Posted on 04/06/2008 5:27:22 AM PDT by SkyPilot
Local and state officials entered the temple of a secretive polygamist sect late Saturday, said lawmen blockading the road to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado.
The action comes hours after local prosecutors said officials were preparing for the worst because a group of FLDS members were resisting efforts to search the structure.
The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff’s deputy confirmed that officials have entered the temple but said they had no word on whether anything occurred in the effort.
The incursion into the temple caps the three-day saga of the state’s Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch since Friday afternoon. Eighteen girls have been placed in state custody since a 16-year-old told authorities she was married to a 50-year-old man and had given birth to his child.
Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered as part of the investigation inside the compound.
“In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst,” Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have “medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants.”
Apparently as a result of action Saturday night at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded another group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound.
Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, have provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff’s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.
“There may be those who would oppose (entry) by placing themselves between law enforcement and the place of worship,” Palmer said Saturday afternoon. “If an agreement cannot be reached … law enforcement will have to — as gently and peaceably as possible — make entry into that place.”
Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County.
Palmer said she didn’t know the size or makeup of the group inside the temple.
The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens removed from the compound, Palmer said.
“Anytime someone says, ‘Don’t look here,’” she said, “it makes you concerned that’s exactly where you need to look.”
The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said.
The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff’s deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials have described the compound’s residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed.
“Things have been a little tense, a little volatile,” she said.
Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation.
Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening.
“They’re in the process of looking,” she said. “They’re literally about halfway through.”
A typical (knee jerk) poisoning the well response to any thing, no matter how well documented, that is associated with exmormons Jerald and Sandra Tanner. Because the Tanners have documented their research so well, it is common for personal attacks against them to pop up in an effort to smear them, rather than address the source (from mormon controlled documents usually) issue itself.
Sorry, if what you say is true, that "God's ancient prophets...were righteous, not adulterers," then do you also get on a false high horse & claim that David's relationship with Bathsheba was not "adultery?" (I guess since you've already become an apologist for Abraham's sexual relationships with servant girls/concubines--who were NOT wives & are NEVER identified in the Bible as such, you might as well become an apologist for David's open adultery with Bathsheba & claim to all of us that David was 100% righteous & didn't commit adultery). Are you consistent?
Are you kidding? You know so much about our doctrines but you claim that we think David was innocent with Bathsheba. Surely you jest! Here's just one reference to this very obvious sin by David.
D&C 132:39 David’s wives and concubines were given unto him of me, by the hand of Nathan, my servant, and others of the prophets who had the keys of this power; and in none of these things did he sin against me save in the case of Uriah and his wife;
You do know the story of the parable of the Ewe lamb, don't you? This is the reprimand by Nathan to David after he sinned with Bathsheba.
2 Samuel 12: 1 And the Lord sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.
2 The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:
3 But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.
4 And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
5 And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die:
6 And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.
7 ¶ And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;
8 And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.
9 Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
Can you look in the yellow pages for home theater installation?
Some TV repair shops and probably Best Buy and even individuals in the penny saver will come to someones home to do this kind of thing.
KJV Genesis 30: 4 And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her.
If you were to investigate these more closely, rather than endorsing unconditional polygamy, the mosaic law reflected exceptions to the norm - the norm being monogamy. Extreme cases being levirite marriage, and the provision of a supportless-widow of kin, in a specific society tied to a genealogically-based land inheritance economy. So there is a BIG gap between what you think God approved of and what scripture actually say was at best - tolerated.
The simple fact that God is just is reflected in the laws related to the children of such arrangements and because of the hardness of men's hearts He makes sure that the innocents - the children in this case - have protection. A parallel is the matter of divorce. Divorce was "authorized" in the Mosaic Law (Deut 24), and "demanded" in the case of the returned exiles (Ezra 10). But it is crystal clear that divorce is:
Hated by God (Mal 2.16)
Prohibited by Jesus, except in extreme situations (Matt 19).
Permitted by God because of human failings (i.e., hardness of heart--Mt 19.8).
The example of marriage and divorce establishes a principle that Jesus linked to Mosaic covenant. Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." (NIV Matt 19.8-9, pp. Mark 10.1-12) The key thing to note here is that this argument fails if polygamy is acceptable! Jesus' point is that improper divorce does not nullify a marriage, and if the first marriage still stands, then a "second" marriage is adultery--and NOT simply polygamy! This is very clear. Jesus also eliminated the double standard; a man consorting with two women is as adulterous as a woman consorting with two men. (http://www.christian-thinktank.com/polygame.html).
Hint, we are no longer in the age of the patriarchs, but the Christian era. What was tolerated under specific conditions then is not applicable now. There is no more justification in this era for polygamy - scripturally or socially.
“spinster”
*snicker*
I’m not defending these slimes in Texas, I’m defending God’s ancient prophets whom you guys keep calling adulterers and whoremongers. God’s works not through wicked men. He never has. He calls Abraham is Prophet, and the promises made to him are greater than practically any man ever to walk the earth, save Christ. He was no adulterer.
I guess you missed the first time the translation was addressed.
What authority did a wife have in those days and that culture anyway? Just cause he slept with her, didn’t make it a legally recognized marriage. Nowhere does it mention that she was his actual wife. It even mentions that he took another wife and mentions her by name and even then there’s no reference to Hagar.
But I guess that anyone who wants to believe that polygamy is acceptable, even after the Mormon Scripture and leaders condemn it, will not listen to reason.
KJV Genesis 16:3 And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his WIFE.
Then He doesn't work through men at all. Scripture is abundantly clear that all are wicked. There is none righteous, no not one.
He calls Abraham is Prophet,
Where, outside the Book of Mormon which most do not recognize as having any validity, does that say so?
I’m learning. I figured it had something to do with Mormon debate.
I use the King James translation. Wife is used to describe both Sariah and Hagar. As well as all 4 “wives” of Jacob.
Also a parallel to slavery. By this *reasoning* we should be free to have slaves because God condoned it by establishing guidelines for it.
There are many things God regulated because He knew that it would occur whether He said so or not. To assume that that meant condoning it, as opposed to protecting the innocents, is the height of folly.
Seven, you don’t think that we should own slaves just cause Abraham did, do you? Or that we should engage in vigilante justice just cause Abraham did in rescuing Lot?
Always baiting it seems. You know what I'm talking about. If course all men are sinful, save Christ only. But God gives commandments to men, and only works through his righteous prophets.
Here's your other baiting answer. The Lord warns Pharaoh to leave Abram alone:
Gen. 20: 7
7 Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.
Orthodox Christians rally have diminished the role Abraham plays to that of a vulgar and lascivious father of nations, rather than a prophet and patriarch of God.
Does anyone remember where that post was about the translation that was used for the word *wife* that was also translated as *mate* when referring to animals?
There's a difference between being a prophet, (small p) and "Abraham is Prophet," as if he's the only one.
That was not by any means his main claim to fame.
What did he prophecy then?
In regards to hagar, there is only one reference I was correctly point to that refers as wife. Gen 16:3, the remainder of the references are as follows:
16:6 - Abraham refers to her as "Your (Sarai's) servant...."
16:8 - the angel speaks to hagar and addresses her as the 'servant of Sarai', not the wife of Abram
, represents God's view of things
21:10 - hagar called "slave woman" by sarai
21:12 - God speaking to Abram refers to hagar as "maidservant", not wife and
25:12 hagar is refered to as Sarai's maidservant and 'the Egyptian.
Jacob's case he was tricked into marrying the first one, the 3d and 4th were proxies for the first 2 wives - surrogate wives.
In both cases, they existed BEFORE the Mosaic law was in place regarding the strict exemptions placed on plural marriages. It was tolerated, but not approved.
7 that is a gross misstatement if there ever was one. Orthodox Christians recognize the context of Abraham's time and the covenant that was in place then. If any was vulgar and lascivious it was Joseph Smith who placed into mormon church law the prohibition of polygamy (D&C, 1835) while for at least two years before was polygamous - in violation of god's revealed truth (or so he said in D&C) as well as civil law. And it is the heritage (many would call it "fruit") of Smith that lives on in TX.
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