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I was reading about the 1831 revelation on polygamy which is supposed to exist in the Church archives but which apparently has never been made fully public. The Tanners bring mention to it in their work, and claim to have seen it. Wikipedia lists as “alleged,” suggesting that there are people out there who don’t believe in it. The revelation apparently directs JS and other Mormon men to marry and have sexual relations with Lamanite women so as to make them “white and delightsome,” even if they were already married. Obviously, controversial for a number of reasons it has supposedly been suppressed. However, I was just now thumbing through my 1981 edition of the D&C and it says in the introduction to D&C 132, the revelation on polygamy from 1843, it says in plain English: “Although the revelation was recorded in 1843, it is evident from the historical records that the doctrines and principles involved in this revelation had been known by the Prophet since 1831.” Is this acknowledgement of the 1831 revelation? And do newer edition of the D&C still include this phrase in the introduction? The most recent edition is the edition you are looking at – I double checked on the church website and the current intro to 132 matches yours. There is a non-LDS professor at Georgia Tech that has seen the revelation you speak of. He has written a book called “Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community” which references the revelation. I haven’t read the book, but I have read Mark Staker’s wonderful book “Hearken O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations.” Staker references Foster’s book, and quotes the revelation. Quote:“For it is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites that their posterity may become white[,] delightsome[,] and just, for even now their females are more virtuous than the gentiles.”
The date on the revelation is July 17, 1831 and it was received in Missouri.
I think so. I do know that the church’s website still has that statement mentioned in D & C 132. So the newer editions of the Book of Mormon probably do. It might be useful to think about how the Doctrine & Covenants was formed. This also taps into our notions of how “revelations” and other similar pronouncements are created. We tend to think of a “section” of the D&C as a single, cohesive revelation. The historical reality of it was different. The text of D&C 89, for examples, was most likely a combination of 3 different revelations Joseph Smith wrote down. They were later pieced together by the committee of “Elders” in the church that put together the D&C. D&C 132 has some similar history, being a combination of revelations pieced together, allegedly the one given to Emma demanding she accept the idea of plural marriage. It wasn’t actually published until the 1850’s under Brigham Young.
So… what I am getting at is this: There are TONS of “revelations” from Joseph Smith that never made it into the canon of the Book of Commandments (the precursor to the D&C) and the Doctrine & Covenants. There’s tons of stuff like that tucked away in the Church vaults, and no doubt many more lost forever to the ravages of time.
I don’t think the existence of this 1831 revelation concerning marrying Native American women means anything about legitimizing polygamy, or setting the date earlier for The Lord establishing this principle as legit (taken literally). It isn’t directly connected to D&C 132, and it isn’t a missing piece to D&C 132.
It sounds plausible that JS may have had an idea like that. It also sounds plausible someone could have made it up and claimed it was a revelation. I don’t think it represents a true reality either way though. The idea is pretty messed up.
Yeah, its pretty offensive on multiple levels. Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2
mormonheretic wrote:There is a non-LDS professor at Georgia Tech that has seen the revelation you speak of. He has written a book called “Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community” which references the revelation. I haven’t read the book, but I have read Mark Staker’s wonderful book “Hearken O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations.” Staker references Foster’s book, and quotes the revelation.
Quote:“For it is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites that their posterity may become white[,] delightsome[,] and just, for even now their females are more virtuous than the gentiles.”
The date on the revelation is July 17, 1831 and it was received in Missouri.
While I really think this is all ‘make-believe’, how is this ‘revelation’ related to ‘polygamy’? It seems to encourage interracial marriage, without mentioning anything (at least in the quote above) about plural marriage.My view on this one is exactly like wayfarer’s – with the explicit nod to the historical irony of that conclusion. Old-Timer wrote:My view on this one is exactly like wayfarer’s – with the explicit nod to the historical irony of that conclusion.
oh yeah. Death to you on the spot!!!!OK…I’m reaching here. But…. “For it is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites that their posterity may become white[,] delightsome[,] and just, for even now their females are more virtuous than the gentiles.”
Please correct me if I’m wrong but, JS described his encounters with heavenly beings as being “white”…..white hair, white robes, etc…..
Maybe this revelation was speaking of the next life…… since the Nephites were destroyed.
Admitedly, the “for even now” phrase doesn’t seem to fit.
I wish I knew what wayfarer meant by “make-believe.” Do you think this revelation is a phony? Why the seeming mention of it in the introduction to D&C 132 then? At any rate, as is probably somewhat well-known the polygamy implications of the revelation were not in the revelation itself but came later when one of the brethren asked JS how they could take Lamanite women as wives when they were already married and JS supposedly answered “in the same way the prophets of the Old Testament took other wives through revelation” (that’s a paraphrase and not a very good one). The point is well taken, though, that polygamy is not in the revelation itself.
curt wrote:I wish I knew what wayfarer meant by “make-believe.” Do you think this revelation is a phony? Why the seeming mention of it in the introduction to D&C 132 then?
I think I meant what the word means:OED wrote:Make-believe, n. 1. The action of making believe, pretense, fanciful imagining (especially that things are better than they are).
Is there anything in this ‘revelation’ that isn’t make-believe?1. Native Americans aren’t lamanites, although in JS’s fanciful imagining he thought they were.
2. JS had a vivid and fanciful imagination, and he sometimes mixed up imagination with prophetic inspiration. When this is intentional, especially as it seemed to be when he asked women to be his plural wives, I would call that ‘pretense’.
3. If the tanners are using this to ‘prove’ the existence of a revelation on polygamy in 1831, they’re making something more than it really is.
How does anyone know that JS was referring to this statement as the 1831 origin of polygamy?
Quote:
How does anyone know that JS was referring to this statement as the 1831 origin of polygamy?My understanding is that one of JS’s closest confidantes, I can’t remember who at the moment, asked him, in direct relation to the revelation, how they were to take the Lamanite women as wives, if they were, in fact, supposed to copulate with them, and JS replied in the same way that the Old Testament prophets took multiple wives. I think he added “by revelation” to that the end of the statement.
I don’t see anything positive from this revelation. I don’t see the interracial marriage angle at all. It reads to me that Indian women were to be used as chattel and breeding stock….and since they were considered second class citezens, their husbands be damned. Where is the revelation that Indian males should start polyandrous marriages with white married women so their kids will become white and delightsome?
What is good for the goose is for gander.
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Coming from God? BS.
God would not treat his Indian daughters in this manner.
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