013 Joseph Smith’s Trial and Error Approach to Plural Marriage

Church History Matters

Scripture Central

Religion & Spirituality:christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

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Summary

Did you know that Joseph Smith’s first attempt to obey the Lord’s command to him to practice plural marriage ended quite badly and ended up straining his relationships both with his first wife Emma and with his close friend Oliver Cowdery? And have you ever heard that Joseph was sealed to several women who already had living husbands? Was this a scandalous practice, or was something else going on? And have you heard that Joseph was also sealed to Helen Kimball, who was only 14 years old at the time? You might be both surprised and relieved to learn the reason behind this. And have you ever wondered if Joseph had any children with any of his other 35 wives besides Emma? In this episode of Church History Matters we do a deep dive into all of these topics and more as we trace Joseph Smith’s creative trial and error approach to personally living the practice of plural marriage, including some innovative uses of the sealing power to accomplish God’s will the best he understood it. For show notes and transcript for this and other episodes go to https://doctrineandcovenantscentral.org/church-history-matters-podcast/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Did you know that Joseph Smith's first attempt to obey the Lord's command to him to practice
0:10.9	plural marriage ended quite badly and ended up straining his relationships both with his first
0:16.5	wife Emma and with his close friend Oliver Cowdry?
0:20.3	And have you ever heard that Joseph was sealed to several women who already had living husbands?
0:25.2	Was this a scandalous practice or was something else going on?
0:29.7	And have you heard that Joseph was also sealed to Helen Kimball, who was only 14 years old at the time?
0:36.4	You might be both surprised and relieved to learn the reasons behind this.
0:41.6	And have you ever wondered if Joseph had any children with any of his other 35 wives besides Emma?
0:48.0	On today's episode of Church History Matters, we do a deep dive into all of these topics and more as we trace
0:55.0	Joseph Smith's creative trial and error approach to personally living the
0:59.8	practice of plural marriage, including some innovative uses of the ceiling power to accomplish of at Scripture Central and my co-host is Casey Griffiths also a managing director at
1:14.8	scripture Central and today Casey and I dive into our second episode in this
1:19.8	series dealing with plural marriage Now let's get into it.
1:25.0	Welcome to the Doctrine and Covenant Central podcast. I'm Casey Griffiths joined once again by the inestimable Scott Wood. Scott say hi.
1:38.5	Hello everybody.
1:39.5	And this is part two of our discussion on plural marriage and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
1:46.0	Now in case you haven't had a chance to listen to our first episode, which you should go back and listen to if you haven't.
1:52.0	Here's just a quick recap of some of the things we discussed in the first episode of what's going to be several on the subject of plural marriage.
2:00.0	First, Joseph Smith appears to have first learned the principles of plural marriage in 1831 as part of his project to translate the Bible.
2:09.0	This is obviously difficult for Joseph Smith and for the people closest to him and he wrestles with it,
2:15.0	especially in light of the culture.
2:17.0	So this is difficult for everybody involved,
	...

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