This is a continuation of Part 1 and Part 2.
It is important to remember that D&C 132 was dictated as a letter to be given to Emma in order to persuade her of the "godliness" of plural marriage. Joseph had searched the scriptures, especially the Hebrew Bible, and came to realize in his mind that non-monogamous sex was not wrong if it was done in an ethical and orderly manner with a person like himself orchestrating everything so that corruption and abuse did not take place.
A lot of those in LDS Church leadership who began to oppose Joseph Smith in 1844, did so partly because of their the Puritan Protestant perspective. There was in the minds of his opponents a desire to maintain "moral purity," a drive that continues today in Evangelical circles with the Purity movement; which was part of what drove them in the 1840s to conspire in one way or another to do harm to Joseph Smith. In this chaotic environment Smith was struggling to maintain order and risked being sacrificed for the cause of dynastic unions in plural marriage.
Joseph Smith eventually did become a kind of "martyr" for Hebrew sexuality. The Book of Abraham was published in 1842 just before Smith began taking more and more wives and a scandal broke out. I think Smith anticipated the problems that plural marriage could cause and this why the polygamist Abraham is presented as being nearly sacrificed. I believe that Smith intuited that he would face great opposition when acting out his new sexual theology and it was a risk to his life. And in fact, he was martyred. As we read in D&C 135: 3-4:
Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. In the short space of twenty years, he has brought forth the Book of Mormon ...; has sent the fulness of the everlasting gospel, ...; has brought forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of Doctrine and Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of the children of men; gathered many thousands of the Latter-day Saints, founded a great city, and left a fame and name that cannot be slain. He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own blood; and so has his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated!
When Joseph went to Carthage to deliver himself up to the pretended requirements of the law, two or three days previous to his assassination, he said: “I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men. I shall die innocent, and it shall yet be said of me—he was murdered in cold blood.”...
I think Joseph Smith understood the risks of practicing plural marriage and subconsciously expressed it in allegory in the Book of Abraham. I think Joseph Smith believed so much in liberating the Saints from puritanical sectarianism by revealing an embodied God and entering into the practice of plural marriage -- and in the process forming tighter bonds between himself and friends and families through dynastic unions and overcoming the sting of death through the consoling temple rituals -- that he was willing to risk his life for this cause.
Carl Jung talks a lot about the unconscious and Joseph Campbell talks about the hero's journey. I think that once Joseph Smith committed to living and endorsing a non-monogamous sexual lifestyle -- and the doctrine of the plurality of sexual Gods, and thus freeing the Saints from Sectarian Puritanism -- he knew that he would be making sacrifices and suffering for this cause; and so when he began a probably sincere attempt to "translate" the Egyptian papyri through spiritual methods as a seer, I think that when he saw the original "altar" image on the papyrus he saw himself as Abraham nearly being sacrificed. In my view, the scene became for Smith a metaphor for his need to sacrifice for the cause of a more liberal attitude about sexuality and a more unified Church being linked together interpersonally through the bonds of plural marriages; with each wife and family sealed to Joseph and thus creating a dynastic union of intimacy and friendship that would transcend the grave.
I think Joseph Smith believed that he was engaged in a heroic exercise, and so the story of Abraham against the Egyptians is a meta-story, a grand metaphorical narrative, symbolizing Smith's own personal Hero's Journey.
From this perspective, when Joseph Smith said I go like a lamb to the slaughter it may very well have been himself predicting his own death; which he expected could happen once he began the practice of plural marriage. After all he was engaging in the practice of plural marriage in basically the "wild west" amongst a very Puritan culture.
As Stephen Carter puts it in his article, “Scared Sacred: How the Horrifying Story of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy can help save us” in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol 49 No. 3 (2016), page 83:
As with Abraham’s, Joseph’s story is of a man who has entered into a subjective relationship with God and therefore finds himself beyond conventional morality. Abraham was given license to kill. Joseph was given license to marry. But we can’t get caught in the content; in a story like this, it’s all about the symbolism. When one is in a subjective relationship with God, conventional morality is like sounding out letters when one can speed-read. You’ve entered a context where the mortal mind and all its structures are far transcended. God is much too big to be confined to neurons and language. That was the river; this is the sea. The story of Joseph Smith’s polygamy is another version of the story of Abraham and Isaac. They are similarly structured, and they teach the same principle.
Carter correlates the story of Abraham and Isaac with the story of Joseph Smith and polygamy, both stories transcend the bounds of conventional morality.
