ENSIGN ARTICLE: In July 2012, the official LDS Church magazine the Ensign included an article called “Joseph and Emma: Moments in their lives,” which shows a collection of paintings of “Joseph Smith Jr. and his wife, Emma Hale Smith.” [source]
CHURCH ESSAY: “Joseph married many additional wives and authorized other Latter-day Saints to practice plural marriage. … The exact number of women to whom he was sealed in his lifetime is unknown because the evidence is fragmentary … Careful estimates put the number between 30 and 40. … The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball … who was sealed to Joseph several months before her 15th birthday.” -excerpts from Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo (including footnote 24), available in the Gospel Topics section at lds.org. [source]
COMMENTARY: If the church were to publish a similar vignette of Joseph and one of his wives every month, it would take about three years to get through the list. Interestingly, they have never undertaken such a project. I can’t quite figure out why. But what do I know? I’m just another apostate.
