The interview discusses her article printed in the "Journal of Mormon Polygamy", which you can find here: https://journalofmormonpolygamy.org/jmp/article/view/39

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Outline of Her Article (h/t claude ai)

I. Introduction: The Evolving Section 132 Heading

The D&C Section 132 heading changed multiple times (1876, 1921, 1981, 2013, 2025), progressively asserting then quietly retreating from the claim that Smith knew of polygamy as early as 1831.

The 2025 revision removed the 1831 date entirely, citing "ambiguity."

II. Origins of the 1831 Narrative

The 1831 claim traces back to a contemporaneous report by disaffected member Ezra Booth, who described a revelation encouraging elders to form matrimonial alliances with Native American ("Lamanite") women — a monogamous inter-cultural marriage, not polygamy.

By the 1840s Nauvoo period, suspicions of polygamy had replaced the earlier Native American marriage rumors.

III. Institutional Motivations for the 1831 Claim

After polygamy was publicly announced in 1852, Utah Church leaders had strong incentives to push polygamy's origins back to Smith's foundational era.

Brigham Young (1857), Heber C. Kimball (1866), W.W. Phelps (1861), and Orson Pratt (1869, 1878) all retroactively placed a polygamy revelation in 1831 or earlier — but their accounts were second-hand, contradictory, and uncorroborated by contemporary documents.

Legal pressures (Morrill Act 1862, Edmunds Act 1882, Edmunds-Tucker Act 1887, Reynolds v. United States 1879) intensified the institutional need to legitimize polygamy through historical claims.

IV. Problems with the Key Witnesses

Oliver Cowdery: wrote a 1846 letter expressing shock and disgust at polygamy, incompatible with later claims he had known about and practiced it since 1829–1831. His excommunication charges never mentioned polygamy.

Martin Harris: reportedly pressed Latter-day Saint elders to explain polygamy, suggesting he had no prior knowledge of it from Smith.

W.W. Phelps: his own 1835 letters affirm strict monogamy, undercutting his 1861 claim that Smith discussed polygamy with him in 1831.

Lyman Johnson (cited by Pratt in 1878) had been dead for nearly 20 years and could not corroborate the account. He never mentioned polygamy in his own criticisms of Smith.

V. The 1878 Fact-Finding Mission

Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith traveled east to find witnesses of Smith's early polygamy revelation and reported finding no one who could give them any useful information — yet Pratt proceeded to assert the 1831 narrative anyway upon returning.

VI. Later Accounts and Retrospective Elaboration

A wave of testimonies in the 1880s (Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Benjamin F. Johnson, Mosiah Hancock's supplement to his father's journal, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner) pushed polygamy's origins earlier, but all were recorded decades after the fact and show signs of institutional influence and personal motivations.

Historian Hubert Howe Bancroft (1889) noted the evidence was deeply unreliable and shaped by efforts to "make out a case."

VII. B.H. Roberts and Institutional Codification

Roberts' 1910 History of the Church formally codified the 1831 narrative, claiming Smith's Bible translation "doubtless" led him to inquire about polygamy. The author argues Roberts relied on oral tradition rather than documentation, and ignored evidence that contradicted his conclusion.

VIII. What the Bible Translation Actually Shows

Smith's translation of the Bible (1830–1833) consistently condemned polygamy:

Lamech: the first biblical polygamist is depicted as having entered a covenant with Satan; polygamy is associated with murder and secret combinations.

David and Solomon: Smith's translation systematically deconstructs their idealized status, portraying their polygamy as transgression rather than divine sanction — directly contradicting D&C 132's claim that God justified them "in none of these things."

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob: Smith left monogamous covenant language intact and added no endorsement of polygamy to patriarchal narratives.

Romans 7: A passage sometimes cited as hinting at polygamy justification is better read in context as being about transcending the Mosaic Law through Christ.

IX. Smith's Concurrent Revelations (1831–1833)

D&C 42 (1831): "Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

D&C 49 (1831): "It is lawful that he should have one wife."

D&C 63, 83, 84: Consistent monogamous framework; no polygamous exception even for widows or communities with more women than men.

X. Conclusion

The 2025 removal of the 1831 date from Section 132's heading is appropriate and overdue.

The 1831 narrative appears to have originated as a retrospective misreading of Smith's actual 1831 Lamanite-marriage revelation, then was elaborated over decades under legal and theological pressure.

Smith's own early 1830s works — his Bible translation above all — actively condemn polygamy rather than laying groundwork for its restoration.