have ancestry that go as far back as Nauvoo. She should know her history. But I'm not going to teach it to her, lol.

That's what is so sad. Some people are so afraid of anything that might cast doubts over church leaders.

Honestly, this confusing history doesn't shake my faith as much as the cover-up because everyone's uncomfortable dealing with it. I wish a statement would be made that we don't understand why or even how plural marriage was practiced in the early church. Just acknowledging that it was a strange practice for puritanical American pioneers to be engaging in would be helpful.

So many people are very tested by this issue, and maybe if it was a non-issue and addressed as such, it would be less of a big deal, rather than the view that the gospel is perfect, so the church must be perfect, so the founders must be perfect. This would just mean that people who can't wrap their minds around plural marriage wouldn't feel they have to swallow it whole in order to be "saved." It's not wrong to know the true history about our faith. We're all about pioneers and family history, how can we not be addressing this stuff? Maybe it could even be faith-enhancing?

I read Mormon Enigma (biography of Emma Smith) and found myself having more understanding of alot of these things. Like, Joseph Smith was a person like me. He struggled with more than just the oft-quoted sin of lightmindedness, etc. He wasn't perfect, but God chose him to deliver his message because he was fore-ordained to do it. Prophets are prophets. Regardless of way things were handled (and it was a brand-new faith struggling in lots of confusion, violence, political issues, etc.) they did what they could. And a huge religious movement is still thriving because of it.

Kerri

IKWYM. I haven't been to RS or SS in years because I serve in primary, so I haven't read the newer manuals much, but if you didn't know that those early prophets were polygamous, you certainly wouldn't know it by reading the manuals.

This same Aunt informed me that the reason Wilford Woodruff was able to issue the 1890 manifesto (ending polygamy) was because he was never polygamous himself. I was in no mood to argue, but I was pretty sure she was way off the mark with this one. Of course he was polygamous. There are no records of him marrying after 1890, but he married women up to that point and had children by them even after 1890, which says to me that he didn't stop cohabitating with them. He also married several teenage girls. Not only was he polygamous, so were the next few prophets after him. None of them have any recorded marriages after 1890, but the last polygamous prophet was Heber J. Grant who died around 1945, I think.

These discussions were sparked by the fact that we were weirded out by seeing modern polygamous families in the St. George Wal-Mart. So we started talking about it and then of course we started talking about Warren Jeffs. It was at this point she rolled her eyes and said "How can these people actually believe that man is a prophet?" I answered her that they absolutely and completely believe it just like she believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet (and Gordon B. Hinkley). "Yeah, but Jeffs is marrying of young girls!" It was at this point that I told her the stuff I mentioned in the previous post. And then the #$%^ hit the fan!

So you have a point. What is worse? The things that happened long ago, or the way the church today chooses to handle it?

Those are rhetorical questions. You don't have to answer, lol.

Honestly, this confusing history doesn't shake my faith as much as the cover-up because everyone's uncomfortable dealing with it. I wish a statement would be made that we don't understand why or even how plural marriage was practiced in the early church. Just acknowledging that it was a strange practice for puritanical American pioneers to be engaging in would be helpful.

What does, or did shake my faith though was how Joseph Smith got some of those women to marry him. Again the example of Zina. He told her that an angel of the Lord appeared to him and told him that she was to be his, and that if she didn't marry him he would lose his place in life. I really doubt the Lord wouldn't have Joseph be a prophet anymore because someone wouldn't marry him. That kind of takes away a person free agency.

He also told Helen Kimball (the 14yr old) that if she would marry him it would assure her spot, her families, and their kin in the Celestial Kingdom. Again the actions of one person cannot save others. I think this whole promise is ridiculous. Each persons eternal rewards will be determined by their own actions, not the actions of others.

Anyhoo...I have issues with alot of the early church history....if you can't tell.

:lol:

Anyone wanna talk about the Book of Abraham? ;pot:

I was thinking that he did the whole flaming sword thing with Helen Mar Kimball too, but I could have my details all mixed up, lol. In any case, the flaming sword thing bugs me for sure.

Boy oh boy, do we really want to get started down this path, lol? Its just not stuff that can be discussed with people you see at church. Dh and I were at my nephew's birthday party the other day and we met a guy (and his wife) that I had known but hadn't talked to since I was in high school, even though I had seen him around over the years. He is currently branch president of the Spanish speaking branch in our area. In any case, we started talking (he and his wife and me and my dh) and we realized that we had a lot in common, that we were all quite liberal politically and as liberal as we can be religiously, being Mormon and all. All of the sudden, he blurted out "Have you heard of the Kinderhook Plates?!" Well, I've done my research and yes, I know about the Kinderhook Plates. It was just funny because I think he just wanted to see how open we really are to the history of the church. We didn't go too in depth because of all the others who were listening in. My brother leaned over and said "What is it? What are you talking about?" and we had to explain a bit to him.

Kinderhook, Book of Abraham, polygamy, masons, DNA...the list goes on. I'll stop now.

Sometimes I hang out here (http://www.fairboards.org/index.php?showforum=11), just for fun, lol. I've heard everything.

You guys would love the FMH blog! I've even done a guest-stint there before. http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/

I found a good review of ISL though. I'll try to find it, because it had good-sized excerpts to give you a good taste of it.

Kerri

I've stumbled across that blog before and I was confused by the page (I guess I didn't really know what a blog was at the time, lol), so I never really read it. I've linked to it now, and I'll be reading it regularly.

Funny how I lost my testimony withOUT studying the truth about church history LOL! I think I'm the only one. <blush>

However... it was *entirely* different in 1890 to marry a 14 yo than it is today. Heck, even when my mom was in high school, it was no big deal for a girl to get married anytime during her senior year (16-17 yrs old). I just don't think it's fair to compare 1890 with 2006. I'm not debating the other stuff, of which I know nothing about.

When I lived in Provo we had a RS teacher who was directly descended from a family who were the next-door neighbor (huge farms then) of the Joseph Smith Sr family, sometime around the 1st vision time. The story that was passed down from her family was that "those Smith boys" were all really weird. Just, odd. I remember at the time wondering how that was possible, "knowing" what we do about JS. LOL