Does anyone have a link for a youtube video of Spencer W Kimballs talk where he says to the Lamanites stretch from the Eskimo's to the southern tip of Chile and the Islands of the Pacific?
I remember a talk but haven't found it on youtube.
Kinda blows the "Limited Geography Theory" out of the water.
"Now the Lamanites number about sixty million; they are in all of the states of America from Tierra del Fuego all the way up to Point Barrows, and they are in nearly all the islands of the sea from Hawaii south to southern New Zealand."
"About twenty-five centuries ago, a hardy group left the comforts of a great city, crossed a desert, braved an ocean, and came to the shores of this, their promised land. There were two large families, those of Lehi and Ishmael, who in not many centuries numbered hundreds of millions of people on these two American continents."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 601
Which is it?...60 million or hundreds of millions? "Hundreds of millions" would include the nephites that were wiped out, but I would assume that there were at least 100 million lamanites based on that statement.
Also, what's a "hardy group"? Even if Lehi and Ishmael both had a dozen kids, you're talking about a dozen couples...a dozen men, none of which were levites (so they couldn't use the temple anyways), built a temple comparable to Solomon's in 20 years or so.
"There are no blessings, of all the imaginable ones, to which you are not entitled—you, the Lamanites—when you are righteous. You are of royal blood, the children of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Lehi."
The church teaches that the lamanites and the seed of Cain were cursed because of the wickedness of their fathers. Why wasn't the prophet giving talks like this to Africans? The lamanites were so wicked that they were cursed, but they get all imaginable blessings. The seed of Cain is dealt a similar curse, but they aren't worthy of blessings and aren't "of royal blood"?
So, what do you suppose the church thinks when they, on the one hand, refute that they teach or have taught this, and on the other hand, still have these talks available? Is having all these doctrinal talks on-line not somehow a liability for them? Or are they just counting on people to not ask hard questions? Probably the latter, I'll wager.
Kind of sad, really. Here's a reasonably intelligent old man talking seriously about a complete falsehood, that could really have an effect on people, as if it was not only real, but imparted by supernatural means....
On another note my TBM wife has told me that Jewish DNA has been traced in one particular tribe which, coincidentally was the first tribe that JS sent missionaries to preach to. Can anyone shed any light on this.
No disrespect to your TBM wife, but she needs to pony up with the verifiable research or else it's just more "Mormon legend." Hearsay is just a fancy way to say gossip with an agenda.
And SWK said they were all descendants of Lehi and Ismael, so the lamanites, all sixty million of them should be swimming in Jewish DNA. One trace in one tribe? PFfft.