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In this episode, David Snell talks about a letter purportedly written by Emma Smith and published in the New York Sun in 1845, in which she allegedly denies that she ever believed in Joseph Smith’s revelations. Spoiler alert: She denounced the letter as a complete forgery.
Video transcript: https://bit.ly/3yatzWD
— See “Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, prophet’s wife, ‘Elect lady,’ polygamy’s foe, 1804-1879,” by Linda King Newell & Valeen Tippetts Avery, pgs. 221-226: https://bit.ly/3xlFsYk
— “New Light on the Sun: Emma Smith and the New York Sun Letter” by Linda King Newell & Valeen Tippitts Avery (very similar to “Mormon Enigma”: https://bit.ly/39tL0Z4
— “Times and Seasons” (Jan. 15, 1846) in which Emma’s denial was published (pg. 1096): https://bit.ly/3xvCcK6
— “James Arlington Bennet and the Mormons,” via BYU Studies: https://bit.ly/3b4JqwZ
— Bennet’s response to “Emma’s” letter, pub. Dec. 19, 1845, in New York Sun: https://bit.ly/3mUYAI2
— Letter from James Arlington Bennet to Brigham Young, Nov. 18, 1845. States that Emma is against the Twelve (the date of this letter is two days before the date on the forgery sent to the New York Sun): https://bit.ly/3xXrFsL
— For additional letters sent to and from James A. Bennet, type “James Arlington Bennet letters” into the search bar here: https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/search . You can filter results to only see those letters available digitally.
— “Joseph Smith’s Presidential Platform” via Dialogue Journal (some discussion of James Arlington Bennet here): https://bit.ly/3bkwhQw
Notes:
— In 1952, Raymond Bailey dedicated 3.5 pages to this topic, out of his near-200-page MA Thesis. Bailey was “inclined to believe that Emma wrote the letter, and when there were so many repercussions from it, she published a denial of it.” This was more or less the conclusion that the Instagram user in question came to. However, Bailey does not go into detail about what these “many repercussions” were, nor does he consider the body of evidence later collected by Newell & Avery against Bennet. Point being: It seems to me that this is an outdated and largely baseless perspective. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but new evidence should be taken into account as it comes forward. I don’t necessarily fault Bailey for not assimilating information into his opinion that was unavailable at the time (it was the 1950s, for heaven’s sake), but the Instagram user in question seemed to intentionally downplay or ignore the evidence that did not favor their personal belief. You can read Bailey’s thesis here (pgs. 142-145): https://bit.ly/3zCOWRO
— The Messenger and Advocate (the newspaper of Sidney Rigdon’s breakoff group by this time) gives some thoughts on the New York Sun’s “Emma Smith” publication in the following link. They express doubt that it was written by her. “Whether Mrs. Smith is the author of the letter or not, we do not pretend to say, but with us, it is a matter of very serious doubt….” Source: https://bit.ly/3xALTa3
— James Bennet was interested in positions of ecclesiastical power. After Joseph died, he wrote to apostle Willard Richards, stating that he’d had a dream in which the spirits of Joseph and Hyrum appeared to him, and an angel had placed a crown on his head while they were present. Years later, he wrote to Joseph Smith III of the Reorganized Church and claimed to have a letter from Joseph Smith in his possession which apparently promised him (Bennet) the prophetic mantle. Sources: https://bit.ly/3zK7FuR / https://bit.ly/3b4JqwZ , respectively.
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