Tonight on Mormonism Live, we tackle one of the most persistent and uncomfortable questions in modern Mormon scholarship: What does DNA actually say about the Book of Mormon? Our guest is Dr. Thomas W. Murphy, anthropologist, award-winning scholar, and author of Unsettling Scripture: Iroquois and the Book of Mormon. Dr. Murphy’s latest presentation, “DNerAsure: Unsettling Science & Scripture” DNerAsure – Unsettling Science, challenges both apologetic narratives and oversimplified dismissals of the DNA debate.

What We Discuss
The acknowledged lack of Middle Eastern DNA in ancient and modern Indigenous American populations
Why the science is not “settled” in the way many assume
The apologetic argument that Book of Mormon DNA may have “disappeared” over time
Why autosomal DNA makes total genetic erasure extraordinarily implausible
The limited geography model and why it does not solve the DNA problem The ethics of Indigenous DNA collection — including BYU’s controversial accumulation of Indigenous genetic samples
The concept of a “Galileo Event” and whether Mormonism is approaching one How racialized readings of scripture intersect with real Indigenous identities

In this episode, we step into one of the most provocative and uncomfortable chapters ever written about Joseph Smith — “The Don Juan of Nauvoo,” from Dr. W. Wyl’s 1886 exposé. These are not modern critics looking backward with hindsight. These are men and women living in Utah in the late 1800s — people who lived through Nauvoo, who knew Joseph personally, who saw the culture firsthand, and who were willing to share their memories of Joseph’s behavior with women. Their recollections paint a portrait very different from the sanitized image often presented today. We will read their words directly. Their observations. Their accusations. Their recollections of Joseph’s charisma, his influence, and his interactions with women in Nauvoo. This episode isn’t about speculation. It’s about historical memory — and how Joseph Smith’s contemporaries understood him.

You’ll hear:

• How Joseph was perceived by those who lived in Nauvoo
• The reputation he carried among insiders
• What Utah Saints privately said decades later
• Why these accounts were preserved and published
• And how charisma, authority, and attraction intersected in Nauvoo

Whether you see Joseph Smith as prophet, fraud, or something in between, these firsthand recollections provide a window into how he was experienced by those who lived in his shadow.

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Was Joseph Smith’s relationship with Fanny Alger an early plural marriage, a sexless sealing, or a scandalous sexual affair?

Long before Nauvoo polygamy, secret sealings, or theological justifications, there was Fanny Alger; a teenage girl living in Joseph and Emma Smith’s home in Kirtland, Ohio.

When the relationship was discovered, it triggered scandal, apostasy, and one of the earliest crises in Mormon leadership.

In this episode, we start by taking a look into the life of Fanny Alger sharing details of her life that are little known even to those familiar with Mormon history. We then examine every major historical source connected to the Fanny Alger story including letters, later reminiscences, church disciplinary records. Then onto the Apologetics and what they are trying to resolve. And lastly we share something that hasn’t been used by either side in this discussion and this you won’t want to miss.

We ask the uncomfortable questions:
• Why did Oliver Cowdery call the incident a “dirty, nasty, filthy scrape”?
• Why did church leaders discipline Cowdery for accusing Joseph of adultery — without denying the accusation itself?
• Why does Fanny Alger quietly disappear from official church records for decades?
• And do apologetic claims that “we can’t know what happened” actually hold up?

We also follow Fanny’s life after Mormonism; her marriage, property ownership, and long, stable adulthood and ask what her silence might tell us about power, authority, and who controls the narrative. This is not folklore. This is not anti-Mormon spin. This is history read carefully.

RESOURCES:
https://mormondiscussionpodcast.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Fanny-Alger-Episode-Sources-1.pdf