Posted on 11/08/2007 5:23:05 PM PST by Colofornian
The LDS Church has changed a single word in its introduction to the Book of Mormon, a change observers say has serious implications for commonly held LDS beliefs about the ancestry of American Indians.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe founder Joseph Smith unearthed a set of gold plates from a hill in upperstate New York in 1827 and translated the ancient text into English. The account, known as The Book of Mormon, tells the story of two Israelite civilizations living in the New World. One derived from a single family who fled from Jerusalem in 600 B.C. and eventually splintered into two groups, known as the Nephites and Lamanites.
The book's current introduction, added by the late LDS apostle, Bruce R. McConkie in 1981, includes this statement: "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."
The new version, seen first in Doubleday's revised edition, reads, "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians."
LDS leaders instructed Doubleday to make the change, said senior editor Andrew Corbin, so it "would be in accordance with future editions the church is printing."
The change "takes into account details of Book of Mormon demography which are not known," LDS spokesman Mark Tuttle said Wednesday.
It also steps into the middle of a raging debate about the book's historical claims.
Many Mormons, including several church presidents, have taught that the Americas were largely inhabited by Book of Mormon peoples. In 1971, Church President Spencer W. Kimball said that Lehi, the family patriarch, was "the ancestor of all of the Indian and Mestizo tribes in North and South and Central America and in the islands of the sea."
After testing the DNA of more than 12,000 Indians, though, most researchers have concluded that the continent's early inhabitants came from Asia across the Bering Strait.
With this change, the LDS Church is "conceding that mainstream scientific theories about the colonization of the Americas have significant elements of truth in them," said Simon Southerton, a former Mormon and author of Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church.
"DNA has revealed very clearly how closely related American Indians are to their Siberian ancestors, " Southerton said in an e-mail from his home in Canberra, Australia. "The Lamanites are invisible, not principal ancestors."
LDS scholars, however, dispute the notion that DNA evidence eliminates the possibility of Lamanites. They call it "oversimplification" of the research.
On the church's official Web site, lds.org, it says, "Nothing in the Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by peoples of Asiatic origin. The scientific issues relating to DNA, however, are numerous and complex."
Mormon researcher John M. Butler and DNA expert further argues that "careful examination and demographic analysis of the Book of Mormon record in terms of population growth and the number of people described implies that other groups were likely present in the promised land when Lehi's family arrived, and these groups may have genetically mixed with the Nephites, Lamanites, and other groups. Events related in the Book of Mormon likely took place in a limited region, leaving plenty of room for other Native American peoples to have existed."
In recent years, many LDS scholars have come to share Butler's belief in what is known as the "limited geography" theory. By this view, the Nephites and Lamanites restricted their activities to portions of Central America, which would explain their absence from the general American Indian genetics.
Kevin Barney, a Mormon lawyer and independent researcher in Chicago, welcomes the introduction's word change.
"I have always felt free to disavow the language of the [Book of Mormon's] introduction, footnotes and dictionary, which are not part of the canonical scripture," said Barney, on the board of FAIR, a Mormon apologist group. "These things can change as the scholarship progresses and our understanding enlarges. This suggests to me that someone on the church's scripture committee is paying attention to the discussion."
Know??
Who needs to KNOW??
Just PRAY about it!!!
Unfortunately, in your case, the two seem to go together.
"You know, if I were a single man, I might ask that mummy out. That's a good-looking mummy!"
—Bill Clinton, looking at "Juanita," a newly discovered Incan mummy on display at the National Geographic museum
Thanks for telling us what you think about a lot.
yup...
...we are going about, one word at a time, changing our message AMONG you.
You are right!
We are quite a pair; you and I.
Didja let yer cursor linger over the Clinton pix I posted??
;)
He is not one.
The BoM says that Mormon gave the record to his son Moroni who took it all the way up there to put it where it needed to be, writing the last few chapters as he did so.
“I am still trying to figure out why blacks became ‘worthy’ or ‘human’ or what ever it was in the 1970s”
There were more than a few Protestant ministers in the 1800’s who argued that blacks had no soul and salvation was not extended to them. Sometimes they would dress up in white sheets and hood and lynch a black man or just burn a cross.
We never held such beliefs, we opposed slavery and didn’t force blacks out of our congregations to form their own ‘black churches’. They were not permitted to hold the priesthood for a time, just as the gospel was withheld from the Gentiles for a time, and the priesthood was once limited to only the Levities. There was never any reason revealed by God for the ban, but even back at the start of it BY said a day would come when it would be lifted, something incompatible with racist motives. The ban was lifted when God revealed it was time to lift it, and the members of the church welcomed it gladly. They did not resist it like bigots resisted the civil rights movement.
“if god ordained polygamy as a tenant of faith how come he changed his mind”
The BoM is clear that there are times God commands it and times he forbids it according to his wisdom and purposes.
“Interesting justification for changing a long-held theory.”
Why do you say that? Theories are subject to change as the available facts and our understanding of them change, that is perfectly normal.
“So, the then “living prophet” was wrong, mistaken?”
You are talking about a personal opinion of his, not a revelation.
“I remember reading this scripture and being told that the land was kept pure as the “land of promise” to Lehi and his family.”
What you were told is irrelevant, what is clear from the text is that the promise is conditional on their following God, and they didn’t do that if you read to the end so all bets were off.
Parsing seems to be the primary work of Mormonism apologists. In the sinkEmperor years it was called spinning, and only devious people thought it was cool.
“How do you suppose that happened”
No supposing is required, what happened is known. Whiteness is often used as a metaphor for purity and that is how it was intended there. Joseph Smith made that change in the 1840 edition to clarify the intended meaning, but subsequent editions of the BoM were based on the 1837 Edition so the change was accidentally dropped until the 80’s.
Well, LDS sure can dance.
“So; if he’s CHANGING words that are printed IN YOUR SCRIPTURES, how is he speaking?”
You probably don’t like having facts intrude on a snappy sounding slam against us, but the introduction is not scripture. Just as Epistle Dedicatory in the KJV is not scrpiture.
“I am curious as to how Joseph Smith was able to translate the ancient (unknown) language on the golden tablets into English.”
God gave him the means and ability to do so.
“It must have taken him a long time.”
Actually, about 3 months time was spend in translating it, but it wasn’t consecutive.
“How could he lose the golden tablets before anyone else could see them?”
They were not lost, an angel of God took them back. Several people saw, touched, and lifted the plates.
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