Hello, we're Scott and Maureen Proctor, and this is Meridian Magazine's Come Follow

Me podcast. It's actually an extra podcast this week talking about Section 132. In fact, the

question that seems a little strange in some ways, and that is, who wrote Section 132? Now, that seems like

a given. Of course, Joseph Smith did, and we'll ask our authors why that should even be a question

at all. So we have with us today, Steve Densley and Paul Fields, and we'd like them to introduce

themselves. Each of you, would you take a moment?

Steve, you start? Yeah, I'm Steve Denzley. I'm an attorney and the executive vice president of

the interpreter foundation. Wonderful. Paul. I'm Paul Fields. I'm a statistician. I've worked in the area of

textual analysis for the last 25 years. All of the work

that we do is trying to identify who, forensic type work, who wrote various texts. We have been

doing the extensive work and the foundational documents of the LES Church.

So I know that this paper you've written is an extremely important one, but why is it important?

Why isn't it just a given that Joseph Smith was the author of Section 132?

Well, Maureen, I think that goes back to just the difficult issues that polygamy confronts us with

as members of the church.

You know, in many ways, it would be simpler for us if polygamy hadn't been restored in the modern church. There were problems with mobs and, you know, that the assassination of Joseph Smith was probably largely connected to these rumors that were circulating about polygamy.

And the organization of the RLDS church is rooted to a large degree in this dispute over whether

or not polygamy was instituted by Joseph Smith or not.

And that's something that has been with the church, you know, since the earliest days, where

the RLDS Church was denying that Joseph

Smith practiced polygamy. And of course, Brigham Young and the succeeding prophets were saying,

no, Joseph Smith was the originator of polygamy. But then it can be a confusing history.

...