Single word change in Book of Mormon speaks volumesBy Peggy Fletcher StackThe 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."What it means:
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."Comment: Nice of the Mormons to modify the word of God to reflect reality.
4 comments:
What will this mean to the average Mormon? ZERO!!!! They believe it and that's the end of the story. It doesn't matter what changes.
Writerfella here --
But -- but -- but -- writerfella just watched a Naked Science program on the NatGeo Channel last night that more or less concluded that 'The First Americans' could have been ANYBODY from the Pacific Rim or even EUROPE (GASP!) DURING THE LAST ICE AGE! The only thing missing? DNA evidence of ANY connection between such peoples, except to Siberian/Asian stocks as always has been accepted. But the special went on to say that recent discoveries of footprints in volcanic ash in Mexico dating back to 40,000 years, and technologically sophisticated cloth and basket weaving and even carven 'instruction manuals' from 25,000 years ago, plus Andean graves dating from 35,000 years ago, render the current 'Native Americans' arrival at 13,500 years ago as passe! Therefore, it said, the peoples now called 'the First Americans' only are the most recent arrivals, even though there is NO DNA evidence that any others ever have preceded them. BUT -- in any case, then, South Asians or even Europeans were here on these continents FIRST, Kennewick Man outstanding, and only were supplanted AFTER the fact! Salaami, Salaami, baloney! The special ended with the happy note that the Americas once must have been a happy worldwide racial mix, as they now have come to be. What a wad of fine Bolognese Salami! The upshot is that North America (and South) once was colonized by EuroMan FIRST, only 'somehow' to be replaced by Asian arrivals 13,500 years ago and all that has happened since means that EuroMan has RECLAIMED lands that once he owned!
writerfella is a science fiction writer, but if he had postulated such an probablility in one of his stories, he would have been laughed off the continent. Somehow, serious anthropologists now are proposing the same matters, and no one is laughing...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
"Nice of the Mormons to modify the word of God to reflect reality."
This only reflects that fact that Mormons are NOT inerranists who believe the "Word of God" is infallable. Not to mention, anonymous is mostly correct. However, it is because the statement changes nothing other than the interpretation of the Book of Mormon and not the book itself.
Changing the interpretation of the Book of Mormon is equivalent to changing the Book itself. That's because the Book is vague on the origin of Indians and Mormons have always relied on interpretations.
Anyway, the question isn't whether Mormons will change their unsubstantiated beliefs. It's whether anyone else will take their unsubstantiated beliefs seriously.
See Kennewick Man, Captain Picard, and Political Correctness for more on the origin of Native people.
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