Posted on 01/17/2012 5:59:43 PM PST by dragonblustar
DNA evidence is offering a serious challenge to the Mormon claim that Native Americans are descended from Hebrew colonizers who came to the Americas around the time Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians hundreds of years before Christ.
Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, claimed that an angel named Moroni appeared to him when he was 17 and told him of golden plates buried in a stone box near his family’s home in Palmyra, New York. The angel also told Smith that the plates contained an “account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang.” Smith retrieved the plates, and his translation of them was published in 1830 and titled the Book of Mormon.
The title page of the Book of Mormon states it is “an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites — written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel.” The main theme of the book revolves around the descendents of a prophet named Lehi, who was a descendent of the biblical Manasseh, according to Alma 10:3. Nephi and Laman, two of Lehi’s sons, play principal roles at the beginning of the book. Nephi is described as the righteous son of Lehi while Laman is described as wicked. As a result of his evil behavior, Laman and those who followed him were cursed with dark skin. Many Mormons believe Native Americans are the dark-skinned descendents of the Lamanites.
(Excerpt) Read more at equip.org ...
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Yeah right moose, it had nothing to do with the natural progression of technology in a free country won with the sweat and blood of men who don't dodge the draft to go on cult recruiting missions like Romney.
I suppose we should expect to find 7 foot tall men dressed like quakers living on the moon someday like FLDS/LDS "Prophet" Joseph Smith....the scientific breakthrough that FLDS/LDS "Prophet" Brigham Young gave the world when he proclaimed that men live on the sun....Or how abaout the Hollow Earth theory also "invented" by FLDS/LDS founding prophets....Or the actual identity of Bigfoot, revealed by FLDS/LDS "Prophets".
Breakaway LDS sect Mormons....All that and brains too !
So true.
I'm surprised " The Anti-Christian Brigade" hasn't come in and condemn this thread as hateful and anti-Mormon.
They gots a life!
Only OLD farts can sit at a computer all day and do what we do!
Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, claimed that an angel named Moroni appeared to him . . .
If you want to get technical about it, Joseph Smith said that an angel named Nephi appeared to him. The angel became Moroni after Smith's death.
He angel had no name until 1835. In his lifetime, Joseph Smith, Jr. always used the name "Nephi" for the angel with one exception. In the Elder's Journal of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, vol 1, no 3., p 42 (Jul, 1838), he refers to the angel as "Moroni." That's it. If any scholar is aware of any other contemporaneous use by Smith of Moroni during his lifetime, I'd like to know. Joseph Smith, Jr. always used "Nephi," with that one exception.
According to LDS publication Times and Seasons Vol. III pp. 749, 753, which Joseph Smith, Jr. edited:
"When I first looked upon him I was afraid, but the fear soon left me. He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Nephi. That God has a work for me to do, ... He said there was a book deposited written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang."
The digital version of the TImes and Seasons has been changed to read "Moroni" instead of "Nephi." The printed version edited by Joseph Smith, Jr., available as a digital image .pdf or .jpg is still "Nephi."
The August, 1842, edition of the LDS publication, Millennial Star, printed in England, also published Joseph Smith's story and stated that the angel's name was "Nephi" (see Millennial Star, vol. 3, p.53). On page 71 of the same volume it states that the "...message of the angel Nephi ... opened a new dispensation to man...."
In the 1853 LDS Biographical Sketch (p. 79) of Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of Joseph Smith, Jr., she states that the name of the angel who appeared to Joseph Smith was Nephi.
In both Joseph Smith's handwritten copy of The Pearl of Great Price and the 1851 edition of the same book (page 41) it states:
"He called me by name and said unto me, that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Nephi."
A doctoral candidate at Brigham Young University named Walter L. Whipple wrote a thesis titled "Textual Changes in the Pearl of Great Price." In it he notes that Orson Pratt changed the name from Nephi to Moroni in 1878. Fairlds.org acknowledges that changes were made to the Pearl of Great Price but leaves a stub link to discuss them eventually. Yes, one of those common fairlds.org stub links.
The 1853 edition of Lucy Mack Smith's "Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and His Progenitors of [for] Many Generations," which refers to the Angel Nephi, was banned by Brigham Young and ordered burned, according to The Deseret News, June 21, 1865. It was later republished with the name of Nephi changed to Moroni, among other changes.
"Moroni" was used by Oliver Cowdry once when Smith was alive and Moroni was used by others after Smith's death. Changes were made to some publications after Smith's death to change Nephi to Moroni.
LDS Historian Richard L. Anderson admits that the change was made in Pearl of Great Price to Joseph Smith's handwritten use of the name Nephi. He said it was necessary to be consistent with Smith's other uses. However, he doesn't cite any other use by Smith. And to my knowledge no scholar, LDS or non-LDS, has found any use by Joseph Smith of Moroni other than in that Elder's Journal. Once he gave the angel (or ghost, but that's another matter) a name, Joseph Smith, Jr. consistently said the name of the angel who visited him was Nephi. Any other attributions to Joseph Smith are to changes made to writings after his death, such as the change to Pearl of Great Price that Anderson acknowledges, or the change to Lucy Mack Smith's Biographical Sketches under the order of Brigham Young.
So it's technically correct to say that Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, claimed that an angel named Nephi appeared to him.
Historical revisionism TP, Smith's earliest known attempt at fabricating a 'vision' story is presented in smith's own handwriting in "History, 1832, Joseph Smith Letterbook 1". In that account -
Smith claims to have determined HIMSELF all other religons were wrong.
He stated 'god' visited him "in his 16th year" (15 yrs old).
And when 17 some angel tells him about the plates. However - Smith contradicts himself just two years later, retelling the story in "Messenger and Advocate" in 1834 by saying that:
He desired to know if a Supreme being did exist, and wanted manifestation that his sins were forgiven.
No mention of ANY visitation 3 years earlier.
Now really TP, IF "god" appeared to smith when he was 14 (or 15), WHY would he be inquiring at 17 IF a 'god' exists.
Multiple contradictory stories - why believe the only one that smith DIDN'T WRITE himself?
Yes we do have DNA. It is in the form of walking, living, breathing people today who have very pure bloodlines. The same goes for Native Americans.
DNA is just one evidence for the BOM falsehood. No physical evidence for the BOM has been found.
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