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."
Well, when one lie doesn’t work, you try another.
Please tell me you are not also a thief.
When did you stop beating your wife?
Please sir, could you give your qualifications to instruct the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on what should be in the introduction of any book whatsoever that is published by the Church?
Isn’t it true that your opinion on the matter is so much Bravo Sierra?
she’s not a sir. a free fyi. :-)
***They were not lost, an angel of God took them back. Several people saw, touched, and lifted the plates.****
But when the witnesses were pressed about seeing the plates they admitted what they ACTUALLY saw was what appeared to be a book on a table, and the book was COVERED with a tablecloth.
another said it this way, “When a person who you know cannot tell a lie, and that person tells you of a certain city you have never been to, you can WITH THE EYE OF FAITH actually see that city.”
So, by their own testimonies later, they NEVER saw the golden plates.
founder Joseph Smith
The “founder” of Christianity is the Lord Jesus not joe smith from NY
****Perhaps they could. Why don’t you badger them until they do.***
Instead of badgering them, why don’t YOU tell us why the Jews have not had a Temple or a sacrifice for sin in the last 2000 years.
Inquiring minds want to know!
Why do you worship a human as God. Paganism.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Whatever. Elsie told Grig that Elsie was a male. Guess you can’t trust Elsie to tell the truth about anything.
The polygamist Mormon church president who died in 1945 named Heber J. Grant said, “Where are the men who have assailed this work?” I simply ask, “where are the men who are descendants of Fahter Lehi?” Nobody knows if any exist, period.
“Nice cop-out.”
Facts are not cop outs. There are times President Bush’s press secretary is speaking on behalf of the administration and times he is not. Likewise there are times a prophet speaks on behalf of God and time he doesn’t.
It is also up to God, not you and not the President of the Church, to decide what to reveal to the church and when to do so. It is not necessary to document and publish every instance of the Holy Spirit confirming one plan or not, every moment of pure inspiration as they direct the day to day affairs of the church. To restore the fullness of the gospel took several stages and a lot of revelation, but now that the restoration is done there is little need for the revelation of doctrine of prophecy. The need is for members to live by what has already been given.
When there is something new that God wants the church to receive as doctrine or prophecy it will be received by the prophet, given unanimous consent by the 12 and the 70, then formally presented to the church and added to our scripture. Our scriptures say that God will not permit the President of the Church to lead the Church astray from the gospel so we are not out there looking for an excuse to point accusatory fingers at him.
Yes, physically, according to their testimony.
http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon_witnesses:Spiritual_or_literal
http://en.fairmormon.org/%22shown_to_me_by_a_supernatural_power%22
“When was that??”
Up until the time Peter got the vision to take the gospel to the Gentiles (see Acts 10).
You have been lied to and taught to like it. Of the ‘original’ witnesses, which ones did Joe Smith call liars and which ones recanted? You people can’t keep your stories straight, but then it doesn’t seem to matter to Mormonism adherents that their religious foundations have been shifting sands. Have a nice evening, Apologist. You’re spinning and it makes me dizzy. I don’t choose to deal with your garbage this evening. Maybe I’ll come back online later and shoot a few holes in your fables.
“Of course that explanation is almost impossible for most of us to verify.”
Copies of the 1840 edition still exist. For over 20 years we have been pointing out that the change comes from the 1840 edition but critics just ignore that fact and portray the 1980 edition as the first time pure was used there. What does that tell you?
“But when the witnesses were pressed about seeing the plates they admitted what they ACTUALLY saw was what appeared to be a book on a table, and the book was COVERED with a tablecloth.”
That was a time PRIOR to when they saw them, while the BoM was still being translated. Later they saw the plates firsthand and handled them and they were quite clear that they actually saw them.
“Gentlemen, do you see that hand? Are you sure you see it? Are your eyes playing a trick or something? No. Well, as sure as you see my hand so sure did I see the angel and the plates.” — Martin Harris
“The Book of Mormon is no fake. I know what I know. I have seen what I have seen and I have heard what I have heard. I have seen the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon is written. An angel appeared to me and others and testified to the truthfulness of the record, and had I been willing to have perjured myself and sworn falsely to the testimony I now bear I could have been a rich man, but I could not have testified other than I have done and am now doing for these things are true.” — Martin Harris (at his death)
“Of course we were in the spirit when we had the view, for no man can behold the face of an angel, except in a spiritual view, but we were in the body also, and everything was as natural to us, as it is at any time.” — David Whitmer
Once when David Whitmer was accused of being deluded into thinking he had seen an angel and the plates he reportedly said in reply “No sir! I was not under any hallucination, nor was I deceived! I saw with these eyes, and I heard with these ears! I know whereof I speak!”
http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon_witnesses:Spiritual_or_literal
http://en.fairmormon.org/%22shown_to_me_by_a_supernatural_power%22
Who has READ what G*D expects in an old Jewish covenant.
That's an udderly personal question.
Why do you Mormons call non-Mormons - Gentiles?
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