Joseph’s Jesus

             If Mormon plural marriage is an arbitrary concoction of Joseph Smith how do we account for the hundreds, no, literally hundreds of thousands of men and women since 1830 who have practiced Mormon plural marriage based solely on the word of Joseph Smith?  

            What I am attempting to do is explore from a biological/psychological position the phenomenon of unintelligible belief in the supernatural– that is, a cognitive, reasonable approach.  By unintelligible I mean it defies logic; there is no known scientific method to falsify Joseph’s fantastic claim that Jesus Christ threatened to “destroy” his wife, Emma if she did not go along with Joseph’s quest to take as plural wives young girls and the wives of other men.  And for good measure, Joseph’s Jesus threatened to “destroy” all first wives that hindered their husband in obeying the command to take plural wives. (See D & C, verses 54,65 & 65)

            In consideration of the above preface, the premise of this thesis will be that Joseph Smith’s plural marriage revelation is false, which provokes the question, was it a hallucination or a deliberate fraud?

Joseph’s background:

            Joseph’s background is pertinent and the following assertions are historical fact.  Before the Book of Mormon was written Joseph was a treasure hunter and dowser who engaged in magic.  He claimed to be able to find treasure and lost articles by looking at a magic stone.  He was very interested in religion and liked to tell tall stories about the ancient Indians that once inhabited the area. (See Origins of Power, Extensions of Power and Early Mormonism and the World Magic View, by D. Michael Quinn)

The Book of Mormon:

            The Book of Mormon tends to answer those questions that were on the minds of the people during that era.  One question was where did the Indians come from?  There were a lot of mounds in the area erected by ancients.  The Nineteenth Century inhabitants of that region wondered who the ancients were and what happened to them.  Joseph claimed to have written the Book of Mormon by interpreting ancient writings on gold plates that no one but him saw. He said the writings were “reformed Egyptian, but no archeologists or Egyptologist ever heard of such writings.  He claimed that an angel directed him to the gold plates and after he had transcribed the Book of Mormon the angel took possession of the plates.

            Joseph claimed that the translation was made possible by two mysterious devices he called Urim and Thummim that no one but Joseph ever saw.  However, his scribes have gone on record saying that Joseph used a sear stone, a magic stone, to translate the gold plates.  Joseph would put the stone in the bottom of a hat then stick his face in the hat and dictate what he allegedly saw to the scribe.

            There is no archeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon.  The Book of Mormon talks about animals, horses, which did not exist in Mexico and South America at the time.  The Book of Mormon, Joseph and Brigham Young allege that the American Indians are the remnants of the people, Lamanites, of the Book of Mormon.  However, DNA does not support this.  According to the Book of Mormon the Nephites and Lamanites were Hebrews.  DNA proves they were not.  Anthropological evidence indicates the Native Americans  entered the American continents via Siberia. 

Joseph’s mentality:

            Psychiatrist, Robert Anderson, in his book, Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith, makes and extremely compelling argument that Joseph was driven by a “narcissistic personality disorder.” 

            Anderson deduced his diagnosis from Joseph’s writing, a since called psychobiography, which means an author often leaves in his writings clues from which his personality can be deduced. 

            In the general sense narcissism means “self love.”  IN Joseph’s case he was compelled to be the best, the smartest, the toughest, the most important.  At one time he was the prophet, the head of the church, the mayor of Nauvoo, the general of the Nauvoo Legion and candidate for President of the United States.

            He also knew how to handle money better than anyone else.  As a result he was intimately involved in every money making scheme from banking, real estate, hotels and taverns.  

            Narcissists are often charismatic and good manipulators – tactics that place them at the center of attention.  Joseph used Sydney Rigdon to help organized his church but when Sydney got to powerful he put him in his place.  Joseph embraced John C. Bennett long enough to learn to be a politician and military general then got rid of him over “spiritual wifery.”  Like Rigdon, Bennett was getting too powerful, and knew too much.  He later wrote a book, History of the Saints, an expose of Joseph and Mormonism.

Joseph, A Mormon Lothario:

            Joseph was a seducer of women.  (See Nauvoo Polygamy by George D Smith and In Sacred Loneliness by Todd Compton)  He was seducing young women years before his alleged plural marriage revelation.  Some of his contemporaries believed he conveniently received the revelation to put Emma in her place as she was giving him fits over his philandering. 

            In essence, what the plural marriage revelation did was give Joseph’s Y-chromosome free reign

            The mission of the Y-chromosome is to replicate itself and it doesn’t care how that’s done.  The revelation is in complete accord with the Y-chromosome as the revelation commands the reader to take plural wives but does establish rules in how to go about obtaining wives.  The reader is free to use his own innovations.  There is just one canon, become a polygamist or be damned.

            There are Mormon apologists who allege that polygamy practiced under Joseph Smith and Brigham Young was more virtuous and on a higher level than polygamy practiced today.  The apologists are wrong.  The same disgusting marriages that go on now went on then.  Men married mothers and daughters, nieces, children, step daughters and half sisters.  Why should that be a surprise?  The Y-chromosome hasn’t changed, nor has the revelation, so why shouldn’t we expect the same behavior?

            One of the more disgusting practices was taking the wives of other men on the pretense that a superior priesthood made the exaltation of the woman more sure. 

Plural marriage – justified:

            The only concrete justification for practicing polygamy is that the biblical patriarchs were polygamists, and half the world at once time practiced polygamy – but not for the same reasons Mormons practice polygamy.  It is also touted that because the Bible doesn’t forbid polygamy God must accept it.  From a rational point of view, the woman most apt to benefit from polygamy is the unmarriageable woman – providing she marries a decent man.  The problem there is she is apt to be a secondary wife who resides at the bottom of the pecking order – meaning she must support herself. 

            All the other reasons Mormons elude too are unreal and fantastic.

Coercion:

            Women in general need more inducement than arcane reasoning to become plural wives.  A first wife, or monogamous wife is unapt to willing share her husband and their possessions with other women without additional inducement.  For that reason, I submit that Joseph intentionally made his revelation coercive.  Starting with Verse 4 the revelations warns that all who reject plural marriage will be damned.  All first wives who hesitate will be destroyed.  Furthermore, first wives who hinder their husband’s quest for plural wives are branded “transgressors.”  Transgression is a sin.  And all this damning, destroying, and sinning supposedly comes from Jesus Christ.

            Many Mormons apostatized over the plural marriage revelation.  Those that didn’t were men like Brigham Young, John Taylor and Heber C. Kimball, whose Y-chromosomes and morals were congruent with Joseph. 

            It is my contention that Joseph’s plural marriage revelation is a fraud.   I submit that all the revelations he claimed came from Jesus Christ are frauds.  As Dr. Anderson put it, when the readers of the Book of Mormon began to think Joseph had special powers, he said to himself, “I will be what you want me to be.”  With all the feedback from true believers I think, he began to think he really was a prophet who communicated with the supernatural.