Status of Lamanites?
 

The exchange in the other thread about the arguably misguided good inentions of the Indian Placement Program, and memory of George P. Lee and his image as a Seventy, made me wonder: Is it fair to say the LDS church has for all intents and purposes abandoned the theology that Native Americans are all descendants of Lehi? I'm not being snarky, seriously wondering. It seems to me that if anything part of the apologist strategy is to make greatly less ambitious claims regarding Book of Mormon historicity (FARMS excluded). Do Church leaders ever refer to Native Americans as Lamanites anymore? I bet there's a letter on this somewhere from the First Presidency.

I just checked my handy-dandy Book of Mormon, and that claim is still in the Intro.

I haven't seen any emphasis on the term, but neither have I listened to LDS authorities as they speak in South America, where the claim and term is likely to arise.

The main issue is the introduction of the BoM, where the term "principal ancestors of the American Indian" is used. It certainly isn't emphasized as it may have been in your day. For some reason, that intro was added in 1981. A strange addition where knowledge of genetics should have forewarned them of such a potentially erroneous claim.

And it has been since 1981.

I don't think many within the church claims that every Native American is a full-blooded descendant of Lehi. There are just too many years, too much real estate, too many different civilizations, and too many questions left unanswered to make that kind of a blanket statement. That's not to say that Lehi didn't exist, that Laman and Lemuel werent' his sons, or that many Native Americans are descendants of that particular family.

Maybe the reason you don't hear it much anymore is because you don't hear much talk about Native Americans in general anymore.

Since SWK died, interest in Native Americans, at least in the U.S. has died down a bit it seems. He was their great champion.

Could be a different story in Central and South America though where NA's are a much bigger % of the population.

There may be some truth to your claim though about making LESS ambitious claims. I believe some or many NA's are descended at least partly from Lehi, but given the current DNA evidence (which IMO doesn't prove what its proponents say it proves), it may be wise to soften the claim that Lamanites are the PRINCIPAL ancestors of NA's.

Only since 1981? That's interesting. That was apex of the great age of ambitious claims for Book of Mormon historicity.

Actualy, since Kimball became the prophet. Many thought his presidency would hail the "Day of the Lamanite" but his emphasis was largely on other things.

His status as Indian Apostle was before my membership. He certainly didn't emphasize that during the portion of his presidency after I joined.

That's my understanding, anyway. The current publication of the Bible was done in 1979, I believe, with the Book of Mormon et al. published in a similar format in 1981.

Interestingly enough, my Pearl of Great Price teacher told the class that preparations are underway for a new publication of the scriptures. One of the differences that we will see is drastically reduced chapter headings and a reformed footnote system. He specifically cited excessive interpretation as a reason for the change to the chapter headings, though no names were mentioned. Thought that was interesting.

If they're making major changes, I wish they'd go to a better Bible translation than the KJV.

It's discussed here:
http://www.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/v/ind...004e94610aRCRD

Because that would impact familiarity with the BoM, I am doubtful they would do that.

In other languages, we aren't so tied to one translation thankfully.

One thing I hadn't thought of, in the Isaiah portions, do we simply insert with modifications the Isaiah portions from that language's standard Bible, or do we endeavor to translate the feel of the KJV in the BoM?

Does anybody know the answer? I'll go home at look at my German, French and Spanish.

What do they do in Japanese?

In Chinese the BoM Isaiah is translated directly from the English BoM, not modifications from the Chinese Bible.

IMO, this is an extremely important finding:

http://farms.byu.edu/publications/dn...NA_Feb2006.php

I'm aware of that, as I remember when the BYU professor was interviewed by the LA Times discussed that study. Clearly the assertion of Cohen mitochondria representation is overblown. When it's raised, I've asserted the same.

But apologists now exclusively focus upon a limited geography theory which did not previous to the Australian's genetic study.

would that be brm's excessive interpretation? Didn't he write most of them? Or is that just Mormon urban legend?

The funny thing is the KJV is really not a good translation, and the NRSV is probably the best one out there according to most scholars, and it really makes the favorite Mormon verses appear even better, BUT the mullahs will probably defend the KJV tooth and nail without even knowing why.

I've never heard this reported except by second or third hand sources, but the general consensus is that Elder McKonkie was the head of the committee and was primarily responsible for the chapter headings.

Arguing about which translation is best is like arguing whether it's better to lose by 2 or by 9.

I don't want to imply that the headings reflect excess interpretation (that's up you to decide) but Bruce McConkie did produce them:


The following quote is less explicit than the first but indicates largely the same thing.

I was watching one of the Voom channels (equator I think) and they had a special on the guyana highlands. Rugged beautiful country.

It reminded me that there is so much in that part of the world we are yet to discover.

Who knows.

Not sure what you mean by that, but I'd prefer a translation based on the best source materials and written in clear language over one based on source materials that aren't as reliable and were derived from the Greek translated into Latin and then back into Greek, and then into now archaic English. At least for me the NRSV gives me a lot more insight than the KJV does. I've read the KJV so many times though that I know what it says as I'm reading the NRSV. Passages that made little sense to me before have opened up and passages that were fine in the KJV often are stronger and better in the NRSV. Just my opinion. The poetry of the KJV is alright if you're into that kind of thing. I was more into science, history and languages in school than English and Lit though.

Well, losing by 2 is better than losing by 9. I don't dispute that.

I don't pretend to be a linguistics scholar or somebody reasonably qualified to authoritatively comment on the Greek or Hebrew. What brushes I have had with reading from the "original" languages (and even Latin, as a generation between the original and the current English) have taught me that reading the Bible in the very best English is like watching TV in black and white. It does not compare with reading the words that fell off of the pen of the first scribes (so far as we can determine, anyway).

well, I won't argue that. I wish I could read it in Greek. I actually took Greek 101 way, way back in my freshman year and enjoyed it. Then came the mission and I had already forgotten everything by the time I got back.

This is like tooblue saying prove there's no missing link. "Here's a possible explanation why there is no semitic DNA in American aborigines." I'm sure the possiblities are endless. Who cares? Show me one reputable person who even cares about these studies anyway. As if they were the sine qua non of anything. FARMS counting ant turds.

It doesn't prove anything, but it does give reason to doubt that mitochondrial DNA studies on Native American populations can be used to disprove anything either.

Who cares? As many times as YOU personally referred to the lack of archeological and DNA evidence tying anything Middle Eastern to the America, I thought this might be interesting. If you don't care, then maybe you'd better shut up in the future about someone providing you a "mustard seed".

I expect that changes to the Intro of the 1981 edition would be done with a conservative tone (sort of like the recently announced "non-change" of the honor code), but I do think it is quite possible that there could be such changes in a new edition (and we're due for a new edition).

Editions of the BoM between 1865 and the early 1920s had Orson Pratt's footnotes. Elder Pratt had a way of specifying the location of BoM cities that would be shocking to Mormons today.

Don't leave us hanging. I want the salacious details!

The Maxwell Institute has the footnotes being from 1879 until 1920. They're probably right.

Here's a bit on it from the Maxwell Institute (FARMS):

"The question of precisely where the events chronicled in the Book of Mormon took place arises naturally since to date neither the record itself nor the Lord through his prophets has revealed its New World setting in terms that permit conclusive linkages to modern-day locales. Historically, Latter-day Saint speculation on the subject has spawned several possible correlations between the geography of the Americas and the geographic clues discoverable in the Book of Mormon. Two such interpretations have predominated: the hemispheric model (with Book of Mormon lands encompassing North, Central, and South America) and the limited geography model (a restricted New World setting on the order of hundreds rather than thousands of miles).

The earliest and best-known proponent of the hemispheric model was Orson Pratt, who espoused it as early as 1832 and continued to teach it for decades. Throughout the nineteenth century, many Latter-day Saint writers followed Pratt’s model, and eventually his geographical ideas were incorporated into the footnotes of the 1879 edition of the Book of Mormon. The popularity of the hemispheric model notwithstanding, it simply is not clear whether it was the result of prophetic revelation or merely the outgrowth of the personal ideas and assumptions of the Prophet Joseph Smith and other brethren. For this reason, certain anecdotal statements attributed to Joseph Smith regarding Lehi’s landing in Chile and the identity of a deceased “white Lamanite” warrior (whose skeletal remains were found by members of Zion’s Camp in western Illinois) are problematic and not especially helpful in efforts to reconstruct an authoritative geography for the Book of Mormon.

Neither Book of Mormon prophecies nor Joseph Smith’s account of Moroni’s visit requires an all-inclusive hemispheric setting. Moreover, the diversity of nineteenth-century opinion, even among church leaders, on key aspects of the hemispheric model is striking, suggesting fluidity of thought in the absence of prophetic revelation that could settle the issue. In the 1840s, the publication of John L. Stephens’s Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan—a best-selling book with fabulous illustrations of ruins in Central America attesting a high level of civilization—brought a measure of unity to the ongoing discussion by turning attention to Mesoamerica as a plausible arena of Book of Mormon events. Yet there were inevitable points of disagreement on crucial details, such as the location of Lehi’s landing, the lands of Nephi and Zarahemla, and the narrow neck of land that connected two major blocks of territory. In the ensuing decades, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints influenced ongoing discussion of the geographic question by refusing to endorse any one interpretation, emphasizing the doctrinal teachings of the Book of Mormon, encouraging more thorough scripture study in order to better sort out geographic details, and removing Orson Pratt’s footnotes from the 1920 edition of the Book of Mormon. The church clearly had no authoritative stance on what was, and remains, an open issue."

Apparently Pratt's notes are consistent with the Hemisperic Model of BoM geography.

I find it interesting that Pratt's notes are in the BoM for decades until the Church decided that it "clearly had no authoritative stance on what was, and remains, an open issue." No doubt many Mormons took their presence in the BoM as at least fairly authoritative, sort of the way people have taken McConkie's chapter summaries for the 1981 edition. Pratt was edited and most probably McConkie will be too (eventually).

SIEQ gave some nice background, but here is what some of the footnotes actually say. This is from a Book of Mormon I own printed in 1908 which means it is an 1879 edition done by Orson Pratt. For example, On page 155 footnote g reads, “The land Nephi is supposed to have been near Ecuador, South America” and footnote h reads, “The land Zarahemla is supposed to have been north of the head waters of the Magdelena, its northern boundary being a few days’ journey south of the isthmus.”

I am not sure they are salacious, but they are hemispheric.

I knew this guy when he was a nerdy undergrad at BYU with dreams of being a forensic chemist. Good to see that he's done well for himself. Big BYU football fan too.

I'm not meaning to imply they're salacious--just that the material that accompanies the BoM record, like intros, chapter descriptions, and footnotes, changes with some frequency. The 1981 intro's claim about "the principal ancestors of the American Indians" could very possibly be altered in a subsequent edition.

As for the models of BoM geography, I've followed those discussions pretty closely and find none of them adequate (the limited geography/Meso-America, the hemispheric, and the Great Lakes being major ones). I don't have a dog in the hunt, though.

SIEQ and Pelagius: Thanks for that information. Very interesting, especially the actual footnotes.

I was just joking around about the salacious thing. When I actually show my 1908 Book of Mormon to people they are usually very surprised. They usually think it is kind of funny and amusing. I have also never met another person (in the real world) that was aware of their existence. It is a pretty obscure historical footnote (couldn't resist) at this point.

I've never talked about DNA in relation to the Book of Mormon. I've never paid much attention to those studies. You know, to be fair, if they did find semitic DNA it wouldn't affect my conclusions anyway.