Polygamy or Adultery? Fanny Alger & Joseph Smith - John Turner Pt. 20 | Ep. 2078

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2025

⏱️ 108 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to part 20 of our epic series on Dr. John G. Turner’s landmark biography, “Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet.”

Things are really heating up as we enter the mid-1830s in the life of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter-day Saint movement. This episode dives into one of the most controversial and debated episodes in early Mormon history –Joseph’s relationship with Fanny Alger, a young woman employed in the Smith household in Kirtland, Ohio in 1836.

Was it adultery? Was it an early form of plural marriage? Or was it something else entirely –a “scrape”?

Join us for Part 1 of Chapter 18, where we unpack Turner’s detailed treatment of this scandal, explore how it fractured relationships within the early church (especially between Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery), and trace how it shaped the theology of polygamy that would later emerge in Nauvoo.

Please purchase the book ⁠here⁠.

To support this series please donate ⁠here⁠. One half of all donations will go to Dr. Turner for as long as he is participating in the series.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, Joseph Smith Podcast edition.
0:05.9	I'm your host, John DeLinn. Today is part 20 in our epic series on the biography, Joseph Smith,
0:14.3	the rise and fall of an American prophet by John G. Turner. Last episode, we covered the Kirtland Temple Pentecostal dedication. It was a spiritual
0:27.6	and a communal high for Joseph Smith. And unfortunately, the epiphanies did not necessarily continue
0:36.3	because this episode, we're going to be talking about
0:39.3	the fanny alger adultery slash scrape slash possible polygamous marriage affair and then next
0:50.0	episode we're going to be talking about the curtland bank scandal and the two the fanny alger
0:55.2	scrape slash affair slash polygamous marriage combined with the curtland bank scandal basically
1:02.8	ends ends curtland ohio it's the last time joseph Smith ever in curtland ohio is by the end of
1:10.2	chapter 18 called follies in this book.
1:14.1	Really quickly, please subscribe and like to this channel, wherever you consume the podcast.
1:19.5	If you're on YouTube, click the bell.
1:21.3	We thank our donors for making all this possible.
1:24.4	And if you value this series and you want to see it continue, you can go to
1:28.9	donorbox.org slash Joseph Smith and become a monthly donor to this series. And again,
1:34.4	we couldn't do this without our regular Mormon stories donors of support. So without any further
1:40.4	ado, that's the shortest intro I've ever done. It's less than two minutes.
1:44.8	John Turner, welcome back to your podcast. Thank you, John DeLynn. I'm glad to be back. I can't
1:52.6	believe this is episode 20. And things are really heating up in terms of Joseph Smith's biography once you get into the mid-1830s.
2:05.1	It doesn't slow down. It only accelerates as we moved toward the last several years of his life.
2:14.3	I love it. Oh, one last thing. I, as you my, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I
2:19.7	attended BYU for five, four and a half years, and I also attended Utah State University for nine
	...

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