Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 5

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Response to claims made in "Chapter 5"


A work by author: George D. Smith

325

Claim
  • The author points out that after Joseph's death, Rhoda Richards was sealed to "her cousin Brigham Young."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response
  • Here the author again relies on presentism to provide a hostile interpretive lens. It was not unusual for first cousins to marry. Nineteen of the present-day states permit unrestricted marriage between first cousins, and most countries have no restrictions at all on marriage between cousins. In its exploitation of the presentist fallacy, the author’s remark is utterly irrelevant in its historical context.
  • See also ch. 3: 205
  • Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism

327

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "Orson Hyde reported seeing a 'wonderful lustful spirit' on his visit to the polygamous Cochranite community….In 1834 he acquired his own lustful spirit in Marinda Johnson…."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

333

Claim
  • Parley P. Pratt's is claimed to have been seald to his "last wife, Eleanor McComb McLean...without divorcing her legal husband, who fatally shot Parley near Van Buren, Arkansas…."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

333

Claim
  • The murder of Parley P. Pratt is claimed to be "the proximate cause of the Mountain Meadows Massacre."

Author's source(s)
  • Scott F. and Maurine J. Proctor, Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt (1874; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000), 586-99.
Response

334

Claim
  • Did Parley P. Pratt engage in "theological philanderings?"

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

345

Claim
  • Edwin Wooley married Louisa Chapin Rising as a polygamous wife even though she was not divorced from her legal husband.

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

351

Claim
  • Ezra Taft Benson was "a correspondent of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover…."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
  • Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
Response

Further reading

A FAIR Analysis of Critical Works