My TBM Uncle has read 'Rough Stone Rolling', so, of course, he now claims to know ALL the 'issues' and still believes. Since I am now exMo, he likes to email me things to prove I'm wrong to have left TSCC.

Here is the latest 'gem' from my Uncle, emailed to me last week:

"Look, nobody knew Joseph Smith better than Emma. She stood by his side, from the beginning. She loved him, until his death and beyond. She never left him. In spite of how polygamy would have been hard to swallow, she still supported every single thing he ever did. No one will ever be able to convince me that Joseph Smith was a fraud because Emma would have had every reason to expose him. Instead, she testified of his prophetic calling over and over again. Emma is THE solid evidence that Joseph Smith is everything he claimed to be."

Oh man! Uncle, you are right. Where can I buy the latest Mo-masonic underwear and recommit to it all? Oh wait, I need to make out a check to LD$ inc fast and back pay my tithing! I must hasten the work now....

Creepy. It sounds more like he is trying to convince himself.

Yes, Emma is the proof--because no woman in history has EVER stood by a cheating lying husband. It's just never happened. So Joseph had to be a prophet.

Exactly! Especially women like Emma who had nothing to lose by getting out of said marriage...

So since Emma was so good at discerning Joe and all that, I presume he's RLDS.

I would be interested to know exactly when & where & under what circumstances Emma testified of her husband's prophetic abilities.

exactly!

"she still supported every single thing he ever did"

my impression is that she tolerated every single thing he ever did - as long as it kept bringing in money

+1

exactly!

"she still supported every single thing he ever did"

my impression is that she tolerated every single thing he ever did - as long as it kept bringing in money

Ok, fine. And she thought BY was a crook. Or was she speaking as a woman and not a prophetess then?

Where would Emma have gone and what would she have done? It's not like women had a lot of options in those days. People tended to stay married whether it was working or not. You really did not see a lot of divorces until perhaps the 1980s and beyond. They were nearly unthinkable in my childhood and carried a great social stigma. Perhaps your uncle was not alive at that time or doesn't remember. But I remember!

And beyond that, I'm always at a loss as to why people think that others must share their religious faith. I would just keep telling him that what works for him does not necessarily work for you.

Emma and the boys didnt think much of brigham though

So I guess your uncle never heard of Emma poisoning Joes coffee? Joe accused her of it as well as Brigham Young.

WAIT! If Emma is the proof...then that means the RLDS church is the true church...cause she went with them after Joes death.

That is ironic, since Emma is good counter-proof to the idea that the BoM witnesses never denied their testimony: Emma never denied her testimony that Joseph never practiced polygamy. Using your uncle's logic, the Church is false because Emma testified against Brigham Young for leading the Church astray.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2014 02:34PM by Facsimile 3.

Is your father too young to remember when Emma was She Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken? Or is his memory just selective?

Oh, and one word: co-conspirator.

...OK.......ask Dad why did Emma, family, and the remaining BOM witnesses remain behind, and refuse to follow Bro. Brigham to the Utah territory, where the Brethren could practice polygamy outside of US governmental oversight? And why were the Smith children told by Emma that Joe never did practice that abomination? Why did Emma hate Brigham Young so much, and who suspected Emma of trying to poison the Prophet? Lot's of handwringing. The Church likes to ignore this particular period of Church history, for obvious reasons.

Even FAIR acknowledges the rocky relationship between them. If the Church was true and Joe was a true Prophet and if Brigham was God's #2 appointed Prophet, why the big split between them? Somethin' ain't right here.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Emma_Smith/Brigham_Young

Interesting quote from the FAIR link...

"Brigham also doubtless considered Emma dishonest and a liar because she continued to insist that her husband had never taught the doctrine of plural marriage. So adamant was Emma on this point that the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held it as an article of faith, and Emma's children never accepted the idea that Joseph had instituted plural marriage. Given that Brigham was blamed by Emma for being the inventor of plural marriage, he probably felt rather ill-used by her. Brigham, after all, saw Emma as fighting against the man Brigham revered as the Prophet, and he knew that Emma knew that Joseph taught plural marriage."

FAIR is actually admitting that Joseph taught plural marriage. So why is LDS Inc. throwing Brigham under the bus on this issue with the essay about plural marriage?

Excellent find and points!

So what do we read into the marriage of Emma to Lewis C Bidamon (non Mormon) on Smith's birthdate 23rd Dec (1847)?

I'm sure it never occurred to him that Emma was in on the whole money making scheme. She was sick of being poor, on the run, and living in other peoples homes. She had everything to gain by staying with him. Not only that, she probably thought there was a good possibility he'd get himself killed and it would all be left to her, which is exactly what happened. She stayed put after his death and kept a church up and running.

Of course she didn't go along with BY. He wanted to take everything away from her and leave her poor and dependent on him. She had no interest in doing that.

And by the way, she didn't support js having mistresses. She was less than kind to those women when she found out they were doing her husband.

Emma's matrimonial history is not good proof. Her second husband proves that her sticking by her men isn't much.

Whoah, I posted this and did not expect to come back to so many comments. Love it!

Pretty much everything mentioned here, so far, is nearly exactly what I was thinking when he sent me that email.

(By the way, this is not my Dad. See my OP Subject line)

My uncle is the type of TBM who thinks the shady side of Joseph Smith is all part of God's Plan to test His people.

And, no, he does not have a clue that Emma clearly hated Joseph, in Nauvoo. Nor does he connect the dots that, according to his lame 'proof', the RLDS church is the true one.

Thank you all for helping me feel that I am not alone. The TBM world that surrounds me is like living in the Twilight Zone, every day. Yep, I won the family lottery.

"My uncle is the type of TBM who thinks the shady side of Joseph Smith is all part of God's Plan to test His people."

If this is true, then I don't want to worship a god so inconsistent that the very basic 10 commandments could be broken based on the whims of a man. What about modern day so-called prophets like Warren Jeffs? How does your uncle feel about the FLDS? If he finds it disgusting, then ask him in what ways they are disgusting but not what JS did? Teenage brides and polyandry or wife-assignment happened in both cases.

Actually, Emma always told her sons that JS did NOT participate in polygamy ("spiritual wivery" or whatever they wanted to call it). She is even on record saying this in her later years when being interviewed by her son JS III. This goes against numerous accounts of Emma freaking out each time she found out about what JS was up to. So I would suggest that your uncle reconcile Emma's inconsistency on the matter first.

On supporting JS, she wanted D&C 132 destroyed and said the revelation was "of the devil". Pretty much all of this is in RSR. Maybe your uncle selectively missed connecting those dots.

This is just my opinion. I think Emma told her boys that their father was never a poligamist because she didn't want them taking it up and passing it on in the RLDS church. Also, she didn't want the boys thinking bad of their father. She had a lot of secrets to keep, that was just one of many. She kept that one for her own benefit.

Poor Emma is all I can say she did stay by his side but like my grandma said about by partying grandpa "you stayed with them back then" What else was Emma to do. Staying with JS doesn't make anything he did right it just means Emma was doing probably the only thing she knew to do. As soon as I found out what a Liar old joe was that was IT for me all the extras fall down. NO prophet should or would want to lie.

Tell your uncle that Ron Burr from Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada says he's a delusional moron. And I'm in the phone book.

Ron Burr

Lethbridge Reprobate Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tell your uncle that Ron Burr from Lethbridge,
> Alberta, Canada says he's a delusional moron. And
> I'm in the phone book.
>
> Ron Burr


This comment just made my day! Don't get me wrong, I love my uncle, but, this is perfect. ha ha.

Did your uncle sleep through page 498 where it's speculated that Emma tried to poison Joseph?

releve Wrote:
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> Did your uncle sleep through page 498 where it's
> speculated that Emma tried to poison Joseph?


Oh man, the mental gymnastics and selective nature of my uncle is off the charts. My uncle is a 'know it all' who knows very little of reality.

I have a family member or two like that - we just call if Cliff Clavinism.

Hmm. It doesn't occur to him that maybe Emma was somewhat in on it, as some of her contemporaries suspected?

Actually Emma did pack her stuff and leave Joe. It was after he moved seven wives into their boarding house and Emma got pissed. She moved back to her family's place. Joe, of course, went after her telling her that it looks bad for the prophet's wife to leave him. He begged her to return.

She told Joe that he had to get those bitches out of her house or she wasn't coming back. He moved them out.

Remember Joe had over thirty wives.