Mormon Miscellaneous Worldwide Talk Show

Polygamy Discussion with Author, Carmon Hardy My guest was B. Carmon Hardy, author of Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy, Its origin, practice, and demise. His book is a collection of important documents on polygamy throughout its history in 19th century Mormonism. Hardy includes his comments and footnotes throughout. It is an excellent work which I highly recommend.

We discussed a number of the controversial issues regarding the Mormon practice of polygamy in the 19th century, including:

the origin;

Book of Mormon references;

why there is almost no evidence that Joseph Smith had children by any wife but Emma;

why some women who were already married were sealed to Joseph Smith;

the 1879 Supreme Court ruling;

early denials of the practice;

the 1852 public announcement of the practice and subsequent defense of the principle, etc.

A number of listeners participated by phone and email.

Talk Show host: Van Hale, LDS Official website: http://www.mormonmiscellaneous.com/ Podcast address: http://www.mormonmisc.podbean.com/ Talk Show Blog: mormonmiscellaneous.com/radioprogramblog This is the 22 July 2007 episode of the Mormon Miscellaneous Worldwide Talk Show, now in its 28th year.

To listen to future Talk Shows live, go to http://www.k-talk.com/ Sunday evenings 5:00 - 7:00 pm MST.

If you have a question or comment, your participation is invited, regardless of your point of view.

Your voice will be heard around the world.

Click to visit my eStore Catalog of Digital Articles related to some of my Podcast Episodes

To make a comment, click on “Comment” below.

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King Follett Discourse: Textual History and Controversy

On 7 April 1844 Joseph Smith spoke to the largest audience of Saints assembled during his lifetime. He brought together concepts he had touched upon for several years into a very important doctrinal address. It was then, and has continued throughout Mormon history, to be a controversial declaration of his views about how God came to be God and His intent for the progression of men to become gods. Joseph Smith explained that there is much to know in regard to salvation and exaltation which will not be known until long after we leave this life, but that there is much to be known in this life by those Saints inclined to seek.

Several doctrinal points in the discourse have lead some, over the past 130 years, to question or dispute the accuracy of the the published report of this discourse. They are:

1. The plurality of Gods 2. The stature in the resurrection of those who die in infancy 3. The concept that all mankind existed as intelligences before becoming spirits.

I present the findings from my research of a number of unpublished sources in the LDS Archives to address these arguments.

I discuss the four reports which were taken, by whom and how they were amalgamated to result in the standard version published during the past 100 years.

I include a six column parallel of these three sections of the discourse which have been the focus of these arguments. Four columns give the text from the four who wrote reports of the discourse, one column gives the first published version of 1844, authorized by the Quorum of the Twelve, and the other column gives the version prepared in 1855, examined and approved by Brigham Young for inclusion in the History of the Church - the one which has been published during the past 100 years.

Several, through phone calls and email, participated with questions and comments on the King Follett discourse, the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon, criticism of other callers.

Talk Show host: Van Hale, LDS Official website: http://www.mormonmiscellaneous.com/ Podcast address: http://www.mormonmisc.podbean.com/ Talk Show Blog: mormonmiscellaneous.com/radioprogramblog This is the 15 July 2007 episode of the Mormon Miscellaneous Worldwide Talk Show, now in its 28th year.

To listen to future Talk Shows live, go to http://www.k-talk.com/ Sunday evenings 5:00 - 7:00 pm MST.

If you have a question or comment, your participation is invited, regardless of your point of view.

Your voice will be heard around the world.

Click to visit my eStore Catalog of Digital Articles related to some of my Podcast Episodes. The article I used in this episode is now available in my eStore

To make a comment, click on “comment” below.

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Open Forum

This episode was an open forum. I began by responding to an email from the last program on the Oath of Vengeance. The author of the email contended that Wilford Woodruff could not be trusted in his statement about the endowment ceremony because he had not been forthright regarding some plural marriages following the Manifesto. I responded by applying common sense and common experience to the question of credibility, reading two comments by Joseph Smith.

The first caller lead me into a discussion of the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

The second caller is the disciple of Art Bulla. He defended Bulla’s previous challenge for me to meet him for a fist fight, claiming Bulla was acting, in this challenge, under God’s direction. Bulla claims to be God’s legitimate sole priesthood leader. He was followed by Art Bulla who responded.

A caller discussed with me the propensity of humans to keep many things secret.

Several other callers pursued various topics, some salient others ridiculous.

It was a fun program for me, but I would understand those who found portions of the discussion too outrageous to be worthwhile. This is the nature of open talk radio, it is unpredictable and can only be controlled by imposing strong censorship.  

Talk Show host: Van Hale, LDS Official website: http://www.mormonmiscellaneous.com/ Podcast address: http://www.mormonmisc.podbean.com/ Talk Show Blog: mormonmiscellaneous.com/radioprogramblog This is the 1 July 2007 episode of the Mormon Miscellaneous Worldwide Talk Show, now in its 28th year. To listen to future Talk Shows live, go to http://www.k-talk.com/ Sunday evenings 5:00 - 7:00 pm MST.

If you have a question or comment, your participation is invited, regardless of your point of view.

Your voice will be heard around the world.

Click to visit my eStore Catalog of Digital Articles related to some of my Podcast Episodes

To make a comment, click on “comment” below.

Listen Now:

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 The Alleged Oath of Vengeance Beginning in 1847 the allegation was made that the Saints were required in the endowment ceremony in the Nauvoo Temple to take an oath to “use our influence to murder this nation” to avenge “for their killing the Prophet Joseph.”A number of ex-Mormons wrote addition anti-Mormon exposes making similar claims regarding the ceremony performed in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City from 1855-1889. In sworn testimony in hearings in 1889, 1904-1906 a number of Mormons testified that no such Oath existed.They were joined by several ex-Mormons who also denied its existence. Other ex-Mormons testified that it was included in the endowment ceremony.

Perhaps, for a number of reasons, the one most qualified to speak on the matter was Wilford Woodruff. As President of the Church in 1889 he gave an explanation that “avenging” and “prophets” were mentioned in the endowment ceremony in an instruction given to the Saints to pray for God to avenge the murder of prophets and saints. He stated that this was included in the endowment ceremony by Joseph Smith in 1842 based upon Revelation 6:9-10 and this had not been changed. He maintained that Joseph and Hyrum were not mentioned in the ceremony nor was the American Nation considered responsible for the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum and, therefore, was not specifically identified as the object of vengeance.

From his explanation it would follow that those claiming the existence of an Oath of Vengeance for the Mormons to resort to murder to avenge the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum upon the American Nation was an extreme twisting of the endowment ceremony.

Recently, several authors and historians have claimed that this alleged Oath of Vengeance played a major role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

I discuss this topic presenting some of my research for a paper 20 years ago. I plan to make available some of my sources and reasoning in an article to be available in my eStore this coming week.

Talk Show host: Van Hale, LDS Official website: http://www.mormonmiscellaneous.com/ Podcast address: http://www.mormonmisc.podbean.com/ Talk Show Blog: mormonmiscellaneous.com/radioprogramblog This is the 1 July 2007 episode of the Mormon Miscellaneous Worldwide Talk Show, now in its 28th year. To listen to future Talk Shows live, go to http://www.k-talk.com/ Sunday evenings 5:00 - 7:00 pm MST.

If you have a question or comment, your participation is invited, regardless of your point of view.

Your voice will be heard around the world.

Click to visit my eStore Catalog of Digital Articles related to some of my Podcast Episodes

To make a comment, click on “comment” below.

Listen Now:

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