Here is a recap of the major highlights, controversies, and presentations from the Journal of Mormon Polygamy Conference.
The 1886 John Taylor Revelation
I was part of a panel discussing the 1886 John Taylor revelation, which was recently released by the Church History Library. This revelation was received around September 27, 1886, while President Taylor was in hiding from U.S. government officials due to the Edmunds Act. The original manuscript was discovered written in pencil in Taylor’s desk by his son, Apostle John W. Taylor, while settling his estate in 1887.
The interpretation of this document causes a major split:
- The Fundamentalist View: Fundamentalists view the 1886 revelation as an unequivocal mission statement. Because the text states, “I have not revoked this law nor will I,” they interpret this to mean the practice of plural marriage can never be suspended by earthly authority, rendering the 1890 and 1904 manifestos invalid.
- The Mainstream LDS View: Mainstream theology focuses on the word revoked, viewing it as a commandment that can be suspended. Pointing to D&C 132:7, mainstream members argue that only one man on earth holds the keys of the sealing priesthood at a time, meaning the 1886 revelation grants no independent authority to individuals to perform plural marriages without the current Church President’s authorization.
During the Q&A, I stated what I thought was an uncontroversial fact: a major difference between D&C 132 and the 1886 revelation is that section 132 was canonized, and the 1886 text was not. Surprisingly, this drew audible pushback and eye daggers from the audience.
A Room Full of “Revisionists”
I estimate that 90% of the attendees at the conference were “polygamy revisionists”—individuals who believe Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy and that D&C 132 is a forgery. For many in attendance, their opposition to polygamy seems rooted in the moral belief that the practice is inherently wrong, leading to a strong desire to see section 132 decanonized.
This dynamic created an ironic parallel at the conference: both polygamy revisionists and fundamentalists are currently facing excommunication from the mainstream Church for their opposing beliefs regarding Joseph Smith and plural marriage.
Stylometry, D&C 132, and “Statistical Noise”
One of the most highly anticipated presentations for me was from Ethan Lloyd, who recently published a paper utilizing stylometry (wordprint analysis) to argue that the plural marriage verses of D&C 132 do not match Joseph Smith’s established voice. His study was presented as a direct counter to a recent Interpreter article by Fields et al., which used similar methods to argue that Joseph was the author.
As a “math nerd” and statistician, I have serious issues with wordprint studies. While Lloyd rightly points out methodological flaws in the Interpreter study—such as artificially inflating their data by “bootstrapping” short texts—I believe the entire premise of stylometry is flawed.
Here is why stylometry falls short on D&C 132:
- Tone vs. Function Words: Lloyd argue that Joseph’s normal revelations have a “pastoral” tone, while D&C 132 sounds “judicial” and harsh. However, stylometry measures invisible, high-frequency function words (like the, and, of, unto.) You cannot use the frequency of the word “and” to objectively prove a shift from a pastoral to a judicial tone.
- Lack of Statistical Variance: In Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which Lloyd used, you typically want your variables to explain 80% to 90% of the variance in the data. In Lloyd’s study, the variance explained was only in the 15% to 30% range. When that much variance is left unexplained, you aren’t finding a definitive signal or voiceprint”—you are just measuring statistical noise.
Ultimately, I agree with historian John Hamer: wordprint studies generally just reflect the bias of the author.
Other Conference Highlights
- Helen Mar Kimball: Michelle Stone gave a fascinating historiography arguing that Helen Mar Kimball never actually admitted to being a plural wife of Joseph Smith. She was never considered a possible plural wife until the 1930s “Jubilee letters” surfaced. Mainstream historians generally agree Helen was sealed to Joseph at age 14, but Stone’s paper disputes this.
- The Moral Argument: Connor Boyack received a standing ovation for a presentation making a moral and theological case against concubines and polygamy.
- Fundamentalist Representation: Major credit goes to David Patrick and others from the fundamentalist branch called Christ’s Church for proudly presenting their beliefs in the 1886 revelation to an audience that was overwhelmingly hostile to the practice of polygamy.
Lingering Question for Revisionists
I’ll leave you with the same question I posed at the end of the episode regarding the revisionist movement. If you believe D&C 131 and 132 are forgeries that should be thrown out, how do you justify monogamous temple sealings? What scriptures justify monogamous sealings?
William V Smith argues the doctrines of eternal monogamous sealings and plural marriage are so deeply intertwined within the text of section 132 that you cannot simply cut out the polygamy verses and keep the sealing power intact. If you remove section 132 entirely, where is the doctrinal foundation for temple work?
Wheat & Tares 
Just a point of clarification, Michelle’s argument was that *Helen* never talked about being a plural wife of Joseph Smith prior to that 1881 letter. Several other folks identified her as a plural wife of Joseph Smith before that.
As someone who firmly believes something between any of your named groups, I just want to point out another common position. This would be that polygamy was morally wrong and that D&C 132 is a forgery, as in it was not written by Joseph Smith, AND that Joseph Smith did practice polygamy. It might be called the fallen prophet position, or more of a fallible prophet position.
And yes, I would be perfectly willing to say that the celestial marriage stuff and sealings are also unsupported by scripture and then let the church give up that idea right along with polygamy. Throw out the endowment too as we have no scriptural basis for that either. I really hate the endowment as so sickenly sexist as to be something that did not come from any “Heavenly Father” who loves his daughters. The endowment is just as “not of God” as is polygamy.
So, maybe for the church to really reach a position where it can treat women as humans of some worth as humans, instead of just walking talking uteruses, maybe the church needs to just accept that sealing women to just one man while allowing men to be sealed to multiple women is really polygamy and that women mostly hate the idea. I don’t know if that means keeping eternal marriage and making sealings equal across genders or just getting rid of the whole temple. I would be fine with no sealing at all because I think it is love that binds us humans together, not priesthood saying words.
Then we can maybe look at our LGBT brothers and sisters and ask God how they fit in his eternal plan. As the mother of a married lesbian, whose wife has died, I know they are just as bound by love as my heterosexual children as to their spouse. I really want my DIL as part of my eternal family. Maybe if the church could start seeing that God made some of his children different than those straight, cis, white, rich, old men that sit on those red chairs. They seem to still think they are the only ones God loves and the only ones who will ever attain Godhood, and that in their Godhood they will have a harem of walking talking uteruses to pop out babies for eternity. I a not the only woman who thinks their view of heaven is really hell for everyone else.
So, yeah, I am perfectly fine with the idea that Joseph Smith screwed up later in life and his whole view of the celestial kingdom is just as off as our Moslem friends who think they will be rewarded with seventy virgins.
I have long joked that those men on the big red chairs are going to get to heaven and find out that all the females have opted to go elsewhere because they do NOT want polygamy. So, the men who want it will be abandoned and alone to fight each other for status and power. Maybe the women will go to the Felestial Kingdom instead. In case you have never heard of the Felestial Kingdom it is the most loving of all the various Heavens where people are bound by love (not priesthood) and you are sealed by love to everyone that you really loved on earth. Even just friends. Of course LGBT people love and so they can go there because there is no wrong person to love. Love is love. There is no male priesthood there as love has replaced it, love being the real power that binds mothers to their babies and husbands to wives. And it is a very female place as it is designed by our Heavenly Mother, which is why it is named Felestial. So, all the gays and lesbians who love their partners will be there with their partners. There is a place for trans individuals as we don’t worry so much about the genitals you had at birth and since men and women are totally equal there, we don’t much care which you feel you are.
The celestial kingdom has always struck me as being the vision of a sex addled male brain. Maybe a brain on a huge overdose of testosterone. It for sure doesn’t sound like something most women want. So, seriously, what the hell kind of God would expect women to be rewarded by a place they are treated like breeding stock. That isn’t of God.
Sorry not sorry about the tangent
Anna, I think your position is logically consistent. I’m not sure all polygamy revisionists adopt that position. If one wants to rule 132 is a forgery, is will subsequently throw out most temple work. (We do have a section on baptism for the dead, so that would be unaffected.)
And Mary Ann, thanks for the clarification.
Living in Lehi, I struggle with the Boyacks’ approach to politics and religion. Last I listened to Connor, he fell in the camp of polygamy denial is that correct? Was his presentation just trying to prove polygamy is bad using scripture? Dan McClellan has an interesting video on polygamy in the Hebrew Bible and there are some interesting things he highlights I didn’t know about in there where the authors very much seem to support it.
I get the general sense that the populous wishes the doctrine of polygamy would just go away one way or another. And they wish that the church would just openly and strongly come down on completely divesting itself of that. As I’ve listened to your Gospel Tangents interviews along with church history interviews on other platforms, I get the sense that polygamy boiled down really to male kingdom building. It bore no resemblance to what we do with “eternal families” in temples today. Women were just patriarchical prizes. And I can see why just doesn’t sit well today. We make fun of Islam for believing a righteous man will get lots of virgins in the afterlife—our early church wasn’t too far off from mirroring that same kind of thing.
Maybe the polygamy deniers have the right idea in the wrong historical context. On the surface, they are making arguments against Joseph Smith practicing/embracing polygamy in the 19th-century Church. But the deeper reality is that they are making a case against practicing/embracing polygamy in the 21st-century Church. The 21st-century Church doesn’t practice it, but the leadership certainly still embraces it. That creates the tension around the doctrine.
So 21st-century LDS fundamentalists both practice and embrace polygamy — result: they are completely rejected by current LDS Church to the point of excommunication. The rising group of current polygamy deniers neither practice nor embrace polygamy — result: they are rather clearly disfavored by the current LDS Church. The orthodox position put forth by 21st-century LDS leadership is to embrace but not practice polygamy. That position is inherently inconsistent. It’s trying to have it both ways. It doesn’t really make anyone happy.
Rick B,
Serious question here: To the best of your knowledge, is there anyone outside of Mormon-themed research that does word print analysis? I have only ever heard of BYU/FARMS type people report it’s use and always for very Mormonish kinds of studies. And all the references to it pulled up by AI during a Google search seemed to be BYU related. So is this a peculiarly Mormon pseudoscience method or are the non-Mormon scholars who have also tried to use it for non-Mormon types of studies? Why has this peculiar methodology continued to persist in the Mormon world despite no real validation? Just curious how if you have any idea how this even came to be a Mormon thing.
A point of interest that many are not aware of:
The church handbook 38.4.1.8
Sealing of Deceased Persons.
Deceased Women. A deceased woman may be sealed to all men to whom she was legally married during her life. The following table shows when these sealings may take place.
She was not sealed to a husband in life:
She may be sealed to all living or deceased men to whom she was married in life. If the man is living, his wife (if he is married) must give written consent. If the man is deceased, his widow, if any must give written consent.
She was sealed to a husband in life:
All her husbands must be deceased before she is sealed to other men to whom she was married. This includes former husbands from whom she may have been divorced. Each of the men’s widows (if any) must give written consent.
All of the directives in the church handbook regarding any sealings, seem extremely convoluted to me, which tells me they are hinting they have no idea what happens beyond this life regarding sealings and the eternal stamina of relationships.
Anna, I understand your angst regarding much of the temple procedures. The value I place on temple attendance is that it reminds me that we are ALL related. That anything that I have is a result of ALL of those that have come before us living now.
I honestly believe that anyone who is married and spends their lives together through ups and downs have exhibited the kind of love that will last beyond this life. in other words, I like that you stated that “Love” is what persists into eternity.
Chris, yes Boyack is in the polygamy revisionist camp. Dan’s video sounds interesting. I’ll have to check it out.
Dave, well said.
10ac, I agree that it is strange that Mormon studies folks have gravitated to wordprint studies. Almost all studies I’m aware of point to the Federalist Papers as either the origin, or an important data point outside for wordprint studies. I’m not aware of any other studies by non-Mormons about non-Mormon topics. By now, people know that I’m a stats guy, so somebody usually pings me on a Mormon studies wordprint study, so my sample is clearly biased towards Mormon wordprint studies.
I remember the Criddle Wordprint study saying Sidney Rigdon wrote the Book fo Mormon. Then the BYU folks wrote a rebuttal study. Criddle promised a rebuttal rebuttal, but if he did, I’m not aware of it. I’m not exactly sure why Mormons are so into wordprints, but it’s likely an “objective” attempt to prove the church true/false, so the environment is ripe for people to try experimental approaches.
17RRider, I know Howard W Hunter convinced McKay to change the policy to allow for women to be sealed to multiple men. It’s in Greg Prince’s McKay biography. I agree that us earthbound creatures really don’t know what’s going to happen in the next life.
As a data scientist myself who has done a bit of trend analysis on general conference talks of the 20th and 21st centuries, I agree it can be hard to draw definitive conclusions and easy to find what you’re looking for. I would hope that anyone presenting research results in a forum like this is publishing their code. Did the speaker at this conference provide any links? In the machine learning and AI worlds these days, it’s become common practice to publish code on github, and I personally tend to trust the results more of those who do that.
I don’t see any code in Ethan’s paper, but here is a link to the article: https://journalofmormonpolygamy.org/jmp/article/view/44/46
Here is a link to the interpreter article too: https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/historical-and-stylometric-evidence-for-the-authorship-of-doctrine-and-covenants-132
I have no idea if it is on github.
On YouTube Karen Hyatt has a fantastic presentation defending that Joseph Smith was not practicing polygamy.
Woe Unto You, Scribes: The Hidden History of Polygamy