Single Word Change in Book of Mormon Speaks Volumes

Salt Lake Tribune ^ | November 8, 2007 | Peggy Fletcher Stack

[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."

[Elsie]

And then a good story teller tellin a tale from scratch needs a few thou "And it came to pass..." transitions to give said story teller enough time to conjure up the next phrase or scenario.

 

 

I kinda like the phrase: and so forth.

 

 

 

The Articles of Faith
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

 

1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
   
2. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression.
   
3. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
   
4. We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
   
5. We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.
   
6. We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.
   
7. We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.
   
8. We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
   
9. We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
   
10. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.
    
11. We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.
    
12. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.
    
13. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

Joseph Smith

 

 

 

and so forth must contain LOTS of 'umbra'!

[Elsie]

Well if you live in the twin cities @ the SW Utah-NW AZ border (Colorado City, etc.), the Mormon god hasn't changed his mind.

If you read the 'scriptures' of the LDS organization, headquartered in SLC, there is nothing in them that shows GOD changing HIS mind on the Eternal Covenant of POLYGAMY!!

---

Does the Living Prophet® consider the MANIFESTO to be Scripture?

[Elsie]

Wow, you guys sure do get excited about very little.

Beats the heck out of being sucked in by a lot!

[Elsie]

When the Prophet is speaking as the Prophet, he says so. Period.

So; if he's CHANGING words that are printed IN YOUR SCRIPTURES, how is he speaking?

[CT-Freeper]

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...

Jeesh....hearing that always makes me cringe.

It's upstate New York, not upperstate...no matter how far "up" you are. You can be a quarter mile north of Pennsylvania, like near where I grew up, and it's still "upstate."

[MortMan]

Oh, Details, details, details. (Shh. Ya don't want to cut into the tourist industry in the Hill Cumorah region of NY, do you?)

Yeah! What do you have against the town of Palmyra?!?

[Elsie]

Did they change anything substantive in the BOM?

How Clintonian!

I guess it just depends on what "is" is!

---

[Elsie]

Why pray tell would they want to be one of you?

John Chapter 6:67-68
67. "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.
68. Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

[Elsie]

Damned DETAILS again!!

You guys KNOW that little changes mean harding anything.

Even when there have been HUNDREDS of them.

—MormonDude(Glad I’ve built upon the sand!)

[Elsie]

I know that because I have a copy of the 1977 edition in front of me.

MY 1950 edition says 'white and delightsome'

MY 1981 edition says 'pure and delightsome'

[Elsie]

Did that ever occur to you or are you just looking for something to put us down with?

Did that ever occur to you that your house is shifting?

[Elsie]

Boo!

But do you have secret oops - SACRED ceremonies you perform, that NO uninitiated may observe??

[Elsie]

I’m a Laminate, myself.

We were going to go with Laminate, but decided on Corian and granite instead.

[Ditter]

I am curious as to how Joseph Smith was able to translate the ancient (unknown) language on the golden tablets into English. It must have taken him a long time. How could he lose the golden tablets before anyone else could see them?

[Elsie]

If we fail to serve God, if we fail to do right, then we rob ourselves of the ability and power to grow, to increase in faith and knowledge, to have power with God, and with the righteous" (Gospel Standards, p. 85-86). ~ President Heber J. Grant

 

Does SOMEone think that this IS SCRIPTURE?

 

If not, they are wasting their precious time.

[Elsie]

...HARDLY anything...

[topcat54]

Will this hurt Romney’s chances with the native American vote?

[svcw]

Another good question. You would think he would want people to see the tablets, I know I would.

[Old Mountain man]

They are just gnats, more irritating than harmful. Remember President Hinckley and do as he did to the railroad engineer that cursed him.

[Old Mountain man]

Actually, with you, getting sucked in takes on a whole new meaning.