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Did Brigham Young forge Doctrine and Covenants 132?

Did Brigham Young forge Doctrine and Covenants 132?

Last updated on: February 11, 2026 at 1:14 pm by Dan Peterson

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Did Brigham Young forge Doctrine and Covenants 132? 2026-02-11T13:14:20-07:00 Dan Peterson

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Latter-day Saint polygamists in prison, in 1889. Seated in the middle, with a short white beard and holding flowers, is George Q. Cannon, first counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was his birthday. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

Among the criticisms that I’ve seen of our Becoming Brigham series is one that blames Brigham Young for the invention of nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint plural marriage. It tends to be made by people who want to preserve their confidence in Joseph Smith but who cannot abide polygamy. Thus, Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve become the fall-guys. Accordingly, Brigham is too wicked a man to defend — or, perhaps better, too wicked a man not to condemn and reject — although some taking this position will still admit the possibility that priesthood keys and authority might be transmitted through so evil a person and that, in fact and given his manifest other gifts, he might even have been the Lord’s choice to lead the Church in his day.

In my judgment, the idea that Brigham Young and his henchman invented “Mormon polygamy” — which entails that he or others working with and for him forged Doctrine and Covenants 132 in whole or in part — was delivered a body blow with the still relatively-recent publication of Paul Fields, Steven T. Densley Jr., Matthew Roper, and Larry Bassist, “Historical and Stylometric Evidence for the Authorship of Doctrine and Covenants 132,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 67 (2025) : 1-70:

Abstract: This paper examines the claim that Joseph Smith was not the author of the verses in Doctrine and Covenants 132 related to the doctrine of plural marriage. Our examination first describes the current controversy on the authorship of section 132. We next present historical evidence on the provenance of this section. We then present stylometric evidence on the possible authorship of the text. While it has been asserted that Brigham Young or perhaps some other individual was the author of section 132, our examination provides solid support for the Church’s claimed origin of the section. Our extensive statistical analyses indicate there is no stylometric evidence that Brigham Young or any other potential candidate provided the words in the text of the revelation.

If Fields, Densley, Roper, and Bassist are right, Doctrine and Covenants 132 was already widely known to exist among the inner circles of the Church in essentially its current form during the lifetime of Joseph Smith and most likely came through Joseph Smith. Which, if true, is lethal to claims that Joseph wasn’t involved with the origination of plural marriage.

For other and perhaps more accessible expositions of the arguments advanced by Fields et al., see

Interpreting Interpreter: “The Stylometry of Doctrine and Covenants 132” (a brief summary article by Kyler Rasmussen)
Interpreting Interpreter: “The Stylometry of Doctrine and Covenants 132” (a brief summary video by Kyler Rasmussen)
“New Research on Joseph Smith & Brigham Young | What We Found in Section 132” (a 55-minute interview with Paul Fields on Let’s Get Real with Stephen Jones)

Among the ruins of ancient Ephesus; photo by Dennis Jarvis, of Halifax, Nova Scotia
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Another in our series of online chapter “reprints” appeared today: Steadfast in Defense of Faith: “Sitting, Walking, Standing, and the Tantalizing Links to Sacred Ceremonies in the Epistle to the Ephesians,” written by S. Kent Brown:

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Steadfast in Defense of Faith: Essays in Honor of Daniel C. Peterson, edited by Shirley Ricks, Stephen D. Ricks, and Louis Midgley. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/steadfast-in-defense-of-faith/.

“Paul famously wrote that when preaching the gospel, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). We all know that he was being modest and had a lot to say about topics such as faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, grace, and the kingdom of God. These formed the basics. But he surely taught more than these. In the one circumstance that readers can test, during a very brief teaching period of a mere three weeks in the Greek city of Thessalonica, Paul set out in clear fashion a number of other principles and doctrines that went well beyond the basics.”

From left to right: Brigham Young, an unnamed man, and an admiring ox. (Still photograph by Russell M. Richins from an outdoor set for the 2024 Interpreter Foundation film Six Days in August)

Three episodes of the Becoming Brigham series are out at this point. A fourth will drop on Monday next. In the meantime, all three are accessible here.

For me, one of the high points of the Interpreter Foundation fireside on 31 January, a video of which is now up online, was to hear Camrey Bagley Fox (who portrayed Emma Smith in Witnesses and Six Days in August), Twyla Wilson, and John Donovan Wilson (respectively, Mary Ann Angell Young and Brigham Young in Six Days in August) sing the hymn “O My Father” to Brigham Young’s favorite melody for it.

In Europe, many large piles of stone like the Berliner Dom, or Berlin Cathedral, are fairly empty, except for tourists just off of buses and attendees at concerts. Is America headed in the same direction? (Photo by Ralf Roletschek)

I don’t know whether or not you can access this interview at Christianity Today, but I found it interesting: “This Ex-Atheist Has Some Explaining to Do: Novelist Christopher Beha’s move from unbelief to faith in Christ confounded those who know him. His new book walks skeptics through his conversion.”

Somewhat in the same general vicinity — I don’t recall whether I mentioned this Deseret News article from late 2025 here before, but it’s relevant to the question of belief versus unbelief: “Perspective: Let’s get real about loss of faith: Individuals who have stepped away from faith speak candidly about real life trade-offs, heartaches and ongoing challenges”

An artist’s conception of the proposed Colorado Springs Colorado Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Newsroom, fair use)

Color me astonished: “Colorado Springs LDS Temple faces pushback sparking hundreds of comments, council passes proposal”

I confess that I haven’t yet been able to read the relevant article in New York Magazine’s The Cut — it’s behind a pay wall and, despite the vast sums of money that I unethically pull in as a paid apologist, the number of online magazine subscriptions that I can justify for myself is finite — but I managed to get an idea of the original from this response to it in Public Square Magazine, which I thought worth reading: “The Ethics of Contempt: A reported feature on “Mormon aesthetics” trades curiosity for sneer—and faith for folklore.” The response was written by C. D. Cunningham and Amanda Freebairn.

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