Scott Woodward:
Did Joseph Smith have any regrets about plural marriage? Like, with full hindsight, if he could go back and change anything about the way he implemented plural marriage, what might he do differently? Also, more and more people are denying that Joseph Smith ever practiced polygamy or that he lied about doing so. Is there even a shred of truth to either of these claims? Did Joseph ever send men on missions and marry their wives while they were gone? Were there any women who denied Joseph’s proposals for plural marriage? If so, what happened to them? What was Emma’s relationship to plural marriage after the Saints left Nauvoo for Utah? And is there any truth to the idea that plural marriage existed because there are more faithful women than men? In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we tackle all of these questions and more with Dr. Brian Hales. I’m Scott Woodward, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, and today we dive into our sixth and final episode in this series dealing with plural marriage. Now let’s get into it. Hello and welcome to Church History Matters. I’m Scott Woodward, and I have some good news and some sad news. I’ll tell you the sad news first. The sad news is Casey Griffiths is not here with us today because he needed to be elsewhere. So Casey, you are missed. But the good news is we have as our guest today Dr. Brian C․ Hales, who, if you’ve been following along with us in this series, then you know that Casey and I have been referencing and quoting extensively from the research of Brian Hales. He is the author or co-author of seven books dealing with plural marriage, including the three-volume Joseph Smith’s Polygamy history and theology set. He is a retired anesthesiologist and is currently researching the origin of the Book of Mormon. And so I’m excited to dive into our discussion today. Brian, welcome. We’re excited to have you on the show today.

Brian Hales:
Thank you for having me. Appreciate it, Scott.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. This is so exciting.

Brian Hales:
Yes.

Scott Woodward:
Brian, maybe let me just ask you this. What led you down the path of researching polygamy so thoroughly? Like, why does an anesthesiologist become the world’s expert on polygamy in the Latter-day Saint movement?

Brian Hales:
Well, I appreciate the kind characterization. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but—

Scott Woodward:
I’m going with it.

Brian Hales:
My interest in polygamy began as a member of my family was excommunicated for joining the Allred group back in 1989.

Scott Woodward:
Now who’s the Allred group?

Brian Hales:
The Allred group is like the FLDS.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
Just, it’s a fundamentalist polygamist group based in Draper, somewhere down that way.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Brian Hales:
A lot of good people there, but they claim they have authority to perform plural marriages, and that was what this family member of mine entered into briefly. She left later, but—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
That got me wondering about it, and in that context—I never was impressed with the fundamentalist claim to authority, and I believe Section 132 requires keys to perform a valid marriage. So I never was persuaded in the least, but my inquiry made it obvious to me that there hadn’t been a lot written on that topic, on fundamentalism. So I wrote a book, published by Greg Kofford Books in 2006. And then as people were asking me questions about polygamy, a lot of them had to do with Joseph Smith.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
And we didn’t really have anybody who had looked specifically at Joseph Smith in his plural marriage history. And I, in 2007, hired Don Bradley to work for me by going out and going to every repository, every archive, to find anything to do with plural marriage in the Nauvoo period and to bring that together. And we were able to put together three volumes that were published in 2013 on that topic.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. So it was personal. It started out personal. You had a family member who was directly affected by this, and then from there the questions kept coming, and you just dove headlong into it.

Brian Hales:
Yeah. I had my own questions about it, and I think it’s probably on your list of questions here, but the one that drove me to really ask and inquire was the idea that Joseph Smith could be married to other women with legal husbands—you know, a plurality of husbands.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
Every author to publish prior to my 2013 volumes portrayed Joseph as being a second husband to these women. And Romans, in the New Testament, 7:2-3 tells us that that’s adultery.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
And section 132:41-42 tell us that is adultery.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
But all of these authors were saying, “Oh, yeah. Yeah, Joseph was married to this woman, and she had a legal husband, therefore we’re sure that it was a, you know, a full conjugal marriage.” And that question just really bothered me. I was never comfortable with what they were telling me. And these are authors like Todd Compton and Michael Quinn and others.

Scott Woodward:
Mm. Excellent. And I’ve got to say this before we dive in, just one more thing. I have always admired your fearlessness, Brian, in approaching any church history topic and your tenacity to stick with the subject until you have explored it in its totality. Your example reminds me of Alexander Hamilton. There’s this quote, and you’re going to blush at this, but there’s this quote that Alexander Hamilton says, “Men give me credit for some genius, but all the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it, and then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius, but it’s the fruit of labor and thought.” Brian, some people might call you a polygamy genius, which is probably true, but we know that underneath that is just a whole lot of hard work and careful thought, and so thank you for being willing to come on the podcast and respond to some of our listeners’ questions.

Brian Hales:
That is extremely generous and surely an overstatement, I think, at least as it applies to me. But I can say this, that I have found as I’ve researched several topics in depth—but only a few. I mean, I have expertise that’s deep on very few subjects, but—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
I have found that when we get into the primary documents with transparency, the door for faith and belief opens widely.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
It’s only when we hear what the documents are supposed to have said through the interpretations of, say, unbelievers—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
—that that door on faith seems to close. It shouldn’t.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
But when you get into those primary documents, the ability to believe, at least for me, has just been very easy to do.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, and I think you’re just a great example of showing us that we can dive headlong into all the original historical documents, even on a topic like polygamy, and still come out the other side with our testimony strengthened. You just, you show us that we don’t need to be afraid of church history.

Brian Hales:
Well, I appreciate that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Well, it’s true. So. All right, ready for our first question?

Brian Hales:
Sure.

Scott Woodward:
OK. Let’s begin with polygamy denying.

Brian Hales:
That sounds great.

Scott Woodward:
Brian, I’ve noticed there’s a startling number of church members who are denying that Joseph Smith even practiced plural marriage at all. They say Brigham Young was the real source and that he later disingenuously pinned it on Joseph Smith to give it more legitimacy. And this trend seems to be growing and not shrinking. So one listener asked it this way: “What do you think about the theory that Joseph Smith wasn’t a polygamist? I saw a YouTube clip,” this questioner says, ”of a female church historian, can’t remember her name, share the theory that the affidavits of the women who testified that Joseph practiced polygamy had a clear motive to help the church win the temple lot case.” So there you go. There seems to be a lot of people that have that kind of question, and given the mounds and mounds of data that you and others have found that soundly refute this idea, it’s just bananas to me that a growing number of people are getting on board with this.

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So what’s your response to this polygamy denial phenomenon going on among some church members today?

Brian Hales:
Well, I think it’s a combination of two or three things.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And I agree with you that it’s growing. Yeah. Which is counterintuitive to me.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. It’s wild.

Brian Hales:
Yeah. But the topic of polygamy is hard. In speaking with some church historians a while ago, they commented that, you know, if you get to—into some of the controversies, and you learn more and you learn more and you learn more, you generally feel better about what’s going on, because the facts start to lay out, and you understand it, but polygamy isn’t that way. The more you learn about it, you don’t start to feel better. And I think part of that is that men can do it, women can’t. It’s an unfair practice.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And then there’s the whole sexual overlay.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Brian Hales:
You know, anything that has to do with sexuality, you’re going to naturally assume libido is driving the process, so—

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Brian Hales:
People worry about, consciously or unconsciously, that Joseph wasn’t told by an angel or commanded by God, that this is really just hormones working their way out, which is not uncommon. Charismatic males form a religious group. We can think of David Koresh or Jim Jones.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
These are charismatic males, who, after a time, are sleeping with their parishioners.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
And it’s a common pattern. And so you’ve got to jump past that presentism idea to even entertain the notion that something other than libido is driving this process. And so as members have to confront all of these ideas, an easy out could be to say, “Well, no, it was Brigham.”

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Brian Hales:
“It wasn’t Joseph.” And they reduce it to very simple terms, like, “Who do you believe, Emma or Brigham?”

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Brian Hales:
Or, “If Joseph did it, he was a liar.” And of course those are not accurate statements. They’re—we call them reductionist statements. They try to reduce something that’s complex into a very sound-bite thing, which works for today’s audiences a lot of times, but when you get into it, it can’t be reduced to that. It is a complex process.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
But as I’ve studied Joseph Smith and his motives, there’s good evidence he didn’t want to do it, that he dragged his feet. The angel stories are corroborated in—I’ve accumulated 22, I think, from nine individuals who knew Joseph Smith, recounting how an angel came and commanded him to do it.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And in the last visit of three, he had a sword that he said—because Joseph was dragging his feet. And we could talk more about what that meant. But the point is, there’s lots of evidence that Joseph didn’t want to do it, but he did it.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
And when it comes to the polygamy deniers, and they kind of fall into two categories: There are those who say Joseph didn’t do it.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
There’s another group who say Joseph did it, but he shouldn’t have.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
He kind of lost it in Nauvoo. And this is kind of the opinion of—maybe the Community of Christ has taken, and others, that the Book of Mormon and the Kirtland theology is good, but the Nauvoo theology was Joseph going off the rails, and I don’t see that at all. I think this is just one practice within his zenith teaching, which is eternal marriage. I think the greatest teaching he ever restored was eternal marriage because it reaches beyond the veil.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
It’s beyond mortality, and one practice, one principle associated with that is polygamy. And God had commanded them to enter into it, and he never told us why he wanted it. We can make guesses, but the reality is that there are dozens and dozens of signed affidavits. And the questioner was talking about the temple lot case.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And we do have three of Joseph’s wives who acknowledged that they had carnal relations with Joseph during the depositions there, but I should point out how rumors get started. The church was not involved with that lawsuit in any formal way. They were not plaintiffs, they were not defendants. They were helping the Church of Christ Temple Lot show that the RLDS church was not a natural successor to Joseph Smith’s church because Joseph Smith’s church did practice polygamy, and the RLDS didn’t.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
So this is just how these rumors can get out there, and they destroy faith even though the person doesn’t realize it at the time, and they don’t seem willing to get the facts correct for themselves. So the data is conclusive. I don’t know of anybody, any trained historian, who believes Joseph didn’t introduce and practice plural marriage, but there are lots of untrained—I call them propagandists or opinionists. These are just people who want to grab on to a little bit of history here and a little bit of history there. Scott, you understand this.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. This kind of shoddy approach of cherry-picking sources that agree with your preconceived narrative, right? Or what you want the narrative to be—

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
—rather than looking at all the documents and letting them tell the story, or at least form the crux of the narrative that we sort of flesh the story out of. I mean, we all come at history with bias, right?

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I mean, we can’t deny that. But disciplined historical work means looking at all the documents rather than only those that conform with the story that we want to tell, and to ignore those documents that conflict with our narrative, or worse, challenge their legitimacy as part of a coverup or a conspiracy. That’s not just a bad historical approach, right? Like, that feels downright dishonest.

Brian Hales:
Yeah. And just for the audience, I hope it’s OK. Saints Unscripted did a 40-minute interview with me a few weeks ago.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And I’ve put up several of my own videos that you can access through my Facebook page. It’s a public page, but it’s my own name.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Brian Hales:
Where I address the specific claims of these people, but they’re not persuaded, you know? They just hold on to these ideas that are clearly, I think, in error. They’re entitled to their opinion, but it gets to a point where we just have to say, “Well, if that’s how you want to believe it, go ahead.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
But the data and the science, everything is not supporting this.

Scott Woodward:
It kind of feels a little bit like COVID deniers to me, you know? There’s people that are like dying from COVID, and there’s still people that would say, “I think this is a hoax. I think this is not real.” And you ask, “Well, but, like, what about the science? What about the data? What about all the people that are, like, actually dying?”

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
“Well,” they say, “you can’t really trust them because they’re part of the system.”

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Even with mountains of evidence, and there’s—it’s bizarre. It’s this human tendency that some of us have to just care more about, I don’t know, how should we say this? To care more about the comfort of our conclusion than the discomfort of the data. I don’t know. I’ve seen some eerie comparisons with COVID deniers and Joseph Smith polygamy deniers.

Brian Hales:
Well, I was going to use that example because I think it does hold, but my experience is that what you do is that they become set in an idea.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And if you bring in more evidence, more science, more historical documentation, they just dismiss that as further evidence of a conspiracy—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
—against what they’ve already accepted.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And it’s a no-win situation. It’s just a time for people to, you know, part.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And not talk about anymore, because nothing is going to change that, including dozens and dozens of affidavits and recollections and a revelation that was penned and is well documented with a very strong provenance. I’m talking about section 132.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Brian Hales:
None of that is going to be persuasive because they’ve already made up their minds and any new data will just be seen as part of the conspiracies, so.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Mm. Well, thank you. I will link in the show notes your presentation on Saints Unscripted. Did you say it’s a presentation, it’s like a video presentation people could watch to go into depth on that topic?

Brian Hales:
That’d be great. If you go to my Facebook page and scroll down, I’ve got a response, a 40-minute response to Rob Fotheringham and Karen Horning, and then there’s some other—anyway.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Brian Hales:
You can find that, if you want. I go through more with details, but they aren’t interested in details I’m convinced so.

Scott Woodward:
Interesting. Well, if any of our listeners are interested in those details, we will link that in the show notes, and you can go have a—have 40 minutes of a good time with Brian Hales on this question. A related question is some people are convinced that Joseph Smith was lying in Nauvoo, that he was practicing polygamy, but then when he was confronted about it, he would lie and say that he wasn’t practicing polygamy. And some people kind of snarkily comment that he’s lying for the Lord. Did he do that, Brian? Did Joseph Smith lie for the Lord? Did he cover this up in Nauvoo? I know you’ve written extensively about this particular question as well, which we’ll link in the show notes, but what do you want to say kind of as a brief response to that?

Brian Hales:
Well, this is one of the reductionist questions they want to reduce it to, “If Joseph was a polygamist, he lied. Joseph wouldn’t have lied, therefore, he wasn’t a polygamist.” It isn’t a strong argument.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
I wrote an article, it was published in 2015-16 in the Journal of Mormon History, where I went through and tried to find every alleged lie or denial from Joseph Smith, and there weren’t very many, so I expanded it to Emma and to Hyrum.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
When did these people deny polygamy, and what did they say? Provide some context. And the take-home message is that Joseph Smith denied a community of wives that the church was accused of in 1831.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
He denied spiritual wifery, which John C. Bennett was secretly practicing in Nauvoo. He denied unauthorized polygamy. In other words, you can’t read the Bible that Abraham was a polygamist and go off and be a polygamist. That would be adultery.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
He denied that as well. He never denied celestial eternal marriage, including celestial plural marriage, as he believed it could be practiced. And that denial is something that people will assume based on language that is very ambiguous and generalized. And that’s the response. He never denied that. He just denied these other things. And then the polygamy deniers are trying to recruit that language to cover what they want to believe, but the language doesn’t allow that, and that’s the problem.

Scott Woodward:
This article is the one called “Denying the Undeniable,” correct?

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So, yeah, we’ll put that in the show notes. It’s called “Denying the Undeniable: Examining Early Mormon Polygamy Renunciations.” It’s a great article. And you also point out, as I think—your fifth category of polygamy denials is denying polygamy through technicalities. Do you think there is something to this idea that Joseph Smith was in a rock and a hard spot, like legally, socially? That if he said, “Well, it’s not polygamy, it’s actually called celestial plural marriage, and let me explain to you what—”

Brian Hales:
Yes.

Scott Woodward:
He could say, “I don’t do polygamy” because he saw plural marriage as something different, correct?

Brian Hales:
Yes.

Scott Woodward:
And therefore, he kind of was comfortable saying he didn’t do the one while he was doing the other. I mean, how would you explain that to a church member who’s, who fully believes and is just trying to work through this and trying to say, “OK, so how do—how do I process Joseph saying that—” You know, there’s an accusation where, “You have seven wives,” and he says, “Seven? I can only find one.” Almost, like, kind of dodging a little bit. Do you see him dodging? You know what I’m saying? Like do you see him doing a little bit of dodging in order to, I don’t know, save face, avoid the law? I mean, what—how would you characterize that in full transparency?

Brian Hales:
Well, I think if we try to get inside Joseph Smith’s head at what’s going on here, he’s been giving the sealing authority, and he’s been commanded as part of that process to practice plural marriage.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
Now, that’s kind of a big deal for him, and it’s very different from John C. Bennett’s spiritual wifery, so he can slam that with vigor.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And it’s not unauthorized polygamy.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Brian Hales:
Because Hiram Brown in Nauvoo went off, and I don’t know if they had a ceremony, but it wasn’t authorized by the keys that Joseph Smith had.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
And he was practicing polygamy, and he [Joseph] condemned it. And as well he could have, and if we read section 132, we learn that all of these eternal marriages, whether they’re plural or monogamous, have to be authorized by the one man holding the keys. God’s house is a house of order. That’s repeated twice in section 132, and it’s—that order is maintained by the keyholder, the one man who holds the keys. So in Joseph’s mind this is a very different process and he never denied it, but he easily denied these other things.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
But the language that you repeated, and it’s great. “People have accused me of having seven wives. I can only find one.” Well, that’s hardly a blanket statement against plural marriage in any setting at any time, but what it really is is the language of somebody who doesn’t want to lie, but also can’t divulge to the audience all of the details. You know, he’s not looking very hard. He’d been sealed to at least a couple of dozen women at that point. Maybe they weren’t in the audience, and—or maybe he wasn’t looking, but yes, he—you know, there is some coded language there, and this is something that carries on that others use later on.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
I don’t think any of us are comfortable with it. I don’t think he was either. But I would be bothered if Joseph had made a blanket statement against any form of polygamy and then secretly he was practicing a form of polygamy.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Brian Hales:
And this he didn’t do. This is the language of somebody trying not to lie. At the same time, he’s not divulging what actually has happened.

Scott Woodward:
That’s a great way to say it. Okay, let’s talk about Emma. A lot of people have questions about Emma. So here’s one, one of our listeners named Trevor. He asks, “Why do you think God would drive a wedge in Joseph and Emma’s marriage with a commandment to practice plural marriage?” And number two, “If a marital wedge between Joseph and Emma was necessary as an Abrahamic test to fulfill this commandment, why were they required to carry out such a test, whereas Abraham himself was stopped before sacrificing his son and implementing it?”

Brian Hales:
I think it’s an excellent question. Except that I think it has a small scope.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Brian Hales:
And what I mean is that I don’t think God specifically commanded Joseph to practice polygamy to try Emma’s faith.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
I think that was one of the things that happened.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
But a good, I guess, counter experience is Vilate Kimball. If you’ll remember, Joseph Smith told Heber C. Kimball, her husband, that he wanted to marry Vilate. And, of course, Heber wasn’t comfortable with that, but he believed Joseph was a prophet.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And, as it turns out, it was just a test.

Scott Woodward:
It’s a horrible test, by the way. That’s a horrible test.

Brian Hales:
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t defend it. God does what God does, but—and Joseph may have been more of an author of that than anything, saying, “I’m going to test these people.” And there’s actually evidence that Joseph used plural marriage to test the First Presidency members and the Quorum of the Twelve. But this was the way he was going to find out who was actually committed to the restoration and these higher practices and laws.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
But Vilate, she went to God directly and had a vision that explained what was going on. At least, that’s the account that we have.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
So her reaction—and she accepted it, and she supported it. And if you read the letters between Heber and Vilate, you see references. You don’t always know that there are references to the plural wife, but if we understand the context, it’s pretty clear.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And so in the case of Heber C. Kimball and Vilate, this wasn’t a wedge. This was an opportunity for Vilate to have a vision that she wouldn’t otherwise have received and to gain this. Now she still struggled with it. That’s not to say that she liked it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
But in the case of Emma, part of the problem was Emma’s stubbornness, Now, she had a unique role. Heber could say, “The prophet Joseph told me I had to do this.” OK. But Emma, because Joseph is the revealer of this practice, Emma could always worry it was Joseph’s libido, that she was inadequate and that’s why he wanted another wife. I mean, Emma had a very unique role in this whole picture, and that’s why we shouldn’t judge her. And I would encourage no one to criticize her. There were words between her and Brigham and things, but I hope that’s all in our past, because I think Emma’s going to be fine.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, me too.

Brian Hales:
And even though she stumbled, I think that we all stumble, and there’s plenty of forgiveness for what was there. So I don’t see the practice as being a wedge, except as Emma was unable to accept it, except she did accept it for a few weeks in May of 1843.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And then who knows what was going on in September and then in 1844. We just don’t have any records to tell us how they’re doing on this topic.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
There were plural wives living in the mansion. Was Emma preventing them from being with Joseph, or was Emma acting like the first wife and regulating their interactions? We have no idea.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Hmm.

Brian Hales:
So anyway, I just say judge Emma kindly and look at it in maybe a bigger scope.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm. Thank you. Another question. This is from a listener named Rich, also about Emma. He said, “I’d love to understand more about Emma’s relationship with plural marriage after the Saints left to Utah. We know her son was out here denying his father ever taught the doctrine, but what did Emma ever say on the subject afterwards?”

Brian Hales:
We don’t have a lot of material from her. We have a couple of denials that are recorded. One of them comes through Joseph Smith III, who waited until she was dead and—to publish it.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And interestingly, if you go to the notes that he wrote during his interview on that occasion. It doesn’t have anything in there on polygamy. It talks about the Book of Mormon and her statement on the Book of Mormon being beyond Joseph’s ability in 1829.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
But when you get to all the polygamy stuff, there’s no notes there. He’s reconstructing this from notes that we don’t have or from his own memory, and I’m just not sure he’s representing her words very accurately there. We have a couple of statements from others who say, “Yeah, I talked with Emma in 1846 or 1847, and she acknowledged that there were plural wives.” And so there’s ample evidence that Emma knew, and Eliza R. Snow, who was eloquent, she said if the words that Joseph Smith III published as Emma’s last interview, the ones that were published after Emma had passed away, if they are true, then Emma died with libel on her lips.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
Because Eliza knew. She was in the home. I mean, she knew what Emma knew.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And I think really, there’s lots of evidence that Emma did know. It comes from good sources.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And yet her sons were fighting against it. There’s very good evidence that Joseph Smith III knew. He wrote a couple of letters. We have them here. One is telling William, his uncle, to not remember certain details if he writes a biography of Joseph. But there’s another letter to an RLDS missionary in Salt Lake where he’s asking the missionary to find the branches of the family tree. And by that it’s a list of the plural wives or women who say they are Joseph’s plural wives. So I think it’s pretty clear that Joseph Smith III knew, and yet the public view was, “Let’s try to repair my father’s acceptance in the world by denying this.”

Scott Woodward:
So you think that was the motive, as you’ve researched this? The motive was, “Let’s deny the evidence, or let’s kind of brush over that evidence—coming from the RLDS perspective—in order to basically heal Joseph Smith’s reputation, Joseph Smith Jr.?” Yeah. What’s your take on why Joseph Smith III would in some ways actively try to forget this aspect about his father?

Brian Hales:
Well, I don’t know. I like Joseph Smith III. I’ve read a bit about him. He was a strong man. He was very committed. I think he was a good man. I think he was a very moral man.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
But I think if we study the RLDS church in the 19th century, they were built upon two primary ideas: One was that Joseph Jr. wasn’t a polygamist, and the other was that the presidency should pass down through a patriarchal line.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
And so he defended those two, which, if he had not, his church, I think, would’ve imploded, which is kind of—maybe that’s the wrong word. But if you look at the Community of Christ today, they’re a very different church—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
In that they don’t hold the—either of those two tenants, and they become kind of just another Christian denomination in their teachings.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So, OK. So this, in some ways, was about the legitimacy of the RLDS church’s existence in the first place. Like, if polygamy was authorized, if that is a correct practice, then why are we out here in Nauvoo and not in Utah?

Brian Hales:
Yeah. Well said. I don’t know that I could improve on that.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. OK. Another question coming from Lori. Lori asks, “Can you share some examples of women who were approached about plural marriage, did not accept Joseph’s or other men’s proposals, and still remain part of the community? And any other evidence that women were not pressured into plural marriage would be helpful, too.” Is there any manipulation happening here, Brian, that you can see? And do we have examples of women who were approached, they said, “No, thank you,” and they were still allowed to thrive in the community?

Brian Hales:
Yes. In an article that was published in the Journal of Mormon History called “Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy,” I outline seven women who turned Joseph Smith down. Five of those women we only know about the proposal because they or a family member later mentioned it. So the idea that a woman would have her reputation ruined if she turned down Joseph Smith is simply not supported in these five cases. Now, there are two cases where he was accused publicly and he defended himself, and that’s Sarah Pratt and Jane Law. And, you know, there’s a good chance that Joseph offered to have them sealed to him for eternity because they were having trouble with their respective husbands at the time. Personally, I think that’s probably what it was. I don’t think it was a sexual offer. I don’t think Joseph would do that. That would’ve been adultery. But there’s ambiguity, and there’s silence, so people can form whatever opinions they want, but we can say very clearly Joseph was not going to destroy the reputation of these women. And a couple of them, after Joseph had passed away, they actually were sealed to him vicariously rather than to their legal husband. That was by their choice, and because they could relate the story that Joseph had proposed plural marriage to them while he was alive, then church leaders allowed that sealing to go forward. You couldn’t just be married to a member of the church and then decide you’d rather have your sealing be to Joseph. They didn’t allow that. But in special cases they would allow those things to go forward. Now you say, “Was there pressure?” You know, a funny story: Joseph Smith is walking down the street and I—Almira Knight, I want to say, is her name. I’m—I’d have to go back and look, but her mother is involved with plural marriage. The daughter sees Joseph coming, and the daughter goes out the back door as Joseph comes in the front door. And Joseph is trying to set up a plural marriage for Hyrum.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Brian Hales:
And the mother says, “Well, we’ll get back with you on it.” And the daughter didn’t want to do it, and that was the end of it. Joseph didn’t—there wasn’t any threats, and nothing happened to the woman’s reputation. And this is the church president who’s presenting it, and it was declined. And in several other cases with Joseph, one of the women says he starts to teach about polygamy, and she says, “Go teach it to somebody else.” And Joseph said, “Well, who do you want me to teach it to? God told me to teach you.” And then Joseph says, “I will pray for you.” Those were his last words, according to the account. And again, he was the church president, so you have to assume there’s some pressure there if he’s teaching this idea.

Scott Woodward:
Sure.

Brian Hales:
But beyond that implied pressure, there are no verbal threats or anything related by anyone except in the confusion of Jane Law, maybe, and Sarah Pratt. There’s he said, she said and back and forth, but in these five cases there’s nothing like that, so.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm. And what’s the name of that article? We’ll link to that in the show notes as well.

Brian Hales:
“Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy.”

Scott Woodward:
Awesome. Well, let’s talk about the initial question that got you interested in studying this in depth, Brian, about Joseph Smith marrying other men’s wives. One of our listeners named Gabe asks, “Was Joseph ever married to women who were already married to faithful men in the church?” Casey and I in some of our previous episodes talked about one of the main reasons D&C 132 outlines for plural marriage is that every woman would have a chance to be sealed to a husband. Every faithful woman who wanted it could have it, even if they were currently married to a non-member, like Mary Elizabeth Rollins, or an inactive member or someone who didn’t really believe in the afterlife, like Ruth Vose Sayers’ husband. But are there examples of Joseph marrying other men’s wives and the man himself was a faithful member of the church? Like, there’s accusations that Joseph would send men on missions and then marry their wives while they were gone. I think that’s a John C. Bennett accusation. What do you want to say about that? How would you respond to Gabe?

Brian Hales:
Well, let me just back up a little bit.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Brian Hales:
I told you that was what got me researching this, and what I found is that the authors, and I’ve mentioned my friend Todd Compton, Mike Quinn, and others.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
They all portrayed Joseph as marrying and being a second husband to these women, with sexual relations. That’s how they portray them. And so when I dived in to the research, I could not find any unambiguous support.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
Their logic would go, like, “Well, there was a sealing here for a marriage, and then there was a legal marriage, therefore, we assume there’s sexual relations in both.” But they don’t find any woman saying, “I had two husbands.” There’s nobody saying, “Joseph had a revelation saying he could be my second husband.” There’s no doctrinal discussions about how a woman could have two husbands. There’s no support for it.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
But that didn’t matter to these authors because these authors already believed Joseph was driven by libido. You know, that he was a fraud.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And so for them to believe that he added a plurality of husbands to a plurality of wives so he could get into more beds was a very logical sequence of belief, even if it didn’t have strong documentation. So I get into the documentation, and I don’t find it, and it isn’t there.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And you can even go online and find three-part videos—they’re very long and very boring, but—saying that Joseph practiced polygamy. But the interesting thing that none of these authors do is ask a very important question, and that is it would’ve been more controversial in Nauvoo in the 1840s than it is today. And today it’s hugely controversial. If Joseph had introduced and practiced plural marriage, it would’ve been the most controversial thing he ever did or taught.

Scott Woodward:
Meaning marrying other men’s wives. Like, if he taught that, if he practiced that and there was sexual relations, that would’ve been the most explosive thing happening in Nauvoo.

Brian Hales:
We agree on that, right?

Scott Woodward:
Totally.

Brian Hales:
Yeah. And yet there is not a single one of Joseph’s critics who complained about it during Joseph’s lifetime or for years thereafter.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. No husbands. Not a peep from anybody.

Brian Hales:
Nope. Not a single complaint from a husband.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
The question was, “Were there active Latter-day Saint men whose wives were sealed to Joseph?” And a good example is Patty Sessions.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And her husband, David Sessions, was an active member.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Brian Hales:
And if I’m right, and this is kind of a guess, but as I look at it, when she chose to be sealed eternally to Joseph and not David, David kind of cut her off, kind of left her.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
And she was a midwife. She was wealthy. She had prominence among the saints. She came to Utah, delivered a lot of babies. But there’s really no connection to her legal husband, and I trace that back to her sealing with Joseph. It may not be true, but I think it is. So in that case, I think David was disappointed. But he didn’t criticize Joseph. He just went out, and he plurally married other—and had that taken care of. And for me, if I could go back in time and whisper in Joseph Smith’s ears, I might just say, “Hey Joseph, don’t marry other men’s wives. It just looks bad to us in the 21st century.” I know it’s not a sin. Joseph Smith wasn’t perfect, but he was always worthy.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
That’s a message from my research. But he wasn’t perfect, and I wish he hadn’t done some of these sealings because they just look so bad today. And people make assumptions that aren’t justified.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
But they aren’t interested in finding out what really happened. And that’s how the propagandists and these rumors can go out there, so. One quote, though, from Lucy Walker, he remember—she remembered Joseph saying, “A woman should have her choice. That is something that could not be denied her.”

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
And that’s why I think when five women turned him down, he just marched on.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
And that’s why if Patty Sessions had wished to be sealed to Joseph instead of David Sessions, his—her legal husband, he allowed that. I don’t think that’s a totally satisfying answer, but I think that’s the best we can come up with at this time.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm, interesting. So generally speaking, you would say that the likely reason Joseph is marrying other men’s wives is to give them the opportunity to be sealed in the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, which they didn’t have with their current husband. Is that generally true?

Brian Hales:
That is sometimes true.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Brian Hales:
I mean, we have the account of Ruth Vose Sayers, you know this account. Her husband didn’t believe in the afterlife, and he encouraged her to go be sealed to Joseph. And that’s a good example that eternity-only sealings were possible, that it’s an ordinance that Joseph Smith could allow or could perform.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
So it did exist in that one instance.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
But we don’t have those kinds of accounts accompanying the other. 12 or 13.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Brian Hales:
Women with legal husbands that were married to Joseph.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, that’s fair. We can’t just extrapolate from that one account, Ruth Vose Sayers, and say that must have been his motivation for all 14. I think that’s a good, cautious historical move right there. Do we see any other motives in any of the other accounts? Are there any other motives, especially with men who are faithful members of the church? Like, anything you can discern as to why Joseph would marry their wives, be sealed eternity-only with them when the husband was perfectly capable of being sealed to his wife? Orson Hyde comes to mind. Albert Smith, he was a member of the church, wasn’t he? When Joseph was sealed to Esther Dutcher. Maybe there’s a few others, Mary Heron. What do you do with those in terms of motivation? Any theological reason for those? Anything you can discern there, Brad?

Brian Hales:
Well, it’s interesting. You’ve mentioned several. Merinda Hyde is—you know, and John Bennett is the first to say that Joseph would send men on missions—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
—to marry their wives. It’s not true. I looked at all 14 of them, and the only one that might have been on a mission is Orson Hyde.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
The reason I say it might have been is because we have, as you know, we have two marriage dates or sealing dates for Miranda to Joseph, and the second one is in a signed affidavit by her, and it’s after Orson is back. But what’s interesting is when she went to the Nauvoo Temple to have this redone she was sealed to Orson Hyde.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
So she’d been sealed during Joseph’s lifetime to Joseph, but that was re-performed, and she was sealed to Orson Hyde in the Nauvoo temple. But then 15 years later they divorced and she was vicariously re-sealed to Joseph. And so the idea that all of these sealings that are happening in Nauvoo to Joseph, I just don’t know if these are going to all stay. I mean, they can’t. We don’t understand eternal marriage, and we understand even less about what that might be in the plural in the next life, so.

Scott Woodward:
Sure.

Brian Hales:
I think there will be lots of sealings and loosenings during the millennium that will allow every worthy person—and that’s the key thing, is stay worthy to have an eternal mate. And there will be opportunities to perform vicarious loosenings and sealings so that every worthy person will be in a dynamic and in a marriage to a person that is of their choosing, of their choice. No one needs to worry about any of this, because it will—God is not going to force anything on anyone. These sealing keys can be loosened, and there will be ample opportunity for the worthy to have all of this made right according to their desires prior to the resurrection.

Scott Woodward:
I think that’s a really key point. Just remember the character of God that undergirds all of this, right? God is not going to put somebody in a situation that they are not OK with. I’m talking about a covenant-keeping, faithful person, right? That somehow, some way they got duped into a marriage situation that they’re going to be stuck in for all eternity. That’s not the God we worship. That’s not the God we worship. He is just. He is merciful. He’s kind. He’s compassionate. He’s empathetic to all of this, and I think that Lucy Walker statement that Joseph told her, that every woman will have her choice—like, nobody’s going to be stuck.

Brian Hales:
No.

Scott Woodward:
I heard Elder Bednar personally. He told us in a class, I took his class here at BYU–Idaho 20 years ago, and I remember him saying, “The eternal sealing of a marriage in the temple does not force a couple to be together. It guarantees the opportunity if they still both want it when they’re dead. It ensures that you can have it if you want it,” right? It is never going to bind people against their will in a marriage situation or a dynamic that is toxic to them or in any way against their will. So I take comfort in just remembering the character of God that undergirds all of this, the Revelator behind the revelator, right? Jesus Christ, revealing this doctrine to Joseph Smith, Joseph imperfectly implementing it, but doing, I think, his very best to do it right, the best he understood. Is there some messiness? Yeah. But given the character of Christ, I’m not worried, ultimately. I don’t have ultimate worry about how this is all going to shake out.

Brian Hales:
Very good.

Scott Woodward:
Another listener asked this question, they said, “What evidence would you put forward as an indication of Joseph’s motives in practicing polygamy?” Anything else you want to say about motives?

Brian Hales:
Well, again, I think there’s ample evidence that the reason Joseph was sealed for eternity only to the first six or eight of his plural wives in Nauvoo. This is ’41 and 1842, is because he didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to make Emma feel bad. He knew how Emma felt from Kirtland in 1835, 36, and he didn’t want to hurt her. The evidence of libido-driven practice is simply not there in the details, but you know, if I were to stand on a corner of a street in Cincinnati and say, “Hey, Joseph introduced polygamy around among the Mormons. Why do you think he did it?” Every single person is going to tell me he wanted sex. Nobody’s going to say, “Well, I think he was a prophet restoring Old Testament polygamy,” or something else. It just isn’t going to happen. So we’ve got to overcome that in our hearts, and God will help us. I think if we pray about this we can come to understand it enough to not worry about it. But since we don’t have the details we would like—I don’t think anybody fully understands why God did it. No one ever told us why. There’s reasons why it could be permitted, but why it was commanded is beyond any statement of any key holder that I’m aware of, so.

Scott Woodward:
So you’re saying the marriage for eternity only to other men’s wives, at least the first eight or so, is evidence to you that Joseph was not driven by libido because those particular types of marriages were such that sex would not be allowed? Right? Because she’s already got a husband that she’s living with and having sexual relations with, and eternity only allows Joseph to technically check the box of obedience, but not have to follow through with the multiply and replenish the earth aspect of that commandment. You think that’s evidence that Joseph is reluctant to engage sexually, but he still wants to obey the Lord. Is that—am I characterizing you correctly?

Brian Hales:
Exactly. And the evidences are not as strong as we would like. We’re picking from details here and there, but it’s very clear that his initial usage of the sealing authority to create a plural marriage were marriages only for the next life.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Brian Hales:
That’s quite well documented, and if the guy’s looking for sex, why would you do that? But if you’re trying to appease an angel who’s appeared twice commanding Joseph to use this authority, and you don’t want to hurt Emma, this is the exact behavior that you could expect from him.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And then we have the story in February of 1842 with the angel coming a third time, this time with the sword. And then, if you look at the chronology, it’s only after that point that Joseph is consistently proposing to single women with whom we can document conjugality.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Brian Hales:
So the chronology really does line up quite nicely.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I’m persuaded by that. I think that’s right. All right. “What’s the appropriate response?” another listener asks. This is Chris. Chris asks, “What’s the appropriate response when somebody argues that plural marriage exists solely because there are more faithful women than men?” He says, “This is a popular belief from where I’m from.” What do you want to say about that? That one doesn’t seem to ever go away.

Brian Hales:
Well, and it’s interesting that the idea that the church needed polygamy in order to give all of the worthy women husbands was even used by some church leaders in the 1850s as an excuse to the government. But the late studies, and we’ve had some really fine studies, Kathleen Flake and others have looked at different towns and different regions, and it usually isn’t the case. There isn’t usually more women than men in these areas. And Joseph never said that was the reason why.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
He did say, according to one account, that it would allow for more offspring.

Scott Woodward:
That makes sense.

Brian Hales:
And on that topic, we need to point out that monogamous wives would have eight children, polygamous wives would have six. And so the argument is that monogamy would have expanded a society faster. But if most of the women or all of the women are bearing six children instead of some of the women having eight, and a lot of women not being married—

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
You can see how in a society the population would grow faster with polygamy. And there’s a couple of articles that are referenced in the Gospel Topic essay that bear this out, that this is actually true. So you do grow the population faster when polygamy is practiced.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm. Interesting. Here’s another question. This one’s from a listener named Scott. I like his name. Here’s what Scott asks. He said, “Do you think in the end that Joseph Smith had any regrets in his approach to practicing plural marriage?” Brian, do you think he would do anything differently if he could go back and do it again? We’re just talking in terms of approach here. And then Scott says, “For instance, eternity-only sealings with women who are already married or not informing Emma of every plural wife he chose to marry.” What do you think? Do you think he had any regrets? I know this is an impossible question to answer for sure, but from your feeling, what might he do differently if he could go back and do it all again?

Brian Hales:
You know, in the final section of the paperback version that I did with my wife, Laura, we have five things, if we could go back in time, we would whisper into Joseph’s ear, and I already alluded to one of them, and let me see if I can remember them, that one is, “Don’t be married to other men’s wives, even if it’s for eternity, because it looks really bad.” “Don’t be married to 14-year-olds, even if they’re not consummated,” and there are very good reasons to believe that those were not consummated.

Scott Woodward:
Just for the optics of it, just don’t do that for the optics of it in the 21st century.

Brian Hales:
Right, right.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Brian Hales:
Tell Emma. Don’t work behind her back. It looks really bad.”

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And on that topic, I think that we have in section 132 an admonition to Emma to forgive Joseph his trespasses.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
So there’s evidence that Joseph had trespassed against Emma.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. In some way.

Brian Hales:
What does that mean? You know, how deep was it? Apparently it didn’t knock his worthiness because section 132 tells us that no one should “set on” Joseph and that he will be exalted. But Joseph wasn’t perfect.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
He was worthy, but he wasn’t perfect. And so if he could have gotten Emma involved a little earlier, it would’ve been really good. The fourth, I’m trying to remember what the fourth one was here. The fifth one was, “Don’t be mayor of Nauvoo.” You know? “Let somebody else do all the politics stuff, and you just stay as prophet,” because had he not been mayor you almost wonder would he have actually been martyred, at least the way that he was, so.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
Oh, and I just remembered the fourth one, and that is to Joseph Smith not be sealed to quite so many women. He was sealed in one way or another to over 30, and he probably could have fulfilled the angel’s wishes with a handful or so.

Scott Woodward:
So if you could go back in a time machine and just give him a little advice. Number one, don’t marry other men’s wives. It just looks bad. Number two, don’t marry a 14-year-old girl. Number three, tell Emma about all of them. And number four, you could probably fulfill the commandment with a few less.

Brian Hales:
Not so many.

Scott Woodward:
And number five, don’t become mayor. That’s fantastic.

Brian Hales:
These are the things that are harder for us today because of our presentism, I think, to understand and accept, but none of them, I think, are sinful in the way that it would prevent him from being worthy to be a prophet.

Scott Woodward:
So there’s nothing—let me just, let’s just get this on the record, then. Brian Hales, there’s nothing you’ve ever come across in your research of Joseph Smith’s polygamy that has caused you to say, “I think that disqualifies him from being a true prophet of God.”

Brian Hales:
Oh, there’s nothing at all. I mean, that’s a very easy question, but let me extend it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, please.

Brian Hales:
During my research in 2007 to 2013, I would have people ask me, “Are you worried that you’re going to find out something that’s going to shake your testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet?” And at the time I said, “No, I’m not too worried,” because in the back of my mind, I didn’t think he could create the Book of Mormon in 1829.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
I thought God was with him in 1829 when he dictated the Book of Mormon.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And so I don’t think he lost that mantle or worthiness, you know, clear into Nauvoo until he was killed. Now, that was an assumption on my part. When I finished my research on polygamy around 2015, then I switched over to test that theory. Could Joseph Smith, using his own intellectual abilities in 1829, have produced the Book of Mormon?

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
I have a book coming out, hopefully in October, by Greg Kofford Books on Joseph Smith as the non-author of the Book of Mormon.

Scott Woodward:
Ooh.

Brian Hales:
And believe me, the evidence is pretty clear that he didn’t have those skills, so.

Scott Woodward:
Ooh. I’m excited for that.

Brian Hales:
We’re moving off topic here, but it tells you something about what I believe as Joseph as a prophet.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. And you hired Don Bradley, right? I think I heard you once say you paid him $50,000 to find every stinking document on polygamy that he could find anywhere in any attic or any library or any dusty corner of Earth. And try to just look at all the evidence without any preconceived conclusions as to what you were going to find. Do I have that part of the story, right, that you were just like, “Let’s just go see everything. Let’s just see every shred of evidence and let’s not be afraid of anything.” So far am I tracking correctly?

Brian Hales:
Yeah. No, it’s absolutely right. I just said, “Bring in everything. We just want to see it all.” And, you know, the interesting thing about Don is that—well, my books have been criticized, the three volumes, but nobody has said we left anything out. And in the last 10 years, they’ve been out 10 years, if I were to do a second edition, I’d stop talking about polyandry so much, because he didn’t do it, but there would only be a handful of things that we would introduce. I mean, Don especially was very thorough. We got all the documents either referenced or quoted in there. Greg Kofford allowed us to put these huge block quotes in there, which historians generally don’t like, but we wanted to let them tell the story, not us. And so the information is there. We think we achieved a level of transparency on that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And then, of course, as you know, and I didn’t know this at the time, but I hired Don in 2007 for a couple of years, and he wasn’t in the church. He had had his name removed. He had an issue with God and suffering and children, and you can read his story. It was in the Deseret News recently, but—

Scott Woodward:
And you were unaware. You were unaware that he had gone through that, that he was out of the church?

Brian Hales:
No, I knew he didn’t go to church because we would meet sometimes on Sunday mornings down in Salt Lake, and he’d come in in his Levi’s, like he’d just rolled out of bed, you know, or—and he’d kept late hours. He’d go to bed at two or three in the morning. So, you know, and—but he was doing such great work. We just rolled with it, and we had great conversations, even though we kind of were coming from different, you know, angles. And then six months after we finished our work, he called me and says, “Hey, I’m getting rebaptized,” you know?

Scott Woodward:
Whoa.

Brian Hales:
So here’s a guy who’s seen all that data, and he’s getting back into the church. Although he will say it wasn’t polygamy that convinced him the church was true. You know, there were other reasons why he came to renew his belief in Joseph Smith as a prophet.

Scott Woodward:
That’s so tremendous, because I think a lot of people are worried that if they dig too deep into church history generally, but polygamy specifically, if I dig too deep, I’m probably going to find something that’s going to destroy my testimony. And you and Don Bradley and many others have proven that that’s just not true.

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
There’s that Alexander Pope poem that says—I think Joseph Smith liked this poem.

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.”

So a little learning is dangerous because it intoxicates your brain and makes you think that you know some things. But he says what you need to do now is drink deeply, and that will sober you again. You’ll become sober to the truth of the situation.

Brian Hales:
I like that. I’ve not heard that, but I believe it. It’s true.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. There’s a scientist, Werner Heisenberg, who said, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you.”

Brian Hales:
Oh. I love that analogy.

Scott Woodward:
So the moral of the story is we’ve got to drink deep, right?

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And that’s what you show us how to do really well, Brian, drink deep. Get to the bottom of the glass before you draw your conclusions. Because we don’t want to draw thick conclusions from thin research, right?

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Let’s get to the bottom of it. Okay, Brian, one last question, and you’ve already begun to answer this for us. After having thoroughly and profoundly studied about polygamy and Joseph Smith, you are clearly still a believer. Why? What makes Brian Hales a believer in the prophetic mission of Joseph Smith and the core truth claims of the restoration?

Brian Hales:
You know, I would say that the reasons that I have my faith are both natural and supernatural. And I don’t know what your experience is, but I’ve had some dear friends leave the church in the last few years.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And almost all of them not only leave our church, but they leave supernaturalism altogether. They dive into the natural world.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And whatever pleasures and things can be discovered there.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And they forget any kind of a supernatural experience that they had, and they just basically deny that the supernatural is real.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, sure.

Brian Hales:
And what I found, not through my study of polygamy so much as—although there were lots of coincidences and things about how things unfolded and how Don found things and stuff, that I think were beyond coincidence, but there’s always ambiguity in these kind of tender mercy moments, you know?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
And I was—don’t know that there were any miracles, that I would say it was that clear, but as I studied the Book of Mormon, you come to understand that Joseph Smith’s natural skillset was just simply inadequate. No matter what the critics want to attribute him with, you know the critics today treat him like a superhero, and they give him any literary superpower he needs to be able to complete the Book of Mormon, but there’s not a single person who knew Joseph who thought he was the author.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Brian Hales:
That he could be the source of those words. So there’s a paradox there. But my point is that as I’ve studied the Book of Mormon and how complex it is, and this will all be out in my book in October.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Brian Hales:
I’ve come to a natural understanding of the Book of Mormon as natural evidence of the existence of the supernatural.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm. Well said.

Brian Hales:
And so Joseph couldn’t have done it without supernatural help. And of course we know that’s the gift and power of God as he translated it or revealed it.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Brian Hales:
And so my testimony is based not only on supernatural things, but the natural existence of the Book of Mormon to me is beyond the ability of the critics to explain, and I’ve accumulated eight theories, and anyway, that’s another discussion point, but none of them even come close to explaining how Joseph could have done it. It’s a pretty solid evidence of the reality of the supernatural, and I believe its content describes that supernatural and what we need to do here on earth and the purpose of life and the reality of God.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. So for you, it’s not polygamy, it’s the Book of Mormon.

Brian Hales:
Sorry, sorry. Shifting topics again, but—

Scott Woodward:
No.

Brian Hales:
It’s a lot more fun to talk about Book of Mormon than polygamy.

Scott Woodward:
Well, agreed. But I will also say this has been fun. This has been fun today, Brian, to talk about polygamy with you. And we’ve talked about questions that trouble people, questions that really matter. I mean, ultimately, I think we both agree what matters is whether or not we keep our covenants with Jesus Christ.

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But sometimes questions like we’ve discussed today get in the way for some people. They’ll stumble because a question that they can’t find a good, solid answer to causes them to lose confidence in the prophet Joseph Smith and therefore the entire work of the Restoration, and therefore, of course, to question their covenants and the validity of those. And so thank you for all you’ve done to help us get resolution to the kinds of questions that can trip people up and keep them from keeping their covenants.

Brian Hales:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So again, thank you, Brian Hales.

Brian Hales:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Scott Woodward:
God bless. Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. This concludes our series on plural marriage. For more of Dr. Brian Hales’ scholarship on plural marriage, we highly recommend beginning with his website, josephsmithspolygamy.org, then leveling up to his book, co-authored with his wife Laura Hales, entitled Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding. And then, if you’re still hungry for more, we heartily encourage you to tackle Brian’s trilogy on Joseph Smith’s polygamy. Today’s episode was produced and edited by Scott Woodward with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Thank you for being a part of this journey with us.