Joseph and Jacob 2

Did Joseph Smith Mention Jacob?

I have been unable to find anything from Joseph himself about Jacob’s sermon. As far as the record shows, he never used Jacob 2:30 to justify plural marriage, and even Brian Hales, the best-known apologist for Joseph’s polygamy, agrees. What the record does show is that on the day Joseph and Hyrum died, five statements on record said a man should have one wife.

I’ve often pondered why Joseph rarely preached out of the Book of Mormon and seemed to prefer the Bible. As I was reading the King Follett discourse, something struck me. Joseph said, "I suppose I am not allowed to go into an investigation of anything that is not contained in the Bible. If I did, I think there are so many overwise men here, that they would cry "treason" and put me to death. So I will go to the old Bible and turn commentator today."

Whoa, did you catch that? "I suppose I am not allowed to go into an investigation of anything that is not contained in the Bible." Were the Saints the Gentiles who the Lord was speaking about?¹ "And because my words shall hiss forth—many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible."² The Lord uses the Gentiles who say this, as a type of those who reject revelation, yet God will gather his word and his people in the last days.³

Brian Hales has also commented on Joseph Smith and Jacob 2:30:

“It is interesting to note that, according to all available documents, JS [Joseph Smith] never referred to Jacob 2:30 to justify the restoration of PM [plural marriage]. Undoubtedly later voices have done so. It is, to me, largely a red herring since Abraham and Jacob were polygamists, which observation is found to justify the restoration of the practice in D&C 132: 1, 37 (see also 40, 45). As you know, v. 63 lists “multiple [multiply] and replenish” rather than “raise up seed” to describe polygamy’s role in expanding the number of children being born.”

“I just did another search of my JS [Joseph Smith] polygamy manuscripts and some other databases. No one quotes JS [Joseph Smith] as referring to the BofM [Book of Mormon] and Jacob 2:30 to justify his introduction of plural marriage.”⁴

A red herring is something misleading meant to distract from the real argument.

I wonder if the "later voices" includes Apostle Orson Pratt?⁵ That would raise some eyebrows if Hales is publicly suggesting an Apostle of the Lord gave us a red herring.

Hales says Joseph “never referred to Jacob 2:30 to justify the restoration of PM [plural marriage]. Undoubtedly later voices have done so.” The church uses Jacob 2:30 today to justify the former practice.⁶ Is the church one of the “later voices” Hales refers to?

For our purposes, it should be informative that I can find no record of Joseph speaking on Jacob chapter 2. The closest thing is a letter George A. Smith wrote to Joseph Smith III in 1869, twenty-five years after Joseph’s death: “When the passage in the book of Mormon enjoining Monogamy was referred to your father; he replied that ‘God has commanded us.’”⁷ Andrew Ehat read this as Joseph citing verse 30,⁸ but the letter doesn’t mention verse 30 or “raise up seed.” It doesn’t say who raised the passage, when, or whether George A. Smith was there. And it comes from the man who oversaw the history in which Joseph’s October 5, 1843 journal entry gained “unless the Lord directs otherwise” (Part 1.3). Perhaps the Saints had been treating the Book of Mormon so lightly that no one defended this reading of verse 30 in print until 1853, twenty-three years after its publication, and it took the scriptorian of the day to do it.⁹

Hales has also said publicly that “when we start to disagree publicly with the official position of the church, that’s the problem.”¹⁰ Yet the church’s official statement on polygamy uses Jacob 2:30 specifically,¹¹ and here Hales publicly calls it a red herring.¹²

Hales’s point seems to be that Jacob 2:30 doesn’t matter, because Joseph had the authority and D&C 132 is the revelation.¹³ But if the leading apologists avoid Jacob chapter 2, shouldn’t that tell us something about how they view it? Why avoid it unless it somehow undresses their narrative?¹⁴

June 27, 1844

When Joseph and Hyrum died, the Saints were left with several documents that recorded Joseph and Hyrum's statements, some public and others not yet public. No original of D&C 132 survived them; the later claim was that Emma burned it.¹⁵ However, we still have the originals for the following five statements that directly oppose section 132.

1. The Book of Mormon, March 1830. "For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife..."¹⁶ This is the only one to survive, because it was already public.
2. The Doctrine and Covenants, August 1835. "...we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife;"¹⁷ Section 101 was removed in 1876 and replaced with section 132.¹⁸
3. Hyrum’s sermon at the temple, May 1843. “a man might have one wife...”¹⁹ This sermon has been hidden away, and as I’ve written, scholars leave out the best parts.²⁰
4. Joseph’s journal, October 5, 1843. "No man shall have but one wife"²¹ This journal entry was heavily modified to promote polygamy rather than condemn it.²²
5. Hyrum’s discourse, April 1844. “I believe every good man should have one wife in this life.”²³ This sermon was stricken from the record by Brigham Young.

On the day Joseph and Hyrum died, all five of these statements existed in their original form. It did not have an original of D&C 132, and the revelation wasn’t made public until August 1852. Of the five, only the Book of Mormon came down to us unchanged. The 1835 statement was removed, the 1843 sermon is quoted only in part, the journal entry was rewritten, and the 1844 sermon was crossed out.

All five say one wife is the standard. Hyrum called it a perpetual principle; Joseph said those teaching plurality should be tried; and Hyrum said elders who taught it should lose their licenses and have their noses wrung.

Did Joseph Have Children With Other Wives?

In Part 1.2 I asked, “Did Joseph father any children with his supposed wives?” The church teaches that plural marriage was to “raise up seed unto [the Lord],” to increase the number of children born in the covenant. If that was its purpose, we should expect to find Joseph’s children by other wives. So far, DNA has found none.

Ugo Perego, a geneticist, reconstructed Joseph’s Y chromosome from descendants of his sons with Emma. He then compared it with descendants of men said to be Joseph’s sons by plural wives. Orrison Smith, Moroni Pratt, and Zebulon Jacobs were ruled out in 2005,²⁴ Oliver Buell and Mosiah Hancock in 2007,²⁵ and John Reed Hancock in 2011.²⁶

Josephine Lyon was considered the strongest case. In 1915 she said her mother, Sylvia Sessions Lyon, told her before she died in 1882 that Josephine was Joseph’s daughter. In 2016 Perego tested her descendants’ DNA. They matched relatives of Windsor Lyon, Sylvia’s husband, and not Joseph’s descendants.²⁷

The church’s own essay says, in a footnote, “genetic testing has so far been negative, though it is possible he fathered two or three children with plural wives.”²⁸ That was written before the Josephine Lyon result. A few claimed children died as infants and can’t be tested, so the question isn’t technically closed. But after twenty years of testing, the only children of Joseph’s that anyone has found are Emma’s. The church says plural marriage was to raise up seed, and Joseph didn’t raise up any.

Joseph Smith and The Kingdom of God

If Joseph wasn’t raising up children, what was he doing? I think we should look at what he taught about family, and about adding to God’s family.

The Book of Mormon prophets describe God’s family as a tree. Lehi compared the house of Israel to an olive tree, and Nephi asked his brothers, “are we not a branch of the house of Israel?”²⁹ Zenos’s allegory is an olive tree whose branches are grafted in and out,³⁰ and Isaiah saw “a Branch” grow out of the roots of Jesse.³¹ In the same sermon as verse 30, the Lord tells Jacob why he brought Lehi out of Jerusalem: “that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.”³² It’s about covenants, and Lehi’s family was a branch of that tree.

So we should look to see whether Joseph used a tree too. Orson Hyde published this diagram of the kingdom of God in 1847, three years after Joseph’s death, and Andrew Ehat and Lyndon Cook include it in The Words of Joseph Smith.

"The above diagram shows the order and unity of the kingdom of God. The eternal Father sits at the head, crowned King of kings and Lord of lords. Wherever the other lines meet, there sits a king and a priest unto God, bearing rule, authority, and dominion under the Father. He is one with the Father, because his kingdom is joined to his Father's and becomes part of it.

The most eminent and distinguished prophets who have laid down their lives for their testimony (Jesus among the rest), will be crowned at the head of the largest kingdoms under the Father, and will be one with Christ as Christ is one with his Father; for their kingdoms are all joined together, and such as do the will of the Father, the same are his mothers, sisters, and brothers. He that has been faithful over a few things, will be made ruler over many things; he that has been faithful over ten talents, shall have dominion over ten cities, and he that has been faithful over five talents, shall have dominion over five cities, and to every man will be given a kingdom and a dominion, according to his merit, powers, and abilities to govern and control. It will be seen by the above diagram that there are kingdoms of all sizes, an infinite variety to suit all grades of merit and ability. The chosen vessels unto God are the kings and priests that are placed at the head of these kingdoms. These have received their washings and anointings in the temple of God on this earth; they have been chosen, ordained, and anointed kings and priests, to reign as such in the resurrection of the just. Such as have not received the fulness of the priesthood, (for the fulness of the priesthood includes the authority of both king and priest) and have not been anointed and ordained in the temple of the Most High, may obtain salvation in the celestial kingdom, but not a celestial crown. Many are called to enjoy a celestial glory, yet few are chosen to wear a celestial crown, or rather, to be rulers in the celestial kingdom.

While this portion of eternity that we now live in, called time, continues, and while the other portions of eternity that we may hereafter dwell in, continue, those lines in the foregoing diagram, representing kingdoms, will continue to extend and be lengthened out; and thus, the increase of our kingdoms will increase the kingdom of our God, even as Daniel hath said: “of the increase of his kingdom and government there shall be no end.” All these kingdoms are one kingdom, and there is a King over kings, and a Lord over lords. There are Lords many, and Gods many, for they are called Gods to whom the word of God comes, and the word of God comes to all these kings and priests. But to our branch of the kingdom there is but one God, to whom we all owe the most perfect submission and loyalty; yet our God is just as subject to still higher intelligences, as we should be to him.

...These kingdoms, which are one kingdom, are designed to extend till they not only embrace this world, but every other planet that rolls in the blue vault of heaven. Thus will all things be gathered in one during the dispensation of the fulness of times, and the Saints will not only possess the earth, but all things else, for, says Paul, “All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come: all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's"³³

If you study the diagram from the Millennial Star, it’s easy to notice the resemblance to a tree. However, I’ve noticed the growth occurs downward, with God at the top, “The eternal Father sits at the head, crowned King of kings and Lord of lords.”³⁴ It’s interesting to know that a plant has what’s called a crown. The crown of a plant is “where the plant stem meets the roots. This is where the energy and nutrients from the roots are transferred to the stems and eventually to the flowers.”³⁵ Also, if you look at a leaf hanging from a branch, you’ll see the same pattern. Our Lord truly is the God of nature,³⁶ and all things testify of Him.³⁷

Recently my nephew, who is a talented artist, taught me about fractals. Fractals are patterns that repeat, and our world is full of them.³⁸ Trees are fractals as they have a trunk, branches, and stems (leaves). The human body is a fractal with a main core, limbs, and then digits that repeat the pattern.

A family grows the same way. Whatever Joseph was doing with sealings, it may not have been raising up literal children, but spiritual children, grafted into the mother tree, the house of Israel, and joined to the family of God. The Lord told Jacob he would “raise up unto me a righteous branch” and, a few verses later, “raise up seed unto me.” We’ll come back to what that seed is in Part 2.

Part 1 Conclusion

Joseph never used Jacob 2:30 to justify plural marriage, and DNA has found no children by his other wives. The church’s official reading (Part 1.2) traces back to Orson Pratt in 1853 (Part 1.3), was printed into the footnotes in 1879 (Part 1.4), and runs opposite to what Hyrum preached from the same chapter in 1843 and 1844 (Part 1.5). On the day Joseph and Hyrum died, every one of these statements said one wife. Let’s move on to Part 2 and try to understand verse 30 inside the Book of Mormon itself.