Introduction to the Episode and Panelists

Guest [00:00:00] Foreign.

John Dehlin [00:00:05] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John De lin. It is October 4, 2024, and we have a all star cast. Super excited for today's episode. Today's episode. The thumbnail reads, mormon author admits CES letter is right about polygamy. And the mug. The photograph on the thumbnail is that of believing faithful Mormon Tabernacle Choir attending scholar Brian Hales, who is also probably the church's top apologist. Believing apologist for polygamy. And for those who don't know, this is all about the CES letter. We didn't even introduce the CES letter last time, so I'll just do that really quickly. Our dear friend, Jeremy Runnels, and I actually think there's a slide just to jump right into it. Jeremy Runnels is a dear friend. You can check out his Mormon Stories podcast interview from several years ago. It's definitely a top 10 most influential interview. Jeremy was this amazing Mormon who happens to be deaf, but he has cochlear implants. But none of that's important to the story for today's purposes. That's great for his personal story, but basically he is faithful Mormon, serves a mission, gets married in the temple, and then at some point starts to realize that the church isn't what he thought it was. And so he reached out to someone he was put in contact with who was a director of the church education system, thinking that he could get his questions answered. He never got his questions answered, and so he wrote all his questions up into a PDF or a document, ultimately a website where he shared the main questions that he had for the CES director that went unanswered and remain unanswered to this day. And the website is called csletter.org you can also buy the book. It comes in paper format. And I would say the cesletter is top three, if not top, most influential. I don't know. I guess. I guess we got. We got Sandra here, we got Dan here. We got to be careful, but let's just say CS letters, top five most influential sort of things that have influenced people's knowledge of church history and also helping them kind of negotiate their faith. Sandra, would you.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:37] Yeah. In today's world, it's probably the popular item that is most spread around.

John Dehlin [00:02:43] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:43] Most popular sort of introduction to people seeing questions.

John Dehlin [00:02:49] Yeah, yeah. And of course, y' all would want to check out Sam, my interviews with Sandra Tanner, because she's been doing this stuff since what, 1960? Yeah, yeah, since dirt. But. But that's so. So CS letter has been having an influence for so many years. The church has tried to kill it. And recently what it's trying to do is use really super shady search engine optimization or SEO tactics to bury it. And so what the church has come up with is a website and a social media initiative called the CES Letters, which is an obvious conspicuous, gross attempt to squat on Jeremy's trademark copyright intellectual property to try and divert people away from learning about CES Letter instead of just coming up with better answers. And so, and so this is a series that we're doing because we're so mad that the church, number one, is attacking Jeremy's character, attacking his integrity, saying that he wasn't sincere, saying he's a liar and a bad guy, and that's all over their marketing campaigns, but also just giving bad, disingenuous, apologetic responses. We had Richard, we. We reviewed with Sandra and Gerardo and Julia, Richard Bushman's appearance on CES Letters where he talks about the stone in the hat. Sandra, you brought your own stone in a hat? Yes, I did. That was one of the most hilarious moments. Is that right? Gerardo, do you agree?

Gerardo Sumano [00:04:30] Yeah, that was pretty funny.

John Dehlin [00:04:31] Yeah. If you want to laugh, have Sandra bring her Roc stone. So we've already covered Richard Bushman, and today we're going to be covering author and scholar Brian Hales, who's going to be talking about polygamy. And so there's his photo one more time. And if that weren't enough coolness, we have Gerardo Sumano back. He's going to be kind of leading us today. Hey, Gerardo.

Dan Vogel [00:04:54] Hey.

Dan Vogel [00:04:55] Hey, everybody.

John Dehlin [00:04:56] Anything you want to say before we jump in?

Gerardo Sumano [00:04:58] I'm just really excited. I think polygamy was one of those topics that was really important when I was deconstructing my faith. So, yeah, I watched Dan Vogel's videos responding to Brian Hill. So those we're going to be talking about all of that stuff.

John Dehlin [00:05:13] Yeah. And if that weren't enough coolness, we actually have joining us today, the one, the only, Joseph Smith and Mormon scholar Dan Vogel. He's back on Mormon Stories podcast, tuning in from Ohio. Hey, Dan.

Dan Vogel [00:05:31] Hello, everybody.

John Dehlin [00:05:32] How's it going?

Dan Vogel [00:05:34] Pretty good.

John Dehlin [00:05:35] Dan. Remind us about your. Your most popular books or your most recent books, whatever books you want to plug really quick if people want to get a sense for your amazing scholarship. In addition to my many interviews with you on Mormon Stories podcast.

Dan Vogel [00:05:49] Yeah, well, my most recent, of course, is Joseph Smith biography called Charisma Under Pressure. And that's going pretty good. And a bunch of other stuff, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:06:05] What's the. What's the Joseph Smith biography that maybe. Oh, it's got the most traction over the years?

Dan Vogel [00:06:13] Oh, Joseph Smith, the Making of a Prophet.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] Okay.

Dan Vogel [00:06:16] I'm probably best known for that one. That's the first part of his life and the. The next, the Charisma under pressure covers 1831 to 1839. And you've. I hope to do the rest.

John Dehlin [00:06:31] Well, you've done so many books that it would be impossible to name them all. Kind of like Sandra and Gerald, but also Dan Vogel, you have a YouTube channel that covers so many important topics as well. So we're gonna refer people to Dan Vogel's YouTube channel because it's. If you want to really go into the. The in depth historical source text analysis, Dan is. Is along with Sandra and Utah Lighthouse Ministry. I don't think it gets much better than. Than Dan and Sandra. What do you think, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:07:05] I agree. I agree.

John Dehlin [00:07:07] Sandra, do you agree?

Sandra Tanner [00:07:08] Well, I don't know about me, but I think Dan's super.

John Dehlin [00:07:11] Okay. Dan, anything else you want to say by way of introduction before we say a few more things?

Dan Vogel [00:07:18] Well, on that YouTube channel, Early Mormonism, Early Mormon History Explained, or you could check under my name and it'll get you there. But there's three videos there critiquing. Just the polyandry aspect, mostly dealing with Brian Hales's denials of sexual polyandry. We'll be talking about that.

John Dehlin [00:07:44] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So Julia will make links to all that. So, Sandra, we're so glad you're here. Dan, we're so glad you're here. Gerardo, always. Julia, you're here with us, right?

Guest [00:07:56] Yeah. I'm going to take a backseat though, because we got two great people here, so that's great.

John Dehlin [00:08:01] You're. You're super knowledgeable, so jump in whenever you feel the spirit. Is that all right, Julia?

Guest [00:08:08] Perfect.

John Dehlin [00:08:08] All right. And then if this weren't enough, we have a new face. A brand new squeaky, brand new face. Mormon Stories podcast. His name is Zeke. Zeke, welcome.

Dan Vogel [00:08:19] Hey, how's it going?

John Dehlin [00:08:22] Zeke, tell us just 30 seconds or minute about you.

Dan Vogel [00:08:26] Oh, my goodness. What do I say?

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:31] Talk to us about, like.

Dan Vogel [00:08:33] Well, I, I should probably just.

John Dehlin [00:08:34] You want to introduce introduction. Okay. Har's going to.

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:37] So Zeke is a. A friend of mine and he is learning about. About all of some of these issues about with Mormonism and polygamy is one of the issues that he learned about recently. How long ago About a month ago, probably.

Dan Vogel [00:08:54] Yeah, about a month ago. I'm.

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:56] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [00:08:57] Mid deconstruction.

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:59] Yeah. So when I told him we were going to be doing this episode, he was like, oh, my gosh, I want to go. I want. I. And I thought it would be a good idea to have someone that's risk learning because sometimes we, we tend to like mention names or say things that might not necessarily be known for every viewer. And last time we got almost or over a hundred thousand views. So I'm sure there's a ton of people joining that have never heard of these names. And so. So yeah, so Zeke is here. And Zeke, you served a service mission, right?

Dan Vogel [00:09:29] Yes, I served a two year service mission. Yeah. It was incredible. And a service mission is a little bit different. I was told not to teach at all. So.

Gerardo Sumano [00:09:42] Yeah. So a lot of these things are new.

Dan Vogel [00:09:44] You had. A lot of these things are new. So I, I mean, I, I wasn't told. I was told not to teach, so I didn't have to learn a whole lot. Yeah. And, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:53] And, and just for a little more context, we've got so many great people today. The reason why we thought it'd be fun to have Zeke here is, is because, you know, I did an episode with Kara Burrell on Nuance O Channel and she had her friend Yvonne, who was just beginning to learn these issues. And, and I. And it's. It's Kara's most popular episode on Nuance, so check it out. It's got hundreds of thousands of views, if not a million by this point. But it's just always interesting to see someone who's new to the issues give their genuine raw reactions when even though they're a couple decades or more into the Mormon Church, they're learning all this stuff for the first time. So Zeke is going to. Occasionally we're going to throw it to Zeke just to give us his raw version, reactions to learning stuff, maybe for the first time. How does that sound, Zeke?

Dan Vogel [00:10:38] Sounds good.

John Dehlin [00:10:39] Now, you, you. You have full consent, right? You're consenting in this. You're an adult. You're above the age of 18. All right, so there's no coercion here, right?

Dan Vogel [00:10:47] No.

John Dehlin [00:10:49] Gerardo, did you. Coercion?

Dan Vogel [00:10:50] Oh, no. I asked him several times.

John Dehlin [00:10:51] Are you sure you want to do this? Okay. All right. Okay. All right, so let's go ahead and begin and what we're going to do. Let's see. Is there anything else you want to say about the CES letter Sirardo, that hasn't already been said?

Gerardo Sumano [00:11:07] I think we covered it pretty good.

John Dehlin [00:11:08] Okay. Okay, so we can skip that slide. So let's go ahead and talk about Brian Hales and his amazing scholarly work. So, Gerardo, tell us about this slide or Julia, whoever wants to jump in.

Gerardo Sumano [00:11:20] Julia, do you want to talk to us about this?

Guest [00:11:22] Sure. Yeah. So this one's pretty self explanatory. So Brian Hales is the author of the Joseph Smith Police Polygamy series. There are four books here. There's the history, there's like. There's the initial one. And then like, it gives an overview of each of the wives. They're not very. They're not very big. Like if you compare them to other works that are just huge. But yeah, so he's. I would say he's probably the one. And I think you've mentioned this, that he's like the best known. He is best known for polygamy, which you'll see that he doesn't really like that category categorization. But like, it's because he has. He's written all these books. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:53] And I guess the clickbait for today is, you know, Mormon apologist agrees at the CES letter about polygamy. And I think that is going to be a major takeaway. But also we're going to be critiquing what we believe are some of the most horrific apologetics in all of Mormon apologetics. And that's saying a lot. Is that fair to say, Sandra? Does Brian, if you were to sort of give him an A to F in the quality of his apologetics, what grade would you. Just not to poison the well, but what grade would you give Brian?

Sandra Tanner [00:12:26] I'm not sure how to approach that.

John Dehlin [00:12:28] Just. Just top it. Just stream of consciousness. A to F.

Sandra Tanner [00:12:33] Well, C plus.

John Dehlin [00:12:35] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:12:36] I mean, he does a lot of great compilation of all the quotes and the sources and all. It's the way he chooses to give them weight. And it seems like the weight goes to the most positive construction of Joseph's character. And so I think it leads him to stacking the deck to make polygamy palatable. And I think he overlooks critical sources that would show Joseph in a more critical light.

John Dehlin [00:13:15] Yeah, that's. That's fair, Dan. A to F. Any. Any poisoning the well you want to do about Brian Hales? Go.

Dan Vogel [00:13:22] Poisoning the well, huh? Yeah, well, I agree with Sandra. I don't know what grade I would give him. I'd be a lousy teacher because it's too much pressure. But he, he did the. Organized the documents into relevant topics to discuss his. But the apologetic angle that he inserts into all these documents is horrible.

John Dehlin [00:13:50] Horrible. I mean, horrible sounds like F to me. But you don't want it. You could say horrible, but not F. Is that right?

Dan Vogel [00:13:58] Among apologists, there. There are other scholars that I probably regard more highly their interpretation. And

Gerardo Sumano [00:14:11] would you say he's highly motivated?

Dan Vogel [00:14:14] Highly motivated, yeah. But he loves. You'll see. He loves arguments from silence a lot.

John Dehlin [00:14:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I did mention he's. He's in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. At least he was for many, many years. He's also an anesthesiologist. His late wife was Laura Hales, who was a known polygamy apologist as well. She passed away and I believe he's newly married. Anyway, one. One interesting thing is that he published his books, I believe, with signature books.

Dan Vogel [00:14:42] That's her book.

John Dehlin [00:14:43] Oh, I think he's a signature books published author as well. Dan, you would know.

Dan Vogel [00:14:48] I. I don't recall anything.

John Dehlin [00:14:51] Oh, okay. So none of. None of Brian signature books. Okay. Okay. Gerardo's gonna Google her. Julie. Julie.

Guest [00:14:58] His series is. Is enough. It's not. It's not signature or desert. This one.

John Dehlin [00:15:03] Okay.

Guest [00:15:04] It's a different one.

John Dehlin [00:15:04] Oh, okay.

Dan Vogel [00:15:05] But they're sold out.

Guest [00:15:06] It's okay.

John Dehlin [00:15:08] Colford Books is who covered. Is his publisher. Okay. Okay, cool. All right. Well, there's. There's a photo of some of his books, if you're interested. I. I do agree that he's known to be thorough in his sourcing. And he also has a website.

Gerardo Sumano [00:15:24] Yeah, that's her book.

John Dehlin [00:15:25] That. It appears to be a really good resource for original documents. His website as well.

Brian Hales [00:15:31] Yeah.

Brian Hales as a Mormon Apologist on Polygamy

John Dehlin [00:15:32] All right, so I guess should we go ahead, Gerardo, and jump into the. To the videos?

Gerardo Sumano [00:15:36] Yeah, actually, I think we can skip the. The first. I don't. Let's just play it.

Dan Vogel [00:15:41] Let's just play it.

John Dehlin [00:15:41] Okay, so we're going to jump in, we're going to play this CES Letters video in parts, and then we're just going to have reactions to it. And let's go ahead and go to the first clip.

Brian Hales [00:15:55] Brian, how are you doing today? Good. Thank you for having me. I'm glad you're here.

Dan Vogel [00:15:59] Number one, I want to thank you

Brian Hales [00:16:00] for all your research on this. You are one of the authorities when it comes to polygamy, who is also a member of the church. You know this better than just about anybody else that we could ever think about. So thank you for your time in being here, but thanks for your research as well. Well, you're very kind and, and I don't know that that would be true. I, I probably have studied the topic more than, than anyone. But if I were going to be known for something in the church, poly me would not be my first choice.

John Dehlin [00:16:27] So. All right. He doesn't want to be known for polygamy. Gerardo. Why do you think that's funny?

Gerardo Sumano [00:16:32] Because he's known for literally, he's literally married. Married in eternal polygamy right now. And also.

John Dehlin [00:16:44] Well, as far as you know.

Dan Vogel [00:16:46] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:16:46] And wasn't he the one that wrote the, that's got one of the, the authors of the gospel topic essay.

John Dehlin [00:16:53] I'm pretty sure that the, the church did a few gospel topics essays and he would have been point for like first draft slash main consultant. Dan, did you have a thought on that?

Dan Vogel [00:17:04] Yeah, that's what I've heard.

John Dehlin [00:17:06] Okay.

Guest [00:17:06] Oh, I didn't know that.

John Dehlin [00:17:08] Yeah. So when the church, for those who don't know, the Mormon Church, after getting beat down by Sandra Dan and the Mormon, ex Mormon Internet, finally in 2013, 2014, the church released some gospel topics essays, trying to come clean about the history it had been lying about or hiding for, I don't know, a century and a half. And they're called the gospel topics essays. And various scholars were kind of viewed as points point people for the essays. Now I'm going to just ask you, Zeke, when did you. So how old are you, Zeke?

Dan Vogel [00:17:42] I'm 22.

John Dehlin [00:17:42] And how long were you in the church?

Dan Vogel [00:17:46] 22 years.

John Dehlin [00:17:47] When did you first like, still, when did you first learn about the gospel topics essays and, and when did the church tell you to read them?

Dan Vogel [00:17:57] So I learned about the gospel topic essays in, while I was on my mission. So in 2020. But I had never read them. I was never told to read them.

John Dehlin [00:18:08] Where did you learn about them from the church or from another source?

Dan Vogel [00:18:12] I learned about them from a seminary teacher that I became friends with.

John Dehlin [00:18:16] That's good. That's good. Okay, well that's unique because there are people that got to age 40, 50, 60 and, and still don't know.

Gerardo Sumano [00:18:24] But when did you learn that Joseph Smith was a polygamist?

Dan Vogel [00:18:31] Just recently.

Gerardo Sumano [00:18:32] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:18:33] Yeah. Like I, I learned like when I was 31 that he had 30 plus wives and you know, 14 year old brides and mother, daughter pairs and sister pairs and polyandry and all. I was like 31.

Gerardo Sumano [00:18:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:46] Gerardo.

Gerardo Sumano [00:18:47] Oh, 20, 24.

John Dehlin [00:18:51] After you'd served your mission.

Sandra Tanner [00:18:52] Yeah.

Brian Hales [00:18:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:53] Okay. So anyway, he, Dan, Brian Hales doesn't want to be known As a polygamy scholar, do you think that's. Do you think that's realistic, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [00:19:04] Not when you write multiple volumes on the topic that everyone is reading to get sources. Obviously, you're going to be a major source.

John Dehlin [00:19:15] Yeah. Yeah, that's true. All right. Well, I mean, I could imagine, though, he could see it as a. As a work of love, but. But he'd rather not be doing this. I mean, that's.

Sandra Tanner [00:19:26] Well, it's a difficult topic for any apologist to try to cover. How do you defend the indefensible? And that's what you see in his responses all through his books, is that he has to come up with a favorable answer, that there's only one answer, and that Joseph's a prophet of God. And so everything that happens in his life, you have to find some way to fit it into that equation that you come out with that answer. And that's the problem with viewing his research. Although he'll give you all these different sources, it all has to be weighed in a way that it all comes out with Joseph still being a prophet. You can't come up with anything else in the equation. So it taints what he does.

John Dehlin [00:20:20] Let me just make sure. Julian and Dan will y' all make sure to jump in at any point you want instead of waiting to be invited. Dan, is that all right?

Dan Vogel [00:20:28] Sure, I'll make a comment.

Sandra Tanner [00:20:29] Right.

John Dehlin [00:20:30] Okay. Please, please.

Dan Vogel [00:20:32] So Brian is working on publishing a ser. A book. I don't know. I think it's just one on the Book of Mormon and how it's no possible way that Joseph could have ever dictated such a book kind of approach. So he's hoping to maybe expand his reputation. But his right now, as it stands, everything he's done is on polygamy. You know, fundamentalist Polygamy was his first book, and then he did the trilogy, and then he's done this one extra one. And he also has a site online called More Polygamy Documents, and it's a great site, has everything he's. He used to write the books available in one form or another, so. And it's really a good resource. So he is the polygamy guy, and it's too bad, but that's it, that he chose this. He has to lie in it.

John Dehlin [00:21:35] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:21:36] I think he also owns the website, Joseph Smith polygamy.org.

Dan Vogel [00:21:41] okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:44] All right, cool. Well, let's go and go to the next slide, and this one's going to be giving a little bit of background.

How Brian Hales Became a Polygamy Scholar

Brian Hales [00:21:51] How have you gotten to the point where you are a scholar in the church. What brought you from just being some regular random guy to, oh, I'm going to dive into the topics, as in church history, as much as you have? Well, I, I think people may have already know this, but I had a family member who was excommunicated for practicing polygamy. She joined the Allred group. And so I investigated the topic and ended up writing several books on Mormon fundamentalism. And personally, I was just never impressed with their claims to authority. Their claims that the keys of the ceiling left the church never impressed me. But people were asking me more about Joseph Smith than about the Mormon fundamentalists. And so I hired Don Bradley and we worked together and had three volumes come out in 2013 and on Joseph Smith's polygamy, where we tried to get every known document that anybody had made, irrespective of whether they believed in Joseph or not, and include it in there to be comprehensive.

John Dehlin [00:22:55] And.

Brian Hales [00:22:55] And of course, my three books have been criticized, but the one criticism that really I haven't heard is that we left anything out. And transparency is very important to me, regardless of the topic. And so that, that one compliment is, is that that we tried to include everything if, if we were to do a second edition, which we're not, there's probably a handful of things that I would include in a second edition DOC data that's come available in the last 10 years. But honestly, I, I wouldn't. Big changes other than I wouldn't talk about polyandry so much because I think it's a ridiculous claim. But we can talk about that in a few minutes, right?

John Dehlin [00:23:34] I mean, obviously I want to jump in and talk about that, but we're also going to talk about it later. Quick response, Sandra.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:43] Well, yeah, I can see why he doesn't want to talk about it because it is the most explosive part of the story.

John Dehlin [00:23:49] Define polyandry for our viewers and listeners

Sandra Tanner [00:23:51] where a woman has more than one husband. And since the Revelation 1 section 132 says a man can have a number of women, there's nothing that says a woman can have extra husbands. So it's not something that Mormon scriptures would allow. So of course it becomes controversial. If, in fact you can show that Joseph Smith was second husband in a lot of the marriages in Nauvoo and Zeke.

John Dehlin [00:24:23] Have you ever heard of, you know, before, like just recently, had you ever heard of the term polyandry before?

Dan Vogel [00:24:29] No. That's a pretty new term for me.

John Dehlin [00:24:31] Okay. Yeah. And like, would you have known what it was if we had asked you just now or not. Not really.

Dan Vogel [00:24:37] Probably not. Okay. Definitely don't have that much knowledge.

John Dehlin [00:24:41] So when we say to you just, just hot take. When we say to you Joseph Smith married women who were already married to other men, what's your reaction?

Dan Vogel [00:24:53] You.

John Dehlin [00:24:56] Yeah. Why?

Dan Vogel [00:24:57] 14 times. That's.

Dan Vogel [00:25:02] That's not right. That's. That's just. I mean, from, from what I've learned recently is that these things were also done without the knowledge or consent of Emma, which is just. I mean, in my eyes it's cheating. And it's just. It's like, it's so wrong. And it just like. Like, it makes me sad. It. It hurts to know that someone that I had looked up to had been doing this and I'm just now finding out about it.

John Dehlin [00:25:40] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [00:25:40] But. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:25:42] Yeah, I'm sorry. We. I mean, we want to have fun here, but we also. This is kind of serious stuff and it's kind of raw. So thanks for being willing to share.

Dan Vogel [00:25:49] Yeah, of course. I mean, it's. It's good to know these things. I love learning about everything new and.

Brian Hales [00:25:56] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [00:25:56] I mean, whether it hurts or not, truth is truth.

John Dehlin [00:26:00] Yeah. Sandra, really quick and then Dan, I want to ask. Get you in here. Sandra. How long has the church known that Joseph Smith practiced polyandry? If you had to guess?

Sandra Tanner [00:26:10] Since it started. Yeah. In the 40s anyways.

Dan Vogel [00:26:18] With John C. Bennett.

Sandra Tanner [00:26:20] Yeah. John C. Bennett in his History of the Saints 1842 expose on Joseph Smith, calls Joseph out on this. And people were put on notice then about these issues.

John Dehlin [00:26:32] Yeah, yeah.

Dan Vogel [00:26:34] But.

John Dehlin [00:26:34] But the church. So the church is known for a couple hundred years. When do you think the church has ever come clean? How long did it take the church to come clean about polyandry?

Gerardo Sumano [00:26:43] Well, polygamy in general. Right. Because.

Sandra Tanner [00:26:46] Yeah. Well, you get those. The gospel topics in 2014, where for the first time we see a church source that admits that he had 30 to 40 wives. And I mean, that in itself was a bombshell. How many people knew that it was that many. And from a church source to know that many. And. Yeah, so the, the ability to know problem areas of polygamy for the average Mormon didn't really happen until the Gospel Topics essays.

John Dehlin [00:27:19] Yeah. Because Fon Brody releases no Man Knows my history. What, 1945?

Sandra Tanner [00:27:23] Yes, but they were Mormons were all told not to read it. It was not a church approved source. So if you're going by church approved sources, you don't really get serious treatment of anything until you get to the gospel topics.

John Dehlin [00:27:39] Yeah. And to their credit at least, they did use the word. Did they use the word polyandry in the Gospel topics essay? I'm trying to remember.

Gerardo Sumano [00:27:46] I don't think so.

John Dehlin [00:27:47] They wouldn't use the word, but they introduced the concept that he may have been married to women who are already married. Right?

Sandra Tanner [00:27:54] Yeah, yeah. I can't remember just how they phrased it.

John Dehlin [00:27:59] Go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [00:27:59] I think they, they use the same apologetic of like, oh, it's okay because these were eternal only marriages.

Sandra Tanner [00:28:06] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:28:06] Joseph didn't understand what he was doing. He was just receiving the revelation. And so he was trying to get away from having to do polygamy. And he thought that this was a way to get her around it without having to have sex with.

Sandra Tanner [00:28:22] Right. But by trying to make it all just a heavenly concept, that these marriages to married women, they spin it that it's just on paper that he was being sealed to these women for the afterlife. So the question is, did the women understand it as just being the afterlife or their husbands, for that matter? The. And this is where Brian Hales comes into his favoring sources to allow for Joseph to only have an on paper agreement for eternity. And the question is whether they were actually physically consummated. And even Brian Hales has to admit, at least with the one woman, Sylvia Sessions, that obviously she had sex with Joseph at the same time she was having sex with her husband. I mean, you know, within a few weeks of each other because of confusion on who was the father of a child. But then he, Hales wants to say that, oh, but that's the only one. Everybody else was just a paper deal.

Polyandry: Ridiculous Red Herring or Real Issue?

John Dehlin [00:29:35] Dan Vogel, let's get you in on this. Is. Is the polyandry issue ridiculous? Is it a silly, ridiculous red herring of an issue? What do you. What are your quick reactions to that characterization?

Dan Vogel [00:29:49] No, Joe Smith actually practiced it. Sexual polyandry. And we'll eventually talk about a couple of. Of the women that practice polyandry with. Joe Smith talked about it in a kind of a subtle way. And that's where Brian will say it's ambiguous, but it's. It's as close as a Victorian woman could get to verifying she had sex with Joseph Smith while being already married. And it's quite a tragedy, I think, when you get really into it. It's quite a tragedy for these women and the husbands and everyone involved with this Joseph Smith. And I think it's important to realize, though, that when we're talking about polyandry, it's more technically correct to say it's Pseudo polyandry. Some have called it pseudo polyandry because in traditional polyandry and other cultures Brian talks about and writes about, you know, like in, in India and places like that, the, the woman chose the husbands that she married. But in the case, in the Mormon case, in Joseph Smith's case, he's doing the choosing. Okay. It's still, the man is still. Is still a, a patriarchal version of polyandry. So. And in that, in that definition I just gave will become important. As you see, Brian talk about this subject and how he tries to squirm out a few situations.

John Dehlin [00:31:41] What do y', all, what do y' all think of the technique or the tactic of. Before you even talk about it, framing it as ridiculous. Do you think that's an interesting. Do you think he's doing something sneaky there? I mean, I guess it's his genuine opinion. But what, what do you think about if someone's coming to learn for the first time, like Zeke, you know, Dan Vogel. What do you think about him beginning by framing polyandry as ridiculous before he ever talks about it?

Dan Vogel [00:32:11] Yeah. Well, he will claim that all 14 were eternity only marriages, which isn't true. He thinks he can get out of the ones that we have evidence for which he. He can't.

Brian Hales [00:32:27] He.

Dan Vogel [00:32:28] That's where the bad apologetics comes in. And we'll talk about it in more detail. You'll see.

John Dehlin [00:32:37] Do you think it's intentional, though? The kind of that I, I joked about poisoning the well with Brian. Do you think it's an intentional poisoning of the well? Sandra, what do you think? Or do you think it's just a genuine subconscious or whatever he intends to

Sandra Tanner [00:32:51] paint a faithful picture and with that intent, it clouds his judgment. And who knows how much direct thought he gives to the fact that he's clouding the evidence. But at least subconsciously, he knows he has to shade everything to make it come out looking favorable for Joseph. He cannot see any of these situations as truly being consummated because it ruins his concept of what a true prophet would do.

John Dehlin [00:33:25] Yeah. Yeah. When I talk to someone like Patrick Mason, who I've had on Mormon stories, he's a faithful Mormon scholar, he'll just describe Joseph Smith's polygamy as looking a lot like sin. Like it's. He'll just own it and say it looks bad to me, probably wasn't from God, probably a mistake or sinful. But this, which I respect, that's something that I respect. But just to sort of like hand wave and say It's a ridiculous problem. Whether it's polygamy or polyandry is a. I think it's problematic.

Sandra Tanner [00:33:56] Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:56] To frame it that way.

Sandra Tanner [00:33:58] Right.

Dan Vogel [00:33:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:59] Okay. All right. So the next thing they do is they talk about Fanny Alger or Fanny Algeria. Zeke, have you ever heard of Fanny Alger or Fanny Augur prior to, like, this week or last week? No.

Dan Vogel [00:34:11] No.

John Dehlin [00:34:11] Do you want to guess who she might be?

Dan Vogel [00:34:14] A relative of someone?

John Dehlin [00:34:15] Relative to someone. So Fanny Oliver or Fanny Alger, is the first known plural wife of Joseph Smith.

Gerardo Sumano [00:34:22] Well, some will say it's was an affair.

John Dehlin [00:34:26] Yeah, Right, right, right.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:27] I don't like to have you say it. His first known plural wife. She wasn't a plural.

John Dehlin [00:34:32] Okay.

Brian Hales [00:34:33] All right.

John Dehlin [00:34:34] That's the controversy.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:37] No historical setting for him teaching her that it's a marriage.

Fanny Alger and the Early Polygamy Question

John Dehlin [00:34:43] Okay, Sandra, you then, Dan, tell us your. What you think the. What your perception of what the documents show the relationship was before we hear his apologetics of it. Who was Fanny Augur? What happened?

Sandra Tanner [00:34:56] In a summary, she's a young girl that comes into the Smith home in the 1833, 34 time period, is there for a couple of years as a house helper for Emma, and then we don't know exactly when an affair started because she's in the home, evidently for a couple of years. But we do know by 36, evidently, Joseph is having physical relations with her. And evidently Emma, Joseph's wife, catches them in the barn in some compromising act. That Oliver Cowdery, leader in the Mormon Church, witness to the Book of Mormon, called a dirty, nasty, filthy affair or scrape, whatever. Because there's a editing done on the quote, so you'll get different words used whether it's a fair or scrape, but. But regardless, Cowdery terms it as a dirty, nasty, filthy. Whatever it is.

John Dehlin [00:35:59] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:00] Cowdery does not have any concept of a religious association to this union. He sees it strictly as a married man taking advantage of a single girl in the home. And he calls it a terrible affair.

John Dehlin [00:36:18] And what's his role or authority or position in the church at this point in history?

Sandra Tanner [00:36:24] As a second elder at that point, I don't remember meaning what the second in command. I mean, number two leaders in the church.

John Dehlin [00:36:30] Number two, dude. So if someone was gonna know that, number one, God had sent an angel to force Joseph to have sex with young women, that. That there was a ceiling, that polygamy was God's eternal law, if any of that was gonna happen as a precursor to Joseph having sex with the young girl who lived with Him. Oliver probably would have known. Is that fair?

Sandra Tanner [00:36:52] One would think so.

John Dehlin [00:36:53] Okay, Zeke, any quick reactions? How's this conversation going for you?

Dan Vogel [00:36:59] Whoa.

Gerardo Sumano [00:37:02] I think he'll just be shocked most of the time.

Dan Vogel [00:37:05] I. I am shocked. That's. That's crazy. I. I don't even know what to say to that.

John Dehlin [00:37:11] Okay. All right, we'll come back. Dan, what else do you want to add to Sandra's summary of Fanny? Alger? Do you. Do you say Alger or Algeria? Which do you say?

Dan Vogel [00:37:22] I like Aler.

John Dehlin [00:37:23] Okay.

Dan Vogel [00:37:26] But you'll hear Brian, if you play the whole thing, you'll hear Brian talk about how it's pronounced differently by different. By different people who have the name and in Fanny's family evidently says Aler. Aler. I mean. So I'm of a little different mind. I agree a little bit with Hales. When you hear him where he'll say that the family believed that it was a ceiling. I don't think the term ceiling was used in 1830, in the mid-1830s. But these are people looking back from Utah, and they thought it was a marriage and Cowdery and Emma believed it was an affair. And because they didn't accept polygamy and polygamy there is a precedence for polygamy. I mean, Jacob2 talks about if the Lord wants to raise up seed. So there's a door that's quite kind of open.

John Dehlin [00:38:35] That's the Book of Mormon. That's the book.

Dan Vogel [00:38:37] Yeah, that's the Book of Mormon. And Jacob. Sorry. And there's a precedent from. In. In Christian literature, you know, you know, the. Over in England, the Church of England, ministers or priests debated whether it's permissible to live polygamy. So. And some said yes, some said no. So it's been debated in Christianity for a long time before Joseph Smith. And then there's these experimental groups and the cochraneites is one back east at the time. And they. It's there. There is indication that the Morley family, who lived all things in common and were influenced by the Owenites, may have had a. A open kind of marriage among the group that you could switch partners quite easily. And Joseph put that down and with his. The DNC 42. There's implications in. In the. That was called the law. And then Cowdery himself put be there were people trying to live polygamy amongst the Mormons still. And so Cowdery put in the marriage article in the 1835 doctrine and covenant section 101 in the 1835 version where it said that that the church has been reproached with and accused of sanctioning polygamy. And he said there's no such practice in the church. So there.

John Dehlin [00:40:25] Is that Joseph or. Was that Joseph or Oliver who said that?

Dan Vogel [00:40:27] No, that's. Oliver wrote that thing.

John Dehlin [00:40:29] Okay, okay, okay.

Dan Vogel [00:40:30] So.

Sandra Tanner [00:40:30] But it was canonized.

Dan Vogel [00:40:32] And it was canonized.

John Dehlin [00:40:33] Yeah, so.

Dan Vogel [00:40:34] But it's not a revelation. It's not a revelation, and it's only church policy.

John Dehlin [00:40:39] So really quickly, let's just do a couple timeline things. So at what point did it become scripture in the Book of Commandments that

Sandra Tanner [00:40:47] polygamy within the 1835 doctrine and covenants, that section 101, that said, inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare one man should have one wife, except in the case of death. So why now? Cowdery, evidently, is responsible for that being put in. But why would a church need to put something like that in in 1835? So one could say, well, Joseph must have been teaching something about polygamy in the background. Well, he may have, but he didn't have any keys that the Mormons want to always hark back to. There was no documentation that there was a theology being presented at this time. And I see her family, Fanny's family, looking back on it. Of course, they want to make it a wedding. They want to make it a marriage. But there was no reason to assume this was anything but an adulterous affair at the time.

John Dehlin [00:41:50] Yeah, because I just think everyone needs to know, especially Zeke and those who are new to this, that it was scripture in 1835, during the time that Fanny Alger was living with Joseph Smith, it was Mormon scripture that polygamy was forbidden. So that's problem, at least. Problem number one. Problem number two is just the basic power dynamic of, like, this prophet of God with a teenage girl living in his house, and he's, you know, having. Having intentions with her, having sex with her. That's a problem. A third problem is Emma doesn't know. A fourth problem is before you can have polygamy, you need sealing. You need. You know, it's not like Mormons were. I don't know if you know the Zeke, but Mormons weren't getting sealed in temples in 1835. When you. Sandra, when does temple marriage and temple ceilings even emerge?

Dan Vogel [00:42:41] I would argue against that, John. Which part? You're. You're projecting Utah polygamy back into the Ohio period. And at this period, they have the patriarchal priesthood and the high priesthood. And I would say that that would be. Joe Smith could claim authority from that and that later it gets the. Even before you have anything to do with keys.

Gerardo Sumano [00:43:13] Oh, I'll try to explain what, what, what Dan is saying.

John Dehlin [00:43:16] Go ahead, go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [00:43:18] But so Joseph would not have been talking about this idea of keys and authority and only one person having the authority. It was a little bit more like a regular Christian where like just the Bible gives you the authority.

John Dehlin [00:43:32] But I'm not, But I'm not wrong in saying that in 1835 there were no Mormon temple marriages. There were no Mormon temple ceilings. There wasn't even a Melchizedek priesthood yet.

Dan Vogel [00:43:43] But just like any other thing Joe Smith did, it developed, right, just like developed into a. More into a hierarchy. In the beginning it was kind of equal authority of elders. And then it developed slowly into a hierarchy to organize it and control the situation. Same thing with polygamy. There was what I would term a laissez faire version of polygamy in the church. And this is what Bennett and others drew on. There was no. The DNC132 was the first time it said that Joseph Smith was the only one that had keys and could perform polygamous marriages. And therefore they had grounds in the High Council to start excommunicating people that were trying to do it without authority. But before that, Joseph Smith would be able to claim polygamy as a restoration concept. He could present that to Fanny or others that he uh, uh, did until later when it started becoming more organized in order to control it because it got out of control with Bennett and William Smith and some others. And then they started separating the two different kinds and trying to combat it and control it and keep it secret. So I, I wouldn't write off and say, oh, it's an affair because it was just a different kind of polygamy. And just Smith's polygamy was different than Brigham Young's in Utah. So there's more than one kind of polygamy. And they're working it out as they're going in real time. And so. But I don't think there was an officiator. I don't think Cowdery officiated at some ceremony. I certainly don't believe Levi Hancock performed an ordinance. I think it was more of Joseph Smith have a feeling that he had authority. The thing Joseph Smith's authority at this time was based on, on revelation. So if he had a revelation from God that if Fanny, he could marry Fanny or Have her as a spiritual wife. Because they use that term spiritual wife before they ever use celestial marriage. And. And you know, you have people talking about spiritual wifery in a positive sense, not a negative sense. But it became a pejorative later. So you could have Joseph Smith getting a revelation. The revelation is the authority. He could perform his own ordinance. In 1845, Heber C. Kimball married one of his wives himself. He officiated himself in that. In that marriage.

Guest [00:46:38] Oh, that's interesting.

Dan Vogel [00:46:40] Yeah. It's sort of like Alma in the Book of Mormon baptizes himself. Sorry. I'm sorry, Almond. The Book of Mormon baptizes himself.

Sandra Tanner [00:46:51] Yes. Joseph could be out claiming any number of crazy things to people. The problem for the Mormon saint, though, was how do you determine when God was saying it? Because if Joseph can go behind everyone's back and tell you to do something that the church as a body would have seen as adultery, how is the average member to ever judge when they are to concede to this proposition from a prophet of God? I mean, even the Doctrine and Covenants allows for judging a prophet in section. What is it, 87 that talks about how to judge a prophet? You gotta have the High Council meet and all this stuff. So there is an assumption in the community that if a leader does something sinful, he can be called on account of this. But the prophet can always pull rank by saying, oh, but God revealed it to me. And there's no way of ever verifying whether that's true or not. It just. It makes chaos in a community when you make this man able to just privately go to single women and make propositions in the name of God. How was a young girl to determine whether anything was truly from God or was this a man taking advantage of her? We look at our world today. How many men are going around taking advantage of women today under false claims? It just raises chaos in a community when you allow a leader to have that kind of power.

Dan Vogel [00:48:31] Yeah, well, this was an abuse of power for sure.

John Dehlin [00:48:35] Yeah, okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:48:36] I mean, well, that's all I'm after.

Dan Vogel [00:48:38] I guess it was an abusive power. But that's the problem when you have a community that is led by divine command.

Sandra Tanner [00:48:47] Right.

Dan Vogel [00:48:47] You know, there is that theory even in the Bible and Christianity. How they try to justify slaughtering all the Canaanites is that it's a divine command. And whatever God commands is right. Just like the. The Happiness Letter says Joe Smith wasn't the originator of the divine command theory of things.

Sandra Tanner [00:49:10] Right.

Brian Hales Explains the Fanny Alger Relationship

John Dehlin [00:49:11] So really quickly, Brian will mention as soon as we play this, probably Joseph being visited by an angel two or three times. And what the church wants to say is that I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. No, no, I know, but I mean, I want to establish what the truth is.

Gerardo Sumano [00:49:26] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:49:26] Before we hear Brian's.

Dan Vogel [00:49:28] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:49:28] Okay, so what's the truth about the document, the evidence for God sending an angel to force Joseph to have sex with 15, 16, 14 year olds? What. What. What are the records?

Sandra Tanner [00:49:40] But the angel is coming to have him marry a married woman.

John Dehlin [00:49:44] Okay, so what. What. What is.

Gerardo Sumano [00:49:46] Oh, that's true.

Sandra Tanner [00:49:51] The angel with a drawn sword is for him to marry a married woman.

John Dehlin [00:49:54] And what year is that? And when is it? You know, when does that.

Guest [00:49:56] Or several married women.

Dan Vogel [00:49:59] You have Zina, 42 or 1, I can't remember which.

John Dehlin [00:50:03] But he wants to say it happened three times. And he wants to put an angel. Yeah, directing Joseph to. To have sex with Fanny Alger, basically. Right.

Sandra Tanner [00:50:11] Not with Fanny.

Dan Vogel [00:50:12] No, not with Fanny, no.

John Dehlin [00:50:14] Okay. I thought. I thought that's what. He tries to argue. I thought he tries to argue.

Guest [00:50:18] Well, hang on, John. Wait, hang on. If. I don't mind. If you don't mind. So. So with Mary Elizabeth Rollins, he says that the angel appeared in 1834, and that's when the. That's around when the algorithm thing is. So maybe that's what he's trying to get at.

John Dehlin [00:50:29] Yeah, I got the impression that he's trying to get an angel to Joseph before Joseph's having sex with any Alger to sort of give Joseph permission.

Sandra Tanner [00:50:38] Well, yeah,

Dan Vogel [00:50:43] It's highly suspicious. I mean, I don't believe for a minute that the angel with the sword came in 1834. That's what he's talking about in the 1840s.

John Dehlin [00:50:54] Okay.

Dan Vogel [00:50:54] He's saying it happened, but there's no way anyone at that time ever thought that.

John Dehlin [00:50:59] Okay. All right, well, let's go ahead and jump to how Brian explains Fanny Alger.

Brian Hales [00:51:06] Let's first start to talk about Fanny Auger. And as we get started, Brian, before

Dan Vogel [00:51:12] you kind of explain the whole situation,

Brian Hales [00:51:15] why do people have a problem with Fanny Auger? Why is there concern with Fanny Auger? Could you kind of give us that overview as well? Well, I think initially part of the problem was that some authors were saying that Joseph may have married her in 1831 or 1833, which she was. Let's see, she was 19 and 36, so that would have made her very young, 14 or so. And it's shown now, and we know that she could not have even been in the Smith household until really about 1834. So I think initially some of the accusers were using poor data or conclusions. So the, the youth, her youth is. But she was 18 at the time. I think that she was married to Joseph Smith. But the, the other side of it is that it's clear that Emma, at least from the data we have, and the data is not as good as we'd like. And in appendix D, I think in volume two of my trilogy on polygamy, I have an appendix where I put all of the accounts that we could find on Bradley and I could find that deal with Fanny Algren. There's 19. That's it. And some of them are pretty brief, some of them are contradictory. But what the, the story that is that Joseph didn't tell Emma, he, he did marry her. I think that's still a controversial point. But the data is there that she, that Joseph Smith approached Fanny's parents to get permission, which is kind of an odd scenario for a polygamous marriage. But that's what the historical record indicates to us. And he did it through Levi Hancock, who was Fanny's uncle. And so he got permission and then he, Levi Hancock performed a marriage that in Joseph's eyes, God recognized as a bona fide marriage. So this was in there in Joseph size polygamy. But apparently this all transpired without telling Emma. And at some point, According to William McClellan, who was talking to him in 1847, at some point Emma found them in a barn. And I was just in Kirtland last month and I asked Mark Staker if we know where the barn is because they've restored the home they were living in and actually very small when they were there and Fanny was a domestic there and, and I don't know where she would have slept. It was very small at that point. It hadn't been enlarged. But there was a barn somewhere around there that they don't know where. And, and Emma found them in the transaction. Caught them in the transaction is the word I think used by William McClellan. Now what does that mean? Were they, was this some kind of affection or was this the marriage ceremony or, or something. We don't know. But Emma caught them doing something that was clearly unacceptable to her. And even with the explanation from Joseph that, that the angel said we've, we've got to do polygamy now.

John Dehlin [00:54:09] There's so much there. Can you guys imagine if in the Kirtland tour the barn was included in the Kirtland tour? And then the 16 year old Pipley faced Mormon boys are like, what happened at the barn, Elder? Can you imagine that being part of the Kirtland tour?

Sandra Tanner [00:54:26] I noticed he was very careful not to say it could have been a sexual union. He just gives the option. Well, it could have been a ceremony.

Dan Vogel [00:54:38] That's what I mean by just horrible. Horrible apologetics. That's. That's one example.

John Dehlin [00:54:42] Okay, really quick. So Julie, you were laughing throughout that whole thing. Will you tell us why you were laughing? Oh, what was so funny?

Guest [00:54:48] I don't know. There's just so many things that I don't like about this. Like. Oh, it's fine. Like, like later you'll find out that, like that she was pregnant when she left and was kicked out. Like there's just so many problems with Fanny Alger.

John Dehlin [00:54:58] But you don't want to say a

Guest [00:55:00] couple, like, oh, well, I, I can't remember because like there was a bunch of stuff that he said that I don't.

Panel Critiques Brian Hales on Fanny Alger

John Dehlin [00:55:05] So Dan, let's have you. Dan, let's have you go first. What critiques do you have of Brian's just sort of rambling about Fanny Eldridge?

Dan Vogel [00:55:14] Well, first of all, the transaction where it was the last thing mentioned. So yes, I'll start with that. So According to William McLellan, that's the guy that got this from Emma, him herself in 1847, he interviewed Emma or spoke to her and she said, according to McLellan, one night she missed Joseph and Fanny Alger. She went to the barn and saw him and Fanny in the barn together alone. She looked through a crack and saw the transaction. Well, you know, we're in the Victorian area. Okay, so a reporter for the Salt Lake tribute.

John Dehlin [00:55:57] Was it like, was it like a Venmo? Was it Venmo? What was the transaction? Sorry. Keep going, keep going. Sorry.

Dan Vogel [00:56:08] Well, maybe she charged. Anyway, a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune wrote in 1875 that McLellen said that Emma told him that she saw with her own eyes her husband with the hired girl in a barn on a hay mao through the. A crack in the door. So basically the same story. But they're on the hay mao, which is a heap, according to the Internet. Says it rhymes with cow, even though it's spelled mow. A heap or stack of hay, grain or corn. A place, especially a part of the barn where hay or corn is heaped up and stored. Okay, so you get it. So I don't think they're performing any ceremony.

John Dehlin [00:57:04] So there's no, there's no report of any ceiling of like Joseph on one side and Fanny on the other and some priesthood holder in the middle. Well, there is no temple closed. What's that?

Dan Vogel [00:57:15] There is. Well, not. Not in the barn, but no, the story that. So this is Leah Vai Hancock is the one that talks about performing the ceremony. Okay. As if he was the officiator. According to the. His family and his son, Mosiah Hancock, 14 years after. After Levi's death added to his journal, the store, the account. So it's.

Guest [00:57:47] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:57:47] Tell how what the date is at that point. This is real late.

Dan Vogel [00:57:52] Well, it's 1882 is when he died.

Gerardo Sumano [00:57:57] So the son of the uncle of Fanny wrote:14 years after the uncle died right. In his journal as if he had written it.

Dan Vogel [00:58:06] This story. Well, and when you read it, it's very troublesome and problematic because it sounds like it's. It's an underground polygamous culture, much like what you get in Utah. Okay. During the same period he's writing this.

John Dehlin [00:58:22] Why is the lateness a problem?

Sandra Tanner [00:58:23] Well, it's. We're at a period where the church for years now has been preaching polygamy. So on. Someone looking back to this early date back in the 30s is putting back a current concept of Mormonism back into the 1830s and framing this situation as a marriage ceremony like they would have expect to have happened in their day. But when it's a secondhand source. What are we, 60 years removed, 50 years removed from the event to tell us that there was a marriage that is kind of flimsy when there's not cooperating material contemporary with the event to support it.

John Dehlin [00:59:17] So a better explanation is, is what

Sandra Tanner [00:59:20] the closer accounts that talk about it being a dirty, nasty, filthy affair.

John Dehlin [00:59:25] Right, right, right, right. So maybe. Maybe it was written way later once people got concerned and learned about it as a way to make people not be so concerned. Is that what you're thinking?

Sandra Tanner [00:59:34] Yes. To make it legitimate.

Gerardo Sumano [00:59:35] Dan, were you going to read the journal from.

Dan Vogel [00:59:40] No, it's too. It's quite long.

Gerardo Sumano [00:59:42] Okay.

Dan Vogel [00:59:42] Okay.

Dan Vogel [00:59:43] But it's an actual. And the thing that makes me suspicious that. That Levi performed the ordinance is that he was only a 70. He didn't have the high priesthood. He was, you know, he didn't have the patriarchal priesthood.

John Dehlin [01:00:01] Yeah, yeah.

Dan Vogel [01:00:02] So.

Gerardo Sumano [01:00:02] And 70s back then, just missionaries. Right.

Guest [01:00:06] Right.

Gerardo Sumano [01:00:07] Okay.

Dan Vogel [01:00:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:08] Okay.

Dan Vogel [01:00:09] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:00:11] Any. Any other problems we want to note about his account so far?

Gerardo Sumano [01:00:15] Well, it's just if you listen to Brian, he's talking about the sources that he wants to, you know, prioritize and he's. And using. And kind of saying, well, there's this theory that Hancock performed the marriage. And, like, you know, and for any believing member, they listen to that and, like, okay, so there was a marriage, but they don't know that the. The source was written by his son 14 years after he had died in

John Dehlin [01:00:45] his journal 60 years after the event allegedly took place.

Sandra Tanner [01:00:49] Right.

John Dehlin [01:00:49] Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Okay. And, you know, I think we need to just reinforce the whole purpose. You know, the thumbnail today is basically saying, faithful Mormon apologist agrees with CES letter about polygamy. What Brian Hales is acknowledging is, number one, that Fanny lived in the house. Two, that Joseph was caught with Fanny in the barn, that someone saw it, that it was viewed as an affair by the number two in the church, Oliver Cowdery. That's all uncontested.

Gerardo Sumano [01:01:19] That Emma didn't know, but.

John Dehlin [01:01:20] And then Emma didn't know. That's all uncontested. Which means Jeremy Runnels. Check, check, check, check, check. When, you know, church not looking so good. Joseph Smith's not looking so good. So really quickly, Zeke, how's all this Fanny Alger stuff sounding to you so far?

Dan Vogel [01:01:37] So just going over this clip. I think it's pretty. Like, I think it's funny to watch and a little bit ridiculous to see how he is, like, beating the bush or beating around the bush, around everything. Like, if he's got all the facts, just say what happened. It's not. Like, you don't have to sugarcoat everything. And I think it's a little bit ridiculous that. I mean, if Joseph Smith were caught in an affair in the very beginning, all of these things wouldn't have had to happen if he just owned up to what he was doing. But then, like, I understand that he was a prophet, and he had to have some sort of justification for all of these things. So it's just. It's a lot of like, wow, this is crazy. This is ridiculous. This is like, well, what are you

John Dehlin [01:02:36] thinking so far from what you've heard? What do you think it likely happened?

Dan Vogel [01:02:40] Oh, an affair for sure.

John Dehlin [01:02:41] So Joseph's got this cute young thing in his house, and what.

Dan Vogel [01:02:45] I mean, like, yeah, yeah, an affair.

John Dehlin [01:02:48] He had sex with her for sure.

Dan Vogel [01:02:49] Like, I'd. I don't think. I mean, if Emma had gotten that upset about it. I.

Gerardo Sumano [01:02:57] Like, yeah, yeah.

Dan Vogel [01:02:59] What else does it point to?

John Dehlin [01:03:01] Like, and Oliver Cowdery, by the way, what happened? Sandra, tell us what happened to Oliver Cowdery. Harry, once he accuses Joseph Smith of an affair, what happens?

Sandra Tanner [01:03:09] He Gets put out of the church, he's excommunicated. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:13] For actually saying the truth. Am I wrong?

Sandra Tanner [01:03:15] Right. One of the things I think is curious is when the. It is evidently inferred. And I think Hales accepts the inference that Fanny's pregnant because there's a statement that when, when she started to show that she was pregnant that Emma ordered her out of the house and she has to suddenly move out and she goes and stays with the Web family and then moves on to her own family and then suddenly gets married to some non Mormon in another town. But the whole justification for polygamy in the Book of Mormon and Jacob is if God wants to raise up a righteous seed. Well, if she was pregnant, then Joseph was raising up a righteous seed with Fanny. And yet that gets her thrown out of the house and she has to move out. And so yeah, it, it goes against the whole justification they want to bring up for polygamy. And so when it seems to have worked, it's rejected.

John Dehlin [01:04:17] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:04:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:18] All right, well, let's go ahead and go to the next clip. And this is, this clip's called Fanny Alger Overview Part 2.

Brian Hales [01:04:27] And what's interesting is that, that everybody that Joseph told about this, this relationship thought it was adultery because he told Emma, Emma rejected it. But Joseph, to get some help, went and talked to Oliver Cowdery. Oliver comes in there, he agrees with Emma. And so there's. Everybody that Joseph is telling is just saying, Joseph, you shouldn't have done this. This is wrong. This was an affair. This was a, a scrape or something, Oliver later called it. But the interesting thing is that everybody that, that Fanny told considered it a. An actual plural marriage recognized by God. And this included her family who stayed in the church and followed the saints all over. And her uncle Levi Hancock stayed in the church. At that point, Eliza R. Snow was living in the house or was nearby, was teaching school. And she said she was well acquainted with Fanny. And she listed Fanny in her own handwriting on a list of plural wives as, as a plural wife of Joseph Smith. So she considered it a marriage. And then we know also that Fanny went to stay with the Webs, Chauncey Webb and, and Eliza's the daughter, Mary Elizabeth Webb, Mary something Webb. She stayed with them until she could relocate to her family. Then it's for a few weeks there in Kirtland. They also related how this was a marriage, or at least Fanny thought it was a marriage. And so did they. And they stayed in the church until Utah. And, and so with Fanny, we don't have the data that we would like, but there's certainly reasons to believe that this was a. A plural marriage, at least in the eyes of the participants, especially Fanny.

John Dehlin [01:06:10] All right, so Julia, then Gerardo, what do you think of this argument? That it's not a problem because everyone, you know, Fanny, you know, Levi, her whole family. Her whole family and this Chauncey Webb person and Lars Arsenault, they all characterize it as a marriage. Do you think there's any problem with that, Julia, or do you think that's checkmate?

Guest [01:06:35] No, no, no. So I think this is again, backdating because these people, People, the people that he referenced are all active members of the church. So you have the Chauncey's, who's a blacksmith. He made the. He helped make the hand carts to go west. And like, so they're all in the church. And so like, Fanny leaves the house and she comes over to live with the webs, and she's pregnant. So they all have to, like, figure out how this is okay in their head. They're like, oh, maybe it's a ceiling. Maybe even not right then, but maybe like later the, the. The Hancocks aren't even acknowledging that it's a ceiling. I don't think they do it contemporaneously. I think they, they call it that later. And I don't know if that's correct, Dan or Sandra, but I don't think that that's accurate. I think that at the time they had to frame it some way to make it okay. And even that wasn't written down until later, like, as a ceiling. Like, I don't, I don't know if I agree with, with how Brian's characterizing that.

Gerardo Sumano [01:07:17] Wouldn't people be scared too, to call out Joseph because they're seeing the second man in command being excommunicated of the church from.

Sandra Tanner [01:07:26] Yeah, right. And yes, the ones that are supporting it as a marriage are people that later go on to accept polygamy so that they're looking back at the situation and saying, oh, well, obviously it was a plural marriage. Like, regardless of what Emma or what Fanny may have viewed it, if Joseph told her it was a marriage of some sort, those that were immediately around her did not see it as a legitimate union.

Guest [01:08:02] Right.

Sandra Tanner [01:08:04] So.

Guest [01:08:04] Right. I also wanted to add, though really quick, because he mentioned Eliza R. Snow. So Don Bradley puts Elizar Snow as living in the house at the. At the time. Like, maybe even in the same room as Fanny Alger or Alger. But so when. So if she knew about the union. She didn't, it didn't cross her mind as a. As a polygamous marriage, because when she learned about it later, she was shocked. She was like, whoa, polygamy is going to be part of the church? Like, not in my lifetime. Maybe later. But then. So she's surprised. So that's not in her mindset then. So, like, I don't think that's fair of Brian to do this.

John Dehlin [01:08:35] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [01:08:37] I don't know how Eliza would even be in the home. I. I mean, this is a small house. I don't know how.

Guest [01:08:43] Right.

Sandra Tanner [01:08:43] Living there.

Guest [01:08:44] Right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:45] Dan, did you want to comment on this? On Brian's justification?

Dan Vogel [01:08:49] Julie is correct about Eliza R. Snow. She. When she learned about polygamy later in Nauvoo, she says in her own, in her own writings that she was surprised by. She didn't have any idea about polygamy. So if she knew. If she. So she didn't interpret it at the time or didn't understand what was going on. She called what Emma did when she threw Fanny out as a fuss, you know, and so she didn't quite understand the whole thing. Maybe she. I don't know what she assumed at the time. Maybe she thought Joseph had it fair, but.

Gerardo Sumano [01:09:31] Because what Brian's trying to make it

Dan Vogel [01:09:33] hard to get that interpretation and believe that Eliza's still, you know, good with the church, so.

Gerardo Sumano [01:09:43] Because what Brian's trying to make everyone think is that everyone Joseph's told believed it was an affair. But, but immediately after, everyone that Fanny told accepted it as a marriage. And, and, but the people that accepted it as a marriage, supposedly they, you know, they're talking about it retroactively. Like, once I learned about polygamy.

John Dehlin [01:10:06] Yeah, like that logic. Just do a poll, Sandra. What percentage of Warren Jeff's, you know, what percentage of the parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins of Warren Jeff's wives considered those marriages to be of God? What percentage would you guess?

Sandra Tanner [01:10:25] Well, it depends on whether they were in the movement or not. If they're in the movement, they accept it from God. If they weren't in the movement, they didn't.

John Dehlin [01:10:32] So does that prove anything to say that a bunch of people in the movement believed that these things were from God? Like family members?

Sandra Tanner [01:10:39] That's why they're in the movement.

John Dehlin [01:10:40] Exactly. So that's kind of. I think that's really bad logic. We all know that when people follow a cult leader, whether it's Keith Ranieri or L. Ron Hubbard or David Koresh or Joseph Smith, that the followers believe the prophet. That's why they're following the prophet. That's why it's called a cult. So just to cherry pick certain members and say they all considered it a legitimate marriage of God 10 or 20 or 30 years later once they were committed to the movement. I think that's disingenuous of Brian to make that argument. I think it's more, I think it's more relevant for him to focus on the fact that number two in command, Oliver Cowdery, thought it was an affair and adulteress and that Joseph Smith punished him by excommunicating him for calling him on it and that his own freaking wife, Emma wasn't told, thought it was an affair. And, and then if you add to that what we read later in DNC 132, the law of Sarah, when God finally gets around to putting into the Doctrine and Covenants, you know, his revelation to Joseph on polygamy, which I'm doing air quotes for those of you who can't listen. He includes in his pure revelation on polygamy the love Sarah and Sandra. Can you tell us what the law of Sarah is says?

Sandra Tanner [01:11:59] Well, a man has to ask his first wife permission to take a second wife, but if she refused to give permission, that's okay because he can go ahead anyways.

John Dehlin [01:12:08] Right, but, I mean, but, but Joseph DC132 is in Mormon scripture today, is that right?

Sandra Tanner [01:12:15] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:12:16] And so that's God's way. And if that's God's way, then Joseph Smith. Another argument against, against this being legitimate is Joseph didn't follow God's commanded way of following the law of Sarah by getting Emma's consent before he brings Fanny Alger into the equation.

Sandra Tanner [01:12:34] Well, and I think we need to keep in mind what Brian is conceding. He's conceding that a single girl in the home had relations with Joseph without Emma's knowledge that contemporaries considered to be an affair and later was perceived to be part of a religious practice.

John Dehlin [01:12:59] Yeah, that's right.

Sandra Tanner [01:13:00] And he is conceding all of that. The problem is whether or not you want to make it right doctrinally as a practice, as a part of Mormon teachings. But the basic outline of the situation, I think everybody agrees to.

John Dehlin [01:13:19] Dan Vogel, is it fair to call what Brian Hales is doing right here revisionist history? Is that fair or unfair in your view?

Dan Vogel [01:13:28] What part, I'm sorry, where he's, where

John Dehlin [01:13:31] he's saying that all of, all of Fanny's family ended up being, being, you know, called it called it a marriage, called it a legitimate marriage. Do you think that's revisionist history?

Dan Vogel [01:13:42] Well, they believed it was a legitimate marriage. They called it a ceiling. But that's kind of anachronistic for the 18, mid-1830s. Right. And. But is it revisionist or is it deceptive, apologetic? Well, it really doesn't mean anything. You know, it doesn't prove that it does.

John Dehlin [01:14:04] It does. It means something in the context of people going to him to try and figure out what's right. If somebody is going. When someone goes to the CES letter or Mormon stories or Brian Hales, it's like Zeke, and they're trying to find out what's true and whether it's a problem or not, whether the church is true or whether Joseph Smith's a legitimate prophet. And so Zeke, if Brian Hales's response is, hey, decades later.

Gerardo Sumano [01:14:31] Well, he doesn't say decades later. He makes it sound like he was on the moment.

John Dehlin [01:14:34] Yeah, it's like Zeke, if Brian says, hey, all of Fanny's family called it a marriage. Do you. Do you feel like now that you know all the context, that that's an honest way to handle doubts or concerns you might have?

Dan Vogel [01:14:48] No, not really.

John Dehlin [01:14:49] Why not?

Dan Vogel [01:14:50] My. My first question would be, like, what was Emma's thoughts like? I think it's kind of insensitive. I mean, I don't. I haven't seen the full video. But how. I don't know. Has Emma made any. Like, has she recorded anything, like, in journals or anything about how she felt about it? What happened?

John Dehlin [01:15:14] Well, I mean, Emily's polluted. Why? Why, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [01:15:17] Well, Emma ends up with her sons heading up the reorganized LDS church, which denied polygamy after Joseph's death. So she has a vested interest in the whole thing. But she denies, later in life, after her children are in the reorganized church, she comes out and says Joseph never practiced polygamy. So I think that she is willfully deceiving us in her statements in that regard. I think history shows that Emma couldn't face what Joseph did and has to try to make everyone believe that she had this wonderful marriage with a faithful husband. But historical evidence, I think, shows that that wasn't the situation. And poor Emma was put in a position of trying to put the best face on a very difficult marriage.

John Dehlin [01:16:08] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [01:16:09] Yes. Well, she almost divorced him, according to William Clayton's journal.

Gerardo Sumano [01:16:14] They almost poisoned him.

Guest [01:16:17] Yes. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:16:20] I want to ask.

Dan Vogel [01:16:21] Well, yeah, I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:16:23] So the question is, did Emma almost poisoned Joseph? He thought Joseph, I don't know.

Dan Vogel [01:16:31] But I would add that emma told William McClellan.

John Dehlin [01:16:35] Okay.

Dan Vogel [01:16:36] In 1847, she knew her husband, the prophet, practiced both adultery and polygamy.

Gerardo Sumano [01:16:43] Wow. What can we. Can we talk about? Who is William and why is he important? Because McClellan,

Dan Vogel [01:16:53] one of the apostles.

Gerardo Sumano [01:16:54] Okay.

Dan Vogel [01:16:55] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:16:55] And isn't.

Dan Vogel [01:16:56] Are.

Gerardo Sumano [01:16:57] Is. Is it some of his journals that the church has. Has refused to release? Some of them,

Sandra Tanner [01:17:05] I think. Yeah, they've been published, I believe.

John Dehlin [01:17:08] But are they redacted or incomplete? They're published in their entirety.

Dan Vogel [01:17:13] Yeah. Well, okay. There's two great volumes of William McClellan's writings, and one of them is the journals by. Jack Welsh and Ships. Jan Ships.

John Dehlin [01:17:30] Okay. Okay. All right. Well, that seems like a disingenuous explanation to me on the part of. Of Brian Hales. It seems like an explanation intended to mislead or deceive, not to kind of give a fair reading of what the evidence shows.

Dan Vogel [01:17:50] Well, John, they believed it was. The family believed it was a legitimate marriage, but they don't tell us how, what kind of marriage it was. They may have just assumed that their prophet wouldn't. Wouldn't do anything wrong.

John Dehlin [01:18:05] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, same with Warren Jeff's followers. Right? So that doesn't mean really anything. All right, let's go ahead and go to the next video clip which talks about the ceiling keys being restored.

Sealing Keys, Early Marriage, and Fanny Alger

Brian Hales [01:18:21] Marriage was. The ceiling keys were restored April 3rd.

John Dehlin [01:18:25] Right.

Brian Hales [01:18:25] Of 1836. This marriage is discovered a couple of months later. And so if it were in that period, it could have been the very first ceiling in the church. I. I've traditionally dated it late 1835, but there's no real reason for. For that timing other than the angel came in the middle of 1834, commanding it according to. To Joseph's report to Mary Elizabeth Rollins. So I. I would have thought it would take a year or so for. For that all to unfold, but we really don't know. And Don Bradley has written an article, it's just recently published on where he's. He's dating it after April 3, making it a ceiling. And if it were before that, the authority would just be priesthood authority and it wouldn't be an eternal marriage. But Joseph would have had the authority.

Dan Vogel [01:19:10] He.

Brian Hales [01:19:11] He declared that he did, and he could have given that to Levi. Priesthood authority to perform the marriage in a way that God would recognize it even if the state of Ohio didn't.

John Dehlin [01:19:20] All right, so, Zeke, you would expect there to be priesthood authority before Joseph's performing plural marriages, correct?

Dan Vogel [01:19:27] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:19:28] Okay, so why are you Shaking your head, Julia.

Guest [01:19:31] Oh, there he. He was talking about. I was just. I don't like how he's trying to date. How he's, like, talking about evidence of dating Fanny Algaraz in late, after this event because she was living with them for years. I don't know that we have a start date, but we have a date for her to be kicked out. And I just think that's disingenuous of him to do that.

John Dehlin [01:19:50] Okay. Dan, do you want to add anything? Dan?

Dan Vogel [01:19:53] Yeah, I kind of agree with Julia. We still don't have a start date, but what they try to do is date it to July of 1836, which is after the endowment in the Kirtland Temple. And they. They associate the ceiling power to. To. For polygamy marriages to Elijah, which is. No one at the time, hardly anybody knew about it, first of all. But at the time, they. They did not associate this polygamy ceiling power with Elijah. I mean, of course, over. Couch would not have interpreted it that way.

Gerardo Sumano [01:20:35] Okay, so he was there because he was supposedly there. I. I hadn't thought of that. So.

Dan Vogel [01:20:43] So it's a.

Gerardo Sumano [01:20:44] Later.

Dan Vogel [01:20:45] Joe Smith hardly ever talked about Elijah and the ceiling powers until, like the last months of his life. And this associate. So they think that they have to. It's. It's so baptism for the dead, turning the hearts of the fathers to the children kind of a thing made sense, you know, with baptism for the dead, but it doesn't really make much sense with polygamous marriages. But they want to. Somehow they want to stick it on to Elijah. And. And I think at the time, the. The three angels that appeared and gave keys and. And it was Elias, which we know is another is the Greek form of Elijah. But. So Elias is the one that restored the gospel of Abraham, which would you. You might think he. He might restore the keys of the polygamy, you know, so anyway, so they're stuck and they want to make the marriage after this Elijah April 3rd appearance. I think they're just really straining. It's a. They call it a hypothesis, you know, and. But I believe it's anachronistic, basically. And I. I think it's totally unnecessary to try to. To limit the time to that when Julia was just talking about. Well, we know when it was discovered. And when I wrote my biography, my recent biography, that's what I went by, because we don't know when it began. So. And she supposedly lived with him for seven years and.

Gerardo Sumano [01:22:31] Seven.

Dan Vogel [01:22:32] Seven. When she was like 14 or something, like much younger and it was she.

Guest [01:22:41] Hang on, was she 16 at this time or was she. Was she older? Was she younger? I know, 19.

Dan Vogel [01:22:46] When it was discovered.

Guest [01:22:47] Okay. Oh, that's true. When it was discovered.

Dan Vogel [01:22:50] Yeah. So. And I'm just. So we know that happened. So that's where I go. And then I just say, nobody knows when it began, but Chauncey Webb is the one that says that. That she was pregnant and started showing signs of the celestial union. And so you could say that if it was discovered in July, she would be just barely showing maybe three or four months, depending on her weight, maybe. I don't know. So who would know when it be when she got pregnant? I'm kind of skeptical about Chauncey's. He's the only guy that mentions pregnancy. And Brian will mention later that when she does get to Indiana and. And Mary's Custer is the guy's name. Her. That's her. Her married name, her real married name. And raises her own kids. There's no sign of that. There would be a child within the range of Justice Smith being able to be the father. So it's not a sure thing that she was pregnant. So you. The. The idea that you can use the pregnancy to date when it began is maybe not true, but you can go for quite a while. We know Joseph Smith had sex and didn't have children in Nauvoo if he tried really hard.

John Dehlin [01:24:23] Right.

Dan Vogel [01:24:25] So, yeah, you never know when it really began. You can't. Some of those arguments are really flimsy because Dumbra.

Gerardo Sumano [01:24:33] Because Don Bradley will try to say today, you know, that he wants to date it after Moses and Elijah, though.

Guest [01:24:39] Brian Hills.

Gerardo Sumano [01:24:41] Sorry, Don Bradley.

John Dehlin [01:24:43] Oh, Don Bradley who worked with Brian Hills.

Guest [01:24:45] Oh, yes. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:24:46] Right.

John Dehlin [01:24:46] Okay. And Julia, you have a slide on the ceiling power and restoration. Do we cover that or is there something.

Guest [01:24:52] Yeah, we pretty much covered that. I did. We. We already talked about that.

John Dehlin [01:24:55] Okay, perfect. All right, So I guess that closes out, you know, the issue of Fanny Alger.

Gerardo Sumano [01:25:03] I. I do want to emphasize one point that was a really interesting point. If we go by with Brian Hales and Don Bradley want to say today that the marriage between Fanny and Joseph happened after the keys, Moses and Elijah appeared to. To Joseph and. And Oliver in the Kirkland Temple. Why was Oliver questioning the. The polygamous marriage or the affair. Yeah, after. Right. That wouldn't make sense.

John Dehlin [01:25:35] It's. It's an injustice to even call it a marriage. I've had people get really mad at me and say, yeah, there was no marriage. It was Joseph Misusing his power, having sex with the teenage girl living in his home. And to call it a marriage is a gross miscarriage of history and justice. Is that what you think, Cedra?

Sandra Tanner [01:25:54] Right. And I think also you have to keep in mind every girl doesn't get pregnant on the first sexual intercourse. So that they want to say, you know, well, where are all these children? Or why, if he was having sex with Fanny for some time, why wouldn't there have been a child much sooner? But you don't know how often. You don't know how much the clandestine affair affects one's ability to get pregnant. My girlfriend that got married at the same time I did, she went several years before she had a child, and she did finally conceive. But evidently it was a lot to do with her own emotional status of emotional setting keeping her from becoming pregnant. So I don't think that we can say, well, he should have had all these children, because you don't know the setting, how often Joseph had sex with each of these girls.

John Dehlin [01:27:05] Yeah, and we, we've covered this in the LDS discussion series, which we want to recommend to everyone. But basically there are lots, you know, they're not dumb. In the 19th century, there are ways that people consciously avoided having children. You can imagine different ways that people could avoid having children intentionally, even in the 19th century. And we won't go into that here, but you can imagine. Use your imagination. All right, let's go ahead and go to the next question that Brian Hales tries to cover here. And that's the question of whether or not. Well, sorry, how many wives did Joseph Smith have? Let's go to the video.

Joseph Smith's 34 to 40 Wives

Brian Hales [01:27:48] So the, the CES letter, it claims, and this is verified by the church's 2014 polygamy essay, but that Joseph Smith was at at least married to 34 women. Is that a correct number, do you know? It depends who we want to read. The first person to make a list was a woman named FOM Brody who wrote no man knows My History. And she had 48.

Dan Vogel [01:28:13] Oh, wow.

Brian Hales [01:28:14] But two of them are duplicates. But it's a remarkable list all the same, because she's. She's not working with computers and things, so she had 46. Net. The. The list most commonly used is Todd Compton's, which is 33. And it's a very fine list. Jersey Smith at 38, I think. Richard Bushman at 32. My list has 35. I've added two to Todd Compton's list. But these editions are added with some pretty dubious evidence. But I'VE just tried to be complete. So somewhere between 33 and 35. And you said 34, so that's a good number. All of them are there. You know, I do know that church historians have been working on their own list, and it has three different types of wives. Wives who reported they were Joseph's wives, people. And then a second group where the evidence is really strong that they were. And then a third group that. That is kind of. There's some dubious names in there. I looked at them. I. I'd rejected them from my list and. But when you put all those numbers together, it's 38. So, you know, somewhere in the 30s. And. But by my accounting, about a third of these are eternity only non sexual marriages. We can talk about that, right?

John Dehlin [01:29:28] All right, let's do a roll call. So, Gerardo, in all your time being raised in the church, serving a mission, going to byu, Idaho, in a church setting. So we're talking sacrament meeting, Sunday school, elders quorum, did did you ever hear mention of Joseph Smith having 30 to 40 wives? You go first.

Gerardo Sumano [01:29:49] No, no.

John Dehlin [01:29:49] In. In all those two or three, two and a half decades in the church, how many wives were mentioned? How many Joseph Smith wives were mentioned to you?

Gerardo Sumano [01:29:59] Just one, Emma. I. I didn't know he was a polygamist.

John Dehlin [01:30:02] All right, Julia, you're next. In. In all your. Your decades in the church, how many of Joseph Smith's wives were mentioned in a church setting?

Guest [01:30:12] None. None of them?

Gerardo Sumano [01:30:14] Well, actually, I would say they were.

John Dehlin [01:30:16] Other than Emma.

Guest [01:30:17] I mean. Yeah, of course. Emma. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:30:19] Okay, you change your question a little bit.

Guest [01:30:22] Yeah, because that's different. Because if wives were mentioned, they were

Gerardo Sumano [01:30:25] mentioned, but they was not mentioned that they were their wives. They were his wives. Oh, meaning like the girl that, like, saved the. The papers of the evidence?

John Dehlin [01:30:34] No, I'm saying mentioned. How many.

Gerardo Sumano [01:30:36] Okay, okay.

John Dehlin [01:30:37] How many. What number of wives were mentioned?

Dan Vogel [01:30:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:41] Julia, in all of your curriculum in Sunday school and teaching and seminary and. And, you know, education courses, how many wives of Joseph Smith were mentioned by the church?

Guest [01:30:53] So for me, none. But I. I knew. So in a vague sort of way, I knew that he did live polygamy, but I thought it was just for, like, widows or for, like, women whose husbands had died in war or something like that. Like in the. I don't know. That's all I'd heard. No specific names, no specific number.

John Dehlin [01:31:06] And Zeke, in all your time as a Mormon, what did the church teach you about the number of wives Joseph Smith had?

Dan Vogel [01:31:14] Just Emma.

John Dehlin [01:31:16] Okay.

Dan Vogel [01:31:16] Yeah, that's it.

John Dehlin [01:31:17] Yeah, And I didn't learn about all this Till I was 31, and it was through Fon Brody. So I just wanted to kind of establish that. So now, you know, kudos to Brian Hales. He's acknowledging that it's somewhere between 32 and 48 wives. 32 and 46 wives. So, again, check, check. Checkmate Jeremy runnels in the CES letter. By the way, I'll do an ad for CES letter. Go to csletter.org, download the PDF, buy it, buy the book, buy it for friends, Share the PDF with friends and family. I'm going to keep plugging the CES letter until these apologists stop attacking Jeremy Reynolds. That's the whole reason I'm doing this series. Stop attacking Jeremy Reynolds, stop giving bad apologetics and attacking the CES letter as bad scholarship or as disingenuous or untruthful. When you stop that church and apologists, then I'll stop advertising for the CSR. You get no money for this, etc. I just. I just want you guys to stop mistreating Jeremy and stop speaking ill of something that's been more honest than the church and its leaders have ever been to date. All right, how about.

Sandra Tanner [01:32:31] Let me weigh in on this, please. Okay. Being raised in a home where I'm a director, Senator, Brigham Young, and on summer vacations, we would visit my great grandma, who was the last living plural wife of Brigham Young Jr. Who was the apostle son of Brigham Young. I grew up knowing about Brigham Young's polygamy. However, I did not know how many wives Brigham Young had. I just knew he had plural wives. I never envisioned that. It was in the 50s. And then you take Brigham Young Jr. I knew that my great grandma was a polygamist wife, but I had no idea how many he had either. And it never occurred to me that Joseph Smith had plural wives. Now, I don't know why, but it just never did. I knew he gave section 132 on polygamy, which is why the Young family went into it, but it didn't occur to me that Joseph had more wives. And like John, I didn't know about this till I read Fawn Brody.

John Dehlin [01:33:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the church has been super deceptive about this. Super. You know, and punishing Fawn Brody and excommunicating her so that no one will read her book, and punishing people if they read her book or talk about it. That's all, in my mind. A significant crime. Thought crime, honesty crime. It's sin, by the Mormon church's standards because it's just not honest. And once more, the CES letter was published, according to this slide, in April of 2013. And what you'll notice is the sequence there. It's not until 2014, November. November of 2014, that Lori Goodstein publishes in the New York Times the first acknowledgment of the church that Joseph Smith had up to 40 wives. So, again, you know, Sanders been mentioning it forever. Fawn Brody was mentioning it forever. Before that, of course, Mormon Stories had Todd Compton on very, very, very early. Todd Compton was mentioning it. And then. And then CES letter. It's like everyone in their dog mentioned Joseph Smith's polygamy before the Mormon Church finally acknowledged it in late 2014, after the Internet just forced the church to come clean.

Sandra Tanner [01:35:00] And they didn't give us the list of the wives.

John Dehlin [01:35:03] Yeah. In the Gospel Topics.

Sandra Tanner [01:35:06] Gospel Topics.

John Dehlin [01:35:07] Why is that significant, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [01:35:08] Well, because it's not. It doesn't make it as real to people when you just say a number. And the number was, as I recall, was in the footnote. It. It's not in the actual text. I think that it's 30 to 40 wives.

John Dehlin [01:35:21] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:35:21] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [01:35:22] And then they don't give you the names of the women.

John Dehlin [01:35:25] Yeah. And they deserve to be named because by many people's perspective, they're victims of coercion or abuse or they're.

Sandra Tanner [01:35:33] They're the. If it's all true, they should be honored as these faithful servants of God that went against public opinion to do the right thing and marry this gospel principle. Why. Why aren't they proud of these women?

John Dehlin [01:35:47] Yeah. A couple other, you know, news reports. There's the BBC Mormon Church, polygamy. Joseph Smith had up to 40 wives. Again, that's November 2014, after the polygamy Gospel Topics essays were released. Yeah. And then npr, same sort of thing.

Gerardo Sumano [01:36:07] And today, this was all of national news, world news. Most Mormons today still don't know that Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [01:36:15] Yeah, that's. That's also mind blowing. Yeah, that's a great point, Gerardo. Listen, viewers who are not Mormon, most Mormons today still don't know that Joseph Smith had up to 40 wives. True.

Sandra Tanner [01:36:27] Right?

John Dehlin [01:36:29] Am I. Yeah.

Dan Vogel [01:36:29] Why so many, huh?

Sandra Tanner [01:36:31] Why so many?

Dan Vogel [01:36:33] Why is they so greedy? Why don't they just have maybe three wives? Why do they. Why do they have to have 30 and 40 and 50 wives? I mean, that doesn't sound like God. That does sound like libido.

Sandra Tanner [01:36:45] Yes.

Dan Vogel [01:36:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:48] Yeah. Why would God. Zeke. Why would God require. Joseph gets 30. Brigham Young gets 40 or 50, and then the other lowly guys get 2 or 3 or 4. How does that sound to you?

Dan Vogel [01:37:02] What the heck?

Dan Vogel [01:37:05] I mean, when I was taught about polygamy, when I was taught about polygamy, I was always, like. It was always mentioned to me that it was like a couple of wives, like 1 or 2 or 3. These numbers are. What the heck?

Dan Vogel [01:37:24] They're ridiculous.

John Dehlin [01:37:28] I mean. Yeah, it's, it's. I, I, you know, I've used this quote a lot. My friend always told me, like, dimes to a dimes to a dollar, pennies, pennies to a nickel, or pennies to a dime. Once a woman is one of 30 or one of 40, that shows what her value or worth is in the relationship, right?

Church Members' Awareness of Plural Marriage

Sandra Tanner [01:37:47] Yes. How can you have any kind of a true marriage relationship with 35 women?

John Dehlin [01:37:56] Yeah. And then, and then why do the men who have more power get more wives? That's just problematic. And then. But then if you study, like, bonobo behavior or like, gorilla or chimpanzee behavior, evolutionarily wise. Yeah. The alpha males. Did you know this, Zeke? The alpha males in bonobo groups get, get more sexual partners, and then it all makes sense. If you actually look at Joseph Smith and Brigham Young from a monkey lens, from an ape lens, from a bonobo lens, it actually makes all the sense in the world. And there's actually a book called Alpha God that talks about this. If you look at polygamy, Joseph Smith's polygamy, and Brigham Young's polygamy from the lens of evolutionary biology, it makes 100% sense.

Dan Vogel [01:38:45] I would argue it makes more sense than looking at it through any kind of, like, religious or spiritual lens.

Dan Vogel [01:38:51] Like.

John Dehlin [01:38:53] Yeah, yeah.

Sandra Tanner [01:38:54] Well. And then you run out of women. It's just. I mean, how many single women are there in Nauvoo if, If the top guys get to have several dozen each.

John Dehlin [01:39:06] Yeah, yeah. And Warren Jeffs has how many? You know, like, 50, 60. And. And then we've got the whole lot. 80. And then we've got the whole Lost Boys problem where these men.

Gerardo Sumano [01:39:15] Because later, Later Brian will say, well, Warren Jeffs is so much worse because he got 80. Joseph only 30.

John Dehlin [01:39:23] Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that. Yeah. Anyway, it's just. It's so gross that. Yeah.

Dan Vogel [01:39:30] The part, the worst part for me is in that situation you have, there is no such thing as an intimate relationship. There's no intimacy, no human intimacy at all.

Sandra Tanner [01:39:46] Right.

Dan Vogel [01:39:46] It's sad. Very sad.

John Dehlin [01:39:48] Yeah. For the women, Joseph Smith really is.

Guest [01:39:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:53] There's a reason why Joe's why Todd Compton named his book In Sacred Loneliness. Right. These women, so many of them were just alone, lonely, waiting for Joseph to come around once a month or however often he was able to come around.

Sandra Tanner [01:40:06] And then it got even worse when they ended up marrying Brigham Young after Joseph dies. And then they're really just pieces named on a piece of paper. I mean, they aren't. Brigham Young marries and Heber C. Kimball marry several of Joseph's plural wives, but they just become cattle put out pasture.

John Dehlin [01:40:27] Yeah, yeah. All these accounts of the younger wives getting all the sexual attention and the older wives being neglected and left behind or even put away. Right.

Sandra Tanner [01:40:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:40:37] A lot of these older wives, they just get left and abandoned, and then they've got four, five, six, eight kids, and they've got to raise these kids while their husband's off having a mission or having younger wives. It's just a, it's. It's really, it's really awful.

Sandra Tanner [01:40:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:40:52] Yeah. All right. Well. And again, the power dynamic is, is probably the worst thing of all. We just have to keep reminding you when you're in a position of power, it's wrong to take advantage of. To say God's telling you to have sex with these 14 year olds. It's just wrong on all the levels. Okay, the next clip we're going to talk about is, is answering the question, was Joseph dragging his feet?

Brian Hales [01:41:22] When Joseph finally gets to Nauvoo, we, we hear that the angel came a second time to say we want polygamy. And, and yet we see Joseph demurring. I mean, he's, he's, he's dragging his feet, which wasn't the way Joseph attacked things. I mean, he was, he was bold in so many ways. But when it came to plural marriage in Nauvoo, what we find is there's a marriage reportedly in 1841 to Louisa Beeman, who was single. And there's good evidence it was consummated. Don Bradley positions that to a year later in 1842. And there's some, some good reasons to think that might be the case. But other than that one marriage, the first half a dozen or so of these ceilings are to women who are legally married.

John Dehlin [01:42:07] All right, reactions to that.

Sandra Tanner [01:42:12] Well, if, if he's dragging his feet, why is he going to married women? I mean, this just doesn't make any sense.

Guest [01:42:20] Well, so can I respond to that, Julia, please? So, so the argument I've responded to Don Bradley, I've listened to his fair thing, and I think it's so ridiculous. Anyway, but he's trying to make the. The married women better because Joseph wasn't in it for the sex. Because they're. Because you. You don't have sex with married women. And a lot of them were pregnant. Like, Zina was eight months pregnant. Mary Elizabeth Rollins, I think, was pregnant.

John Dehlin [01:42:41] And so, like, when he married them,

Guest [01:42:42] you're saying when he married them, when Joseph took them as. Or married. I don't know how to say that. But yeah, when he took these women, they were. They were super pregnant. And so people are saying. Or Don Bradley and Brian Hills, I guess, are trying to make it okay that he's marrying already married pregnant women. So that it. So he's dragging his feet because he's not having sex with them. It could harm the baby. Like, that's. I think that's what they're trying to say.

John Dehlin [01:43:04] As far as that, Zeke, what's your verdict on Joseph marrying married women who are pregnant? It's like

Dan Vogel [01:43:19] my stomach's doing back, folks. That's really all I had to say. It's.

John Dehlin [01:43:25] It just gets worse and worse. Yeah, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:43:30] Oh, I'm interested to hear what Dan thinks about Joseph dragging his feet.

John Dehlin [01:43:34] All right, Dan.

Dan Vogel [01:43:40] Well, so, I mean, that's. Brian. That's all that is. You know, it's some sort of fantasy he wants to believe about. Joe Smith is the reluctant polygamist who then excels, you know, to 30 women. But the origin of polyandry. Why did polyandry begin in the first place? Why did he start marrying married women? Well, the first ones were, you know, so one of the easiest things to see is that if they. He couldn't. He couldn't get a pregnant woman pregnant. And he could. If he got someone pregnant, there would be cover story, okay? Because they have husbands. And later he marries Elizabeth and Whitney. And. And then there's a front husband. Tell us about that.

Joseph Smith's Reluctance and Polyandrous Wives

Gerardo Sumano [01:44:46] What is that?

Dan Vogel [01:44:47] What is that, Kingsbury? Well, this Kingsbury married Sarah and Whitney as a cover for Joseph because Joseph was the real one. And Kingsbury talks about it, about him doing that for Joseph. So he had various ways of trying to hide it because he didn't want to get arrested. But the first. Who was the first. Polyandrous marriage? That was Zina D. Huntington. She was the second plural wife in Nauvoo. And Joseph approached her when she was single before she got married. And she kind of was being pursued by a guy named Jacobs. And she chose Jacobs over Joseph Smith, you know, and got married and got pregnant. And Joseph More or less his pride got the best of him in this situation. And he then talked to z brother Dimik and gave him a message to give to Zina. So Democrat went to Zion and gave him the message. And here's Zionist, pregnant, married for a couple of months or so. And this is what Dimick told her. This is what Joseph told Dimmick to tell her. Tell Zina, I put it off and put it off till an angel had a drawn sword stood before by me and told me that if I did not establish the principle upon the earth, I would lose my position in my life. So that put a lot of pressure on Zina, but she still hesitated for months, struggling with this idea of trying to save her prophet's life, you know, and.

Gerardo Sumano [01:46:52] Because the angel's gonna kill.

Dan Vogel [01:46:53] Yeah. And that's. How much more pressure do you need? I mean, Brian later will talk about. He never pressured anyone and he took no for an answer. Well, he didn't take no for an answer in this case.

John Dehlin [01:47:08] What do you. What is your reaction to this idea that God sends an angel with a sword to threaten Joseph? That. That God's gonna have the angel kill Joseph unless Joseph tells this woman, this young, attractive woman, pregnant, who's pregnant. Unless Joseph tells her that he's been threatened with death unless she marries him, he's going to get killed by an angel sent by God. What do you think about that story?

Dan Vogel [01:47:43] Like,

John Dehlin [01:47:48] Would God send an angel to threaten a prophet with death so that he could tell a pregnant woman that she needs to start. She needs to marry him and have sex with him, basically, is that.

Dan Vogel [01:48:00] I don't. I don't think that's even close to what could be. Like, is.

John Dehlin [01:48:05] Is your. Would your God do that? I guess I'll ask.

Dan Vogel [01:48:08] No, no, no. Like you'd like. We've always been taught, like, everyone has agency, everyone has a choice to choose.

John Dehlin [01:48:15] Well, she can choose to let Joseph get killed, I guess.

Dan Vogel [01:48:20] But

John Dehlin [01:48:22] is that a choice when God's sending an angel to kill the prophet? If she doesn't agree, That's a lot of pressure. Yeah, it's. I mean, it's an awful, coercive, terrible God if. If that's what that's happening?

Sandra Tanner [01:48:37] Well, Joseph already has two wives, plural. He already has two plural wives. Why would God send an angel to threaten him to take a third plural wife?

Dan Vogel [01:48:50] I don't think Zina knows about the other one. I don't think we all know. So it sounds like they're the first one saving his life.

Sandra Tanner [01:49:00] That's a great Line, evidently. I don't know how many times you can use it, but.

Gerardo Sumano [01:49:05] Well, several women talk about the angel.

Dan Vogel [01:49:07] Yeah,

Sandra Tanner [01:49:09] it'll work on the next one.

Dan Vogel [01:49:13] So several months, though it took for Zion decided she finally did. I mean that's, that's torture. I mean, unnecessary torture. Joseph is very selfish here. And this is the origin. This is the first polyandrous marriage where he competes with another man because he's angry that he lost out. Basically. That's the origin of polyandry, you know.

Sandra Tanner [01:49:42] Right.

Dan Vogel [01:49:42] Well, so Brian will say later, he will say, but he never talks about details. He will say none of these 14 women, they were all eternity only ceilings. And. But Zina. Okay, now that we're talking about Zion, I might as well do it now. So she said in an interview with a Re RLDS elder, John Wright White. I mean, it was something too sacred to. To be talked about. It was more than life or death. I never breathed it for years. Then she said in a. In her autobiography, when I heard that God had revealed the law of celestial marriage, I obtained a testimony for myself. Yeah. After several months that God had required that order to be established in his church. I made a great sacrifice then to give my life for a. Never anticipated again to be looked upon as an honorable woman by those I dearly loved. Now they're no sex. It's just an eternity only marriage. Why does she feel that other people are going to look upon her? That she has lost her honor by marrying Joseph Smith?

John Dehlin [01:51:12] Julia looked like you were having kind of an emotional reaction when Dan was reading that. Do you want to tell us what emotions you were feeling?

Guest [01:51:18] Yeah, I hate Zina's story. Like, it's so heartbreaking because. Because, because her husband, Henry Jacobs, he loves her like, like Joseph was even supposed to officiate and he doesn't show up because he's so mad and like, like he constantly tries to like whittle away at her. Her desire to not be with Joseph and want to be with Henry. And then like he's sending. Joseph's sending Henry on missions constantly. And like I, I just, they're, they're, their story is so heartbreaking to me. So that's why I have eight missions,

Gerardo Sumano [01:51:44] I think right now.

Guest [01:51:45] Right. At least.

Gerardo Sumano [01:51:47] Yeah. He sends Henry into eight missions.

John Dehlin [01:51:50] So Sandra and Dan Vogel. That's a pretty serious accusation that Joseph was hot for someone's wife so he would send the husband away on multiple missions so that he could get close to the wife while the husband's overseas. That sounds pretty insidious. Sandra, would Joseph do that?

Sandra Tanner [01:52:09] Well, would God do that? Would. Why wouldn't God tell him to marry one of those single girls that he later is marrying a bunch of them? Why didn't God tell him at that time? Oh, don't worry about those married girls. There's single girls out there you could marry and you won't have a problem with this, with the husband. It doesn't make any sense why the angel would insist he marry a married woman.

John Dehlin [01:52:35] And why wouldn't the angels go visit the woman herself? Do angels just not care about the women? Why can't the angels?

Sandra Tanner [01:52:42] Women evidently aren't worthy of angel visions.

Guest [01:52:45] Well, there's at least one.

John Dehlin [01:52:46] Go ahead, go ahead, Julia.

Guest [01:52:47] Say there's at least one woman. And I. I'm sure we've mentioned that before, that says that she was visited by. Or at least two, I think Lucy Walker and then Mary Elizabeth Rollins, I think, said they saw angels.

John Dehlin [01:52:56] Dan, would Joseph Smith do that dastardly deed of sending a man, a married man, on a mission so he could take advantage of. Of that man's wife?

Dan Vogel [01:53:07] Well, that comes up in the interview and Brian says, no, he didn't. He didn't marry a women while the husband was on a mission anyway. But so he. He may do that to take advantage. But remember, he did propose to Sarah Pratt while Orson was away. And. But for the 14 married women, for me, the explanation is that this is a symptom of Joseph Smith's narcissism. He is a narcissist. And it's the power. It's not about sex. It's about power. I mean, he does want sex, of course, but it's all about power. It's all about making people. The more shameful things he can make his followers do, the more he gets off as a narcissist.

Sandra Tanner [01:54:02] Amen.

John Dehlin [01:54:04] Sandra liked that.

Sandra Tanner [01:54:05] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:54:06] Yeah. And I think the bonobo monkey gorilla explanation also fits. Right. They were the. The alpha male wants. Wants to have as many women or many females as possible.

Sandra Tanner [01:54:18] Yes. But it's also because he's also in control over all the men.

John Dehlin [01:54:22] Yeah, it's dominance. Right.

Sandra Tanner [01:54:23] Dominating the men.

John Dehlin [01:54:25] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [01:54:25] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:54:26] Yeah. Yeah. I think the biological evolutionary example works every time. All right, well. And by the way, like, we laugh about this stuff now, but I'm glad, Julia, you brought kind of the heartbreakingness to this whole scenario, because these are women, these are people's lives, these are men, and these were tragic, horrific events that happened to people. And it's weird that we tend to laugh because it Sounds so ridiculous. Or maybe we laugh because it's a way of psychologically coping with the horror of this all. But please don't mistake our laughter for insensitivity or not acknowledging how truly horrific this actually was for the women and men who were victims.

Sandra Tanner [01:55:11] Right. This, the history of Mormonism is littered with the, the sorrows of the women that have had to deal with, with this competition of other women in the marriage bed of feeling set aside or less than or compared to besides the guys that got beat out of having the wife of choice that they wanted by a prophet who could pull rank all the way around. It just creates these terrible, sad stories.

John Dehlin [01:55:48] Yeah. All right, well, let's go to Brian Hales's next explanation that Dan Vogel, you've already made reference to. It's his explanation of distinguishing between eternity only marriages and other types of marriages. So let's hear Brian Hills.

Time-Only Versus Eternity Sealings in Nauvoo

Brian Hales [01:56:06] Because Joseph Smith introduced a second type of marriage where it involved eternity. You are married for time and eternity. And in Nauvoo there's, there's a number of women who refer to their marriages to Joseph as just for eternity. And so the idea was they would have one husband on earth, their legal husband, and then when they died, they would have Joseph to be their eternal husband, us. This sounds all weird, I get it. But this is really what we're, we're understanding in the documents. And it's, it's well described in the case of Ruth Vol. Sayers.

John Dehlin [01:56:40] Okay, so, yeah, so Brian Hales keeps saying that only a third of Joseph Smith's wives. Well, that a full third of his wives are eternity only, which I think is code word for non sexual.

Sandra Tanner [01:56:54] Right.

John Dehlin [01:56:55] And so what, what's our.

Dan Vogel [01:56:56] The one third? The one third are all the polyandrus marriages. No. Well, there's 14 and then you have 33 or whatever, 38. So one third or all those 14 married women.

John Dehlin [01:57:12] Now, Dan, I. Now I understood that some women got sealed to Joseph as old women, women that he wouldn't have been attracted to. Maybe they were covers, maybe they were beards or whatever. Or maybe they were sealed after Joseph died or after the women died. But I guess. Could you guys clarify that to what extent in, in the count includes women that he would have never even had an interest maybe in sleeping with or who he. Or they would have been dead before they were sealed. Is that in the count of 34 or not?

Dan Vogel [01:57:42] I'm not sure we know what his interests were.

John Dehlin [01:57:44] Right.

Sandra Tanner [01:57:45] Oh, well, I don't know that we know what the count is because there was a lot of ceilings that were performed after Joseph's death of women being sealed to Joseph. And so, so then the question comes in of how much evidence do we have that the women were already sealed to him before his death. And I think that's one of the things that confuses the number. And so when someone has a longer list, it's usually because they're looking at ceilings that happened after Joseph's death that they thought were ceilings for marriages that had happened earlier but hadn't been recorded. So it gets messy in trying to figure out the number. But when you look at what documents do we have to show there was some sort of actual association? Then they come up with a list of up to 40 women.

John Dehlin [01:58:36] Okay, so in the 34, that count doesn't have women who were sealed after Joseph died or women who were sealed after they had died. The 34 is women that Joseph physical access to who were living in proximity to him. Correct?

Sandra Tanner [01:58:55] Right.

John Dehlin [01:58:55] That's the 34. So what do you all. So, okay, so given that he's saying a third, back to your point, Dan Vogel, when he says a third were. Were eternity only marriages, you're sort of making a joke that that's Brian Hales trying to explain away the polyandrous marriages. Is that right, Dave Vogel, is that that?

Dan Vogel [01:59:18] Well, he's not telling you the 1/3, but that's. That's the 1/3. And he mentions Ruth Vos Sayers, okay. And she's a married woman. And he. So he. She's one of the polyandrus marriages, one of the 14. And she's an exception to the rule, but he wants to make her the rule. Okay, so Ruth and, and she's vastly different than all the others because Joseph Smith approached the others. But in this case of Ruth, her husband approached Joseph Smith, okay, and said, you can marry my wife for eternity only. Right. I. I'm okay with that because I don't believe in the next life anyway. So my wife would love it if you just married her. It's sort of like, you know, a novelty, Right? So she is. This is an exceptional situation. That isn't true of all the others. All the other 13. Okay, so. And why does Ruth Voser's husband know about eternity only marriages? Well, he knows because that is the front story that Joseph and Hiram are telling everybody about around this time. And they take it that that's a serious explanation. You know, most of the church takes that as a, as an explanation. Hiram got before a congregation, you know, in 18. April, 1844, I believe it is where he said. Talks about, well, what a wonderful thing it was to learn about eternal marriage. And. And he said to Joseph, what about my first wife who died? You know? And Joseph said, well, you can marry her by proxy, just like you can baptize for the dead. And then Hiram's second wife, Mary Fielding, says, well, okay, I'll be. I'll stand as proxy for you to marry her in eternity. For eternity. And. And then you will marry me for eternity. Right. So that wasn't polygamy in this life. It's polygamy in the next life. So you know those polygamy deniers. Well, here's the principle of polygamy right here with Hiram that you say didn't ever sanction polygamy and spoke against it. Well, he was obfuscating. He was. He was throwing up a smoke screen for what was really happening. He says, well, all those rumors basically, that you hear about polygamous marriages, this is all there is to it, you know, this polygamy in the next life, that it's. The only spiritual wife is one that's dead, you know, so. So they're throwing up this screen, and Ruth Voser's husband, you know, takes it as well. That's what's really going on. And so he offers up his wife because he doesn't care. You know, he doesn't believe in the next life anyway.

John Dehlin [02:02:20] Sandra, what do you think about this explanation? That there are, you know, wives that are just sealed for eternity only? Or he talks about simultaneous husbands versus consecutive husbands. What do you think about Brian Hales's attempt to try and segment all these different marriages in ways that try and make polyandry sexual. Polyandry not be a thing.

Sandra Tanner [02:02:46] But he just arbitrarily, to me, is deciding that it wouldn't be right for Joseph to be a second husband. In fact, in this life, therefore, he wasn't a second husband. I mean, Joseph couldn't have been a second husband because that wouldn't have been right. But you have the problem of Sylvia Sessions, where Joseph and her husband obviously both had sex with her within a couple of weeks time because she's confused on who the father of her daughter is. And the only way you get confused is if you had sex with two guys. I'm not confused about who the father of my kids are. I mean, there's only one candidate, you know, So I don't. It's. It's just so arbitrary to just argue that, well, it wouldn't have been right, so it couldn't have been that way.

Gerardo Sumano [02:03:41] So just so you get an idea, an idea, John of Brian Hill's apologetic arguments. This is on one of Dan Vogel's videos about, you know, debunking his apologetics on the polyamorous. Poly. Polyandrous marriages. And he is. Doc. So this is Sarah and Whitney. And we talked a little bit about her. She's. She's the one that Joseph marries her in July of 1842. And then later, Joseph will tell Joseph Kingsbury to marry her as a cover up, kind of like, you know, as a cover husband. But Joseph was still going to be the real husband. And, you know, there is evidence that Joseph was having sex with her. And what. What Brian Hills comes up with, and this is in his book, the third volume, he says if a woman is wedded to a husband by each authority, that is if she is legally married to a husband, but is also sealed in the new and everlasting covenant of marriage to a second husband. The new covenant ratify the priesthood authority overrides the earthly contract. By accepting the new covenant, the participant acknowledges a practical dissolution of the union in what might be considered a religious divorce. So he's basically saying that when Joseph marries these women that are already married, that covenant overrides the. The marriage, the ceiling marriage. And I think he goes all the way to accusing some of the women. Like, for example, in the case of Sylvia, who was confused about who was the. The. The father of accusing. Brian will accuse Sylvia of adultery and saying that she broke the covenant that she had with Joseph by having sex with her legal husband.

John Dehlin [02:05:41] Talk about throwing someone under the bus.

Sandra Tanner [02:05:44] Yeah, well, none of it makes sense.

Dan Vogel [02:05:47] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [02:05:48] Just so you get an idea of his arguments.

Dan Vogel [02:05:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:05:53] Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Dan Vogel [02:05:54] So I'd like to make a comment.

John Dehlin [02:05:56] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [02:05:56] About Sandra mentioned Josephine Fisher or Josephine Lyon Fisher. Sylvia Sessions Lyon. Okay. Sylvia Sessions married this Windsor lion. And then Joseph married Sylvia while they were still married. And so the story is that in 1915, her daughter Josephine signed an affidavit, made an affidavit with. I'm getting a blank.

Guest [02:06:40] Jensen or Jensen.

Dan Vogel [02:06:42] Yes, thank you, Andrew Jensen. And in that says that on her deathbed, which is in 1882, she called Josephine to her bedside and told her a secret. And she desired to tell me something which she had kept an entire secret from me and from all others. So she then told me that I was the daughter of the prophet Joseph Smith. She having been sealed to the prophet at the time, that her husband, Mr. Lyon, had, was out of fellowship with the church. So why would she Keep it a secret if it was just an eternal marriage. And, and, and Brian will try to say that Josephine was just a spiritual adopted daughter because of the eternity only marriage. Well so you know, so suppose in Brian's philosophy they, he gets all the children, Joseph gets all the children even though Windsor was the father, even though the marriage isn't for the next life. So how that works, I don't know.

Guest [02:08:02] Wait, can we pause there? Can we pause there just for one second? I want to explain to never Mormons. So, so of these 14 women that Joseph marrying four of them, so three. There are three husbands who are non members. And then one of the husbands is disaffected which is this man right here, Windsor Lane. And then so there's 10 men and then you should say all of them. So like Joseph, Joseph sealing himself to them even if there's no sex, him sealing himself to these 14 women. That means all these women belong to Joseph in heaven. They are removed from their. There's 10 active members of the church. They get their wives ripped away from them and all their children that they've had with those men are now Joseph's. So like this is so bad even if there's no sex.

John Dehlin [02:08:40] Right, yeah, that's a great point.

Dan Vogel [02:08:42] But yeah, why would she keep it a secret?

Guest [02:08:46] Right?

Dan Vogel [02:08:46] And Josephine says also that she kept it, she kept it a secret and has very rarely talked about it and her mother advised her that. In conclusion, Mother told me not to make her statement to me too public as it might cause trouble and arouse unpleasant curiosity. Now if people are going to be curious about someone that is just claiming to be a adopted daughter, Joseph Smith, I doubt it. So what really get here's a little glimpse into Brian's methodology as an apologist is that in his recent article in the latest Journal of Mormon History, Journal of Mormon History he has an article in there and he talks about my website quite a lot. But in there he tries to argue that Josephine was just a spiritual daughter. And then he actually goes to what is called the car family history and the car record and Journal privately published in 1992 by Sylvia's Great granddaughter Sylvia Carr Willis Phoebe Clark. She was born in 1852 long after Smith's death. She according to this is how Brian Words it was also told the same thing, that she was the daughter of Joseph Smith even though she was born after. So he says oh it's part of the covenant and stuff. Well the problem, the problem with this is and I've to in my on my three videos I went through and showed that the car family history includes documents that are forged that they're not, they're not real. The old lady, the old lady, the, the great, the granddaughter wrote an introduction saying, you know, she, some of the stuff in there is stuff that she imagines that they would have said, you know, if they were alive to say it. And she made it in an affidavit form. And the giveaway is that Phoebe, even though she was born in 1852, died in 1913, two years before Josephine made her affidavit. And she, even though she died two years before her affidavit, was able to quote from an affidavit that hadn't been written yet by her sister. You know, and so that it's, it's a forgery. It's just, you know, a sweet old lady that's into genealogy and family history and thinks that this would be a good thing. And why would Brian, he changed it and said he used to quote from this Phoebe thing. Now he just says it's family, it's a family tradition. And, but it's not a family tradition. This lady, this old lady made it up so that it was. Josephine's marriage was just one of those. A spiritual daughter of Joseph Smith.

Gerardo Sumano [02:12:19] Right.

John Dehlin [02:12:20] So Dan, my understanding is the Journal of Mormon History is a credible peer reviewed sort of academic journal. Why would they let this type of schlock from Brian Hales be published in, in, in a reputable journal? Any idea? Sandra or Dan? That surprises me.

Sandra Tanner [02:12:38] I don't know that they would have fact checked him to that degree.

John Dehlin [02:12:41] But isn't that why we have peer reviewed academic journals so that like reviewers can fact check?

Sandra Tanner [02:12:46] You know, it depends on how many people you are that are experts in these kinds of deep research projects.

John Dehlin [02:12:53] So why wouldn't they have Sandra or Dan? I mean I, I've, I've got like 13 peer reviews because we, we don't

Sandra Tanner [02:12:59] have a test testimony.

John Dehlin [02:13:01] No, but the journal Mormon History is supposed to be academic, not faith based.

Sandra Tanner [02:13:05] Yeah, but, well I don't get included anything that way. But Dan, they could have asked him

John Dehlin [02:13:11] when I, when I, when I'm trying to publish an article on OCD and it's going to be a credible journal, I write a draft, I submit it and then the reviewers who are experts in OCD are going to review it. And if they need to get another expert to opine who's an OCD expert, that's the way it works is you find an analogous expert or even a contradictory expert, someone who Has a different point of view to fact check it. Why wouldn't the Journal of Mormon History ask you, Dan Vogel, to review Brian Hales's schlock before it stupid plagiaristic garbage gets published?

Dan Vogel [02:13:52] Okay, so Brian's pro, you know, up there. He knows his stuff pretty, you know the sources and he knows his stick, you know, pretty well. And the people give it a pass sometimes they don't check it as thoroughly. They're looking for other kinds of things and they're not trying to nail them or anything. And if they asked me, I would have probably told him I'm too busy.

Brian Hales [02:14:19] Busy.

John Dehlin [02:14:20] Oh, so you would turn down. I do, I do sometimes.

Dan Vogel [02:14:25] Yeah. And I regret it sometimes afterwards. But I'm like, I'm pretty busy, you know, and I'm trying to meet, say I'm meeting a deadline on my last book. I'm. I was trying to get it done on time and I can't just can't drop stuff sometimes, you know, so. So is it fair? It's not just me. It's not just me. They, you know, it's possible. Don Bradley read it, but you know, the, the car family history is. Well, that is like on my three videos where I went through all of that and quoted all the parts and showed pictures and everything and that. And then he changed it to family tradition and they. It probably slip by, you know. Oh, so the lady forged it. But it was, she probably believed it was her family tradition. So you can get away with saying that, you know, there's, I mean, would not quote from that, of course.

Gerardo Sumano [02:15:28] Well, the main problem is that the argument that he's making on the article is an argument that Brian.

Dan Vogel [02:15:35] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [02:15:35] Fought against for a long time before it was discovered through DNA that Josephine was not Joseph's daughter. So Brian has written articles that would debunk this article on, on the Mormon History Journal.

Dan Vogel [02:15:51] Yeah. Before, before the DNA came out that Josephine was not the daughter Joseph Smith, but was actually Windsor Lyon's daughter. So he, he felt like he was trapped in a way that this could be just a legitimate daughter. Joe Smith. So he said it was a spiritual thing, but then the DNA came out and then he was free to say that it wasn't the daughter. Well, so before he argued that she could be the daughter and because of the testimony and she. He accepted it. But he had a excuses for that too.

John Dehlin [02:16:32] Well, I'll just say some remember them though. As someone with the PhD, I'm not trying to pull rank, but as someone with a PhD who's got 12 or 15 peer reviewed journalists articles. If this type of garbage happened in a reputable discipline, in a reputable journal, the person who, you know, wrote the crappy article would have their reputation tarnished. They would probably be forced to apologize publicly for the stupidity, and the journal would issue a retraction and apologize to its readership for publishing garbage. And there would be consequences. And that scholar would no longer probably be respected. It would probably be a death, you know, a death knell to the career of that scholar for publishing such garbage. So this is, this doesn't reflect positively on the journal Mormon History, which I always thought was a reputable journal, and I'm sure it is in many cases, but this is a. Seems like a real dark mark. I don't know. Yeah. All right.

Dan Vogel [02:17:33] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:17:34] All right, well, we look forward, Brian Hales, to your apology and journal Mormon History. We look forward to your retraction and apology as well. All right, well, let's go ahead and go now to his next, his, his next justification for polyandry, which is that no one complained. Let's go ahead and hear about that.

Brian Hales Claims No Evidence of Polyandry

Brian Hales [02:17:59] And that is, look, if Joseph had taught that he could be a second husband to a woman, she can have sex with, with her husband and then come and be with him, if that happened, nobody complained and none of the women defended it.

John Dehlin [02:18:18] All right, Julia, what do you think about that argument that none of the women complained of about polyandry, so therefore it must be of God?

Guest [02:18:25] Well, how many of Warren Jeff's wives complained about it in the moment? Like, these people are in the mindset, they're in the cult, or they're in this. I think early Mormonism is a cult by the definition, but these women are in it. They're believing members of the church. They believe that Joseph is a prophet. They believe this angel's story, like, so why would they complain? Because that's, that's what their mindset is. And that's not true because I added a slide that said that shows that one of the women who was proposed to, she did complain about it and it was published. But like, yeah, that's not, that's not sound logic to say, oh, nobody complained, therefore it didn't happen.

John Dehlin [02:18:57] Do you want to show that? Do you want to show that slide? Do you want to.

Guest [02:18:59] Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so this is a, this is me talking about Sarah Pratt in the Sangamon Journal. On July 15th of 1842, a story was published by John C. Bennett that exposed Joseph Smith's proposal to Sarah Pratt, the wife of Orson Pratt. In this expose, Sarah Pratt claims that Joseph Smith approached her while her husband was in Europe and taught her about polygamy. So he was serving a mission. Sarah's response to Joseph was, I care not for the blessings of Jacob, and I believe in no such revelations. Neither will I consent under any circumstances. I have one good husband, and that is enough for me. A fuller version of the story was published later In September of 1842, with John C. Bennett. So. So.

John Dehlin [02:19:37] So is Brian Hales lying that he didn't know about this? Oh, sorry. Was he lying and knew about Sarah Pratt complaining, or do you think there's a possibility he just didn't know? Sarah Pratt complained?

Dan Vogel [02:19:52] He knows he's a Brian Hills apologist.

John Dehlin [02:19:54] Gerardo.

Gerardo Sumano [02:19:55] No.

John Dehlin [02:19:55] Are you a Bright Hills apologist? Well, Dan, you say he knows.

Dan Vogel [02:20:00] He knows.

John Dehlin [02:20:01] So he's. He's intentionally.

Dan Vogel [02:20:03] I'm not sure what he. What he expects to. To find about a backlash, but it's an argument of silence, first of all. Right. If it were even true. But it's not like Sarah Pratt that I would consider that a backlash. You know, so there's also that. So. Pardon me.

John Dehlin [02:20:34] That's okay. Sandra, let me. Let me have you weigh on this while, While Dan's gathering his thoughts. Do you think he's just lying to people or do you think he just forgot?

Sandra Tanner [02:20:44] Well, it's hard to say whether he forgot or somehow in his mind discounts it and he might have some rationalization why hers doesn't count, but it would. It's. I don't know how persuasive that is to say nobody complained. Because when you're dealing with people in such a mind control group, I. I don't think it's a valid argument.

John Dehlin [02:21:11] Because you do.

Gerardo Sumano [02:21:13] We do have the journals of the women. Some of the women.

Brian Hales [02:21:15] Right.

John Dehlin [02:21:15] Or.

Gerardo Sumano [02:21:16] Or writings that they've had that they did.

John Dehlin [02:21:18] But he's saying specifically about polyandry. Right, right. That's true. And what he says is John. John C. Bennett didn't complain about polyandry. And he says William Law, who was in the first presidency and resigned. He resigned over polygamy. But what Brian Hales is arguing is that William Law never explicitly complained about polyandry specifically.

Sandra Tanner [02:21:41] Yeah, it's nitpicky splitting of hairs on these definitions.

John Dehlin [02:21:46] Julia, you just sighed. Why did you audibly sigh?

Guest [02:21:49] So I put some slides in there later because I think he's also lying about that because John C. Bennett did sort of complain about this. I mean, that's where this story is coming from.

John Dehlin [02:21:56] Is there a slide about that?

Guest [02:21:58] Yeah, later. So he covers this again, too. And then William Law. So I think he's being dishonest. And then we'll. We have slides for that later.

John Dehlin [02:22:05] Okay. Well, you know, there, There. I could think of one reason why people wouldn't, you know, why there be complaints about polygamy but not polyandry. It could be that it was super embarrassing, that it was super secret, that men don't want to admit that they're being. Is the word cuckold? Is that the word? Yeah, like what? Is that a word? Yeah, like it. Is it possible that it was just so embarrassing to men that. That the women and the men wanted to keep something like that super quiet?

Dan Vogel [02:22:41] Damn victims, a lot of times suppress that they've been victimized. That's a common occurrence.

John Dehlin [02:22:49] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, you know, I guess if John C. Bennett said it or didn't say it, it must be true, right, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [02:22:59] I guess so.

John Dehlin [02:23:02] Why are you laughing, Julia?

Guest [02:23:03] Because Chauncey Bennett, you should watch our episodes and all these discussions. He just makes stuff up all the time. He is accurate in some cases, and he is very not accurate on in other cases.

Dan Vogel [02:23:13] I think he just sensationalizes the story, like the harem and all that stuff. He wants to sell books. True, but. So Joe Smith called it all lies, right? He called. Oh, the. So Bennett published both polyandry and polygamy. Names or initials, and Joe Smith lied and said, I didn't do any of that stuff. So backlash averted, you know, and actually.

John Dehlin [02:23:46] And actually, I. I put in my notes, actually, he sneaks. Basically said no one ever complained about it, nothing until 1850, five years after Joseph Smith died. So I guess we're mischaracterizing Brian Hales. It wasn't that he claimed no one complained about polyandry, but Sarah would. I know, I know. So that we've already proven is wrong, but just so that we're not misrepresenting him, his actual claim is that no one complained until five years after Joseph's death. Is that better, Sandra? Polyandry about polyandry? Yeah, but they complained about either.

Dan Vogel [02:24:21] Yeah, he complained about polygamy. He got backlash for polygamy. Yes, but. Yeah, that kind of diverted the attention from the married women, I guess.

John Dehlin [02:24:31] Yeah. All right, well, let's go ahead and go to the next clip. His justification that this all must be okay because it's in the Bible. Let's roll that clip.

Dan Vogel [02:24:41] Yeah,

Brian Hales [02:24:44] the. He was a polygamist. Let there be no doubt on that. Point. But, but there are people who, who are saying that Joseph introduces a plurality of wives, and there's a huge backlash and people don't like it. Now it's in the Bible. Abraham was a polygamist, Jacob was a polygamist. You know, the house of Israel came to four. Four wives of Jacob. And so this is a biblical practice. It's never condemned in the Bible. But then these, these polyandry advocates are saying Joseph introduced a plurality of husbands, and nobody says anything about it in. And if we look at the data, we know at least over 20 men and women polygamy insiders were aware as participants in these ceilings, somebody would have, I think, wanted to defend the behavior. Why? Because in Romans in the New Testament, and these are all devout Christians, it says in, in Romans, Romans 7:2 and 3, that if a woman is with a second husband, when she's married, it's adultery. So for Joseph to introduce polyandry as simultaneous husbands, he had a huge mountain to climb because he had it to tell people, well, Paul's wrong or whoever wrote Romans is wrong. You know, I can be your second husband and it's okay. Well, nobody related that. Nobody's defending it.

John Dehlin [02:25:58] All right, Sandra, what do you think? It's in the Bible. You, you tend to have fondness for the Bible.

Sandra Tanner [02:26:03] Yes, but the polygamy in the Old Testament is not a God commanded situation. God isn't sending angels with swords telling everybody they have to take plural wives. This is a cultural habit system that is done by their own choice. I mean, with Abraham, Sarah is the one that initiates that. It's not presented as a doctrine. And of course, Brian wants to make it as Joseph restoring all things. So he has to restore polygamy from the Old Testament. Well, if, if you're going to say that it was a restoration of an Old Testament principle that God instituted, why did they stop? Doesn't make sense. Why would he just demand that everyone has to do it in Nauvoo and. But they get out here to Utah and it becomes against the law, then, oh, that's okay. We could all just stop. I mean, it doesn't make sense.

John Dehlin [02:27:05] Yeah. What do you want to add to that, Dan?

Dan Vogel [02:27:10] Well, so Romans 7 isn't specifically a passage against polyandry. It's. It's using, it's making an analogy

Sandra Tanner [02:27:24] for

Dan Vogel [02:27:25] the law of Moses being superseded by the law of Christ. And so it isn't saying, oh, you can't, you can't marry. It's a bad thing if you, it's just Saying that it's using a custom at the time and using that as an analogy to show that, well, when you're dead, it's like the law of Moses is dead. Now you're free to adopt another law. So just like a spouse. It's not a perfect analogy at all, but. So it's not a proscription against polyandry. It's kind of a misuse. But it doesn't matter what the Bible says, you know, everybody knows it's only true as far as translated correctly. And Joe Smith can change that at will any time. And he also, when you belong to a group that says whatever God commands to do is right, no matter what it is, and even if it seems abominable by most Christians, you know, you still have to do it. So if God revealed to Joseph Smith through revelation that he should marry a specific woman even though she's married, then it's right.

John Dehlin [02:28:50] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [02:28:51] So his followers aren't going to complain unless they want to leave. You know, you can leave anytime you

John Dehlin [02:28:58] want, get excommunicated and get shamed. Julie, I have a question for you. It. Does it seem conspicuous at all that Brian Hales is totally cool with a single man having sex with lots of women? That's fine. Like, no problem. That's a. That's a cool deal. But, like, oh, well, there are reports of a woman having sex with multiple men. No, no, we got to find excuses and justifications because, like, no, women are not allowed to have sex with multiple men. Only men are allowed to have sex with multiple women.

Dan Vogel [02:29:32] Do you.

John Dehlin [02:29:33] Do you think patriarchy or sexism might be informing his desperate need to. To somehow explain away polyandry? What do you think?

Guest [02:29:43] Well, my initial thought was just that because it's illegal because Joseph's legally married to Emma and these women are legally married to another man. So maybe that's where he's coming from. But yeah, it does feel really sexist. All of polygamy feels really sexist because, like, women can't women when. If they want to marry again, they have to break that ceiling with their. Their first husband if he passes away or whatever. Like, if they get divorced, they have. She has to break it. And so a woman's only allowed to have one man. But. Yes, but the men can have as many as they want. So just polygamy in general is very sexist. So I don't know if Brian's thinking that way or if he's just thinking like, the legal. Like, if Joseph was a single man, would it be okay with Married women or whatever. Because he was married and has single women.

John Dehlin [02:30:23] I don't know, Dan, you seem to say yes. Did I hear you say yes to that question?

Dan Vogel [02:30:30] Yeah, I agree with her.

John Dehlin [02:30:32] Okay.

Gerardo Sumano [02:30:33] That's all.

John Dehlin [02:30:34] All right, well, let's go to the next clip, which is him basically claiming that there were no reports of polyandry. Let's hear Brian Hales's next lame excuse.

Brian Hales [02:30:46] But what's also interesting is that John c. Bennett in 1842 reports that some of Joseph Smith's spiritual wives are already legally married. So the idea that Joseph Smith. Smith has spiritual wives that are married. Okay, are. Is. Is out there. It's public. People know about this. His enemies can read what John Bennett wrote. And. But what's interesting is when John Bennett left, he had a whole laundry list of claims against Joseph and the Mormons. Polyandry's not on there. Two years later, William Law leaves, and he has a laundry list of complaints. Polyandry isn't there. He was a polygamy insider. John Bennett wasn't. But nobody is using this term. I can't find anyone complaining about Polyandry until about 1850. And it's just somebody who's looking at. At what's happening there and making a conclusion, not somebody who's talking to an insider who's reporting this, because none of the women ever do report that they actually had two simultaneous husbands.

John Dehlin [02:31:42] All right, Case closed, right, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [02:31:45] Well, I don't know how many of these people would be going around bragging about this. I don't know. How would Law know about all these different polyandrous marriages?

John Dehlin [02:32:01] I mean, the church. We should. You know, for those who've never been Mormon or never studied this stuff, the Brigham Young didn't admit. How many wives did Brigham Young have before he ever admitted to the public that he was practicing polygamy?

Sandra Tanner [02:32:13] Well, all that stuff didn't get admitted till 52. When Pratt let it out in conference that there was polygamy up to then, up to 1852, everyone was denying it.

John Dehlin [02:32:24] Yeah. So the Mormon Church was, you know, its own scripture, you know, denounced polygamy. They were denying it. Weren't there Mormon missionaries who were polygamists in the British Isles converting people to Mormonism? And as polygamists, when the investigators would say, hey, Mormon missionary, is there polygamy? Back in Utah, polygamist missionaries would tell the investigators that there was no polygamy. Did you know that, Zeke?

Sandra Tanner [02:32:55] Well, you have Apostle John Taylor with a dozen wives at home over in France in a public debate, holding up The Doctrine and Covenants that had the section saying they didn't believe in polygamy or fornication, using it to put down stories that the Mormons were practicing polygamy this 1850s. And Apostle Taylor has a dozen wives when he's out there publicly in a debate, absolutely lying.

Gerardo Sumano [02:33:27] And is he the prophet?

Sandra Tanner [02:33:29] No, he wasn't the prophet, no.

Gerardo Sumano [02:33:31] But he later. Later became prophet.

Sandra Tanner [02:33:33] He became prophet later, but he's an apostle and he's got a dozen wives, and he's up there in a public debate showing the Doctrine and Covenants that said they didn't believe in polygamy.

Gerardo Sumano [02:33:44] And once the women were. Came to Utah without any money left, and. And, like, in the middle of the desert, they would find out there was actually polygamy.

Sandra Tanner [02:33:53] Well, yeah. That got to be a bit of a shock after you've given up your family and everything and come all this way and.

John Dehlin [02:33:59] And have no money and you have no money and you don't know anyone. You don't speak the language.

Sandra Tanner [02:34:04] Yeah, right, right. And you suddenly land here with some guy propositioning you to be his third wife.

John Dehlin [02:34:10] Didn't the apostles, like, argue over who got the hot young ones?

Sandra Tanner [02:34:14] Yes. Who was that?

Gerardo Sumano [02:34:15] Ever. Kimball.

Sandra Tanner [02:34:16] Kimball.

Gerardo Sumano [02:34:17] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [02:34:17] You guys that are making all these converts, don't pick out the pretty girls before they get shipped out here to Utah, because we need a fair shake at getting our chance to marry those girls.

John Dehlin [02:34:29] Okay. Zeke's got. Zeke's got a confused look on his face. Zeke.

Dan Vogel [02:34:32] No, disgusted.

Dan Vogel [02:34:33] It's like, what?

Gerardo Sumano [02:34:36] So in your service mission, you were in this. This is the place.

Dan Vogel [02:34:40] Right.

Gerardo Sumano [02:34:40] And. And you.

John Dehlin [02:34:42] Well, tell our listeners what that is.

Dan Vogel [02:34:45] So this is a place. Heritage park is a history park here in Utah.

John Dehlin [02:34:51] The honors who?

Dan Vogel [02:34:53] Brigham Young.

John Dehlin [02:34:54] Okay.

Dan Vogel [02:34:55] And it's funny, because when you talk to the employees there or any of the staff members there, they will all say, don't ask questions about the church. If you want to ask questions about the church, go to Temple Square and ask. Because we're not allowed to talk about anything.

Gerardo Sumano [02:35:11] But there's the house of Heber C. Kimball. Right. And they. They do not, I imagine, I never

Dan Vogel [02:35:17] learned anything about it. There's a little plaque that sits outside that you can read. That's about it.

Gerardo Sumano [02:35:22] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [02:35:22] Wow. And to ask at Temple Square would get you nowhere because the girls up there don't know any church history, and the old men that supervise them aren't going to tell you anything.

John Dehlin [02:35:35] Yeah. So it really is, again, super dishonest of. Of Brian Hales to go, hey, no one Mentioned it. It was never discussed. Nobody complained. So checkmate. You know, Jeremy Runnells CES letter. Julia, do you want to talk about this slide about Bennett exposing polyandry?

Guest [02:35:52] Yeah. So I, again, I just don't know what he's talking about because contemporaneously you have John C. Bennett, who is exposing it. He's, you know, I don't know if I need to read the whole thing, but.

John Dehlin [02:36:00] No, go ahead, go ahead.

Guest [02:36:01] In the Pittsburgh Morning chronicle published on June 29th of 1842, John C. Bennett exposed Joseph Smith's polyandry. He said that Joseph Smith had married women whose husbands he sent on off preaching. Brian Hales seems to think that because of. Because not more of a fuss was not made concerning sexual polyandry and that the term polyandry was not used. It therefore did not happen. These are my words. This is what I'm saying that he's trying to infer. And if you go to the next slide, this is from Bennett's book in September of 1842, where he lists seven women and three of them are. Are these polyandrous wives.

Sandra Tanner [02:36:37] He's.

Guest [02:36:37] He lists Percentia Buell, Elizabeth Durfee, Patty Sessions. So he doesn't use the word polyandry, but this is what he's referring to. And so again, like, I don't know why Brian Hills is saying that. Like, it's still there, even though he's not making a bigger fuss about it. And then even in the next slide, he talks about William Law. Like, in his little. In that Journal of Mormon history that you referenced, Brian or Dan Vogel, he references William Law, and William Law publishes again and again about adultery contemporaneously, 1844, he's. He's saying it over and over again. And adultery, one of the definitions is that you're the sexual intercourse of any man with. With a married woman. And so, like, even though polyandry, the word isn't being used, it's definitely being talked about. So, like, I don't think he's being very honest to say nobody complained about it, because certainly they were. And we have the evidences in the sources right here.

Gerardo Sumano [02:37:23] So, Julia, I thought this argument was kind of interesting. You pulled out the Webster's Dictionary and, and that show that adultery is the sexual intercourse of any man with a married woman. And then fornication would mean a married man with an unmarried woman. And you. And you show a few quotes where William Law is using both words fornication and adultery and accusing Joseph Smith of both.

Guest [02:37:47] Right? Yeah. So that Those are my words, because that's what. I'm understanding it too. So. So, absolutely. Polyandry, even though the word isn't used, it is being complained about.

John Dehlin [02:37:58] Sandra and Dan, are y' all convinced by Julia, or do you think they're either mischaracterizing Brian or mischaracterizing the evidence?

Sandra Tanner [02:38:08] Well, I think the evidence obviously shows that there were plenty of statements that would have shown that there was polyandry going on. It's just convenient that the. So many times on, like, on lists of the plural wives, they don't always give the married name of the woman so that it's not obvious. You don't see that that's what it really is true.

John Dehlin [02:38:33] Dan, do you want to. Do you want to chime in? I heard you.

Sandra Tanner [02:38:36] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [02:38:36] It could slip. It could slip a lot of people's notice back then. I mean, you'd have to really be paying attention probably to the. Polygamy just overshadowed everything. Even if it is mentioned adultery and stuff, they. They wouldn't get the idea that it was a organized formal polyandry, just Joe Smith committing adultery, you know, but, yeah, it's still. I don't. I'm. It's hard to understand what Brian is actually arguing because he is ambiguous.

John Dehlin [02:39:15] Well, one of the slides we have is. Is just him basically saying he doesn't even believe polyandry happened. And I'm going to say sexual polyandry because I think he distinguishes. But let's just go ahead and play that clip and I want you all to respond predictions.

Brian Hales [02:39:30] But the one point that we can all agree on, I think, is that nobody reacted to this. And it would have been the most explosive thing Joseph ever taught or did if he had taught that it's okay for him to be a second husband to a woman who's already married. And I, in my article, I research polyandry historically, and at no time is polyandry acceptable, except there are a few places, small groups of hundreds of people in Tibet and places where resources are scarce and women are scarce and. And their polyandry is practiced. But it's not without problems because of husband jealousy and things of this nature. And to portray Joseph Smith is just adding plurality of husbands to a plurality of wives, the same way he added water to wine as. As things we can use in the sacrament, to me, is just highly naive and. And not believable. And yet that seems to be a new message from. From this article. And Todd Compton actually has been very kind. He let me read the article a year ago and so I wrote a response which came out in the journal Mormon History. But. And, and people can just look at the data. But, but if you can imagine Joseph doing this, the way he's portrayed, and nobody reacting with complaints or defenses, you know, that there's nothing more really for me that I can say about it. I just don't believe that it could have happened that way.

Gerardo Sumano [02:40:48] Great.

John Dehlin [02:40:48] So that's a really weird argument that basically it was so awful and we, it was so awful we can't really find it anywhere else. And so there's no way Joseph Smith could have done it. That's a weird argument to me. But, but really quickly, Sandra or Dan, he, he basically wants to summarize the argument as there's no evidence for sexual polyandry. And Sandra or Dan, what's your response to his claim that there's no solid evidence of sexual polyandry?

Sandra Tanner [02:41:18] Well, we know there was sexual polyandry with Sylvia Sessions. And how many people at the time were complaining about that one? Just because no one said anything about it obviously didn't mean it didn't happen.

John Dehlin [02:41:31] Dan, anything you want to add?

Sandra Tanner [02:41:32] Well,

Dan Vogel [02:41:35] both Sylvia Sessions Lions and Huntington Crea. Eliza. Eliza, Zina. Excuse me, Z. Huntington. They both said they kept it to themselves because they were ashamed and

Brian Hales [02:41:57] they

Dan Vogel [02:41:57] didn't tell anybody it. Sylvia says she didn't. Well, according to her daughter, she has kept it to herself until her deathbed. You know, kept it quiet, hush hush kind of a thing. And of course when you're in Utah, you don't want to later that all the other polygamous wives are coming forward and testifying, doing things. But the polyandrus wives aren't so eager, which is understood. And the underage ones, as you'll see, aren't so eager to be telling people about Joseph Smith's polygamy. But it's an argument of silence, you know, because it's not in the historical record. You know, the historical record.

John Dehlin [02:42:46] It's like he wants video. If there's not video.

Gerardo Sumano [02:42:49] I think it was Michael Quinn that he said if, if, if Brian Hills was there when he was having sex with the pulley out with the polyandrew polyandru's wife, he wouldn't believe it.

John Dehlin [02:43:01] Yeah, yeah. Like how can. So, so how can Brian Hales look himself in the face and, and consider himself being an honest. Answer the temple recommend question as being honest in his dealings with his fellow men and women if he knows that there are at least two solid cases of sexual polyandry and yet he tells Everyone. It never happened.

Guest [02:43:27] I think there's more than two.

John Dehlin [02:43:28] Yeah. But I mean, how can Brian Hales.

Sandra Tanner [02:43:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:43:33] Make these claims when he. He of all people knows better?

Sandra Tanner [02:43:37] I don't know.

Gerardo Sumano [02:43:38] Yeah, well, I think that's like. It's like there's a slide that kind of the Dan Vogel puts on his video.

John Dehlin [02:43:45] So this is a great slide. Is this the slide you're talking about? So it basically says Joseph Smith was a true prophet. This is Brian Hales's logic around polyandry. It is. Joseph Smith was a true prophet. A true prophet wouldn't practice sexual polyandry, therefore Joseph Smith didn't practice sexual polyandry. Did you come up with that, Dan Vogel?

Dan Vogel [02:44:06] Yep. It's just a simple syllogism.

John Dehlin [02:44:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it. I think it applies here. So, so, so, Brian. Brian Hales, you've got some explaining to do. As someone who affects people's decisions worldwide, how do you look yourself in the mirror and make these disingenuous claims? Let's go ahead and go to the next video clip from Brian.

Brian Hales [02:44:33] No, I just wish we would accept this new piece of the puzzle and, and maybe stop accusing Joseph of doing something that would have been just so highly volatile that there's no way somebody wouldn't have mentioned it.

Sandra Tanner [02:44:44] Right.

Brian Hales [02:44:45] It would have been a very big deal if it had actually happened. The biggest deal of all of the things that he ever taught or did.

Sandra Tanner [02:44:51] Right.

Brian Hales [02:44:52] I, I think that's a very important.

John Dehlin [02:44:54] Can we just all remind our viewers and listeners.

Dan Vogel [02:44:56] Wait.

John Dehlin [02:44:57] How Joseph Smith died.

Gerardo Sumano [02:44:59] You said you had a big reaction. What do you want to say something about that clip.

Dan Vogel [02:45:06] I don't know if I want to repeat that.

John Dehlin [02:45:10] No, you can, you can. I mean, unless you don't want. Unless you're not comfortable. Don't worry about the show. Just whatever you're comfortable sharing.

Dan Vogel [02:45:17] I, I mean, my reaction was just like, what the.

John Dehlin [02:45:20] Like, why explain those. That reaction.

Dan Vogel [02:45:24] Like, so you have him telling, like saying that there was no way. This is like, this is so volatile that this would not have happened. And then the interview. Interviewer sitting next to him, agreeing with him, believing him. Like, just what More of what

Guest [02:45:46] More

Dan Vogel [02:45:47] of what John said is just like having that kind of impact and having that kind of. Like authority or I don't know what the word.

Dan Vogel [02:46:00] I'm looking.

John Dehlin [02:46:00] Influence.

Dan Vogel [02:46:00] Influence.

John Dehlin [02:46:01] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [02:46:02] And being so misleading when you really should know better. It's like just watching it is just so like. Yeah. It's frustrating.

John Dehlin [02:46:17] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [02:46:18] Also, he makes interesting and funny at

John Dehlin [02:46:20] the same time and dark and Sad and. And outrageous. Like, he. He makes it sound like Joseph Smith died in his sleep at age 90. You know what I mean? Like, there was no controversy, there were no problems. Joseph Smith just died in his 90s of old age. No. Tell us how Joseph Smith died, Sandra.

Sandra Tanner [02:46:40] Well, there was a newspaper caught up by a couple of his followers that decided he had gone too far and they were going to do an expose. And the Nauvoo Expositor, Joseph, as mayor, orders the destruction of the press for teaching false things about him and libelous charges against him. They destroy the press, which leads to the situation where he gets arrested and taken to Carthage Jail and a mob storms the jail and kills Joseph.

John Dehlin [02:47:10] Yeah. And yet he's like, yeah, it was too horrible. Like, there's no way that could have happened because it would have been just too terrible.

Sandra Tanner [02:47:19] Yeah, it was terrible. And. And the public took revenge against him

John Dehlin [02:47:23] for it and lynched it. They literally killed him. Right. Like, oh, it's so funny.

Debating Whether Polyandry Was Widely Known

Dan Vogel [02:47:28] All right, so, John, Dan, the problem I have with it is the Brian's assumption that polyandry was widely known. It would have. In order to make an argument, it has to be widely known. And then nobody makes a stink about it because evidently they understood that it was just for the next life. So. But if they didn't understand that, if they just. If it was widely known that Joseph Smith married married women, most. If that were true, most of the public wouldn't distinguish between having sex and not having sex. They would still raise a stink. Okay. But because they didn't, I believe that it wasn't widely known, that it wasn't highlighted, that the. It was successfully repressed. Even though Bennett put the names up there of women we know were married, it was. It's not evident from that. And the Bennett, evidently, according to Julia's slide, there's only like a little sentence or so. And it wouldn't be followed as much as the. Just the polygamy and the young girls and things like that.

Gerardo Sumano [02:48:44] That's a good point. If it was eternity only, why keep it as such a secret?

Brian Hales [02:48:49] Right?

Gerardo Sumano [02:48:49] Like, I think people would have known about it.

Dan Vogel [02:48:52] Right? Like.

Gerardo Sumano [02:48:53] Like Hiram would talk about it later. Oh, this was just eternity only. But the fact that it was kept so secretly shows that people. They were embarrassed about it. And he was not just eternity.

Dan Vogel [02:49:04] Right. I think that that's. That's the answer to Brian's. Why didn't anybody raise a stink about polyandry? First of all, they have to know it. So Brian's job is to show that in order for to, to give a successful argument from silence, you have to show that it's widely known and that people have an opportunity to complain about it. Just pointing to Bennett's 1842 book isn't good enough.

John Dehlin [02:49:37] Yeah. All right, let's, let's maybe go through a couple of these without showing the video. Really quickly. He wants to make the argument that Joseph Smith didn't have sex with Helen Mark Kimball. She's the 14 year old. Is this a clip we should play?

Gerardo Sumano [02:49:50] I think we can just discuss.

John Dehlin [02:49:51] Okay. Sandra, what do you, what do you say? Brian Hales, who claims there's no evidence. So Helen Mark Kimball is one of the two 14 year olds that Brian Hales acknowledges Joseph Smith married. So again, checkmate. Jeremy Runnels, you're right. Joseph Smith did marry, according to Brian hales, at least two 14 year olds. So while that's acknowledged, Brian Hales wants to say it's okay because there's no evidence that Joseph Smith had sex with Helen R. Kimball. What's your reaction to that, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [02:50:22] Well then I don't understand why she later writes about what a sad thing this was for her to be denied of all of the social activities of a teenage girl going out in to public parties and everything. I mean she's casting it in the sense of a woman that's married not being able to go out and anymore and enjoy going to a dance or a party or something. If it's all just on paper for the hereafter, why would it have affected her social life?

John Dehlin [02:50:56] Okay, that's good. Dan, what's your, what's your take on whether or not there's evidence that Joseph Smith had sex with a 14 year old? Helen?

Dan Vogel [02:51:06] So Brian says this is how he words it. If you're not. If it's not going to be shown. But he says the reality is we have no evidence that Joseph Smith was ever alone with these people to consummate these marriages. So he doesn't. We don't have evidence that he was alone with Helen Helen Mark Kimball. So we, we have to assume they didn't have sex because they didn't have an opportunity to have sex. I mean that is really a screwy argument.

John Dehlin [02:51:38] Okay, Julia, you have some slides. Do you want to talk to the slides really quick?

Guest [02:51:42] Yeah. These are direct quotes. Do you want me to go ahead and read them?

John Dehlin [02:51:45] Yeah, or whatever you want. Whatever you think is important here.

Guest [02:51:47] Well, I mean, Sandra summarized that. Well, I really like that quote too. So she denied, so she herself denied polygamy it was, it was revealed to her later that there were thousands of spirits yet unborn who were anxiously waiting for the privilege of coming down. So this is her later recollecting about why we practice polygamy. She said they came down to their purpose was to take tabernacles of flesh, that their glory might become complete, which makes this plural life system an actual necessity. So. Oh, sorry, she defined polygamy. So here she's saying polygamy is necessary because these children need to be born into these families. Which, by the way, if you look at Brigham Young's polygamy, and I think any Mormon polygamy, it doesn't actually give more children to the community. It doesn't, it doesn't do that. So, like Brigham had 56 wives and then had they average out one each if you were to lay them out that way. So it doesn't actually bring more children. But yeah, there's some other, there's a couple of other quotes. I don't know if we want to read them. If you wanted to go back to the slides.

John Dehlin [02:52:46] Did you say offline that we should just skip them?

Guest [02:52:49] Yeah, I mean, like, I think they're pretty well summarized and we've shown them on the screen before.

Dan Vogel [02:52:52] I, like, I just, I do like

Gerardo Sumano [02:52:53] the latter last one, the contemporary one Helen went to write. I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than a ceremony. I was young and they deceived me by saying the salvation of her whole family depended on it.

John Dehlin [02:53:08] And what do you think that means?

Gerardo Sumano [02:53:10] I mean, it was obvious that it was not just like a eternity only ceremony. She says it right there. It was anything more. So I would have done it if it was anything more than ceremony.

John Dehlin [02:53:18] So she's saying it was more than ceremony. Yeah, that's how I'm reading that quote.

Gerardo Sumano [02:53:23] Yeah. And also just, you know, Zeke, she is the daughter of Heber Sea Kimball. The story is pretty dark because Joseph would go to Heber and say, God has commanded me to marry your wife. Something like that. Is that right, Dan? But then they end up giving, or Sandra, they end up giving Helen Mark Kimball to him. To Joseph.

Sandra Tanner [02:53:47] Right, right. He moves on from the wife. Oh, that was just an Abrahamic test. And so you're okay, you can keep your wife. But by the way, how about your daughter?

Gerardo Sumano [02:53:57] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [02:53:58] And so it just looks like a ruse to get to the daughter. To me.

Gerardo Sumano [02:54:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:54:04] Often these Abrahamic tests were a way for cult leaders to make sure they're going to have obedience from their followers. Right, right. So you hit up Heber C. Kimball's wife, then you don't take the wife, but then you ask for the daughter.

Sandra Tanner [02:54:17] Yeah, yeah.

Guest [02:54:18] He did the same thing with John Taylor's wife, too. It wasn't just Kimball.

John Dehlin [02:54:22] Yeah, yeah. And then there's just this other quote. I don't know if we read it, but, Helen, Mark Kimball says the principle was established by the prophet Joseph Smith, and all who have entered into it in righteousness have done so for the purpose of raising a righteous seed. So if Helamar Kimball is saying the primary purpose of polygamy is to have babies, you would. You would think that the reason why she's saying that is because she and Joseph had sex. I mean, that pretty much follows. Right?

Sandra Tanner [02:54:49] Yeah. But then it raises the question, why aren't there children? And we don't know at that young age whether she could have conceived.

John Dehlin [02:54:57] Yeah. And again, we've shown that John C. Bennett had the ability to perform abortions. There were talk of abortions in Nauvoo. There are other methods of birth control that were common on the frontier in the 19th century. And you can check out LDS discussions for that. All right. Well, one of the weird things Brian does that I think is quite sneaky is when dealing with. When dealing with this issue of young teenage girls or underage girls, he makes this bold move of comparing Joseph Smith to Warren Jeffs. Go ahead, Julia.

Comparing Joseph Smith and Warren Jeffs

Guest [02:55:34] So actually, that was actually Jeremy Reynolds who did that first. He. He did. He did bring up Warren Jeffs in the CES letter. So I'm pretty sure that's where this question is coming from. Okay, so it's not just Brian Hills.

John Dehlin [02:55:44] Okay, well, I just thought it was. I mean, I. Okay, so I guess he has to discuss it because Jeremy brought it up.

Gerardo Sumano [02:55:50] Right?

Guest [02:55:50] Right.

John Dehlin [02:55:50] All right, well, let's go ahead and see what he says about Warren Jeffs versus Joseph Smith.

Brian Hales [02:55:58] But some of the. The differences. And it isn't necessarily polygamy, but Warren just taught that more wives in eternity is a greater reward. And that has. Has never been a doctrine of. Of the church. He taught that that he would tightly control who was to marry whom. And we know Joseph was turned down by at least five different women. And when he turned them down, he didn't try to destroy their reputations. Now, when Sarah Pratt and Jane Law made public what was going on, Joseph defended himself against them. But these five women, they were. Joseph wasn't coercing these. These women into it in. In a very active sense. I mean, the fact that the prophet is asking about marriage. You would feel some pressure there. But five women just told him no way. Or at least through representatives says no. Why? That isn't going to work for.

John Dehlin [02:56:48] All right, Zeke, I'm going to give you a test. So I'm going to read some of the things Brian Hales says comparing Warren to Joseph and then I'm just going to ask you. So wait, are there multiple clips about this?

Gerardo Sumano [02:56:58] I think there's two, but.

John Dehlin [02:57:00] Oh, okay.

Gerardo Sumano [02:57:00] But that's the main one.

John Dehlin [02:57:01] Okay, well. So. So Zeke, it's not bad that Joseph Smith did what he did because Warren Jeffs had 83 wives and Joseph Smith only had 35. All right, how do you like that argument? Is that, does that work? Just yes or no, does that work? No, but it's like, it's like almost a third. Not. Not okay.

Dan Vogel [02:57:27] They're more than numbers.

John Dehlin [02:57:29] Okay. All right, all right, all right. The next one is a third of Joseph's wives were non sexual. Now again, we've already debunked that. Right? Right, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [02:57:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:57:39] Okay, the next one is. Hey, Zeke. Brian, Hells would say it's not bad that Joseph Smith married 14 year olds because Warren Jeff married 12 year olds. Does that make it okay?

Dan Vogel [02:57:52] No, it does not.

John Dehlin [02:57:53] No, it doesn't work. All right, let's keep going. So Joseph only married two 14 year olds and a 16 year old. You know, Warren Jeff's married a lot, a lot more and younger people. Is that okay?

Dan Vogel [02:58:08] Still not okay. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:58:09] No. Well, he says that the earliest age that there's evidence that Joseph Smith had sex with the women is 17. Sandra, what do you think?

Sandra Tanner [02:58:19] Well, that doesn't make me feel better.

John Dehlin [02:58:24] Right. And again, it's like he wants a video before he'll believe that it, that it happened. All right, So I mean, obviously he's, he's trying to say Warren Jeffs is so horrific that Joseph Smith isn't that bad in comparison. Sandra, what? Do you buy that argument?

Sandra Tanner [02:58:40] Well, yeah, I think that Warren just is worse. But I don't know that that makes me feel better about Joseph.

Gerardo Sumano [02:58:47] Right?

Sandra Tanner [02:58:48] I mean, if you're dealing with this guy robbed 10 banks and this other guy only robbed 5, it doesn't make the guy that robbed 5 a good

John Dehlin [02:58:58] guy, less of a felon.

Gerardo Sumano [02:59:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:59:01] Julia, what do you think?

Guest [02:59:03] Oh, yeah, like this doesn't, this doesn't make it better. Just making. Showing somebody's worst does not make him better.

Gerardo Sumano [02:59:07] It's not a competition.

John Dehlin [02:59:09] Dan, anything. Anything you want to add, Dan?

Dan Vogel [02:59:12] Well, if Brian thinks Warren Jeffs is a Scoundrel for doing all of that. Why doesn't he think Joe Smith isn't. For the same reason?

Guest [02:59:23] Because he didn't have sex.

John Dehlin [02:59:24] Because he did it less. Dan, aren't you paying attention? He did the bad things less. It's math, Dan.

Dan Vogel [02:59:32] Well, Joseph Smith is an underachiever.

John Dehlin [02:59:36] Oh. I mean, if you're gonna do it, go all the way, right? Is that what you're saying?

Dan Vogel [02:59:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:59:41] This is dark humor. This is really dark.

Dan Vogel [02:59:43] He.

Gerardo Sumano [02:59:44] But I do also want to just comment on the. This argument that he makes that he didn't coerce the women, that no woman was.

Guest [02:59:53] Oh, yeah.

Dan Vogel [02:59:54] That.

Dan Vogel [02:59:54] That's something that I was thinking about.

John Dehlin [02:59:56] Was that in a video that we

Gerardo Sumano [02:59:57] didn't show just right now. He said it.

John Dehlin [03:00:01] Oh, okay.

Gerardo Sumano [03:00:02] He said wearing Jeffs would goers and Joseph wouldn't.

John Dehlin [03:00:04] Yeah. What do you think about that, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [03:00:07] Well, when you tell a woman that God sent an angel three times and finally with a drawn sword, that you, even though you had gotten married and are pregnant, God still says, you have to become my wife. I mean, I don't know how much coercion you got to put on somebody.

Gerardo Sumano [03:00:29] What about that story of Nancy Rigdon where she was put in a room?

John Dehlin [03:00:34] Julie, do you want to tell that story of Nancy Rigdon?

Guest [03:00:36] Is it Martha Brotherton who was locked in a room?

Dan Vogel [03:00:38] I think that's what he.

Gerardo Sumano [03:00:39] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [03:00:40] Martha Brotherton with Brigham Young. Yeah.

Guest [03:00:43] You just have Sandra tell it.

Gerardo Sumano [03:00:44] This too many.

Sandra Tanner [03:00:45] Well, yeah, Martha's this. This girl. What, does she come from England or wherever? And she's invited up to the second story office in the Joseph Smith's mercantile store to meet with the. The prophet and the brethren. And they proceed to tell her about polygamy. And she's not buying it. I guess Brigham Young's got her and maybe somebody else in this room, and so she demures from it, and they bring in Joseph just. Oh, yeah, it's okay. And Martha, you should just believe anything Brigham tells you. Whatever he tells you to do is right. And then Joseph leaves the room and Brigham locks the door and proceeds to proposition her. And, well, I don't know. I would have to think about this. And she's trying to figure out how to get out of the locked room and finally convinces them that, well, she needs to go home and pray about this. And so they finally let her out, and she gets out of town and then later tells people about this. It's just a terrible story of coercion. And I think Martha's just a hero for having the presence of mind to figure out how to get out of the room.

The Happiness Letter and Women Who Refused Joseph

John Dehlin [03:02:01] My good friend Bo Euler is asking us to remind people about the happiness letter, which I'm pretty sure is connected to Nancy Rigdon. Julia, do you want to tell that or Dan or Sandra, who wants to tell happiness letter story with Nancy Rigdon in response to the claim that there was no pressure or coercion?

Sandra Tanner [03:02:18] Well, I turned over to one of the others. If they want to tell the Nancy story.

Dan Vogel [03:02:22] I have a different story.

John Dehlin [03:02:24] Oh, Julia, tell, tell the happy happiness letter.

Guest [03:02:27] I don't know if I know it as well as maybe other people know it. I just know that like I know Nancy. Miranda Johnson or Miranda. Nancy Johnson went to Nancy Rigdon and was like, hey, Joseph wants to meet with you. And Joseph gave her this or she was given this letter and it was said, you know, whatever we say is right.

John Dehlin [03:02:44] Like what's wrong in what's wrong in some circumstances is right in other circumstances.

Guest [03:02:48] Right, Exactly. And she was appalled by that. And I'm pretty sure it says it. Does it say in there or was it other letters where he says burn this after you get it? But, but she had a really hard time with that. Rigden had a really hard time with that. I'm pretty sure that's what caused the falling out between them. And it was just like there's a lot of pressure for this, for this young girl, for Nancy Reagan, when a

John Dehlin [03:03:05] prophet of God, who, who allegedly speaks for God is telling a 15, 16, 18 year old girl, hey, what God forbids in one circumstance he may be okay with in another circumstance.

Gerardo Sumano [03:03:19] And, and he, she had refused to marry him first, like so he. So Joseph had proposed, Nancy said no. And then he came back with a letter and sorry, you can go ahead and what you were saying, what the letter says?

John Dehlin [03:03:36] Yeah, just, just, it's, it's coercive by nature. If you're a prophet, if you're viewed and believed in as a prophet's here and Revelator, you've shut this woman, this teenage girl, behind a closed door. And by the way, didn't he tell them, if you agree to having sex with me and being my wife, then you and all your family will be saved forever in eternity. But if you don't, you've got 24 hours. And if you don't agree to marry me and have sex with me, you and all your family will in effect be damned. Is that, did that happen, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [03:04:13] Well, it did with Helen, Mark Kimball, I can't remember with Sarah. If that's in the letter or not.

Gerardo Sumano [03:04:18] I think that's Helen.

Dan Vogel [03:04:21] So you said there were.

Dan Vogel [03:04:22] There were five women that said no.

Guest [03:04:25] Yeah. So can I talk about.

John Dehlin [03:04:27] Yeah, please, please. And then Dan.

Dan Vogel [03:04:28] Dan's gonna talk about that one, too.

Guest [03:04:30] Do you want to talk about Sarah

Dan Vogel [03:04:32] or the Pratt or are you gonna quote Sarah Pratts?

John Dehlin [03:04:36] Go ahead. Go ahead.

Guest [03:04:38] Yeah, well, no, I was gonna say because she turned him down. And then, you know, Joseph says, you better keep this a secret. And then he. And he, in one of his speeches, can. Calls her a. From his. From her mother's breast. And so like that, like, you know, Brian House is like, oh, no. They had the freedom to turn him down. It's fine. But like, no, they didn't, because Joseph's gonna publicly shame them. Slut shamed them in front of everybody. What was the story you were gonna tell?

Dan Vogel [03:05:00] Well, just a story that Sarah tells her herself. In Wild's Mormon portraits, she's. If any woman. This is what Joseph told her when she turned him down. If any woman like me. That's what she says, opposed his wishes. He used to say, be silent or I shall ruin your characters. My character must be sustained in the interest of the church. So I like to quote that as, you know, where he. It's kind of a pious thing that.

Guest [03:05:40] Right.

Dan Vogel [03:05:40] He has to be sustained in order for people to be saved. You're gonna cause people to disbelieve, and they're not going to be saved. So there's a lot of pressure on being silent. But he. But he's. He's promising to slander them, more or less. I shall ruin your character. And he was true to his word.

John Dehlin [03:06:02] Yeah. Like Brian Hails, again with the straight face, tries to tell all the viewers that Joseph Smith didn't smear and destroy the reputations of the women he proposed. And it's true, if they kept silent, he wouldn't destroy their reputation. But if they. If they declined his advances and spoke publicly about it, wouldn't he smear and destroy their reputations like Julia said?

Sandra Tanner [03:06:27] Yes, that's what happened to Rigden's daughter Nancy.

Dan Vogel [03:06:33] So on Sarah Pratt, he immediately got the couple where. Where she lived.

Guest [03:06:40] Oh, yeah.

Dan Vogel [03:06:41] Sign affidavits, and they published them in the newspaper saying that she and John Bennett were probably committing adultery anyway. He's not just. Not just the. The story with Joe Smith is false, but the one with Bennett is true. And so they're. They volunteered to help Joseph Smith smear her character in public.

John Dehlin [03:07:07] So again, this is Brian Hales, disgustingly deceiving, vulnerable People who are trying to learn the truth about this stuff, I think.

Sandra Tanner [03:07:17] Well, it shows his selective use of sources. Just ignore the ones that don't fit your narrative.

Guest [03:07:23] But, but Sandra, people have said that he's inclusive. He includes a bunch of sources. Right. Isn't that what he said at the beginning?

Sandra Tanner [03:07:29] Well, he may print them all eventually and in this list of all the documents. But how he uses them in his rebuttals.

John Dehlin [03:07:35] Yeah, exactly.

Sandra Tanner [03:07:36] Is. Is not being fair.

Guest [03:07:38] Yeah, right.

John Dehlin [03:07:39] Yeah, yeah, It's. It's. It's deceitful. All right, well, let's. We've got a couple more clips. The next one is around Emma accepting or rejecting polygamy. Let's see what he has to say about Emma.

Brian Hales [03:07:53] But Joseph may have tried to introduce first. Well, yeah, I am sealed to these women for eternity in a way that. That he. She would find acceptable to her. But then we find that. That In May of 1843, he. She finally accepts it and several really good things happen. The first one is that that she is admitted into the endowed court form. Joseph had restored the temple endowment a year before, but had almost nothing had been done and no women had been admitted until Joe. Emma had accepted this form of eternal marriage. And, and so. And. And the two of them are sealed together. Emma wasn't Joseph's first sealed spouse. Some people find that bothersome and I understand why. But he waited until she could accept the principle and then.

John Dehlin [03:08:38] Okay. I'm not sure if that cut off earlier.

Gerardo Sumano [03:08:40] I think I had it in two parts because there was too much okay to discuss.

John Dehlin [03:08:46] Do you want to talk about what.

Gerardo Sumano [03:08:47] Yeah, just. Or. Sandra, were you going to say something?

Sandra Tanner [03:08:51] Well, no, just the fact that. The fact that he's already sealed to 20 some women before Emma to me is a bit of a problem. I mean, he has to wait this long to tell his wife about this.

Dan Vogel [03:09:07] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [03:09:08] What do you think about that idea that. Oh, Emma had to accept? Because he tries to make this argument that Emma had to accept polygamy for all women to be allowed into the endowment ceremony. Because once Emma accepts polygamy, then Joseph allows her to be the first woman to be endowed.

Sandra Tanner [03:09:29] Well, thanks. I mean, but you get to bed them all in the meantime.

John Dehlin [03:09:34] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [03:09:36] If that doesn't make sense. Sense. I mean, what special thing is that to say? Well, now you all get to come to the temple ceremony. He's already been sleeping with over 20 women.

John Dehlin [03:09:45] Yeah. Like Zeke. What do you think about the. What do you think about. Did you know. What do you think about this information that that Joseph Smith was sealed to 21ish women before he ever got sealed to his first wife, Emma. How much sense does that make to, you know,

Dan Vogel [03:10:05] that doesn't make any sense at all. Like, why, why wouldn't it be her first?

John Dehlin [03:10:14] Yeah, like.

Dan Vogel [03:10:15] Yeah, it, it really doesn't make any sense to me. It.

Gerardo Sumano [03:10:20] Unless I think. Well, what I've always thought is that the ceiling ceremony was invented to justify polygamy.

Dan Vogel [03:10:26] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [03:10:27] And.

John Dehlin [03:10:27] Well, it's almost like he was trying to give her something in exchange for, for allowing it to happen. Were you? What were you going to say, Dan?

Dan Vogel [03:10:38] Just that plygamy probably came before eternal marriage as a, as a ceremony. So polygamy came. He was marrying multiple women. It had nothing to do with the eternal marriage necessarily. It was just the eternal part. The eternal marriage part. Marriage after this life as an ordinance. Yeah. You may have had the concept of being with your spouse in the next life about 1840 ish. But

Guest [03:11:15] the.

Dan Vogel [03:11:16] So it was about polygamy first. That's what. And, and that's why her marriage ceiling was delayed, I believe.

Guest [03:11:24] I also think that hurts his eternity only ceilings because like Emma, according to Todd Compton, she's the 26th wife sealed to him. Or like, you know, but like, I feel like that hurts. Does that not hurt his eternity only ceilings when that, that came later after polygamy. Right.

John Dehlin [03:11:37] Why, Julia? Why?

Guest [03:11:39] Just because, like, he. Ryan hasn't saying, oh, these are all eternity only all these polyandrous people. But like, that's not what's. That's not what the historical record is showing. Like, the eternal marriage doesn't come to later. Emma was. Was much later. Like, so, like, that doesn't seem to add up with this.

John Dehlin [03:11:56] I see, I see what you're saying. I'm just going to say this. I'm going to kind of repeat what I've already said, but I'm just going to call it. Jeremy Runnels was excommunicated just for telling the truth in the CES letter. I was excommunicated. Fawn Brody was excommunicated. You know, Nemo the Mormon was just excommunicated all for telling the truth, the inconvenient truth about Joseph Smith's, you know, behavior. Fine. The Mormon Church can excommunicate who it wants to, but the Mormon Church has other rules besides apostasy. When you are getting your temple recommend to see whether you're worthy or not to go to the temple, one of the questions you're asked is, are you honest in your dealings with Your fellow men and women, and you can have your temple recommend taken away if you answer that question wrong, and the church has the option of excommunicating you if you violate that or any of the other temple recommend questions. And my question for the world and for the church is why hasn't Brian Hales had his temple recommend taken away and or been excommunicated for lying repeatedly about polygamy? I mean, he's on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. As I understand it, you have to have an active temple recommend to sing in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. So to me, I just can only conclude that he has an active temple recommend. And I'm just wondering why his bishops and stake presidents haven't taken that away from him and. Or canceled his membership for lying to so many people. Sandra, what's your thought?

Sandra Tanner [03:13:32] As long as you promote the prophet, it seems that you can tell whatever you want. It all depends on what your ultimate goal is. If you're going to say things that embarrass the truth claims of Joseph Smith, then you're going to get excommunicated.

John Dehlin [03:13:49] Even if they're true.

Sandra Tanner [03:13:50] Yeah. Well, that's not the point. The point is you're embarrassing the brethren.

John Dehlin [03:13:54] So you can lie for the Lord. But if it makes the brethren look good, then what?

Sandra Tanner [03:13:58] Then it's okay.

John Dehlin [03:13:59] But.

Sandra Tanner [03:13:59] But you can't do it and make the brother look bad.

John Dehlin [03:14:03] Okay, so if you tell the truth, but it makes the brethren look bad, then what happens?

Sandra Tanner [03:14:06] Then you get called in for a

John Dehlin [03:14:08] bishop's council and get us communicated.

Sandra Tanner [03:14:10] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:14:10] Okay, it's clear. Got it. That's how it works. Okay, John, please.

Dan Vogel [03:14:16] I wouldn't accuse Brian of lying. I just think he's overzealous and he has ways of rationalizing his interpretations and just like anyone else. So I wouldn't say he's, you know, calculating, you know, lying. I wouldn't. I wouldn't go there.

Gerardo Sumano [03:14:34] But.

John Dehlin [03:14:34] But assuming he watches today, then he's put on notice that he's been deceiving people for years and years and years. Right.

Dan Vogel [03:14:42] Just like people, a lot of people are very committed to their interpretation. And there's always ways to hang on to your interpretation if you want to hang on to it badly enough. There's always ways, Right?

Sandra Tanner [03:14:59] I don't think that Brian deliberately tries to deceive. I believe he deliberately tries to vindicate the prophet and just does not count in the equation those things that don't fit that ultimate conclusion.

John Dehlin [03:15:17] I mean, I think it's. I think y' all are being charitable and, you know, making, you know, best faith assumptions of him.

Dan Vogel [03:15:25] The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

John Dehlin [03:15:27] Yeah, yeah, there you go. Yeah. And I, you know, I don't want to. I'm not on a high hour saying that I have never made mistakes or even that I've never lied. It's that. It's when you're. You're doing so in ways that really impact people's lives in mass that I think it becomes a real problem. And so I just hope, honestly, Brian will own up to the ways that he's deceiving people and start giving more honest and accurate, you know, explanations that take in to consideration the feedback of everything that we're sharing. All right, let's go ahead and go quickly to the next clip. We're almost done.

Emma Smith's Experience With Plural Marriage

Brian Hales [03:16:09] She, by several accounts, participated in plural ceilings to the Lawrence sisters and to the Partridge sisters in May. But what we find is within weeks and one. And Eliza Partridge said that from the very first night after Joseph stayed with. With m. Emily, or I think it was Emily after that point Eliza, or Emma Smith, who was kind of the. In control of their. The eyes because they lived there in the mansion house, she was disapproving of there ever being with Joseph. And so here she's participating, and almost instantly she turns and understandably, I mean, I'm not criticizing her. This would be really tough.

Sandra Tanner [03:16:52] And.

Brian Hales [03:16:52] And so through June, she's struggling, and in the first part of July, she's struggling. And then what do we find Hiram doing in July on July 12th?

Dan Vogel [03:17:00] Do you.

Brian Hales [03:17:01] Do you know where I'm going with this? Well, Hiram says, joseph, why don't you just dictate a revelation? Right now you're just saying this is what God is. Is revealing to us. So dictate a revelation. I'll take it to her. I'll read it to her. I bet she'll accept it. Well, he dictated section 132 and he taught it. He brought it to Emma, and Emma rejected. It completely goes poorly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Joseph just said, well, you don't know him as well as I do.

Sandra Tanner [03:17:27] And.

Brian Hales [03:17:28] But that's how we got section 132. And it was written by William Clayton, and a copy was made by Joseph Kingsbury, which we have today. Provenance is solid. It hasn't been, you know, edited or changed or made up by Brigham Young. It's a true document that traces very well back to Joseph Smith. But Emma did. Was participating. And we have several different accounts that Emma burned the original Clayton copy or that she had Joseph burn it or something, but it was destroyed at Emma's bidding. But the very next day, we find that there is a lot of tears, and Clayton is called in, and. And they. They deed over some property to Emma. She's apparently setting up for maybe a separation or divorce. And there's. There's talk of a divorce in Clayton's journal for Joseph and Emma. But ultimately, by September, she's friendly, and she, according to Melissa Lott, approved of Joseph being sealed to Melissa. And. But for the last eight or nine months, we really don't know anything about what's going on behind the doors with them.

John Dehlin [03:18:31] Sandra, what do you think?

Sandra Tanner [03:18:33] Well, this is a crazy story because it shows the long process of breaking down Emma into accepting this. And so that you have these two sets of sisters living in the home that Joseph finally gets Emma to consent to give him these four girls.

Gerardo Sumano [03:18:59] Hadn't he already married them?

Sandra Tanner [03:19:01] Or, well, the two of the girls he had already married. And rather than tell Emma that he'd already married them when she consented to him having two wives, they have a second marriage for Emma's benefit without telling her he'd already been married to them. And so. And then he marries two other sisters right close together. So you have these four girls that come into the marriage relationship, which are obviously full marriages, because Emma can't handle the fact that Joseph's having sex with them in the home. And so this whole. The whole thing blows up. Then you get Hyrum saying, well, just write down a revelation, and I'll go try to convince Emma of it. But the giving of the revelation is following after Joseph has a couple dozen wives and four girls that Emma's just gone through this horrible breakdown of her will to let him have these four girls. Girls. And then she can't stand it when she realizes he's sleeping with him. Well, Hyrum says, well, you just write that revelation down, and I think I can convince her. And Joseph says, you don't know Emma like I do. And so Emma throws a fit and. And won't accept it. And then Brian goes on to talk about, yeah, they're deing this property over, like she's gonna divorce him. And, I mean, this is a marriage in crisis. This. This is not a happy home life. This is not. Does not sound like something God's ordaining to me.

John Dehlin [03:20:41] Yeah, Dan, what do you want to add?

Dan Vogel [03:20:44] Okay, so if you read DNC132, there's a subtext that runs through it, and the Revelation is given, you know, in July, July 12, 1843, long after he started polygamy and long after he's had his 14 polyandrous marriages. So there's a section at the end of the revelation that talks about, if you have seven virgins, you don't commit adultery. And I read this as Joseph Smith repenting of the polyandrus marriages, that he's going to discontinue that practice, admitting that it was wrong, but that polygamy is still a true principle. And I think what he was. He was driven to it by Emma because there is a hint in there that she was given to somebody else. But the time has passed for her to take that up. And some people speculate it was William Law. And so I can hear Emma saying to Joseph, well, if you can, if the woman that women that you marry have two husbands, I can have two husbands. And I don't think. I don't think Joseph went for that. So he put that in there to say, that's wrong. And if you look at the King's Berry, you have to. When you read the whole section 132, it begins by assuring Joseph Smith of his salvation unless he commits murder or bless me against the Holy Ghost. Adultery is forgivable, in other words. And there's several passages that talk about his sacrifice. The Lord has accepted his sacrifice. Do not pitch upon my servant Joseph for his weaknesses and his transgressions. And when you get to verse 60, it talks about this. You know, sacrifice is acceptable, and Joseph Smith is repented, and he shall be. There's a place for him assured for him. And then verse 61 starts the little discussion about the seven virgins, and then it goes into, if Emma refuses to accept this, she will be destroyed. So if you look at the Kingsbury copy of William Clayton's Revelation, when you get to that verse about the seven virgins, this handwriting changes. It's still Kingsbury's handwriting, but it's in tighter lines, neater, tighter lines, like he has more time. So my speculation is that that last part was dictated after Hiram and Joseph talked to Emma and she burned the original, which was in Clayton's handwriting, He came back and dictated the part relinquishing the polyandrus marriages and threatening Emma with destruction after the conversation, after she burned the original.

John Dehlin [03:24:32] So, I mean, I guess. I guess we should use Emma as an illustration to rebut Brian Hales's claim that Joseph Smith never used coercion. Do you think producing a revelation where God says, emma, you'll be destroyed if you.

Sandra Tanner [03:24:48] Not just once. All through this, there's the word destroyed,

Guest [03:24:52] like 11 or 12 times.

Sandra Tanner [03:24:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:24:55] What do you think, Zeke? If. If God. If Joseph produces a revelation allegedly from God, telling Emma that she'll be destroyed like five or ten times if she doesn't allow him to practice polygamy. In your mind, does that count as coercion?

Dan Vogel [03:25:10] That's horrible. Like, that's messed up.

Brian Hales [03:25:14] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [03:25:15] I. I don't know. I don't know how to put it.

John Dehlin [03:25:18] We've beat down Zeke today.

Dan Vogel [03:25:22] Everything is so.

John Dehlin [03:25:24] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [03:25:25] It's so wrong. I wish. I wish that more. More of this kind of history was brought to light, especially. I mean, it makes sense that it's not.

John Dehlin [03:25:37] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [03:25:37] I mean, you don't go to seminary to learn about how Emma hated that his husband was. Or that her husband was having sex with multiple women and that she wanted to divorce him.

John Dehlin [03:25:50] They don't mention that in seminary, unfortunately.

Dan Vogel [03:25:53] No. Otherwise I would have been out of there a lot.

Sandra Tanner [03:25:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:25:59] I mean, there's a reason why the church hasn't told us all this stuff, Right?

Dan Vogel [03:26:02] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [03:26:02] You had a question about the seven virgins, Zeke? I just really quick. I think what. What Dan is explaining is that that part was added later once Emma says, well, I want more husbands. So then Joseph comes up with this rule in Doctrine Covenants at the end 132, saying that the. That the wives have to be virgins. And that makes it so Emma cannot have more husbands, but he can keep marrying other women.

Dan Vogel [03:26:31] Okay.

Dan Vogel [03:26:33] But not married women.

Gerardo Sumano [03:26:35] Right.

Dan Vogel [03:26:35] Unmarried in the last part also. Not only does the last part threaten Emma, but it. It does institute the. This law of Sarah. Right?

Gerardo Sumano [03:26:45] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [03:26:46] Of getting the first wife's permission. But if she doesn't give permission, she'll be destroyed.

Sandra Tanner [03:26:52] Right. And he's free to go on and marry them then if she. Even if she says no.

Dan Vogel [03:26:57] Right. So the virgins. Virgins are the. You know, just unmarried women is okay. But the polyandrus ones, he's saying was wrong. So I think that was to head off Emma, but it's. The revelation says the time has passed and the Lord withdraws the offer.

Sandra Tanner [03:27:25] Convenient.

Dan Vogel [03:27:25] Yeah.

Dan Vogel [03:27:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:27:27] I want to call at least one comment. We've had such a great string of comments for those of you who want to check out the comments, but Connie Mae Rasmussen Allen wrote this. Sounds like a Jerry Springer episode.

Sandra Tanner [03:27:42] Well, it would be funny if it's not so sad. I mean, this affected it. This revelation is still affecting people today.

John Dehlin [03:27:50] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [03:27:50] It wasn't just something in the past. This is something that thousands of people today are impacted by this whole scenario.

John Dehlin [03:27:59] And that's a great segue. So let's go ahead and go to the next clip. We're skipping a few. There's just so much we don't have time to listen to. But here's. Here's Brian Hales answering the question. Does the Mormon Church still practice polygamy?

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [03:28:14] Church claims to no longer practice polygamy. Is it still practiced through ceilings and walls?

Video Clip 1 [03:28:19] Why?

Video Clip 1 [03:28:21] It's known mystery that a man can still be sealed to more than one wife in the temple today as long as the other wives are deceased. And that creates eternal marriage in heaven. And President Nelson, President Oaks are two examples of that. And the. The reality is, my response to that is it doesn't sound fair. And we get that on Earth. It doesn't feel fair. It doesn't sound fair. But we know so little about eternal marriage, and we know even less about eternal plural marriage. Now, there are voices out there that tell women they should worry about and fret about eternal plural marriage possibilities. My daughter threatened her husband to not die before she does because she was afraid he would. She would die and he would be sealed to a second wife. And I get. And. And I think we understand those concerns, but really, we're worried about the unknown. And in the eternities, there's eternal resources, eternal time, eternal love. I mean, we can't imagine what it would look like. They're not defending it because I think it still sounds really bad. But since we know so little about it, we can trust God's promises that those who are exalted, those who are worthy, will have eternal happiness, will have everlasting happiness. I think we can trust those promises and just try to. Try to wait to know about these other things.

John Dehlin [03:29:44] All right, Julia, what do you think? These aren't the droids you're looking for. There's no problem here. Eternity's long, Heavenly Father's. Just don't worry about these sorts of things. Everything's okay. There's no problem here. Julia, any response?

Guest [03:29:57] Oh, my gosh. When he said, like, oh, there are voices that are telling women, like, basically that they should worry about eternal polygamy. Like, that's probably like, equality or like justice or like any other feminist thing. Like, that's. This is not fair.

John Dehlin [03:30:10] Oh, also, also, women can't figure this out for themselves. They need to have voices telling them that this is a process. It's Carolyn Pearson's fault. It's Sandra's fault. It's Dan's fault. It's my fault. Because women certainly can't think for themselves, right, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [03:30:24] Well, one of the other problems in this is that you have a man that, say, outlives three wives if he has children by all three women. There has to be polygamy in heaven for Mormonism to make any sense. Because if he's married in the temple to each of these women, one after another. Yes, but in the hereafter, theoretically, each woman is sealed to him. Their eternal family, their children are sealed to him. It is polygamy in heaven, and there's no way to solve this. And he wants to say, oh, well, God's fair. He'll work it out. Everyone will be happy. How can it work out when you have several families with one man as the head of each of these families? I, My, My word, when I think of Brigham Young's family, when you have children by 16 women, I mean, Brigham was married a whole lot more, but he had children by 16 women. Each of those 16 families would expect to claim Brigham as their father. So it has to be polygamy of all these families together with one man, and it isn't going to be happy. What woman is going to be happy? To be part of a harem?

John Dehlin [03:31:44] Yeah, like, just, Just, just exchange polygamy with. With any other bad thing and see if this makes sense. Zeke, you can. You can tell us if this makes sense. So don't worry that there's racism in heaven because God's just. And we don't understand everything, and it'll all work out in the end. How does that sound? Okay. Don't worry that there's rape in heaven because God's just. And eternity is really long. And you know God. You know God. God's ways are higher than our ways. How's that? Is it getting any better?

Dan Vogel [03:32:22] No.

John Dehlin [03:32:22] All right, There's.

Sandra Tanner [03:32:23] But those are things that could be overcome. You don't go on being raped all through heaven.

John Dehlin [03:32:29] I know.

Sandra Tanner [03:32:30] The plural marriages go on.

John Dehlin [03:32:32] No, I know. I was just saying. So slavery, don't worry. Yes, there's slavery in heaven, which actually,

Gerardo Sumano [03:32:41] according. According to Mormon doctrine, there is.

John Dehlin [03:32:44] But don't worry, because eternity's long, and God's just that those slaves will be just fine. They'll be really happy in eternal slavery. Yeah, right. Evidently, that's Brian's logic. Dan, let's get you in here.

Polygamy in the Afterlife and Celestial Marriage

Dan Vogel [03:33:02] Well, polygamy was a miserable system in this life. Why would it be any different in the next life? Yeah, I mean that. What just missed describing is some kind of male heaven for males. But. Yes, but the. Plus the idea that the next life is anything like this one is. Is totally absurd. That that God is up there, you know, and that there's eternal heavens and eternal procreation and stuff like that is just totally absurd to me. I mean, I understand where Joe Smith got this idea. It was just kind of a logical extension of what was called natural theology. Okay. Where they tried to take theology and make it fit what they knew from science about nature, you know, about all the planets being inhabited and the sun and the moon being inhabited and you know, that there's an endless amount of creation and no space where there is no law and. Etc. But the thing is, is that this is a very, very psychologically unhealthy system to be even contemplating as a part of a religious faith. And it was a community. It was the community idea that the community is saved together, you know, as it comes from Puritan idea, you know, that when Jesus comes, it's not going to be a rapture of one person here or there. It's going to be. The whole community is going to be caught up together like Enoch. And so it was community salvation the Puritans were after. That's why they were so strict about, you know, morality and being pure and everyone has to be pure. And so everybody's in everybody's business, you know, instead of being it with the. Each person's conscience. So this was all unhealthy thinking. Okay. All very unhealthy. And this is the first family of Mormonism. And that unhealthiness is still with us.

John Dehlin [03:35:16] Yeah, it's like Joseph is a sexual predator. He created this disastrous circumstance that led to him being killed. So let's do the obvious thing and inflict it upon all the rest of us for eternity. Because Joseph Smith, I mean, Sander, will you remind us what Jesus said about marriage in heaven? Just for those of us who actually

Sandra Tanner [03:35:35] there's no marriage in heaven because we'll be like the angels. We'll all just be brothers and sisters. And that's the New Testament concept of heaven, is that the family of God is brothers and sisters. It's a community of people. And Mormonism has turned it into this freak show of all of these families and husbands and women and. And slaves. I mean poor what's her name that gets sealed to Joseph as a servant?

John Dehlin [03:36:10] Jane Manning James.

Sandra Tanner [03:36:11] Yes. I mean the whole thing just becomes ludicrous. But my own grandpa got sealed to another woman after my grandma's death. And according to the funeral, the Three of them are off for eternity now to create their worlds and have all their billions of children. So it is a current theology. Nelson plans on being in heaven with his two wives. Oakes plans on being in heaven with his two wives.

Gerardo Sumano [03:36:43] Maybe more.

John Dehlin [03:36:44] Or more. Or more or more.

Sandra Tanner [03:36:46] Yeah. Well, yes, there could be a lot of women up there that need saved in the. During the millennium. And so polygamy is a current doctrine. It's a current threat to a Mormon woman because if her husband outlives her, just like my grandpa, he can go and be married to another woman and she has no say in the matter. And if Mormonism is true, she's stuck with polygamy, like it or not. Now they want to say, oh well, God won't force anyone to stay in a plural marriage that they don't want to be in. Well, what does that do the woman with her kids if she's got. If the guy had kids by both women. Yeah. She could refuse to. The first wife could say, no, I'm not going to live in polygamy. Well, what does that do to her family unit? Then they all go off without a dad. It just, it. Right. It creates a very hectic concept of heaven.

John Dehlin [03:37:37] Yeah. I want to call everyone's attention to a really good book called the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy by Carolyn Pearson. And we've also had her on Mormon stories to talk about that book. It's a great book by a great author telling us all the ways the ghost of eternal polygamy terrorizes Mormon men and women to this day. Really quickly, I'll just share a couple super chats because we're always grateful for the super chats. Rebecca Raven writes, Sandra is always amazing and we need her. I would say the same thing about Dan Vogel. Yes. The Sandy Stone writes Oaks laughing at the woman who asked the same question in a Q A is all answers we're going to get from the brethren.

Gerardo Sumano [03:38:24] I think it was a general conference. It was general conference.

Dan Vogel [03:38:27] Yeah.

Guest [03:38:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:38:28] What happened?

Gerardo Sumano [03:38:29] He made fun of women who have questions about how it. That's all going to work out in the afterlife.

John Dehlin [03:38:35] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [03:38:35] When they don't approve of a second husband.

Guest [03:38:38] It was literally a laughing point like he said it and then everyone laughed like it was a joke.

Gerardo Sumano [03:38:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:38:43] Yeah. One question I just have for Gerardo really quickly is Gerardo, if. If God can create, as Sandra calls this freak show, with celestial polygamy, couldn't he. Couldn't he figure out a way to make same sex marriage okay in heaven?

Brian Hales [03:38:58] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [03:38:58] You know, you would think you would

Dan Vogel [03:39:02] think I would hope so.

John Dehlin [03:39:04] Yeah. Like if Brigham young could have 50 plus wives and if J. Manning James could be a slave and there could be men sealed to men. Which Joseph Smith. Right. Sandra, weren't men sealed to men?

Sandra Tanner [03:39:15] Well, yeah. As father and son dynastic lines of families.

John Dehlin [03:39:21] Like it's not a stretch that God could allow men to be married and sealed to men. Right.

Guest [03:39:26] Well and then you have. In the temple. In the temple you have two men populating the earth. Like there's no heavenly mother in that story.

Gerardo Sumano [03:39:33] Yeah. Michael and Jehovah.

Guest [03:39:36] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [03:39:36] They're the creators. There's no, there's no women.

John Dehlin [03:39:39] Yeah. We underestimate God's ability sometimes. All right, well if, if that weren't enough, he needs to end this video by making a statement about whether or not Joseph Smith was smart enough to write the Book of Mormon. So let's just go ahead and end. This is the final clip for today.

Joseph Smith's Intelligence and the Book of Mormon

Brian Hales [03:39:58] Was researching this and I've kind of alluded to this. I think I, I had people ask me if I was worried about what I would find. I actually never found anything that made me really worry about it. I. Joseph wasn't perfect. He wouldn't want us to think that he was perfect, but he was always worthy. And that was my conclusion. But I had always thought that he couldn't produce the Book of Mormon in 1829. So that's why I started studying that, that question in 2015. And I've come to realize that, that he didn't have the skills in any way. And the, the current narrative which is most popular, that Joseph was just smart enough to do it, it needs to be tested. And as I've been testing it, I don't find that to be the least bit persuasive. And so for those who, who worry who need something tangible, the Book of Mormon is tangible evidence of a miracle that Joseph did something that he didn't have the ability to, to do. And I find that, that you can fall back on that position. Somebody said the Book of Mormon is the knot at the end of my faith rope that keeps you from falling off. And I've studied, I've got a database of over 200 explanations by, by atheists and naturalists of how Joseph did it. None of them are plausible. And I'm analyzing these in this book that I'm doing. But we really do have a tangible miracle in the Book of Mormon. And I, I stay there and stay with that. Pray attend, keep your covenants and these things will work out. Just, just do those three things.

John Dehlin [03:41:27] So Dan Vogel, as, as one of the humans who's probably spent the most amount of time on this question on earth as to whether or not Joseph was smart enough to write the Book of Mormon and or that there's no plausible explanation for how this amazing book was created. Do you have a quick response to Brian Hales?

Dan Vogel [03:41:47] Just Smith was smarter than Brian Hales and you shouldn't judge Joe Smith by your own shortcomings. I would say that you. On Mormonism Live, we went step by step through some of Brian's major methods of trying to come to his conclusion. Conclusion. And he compares app mostly compares apples to oranges. Like he compares the Book of Mormon to some of the great literature that's ever been written. And, and the Book of Mormon's nothing like the great, the great literature. And it comes down to Joe Smith is smarter than a lot of people think and the Book of Mormon's not as good as a lot of people think. So the. When you actually throw out the Isaiah and scriptural things, it comes down. When you talk about current day page typesetting, it only comes to about 160 pages. Okay. And he, Joseph Smith proved he was quite capable of writing text on the sly on the spur of the moment when he just continued trans dictating revelations like DNC 88 and other revelations are quite lengthy and 101, you know, those are pretty amazing scriptural texts also, you know, and Joseph Smith, he knew he had that talent and he knew no one else could duplicate it. And that's why he did it in the first place because he knew he had a talent for doing it. And some things are not replicatable. They're just, you know, things that happen in history that people just cannot replicate all the time. All the time. There's unique human beings that crop up that have one certain talent and it's never going to be repeated or. But there are reasonable facsimiles and that's where I would go to the automatic writing text as an example of people that can do that. It's reasonable. It's a reasonable facsimile of what Joseph Smith did. So he's not totally unique.

John Dehlin [03:44:15] I could go on and on. Do you want to add anything to that?

Sandra Tanner [03:44:17] Well, yeah, if you take like the book Course in Miracles that's channeled, you take scripture, things like Owaspi and Sacred Book and Scroll or whatever by what's her name, Lee. There's other books out there that come in this kind of flowing fashion by one person. They that's their gift. I can't write a book like J.K. rowling's with Harry Potter, but it doesn't mean she couldn't do it, which is a better book than the Book of Mormon. So if we're gonna go by what's produced, he doesn't have that great a gift. He's creative. You see him on the section 132 to immediately when Hyrum says, well, just write down a revelation and we can go give that to him, he sits down and dictates this long revelation. It shows he has this ability to just come up with spiritual thoughts and religious dogma and spin it together and whip out a revelation. So he. He's shown through the Doctrine and Covenants, through the Book of Abraham, through the Book of Moses, these different things, this ability, but it isn't always a good ability. You look in the Book of Mormon when he has the Jesus come to America and he's going to use Matthew's King James Sermon on the Mount. You can tell what parts Joseph adds, because the Sermon on the Mount is this beautiful piece of literature that's very succinct. And when Joseph puts stuff at the beginning or end or in the middle, it's very obvious because it suddenly switches to this wordy, rambling sentence structure. So I see Joseph's fingerprints all through the Book of Mormon. Yes, there's times when he has an eloquent turn of phrase, but not always. The Book of Mormon isn't that great a book. They keep telling us it's the greatest book ever written. And I'm thinking, how many books have you read?

John Dehlin [03:46:38] Mic drop. That was so good.

Gerardo Sumano [03:46:43] Isn't that an interesting way to end? Also a very disturbing video about polygamy. Like, let's not worry about it because Joseph was so great.

Sandra Tanner [03:46:52] Yeah. We can't explain the Book of Mormon, so everything must be true.

John Dehlin [03:46:58] Yeah, yeah.

Dan Vogel [03:46:58] Or.

John Dehlin [03:46:59] Or. Or all this polygamy stuff might really be disturbing, but that Book of Mormons, Fantastic.

Dan Vogel [03:47:04] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [03:47:04] Yes.

Final Reflections and Closing Remarks

John Dehlin [03:47:07] All right, well, let's just go ahead and give everyone a chance for a final comments. So. So, Dan, you just heard, you know, Sandra, but also, you know, we've been talking now for almost four hours about Brian Hales. You've been very charitable to Brian, saying that he's probably sincere. He probably is deluding himself. Like, we all delude ourselves that he doesn't intend to deceive, that he's a. I don't know, a pious fraud. Maybe. But. But any. Any final words you want to share, Dan Vogel?

Dan Vogel [03:47:44] Not really. I don't have too. I've said probably more than I should already.

John Dehlin [03:47:50] Okay. All right. Well, Dan, we're really grateful that you were able to join us today. We'll plug your books at the end. Gerardo, any final words?

Gerardo Sumano [03:48:04] Man, I don't know. Well, I. I wish people would know more about this information.

Dan Vogel [03:48:09] Right.

Gerardo Sumano [03:48:09] I think that was interesting about having Zig on the episode, how he's learning about this stuff for the first time. And just as I learned it for the first time, just several while being at BYU Idaho without, you know, taking Institute classes. I certainly didn't learn it from Institute. I learned it from Mormon Stories Podcast

John Dehlin [03:48:29] or, you know, Sandra Tanner or Grant Palmer or CES Letter. Jeremy Runnels.

Brian Hales [03:48:36] Right.

Gerardo Sumano [03:48:36] Yeah. Yeah. So. And I read and watched everything that Brian Hill said, and none of it really convinced me, me that it was all okay. So I've. I've always had some resentment, a little bit against Brian for his apologetics and. And how hurtful it can be to dismiss the women's stories by trying to make it all okay and salvage Joseph Smith. And like I said, up to the point of claiming that the women were adulterous in order to save Joseph, which is, yeah, pretty bad.

Dan Vogel [03:49:15] Zeke. Well, I'm happy I came. It was disgusting. It was gross. This is. No, but I. I really am happy to be learning these things. And I think it's important for everybody to do a little bit more research about what you subscribe. Subscribe to or what you believe in. Because, I mean, something that my parents told me after I told them that I had left the church this past Sunday was, why don't you have any faith? And I told them I don't think that fight that faith should be blind. And to that, they didn't really have a response. And I really don't think that I. I really don't think that people like this was Dan Vogel.

Guest [03:50:18] Brian Hills.

Dan Vogel [03:50:18] Brian Hills, sorry. Learning all the names. But I really don't think that it's fair for him to, like Gerardo said, kind of skip over so many important things like tiptoe around such important facts, especially with the amount of. Poll that he has or the amount of influence. Influence that he has. But overall, I'm happy that I'm learning.

John Dehlin [03:50:45] Even if it turns your world upside down.

Dan Vogel [03:50:47] Even if it turns my world upside down, it'll bring to light a better one.

John Dehlin [03:50:51] Beautiful. All right, well, I'll just add that, you know, we often try and say on Mormon stories, we try and be hard on systems and not on people. So, Brian, I want to apologize for being so hard on you today. I. I think Dan's approach is healthier where he's giving you the benefit of the doubt and looking at you in a charitable way. So I apologize for getting a little bit upset. Brian Hales. So what I'll just say about the Mormon Church is I think it's horrific, Mormon Church, that you've excommunicated Fawn Brody. You would have excommunicated Sandra and Gerald. Did they excommunicate you, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [03:51:30] Well, they excommunicated us because we asked for our names to be taken off.

John Dehlin [03:51:34] Okay, so you excommunicated Sandra and Gerald. You excommunicated Michael quinn in the September 6th. You excommunicated me. Grant Palmer, Jeremy Runnels, Bill Real Nemo, The Mormon, Natasha Helfield. First, Sam Young. You excommunicate all the truth tellers, all the people that are telling the truth, that are informing the membership about the lies and the. The problems in its history. And then you let someone like Brian Hales mislead everybody, unintentionally. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Unintentionally deceive and mislead everyone. And you. And you give him a pass. I think that's horrific. So, Mormon Church, stop punishing your truth tellers. Start telling the truth, and then stop giving cover for people who are unintentionally deceiving others. And Brian will assume that you didn't know better. But as Maya Angelou says, and as Oprah says, when you know better, you do better. So after today, Brian Hales, we expect you to start telling a more accurate, a more honest, and a more complete version of how you talk about these things. Because now you know. Now you know. And so we look forward. You're welcome to apologize. You're welcome to let us all know that you're sorry for deceiving generations of people and for misleading and misrepresenting things. You can say you didn't do it on purpose, but again, the church has taught you how to repent. And I think we should all follow the steps of repentance when. When we've screwed up. So we look forward to that. And, and Brian Hales, if you want to come on Mormon Stories, we'll have you on for that apology. What do you say, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [03:53:21] Christianity calls us to a life of truth, and that's all we're asking of the Mormons, to have a life of truth. And they didn't give it to us.

John Dehlin [03:53:31] Yeah, well said. Julia, any final word?

Guest [03:53:35] No, those are all perfect. I don't want to. That was great.

John Dehlin [03:53:38] All right, well, Sandra, thank you so much for coming today and blessing us with your wisdom. Remind everyone how young you are.

Sandra Tanner [03:53:45] 83.

John Dehlin [03:53:46] Can y' all believe this? Amazing woman. Funny, hysterical, brilliant is 83. That's amazing.

Sandra Tanner [03:53:53] I can hardly believe it.

Dan Vogel [03:53:55] And.

John Dehlin [03:53:56] And we let you go to the bathroom in less than two hours.

Sandra Tanner [03:54:01] That's right.

John Dehlin [03:54:01] You did.

Sandra Tanner [03:54:02] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:54:02] So we honored that request. Zeke, thanks for coming. Great to have you. Gerardo, thanks for setting this up.

Dan Vogel [03:54:09] Yeah, thank you.

John Dehlin [03:54:10] Dan Vogel, you're a gentleman and a scholar. Plug a couple books and go buy Dan's books. Dan, where can people buy your books? And what books should they buy?

Dan Vogel [03:54:18] Well, it's Amazon's, the best place. That's where I go. They're all by Signature Books, basically. And. But I. It's been a pleasure being with everyone here. I'm happy to have been on the same show as Sandra especially. And I. I must say, Julie, Julia, and Harold. Excuse me. It's been nice being with them. I watch them all the time on with Mike, with Mike, and I think they all do a brilliant job. But I must say, Gerardo represents me quite often and quite well.

Gerardo Sumano [03:55:02] Oh, wow.

Sandra Tanner [03:55:03] Good.

Gerardo Sumano [03:55:05] That means a lot.

John Dehlin [03:55:06] Is there higher praise? I don't know that there's higher praise.

Gerardo Sumano [03:55:10] I don't think so.

John Dehlin [03:55:12] Yeah, we're always. When Dan Vogel comes in the comments, we're all, like, giddy. We're like, hey, dad's. Dad's listening, and he's so pining. Thanks. That was really nice, Dan Vogel. Thank you so much. It's great to have you. And check out his books, Charisma Under Pressure. Charisma Under Pressure is his latest book, along with a lot of other books. And check out signature Books. Shout out to Barbara Brown and the good people at Signature Books. All right, so thanks to Maven for moderating our comments today. She also always does such a great job. Thanks to Julia. She does the shorts and the time codes and the show notes and all the post production these days. Gerardo does the thumbnails as well as producing these episodes and just supporting me and strategy and all the different good things. We've got a great board, a lot of co hosts. I'm just really grateful. And mostly I want to thank all the donors that donate to the Open Stories foundation of Mormon Stories. We could not do this without you. So thank you for donating. And finally, if you're not a donor, but you want to see if you value this type of content and you want to see it continue, it's super easy to go to MormonStories.org, click on the Donate button, become a monthly donor, and we'll continue providing this content for as long as we can. Please subscribe to this channel on YouTube, on Facebook, on TikTok, on Instagram. Subscribing helps liking these episodes, helps sharing them, helps commenting on them, and and then finally, we love your feedback. So leave comments if you have feedback and if you want to email me@mormonstoriesgmail.com you're welcome to. And then finally, we have a new website that Gerardo and my friend Dave helped us put together with some other help. Check out our new website. It's fantastic. And there's a new application where if you want to come on Mormon Stories, you can apply to. Come on Margi is the first line of review for coming on Mormon Stories podcast. But we would encourage you if you've got a great story to tell, please apply to be on the podcast. Zeke, some people are asking for for your story. What do you think? Someday maybe you might tell your story?

Dan Vogel [03:57:16] Yeah, I think I could do it.

John Dehlin [03:57:17] All right.

Dan Vogel [03:57:18] In the future.

John Dehlin [03:57:19] Okay. And Gerardo's story is amazing. Sandra, you've done a multi hour story yourself, right?

Sandra Tanner [03:57:25] Yes. Oh, God. Clear back. What was that? 2014? We did hours.

John Dehlin [03:57:32] It's a great one. Check it out. And we've done hours and hours and hours of Dan Vogel as well. So anyway, thanks for joining us today. Thanks for the live stream comments. Be good to each other, be kind to each other and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.