“Assessing the Criticisms of Early-Age Latter-Day Saint Marriages”

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship enters into an area where controversy is conceivable:

“Assessing the Criticisms of Early-Age Latter-Day Saint Marriages”

Abstract: Critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have accused Joseph Smith and other early Latter-day Saint men of pedophilia because they married teenaged women. Indeed, they have emphatically declared that such marriages were against 19th-century societal norms. However, historians and other experts have repeatedly stated that young people married throughout the 19th-century, and such marriages have been relatively common throughout all of US history. This article examines some of the accusations of early Latter-day Saint pedophilia and places such marriages within the greater historical and social context, illustrating that such marriages were normal and acceptable for their time and place.

The publication of Craig Foster’s article falls on the 344th consecutive Friday on which at least one article has appeared in Interpreter.  The Interpreter Foundation was launched just slightly more than 345 weeks ago.

***

Also from the Interpreter Foundation:

Interpreter Radio Show — 17 February 2019

In this episode, Bruce Webster and Kris Frederickson discussed on Come, Follow Me lesson 7, covering Matthew 5 and Luke 6.

***

Also from the Interpreter Foundation, a somewhat different form of the above:

Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 8 “Blessed Are Ye” — Matthew 5

This is an Interpreter Radio (audio) Roundtable for Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 8, “Blessed Are Ye,” which covers both Matthew 5 and Luke 6. This specific roundtable, however, discusses Matthew chapter 5, while the Luke 6 discussion may be found at

https://interpreterfoundation.org/cfm-audio-roundtable-come-follow-me-new-testament-lesson-8-luke-6.

It was extracted from the 17 February 2019 broadcast of Interpreter Radio and features Bruce Webster and Kris Fredrickson.  The complete show may be heard at

https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-february-17-2019/.

***

Also from the Interpreter Foundation, in a variant form:

Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 8 “Blessed Are Ye” — Luke 6

This is an Interpreter Radio (audio) Roundtable for Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 8, “Blessed Are Ye,” which covers both Matthew 5 and Luke 6. This specific roundtable, however, discusses Luke chapter 6, while the Matthew 5 discussion may be found at

https://interpreterfoundation.org/cfm-audio-roundtable-come-follow-me-new-testament-lesson-8-matthew-5.

It was was extracted from the 17 February 2019 broadcast of Interpreter Radio and features Bruce Webster and Kris Fredrickson.  The complete show may be heard at

https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-february-17-2019/.

***

And please don’t forget about our film project:

Witnesses

***

The items above remind me of the confident prophecy issued slightly more than five years ago now by a pseudonymous critic on a small, extraordinarily nasty, and mostly atheist ex-Mormon message board:

“By Jan. 1, 2014 Interpreter will be dead. . . .  Either totally dead or down to token ‘blog’ style postings.” (Bond James Bond, 25 January 2013)

His prediction appears to have been mistaken.  And, in fact, he himself seems to have disappeared in the meantime.