What year did they change the BoM to read "pure and delightsome" instead of "White and delightsome"?

My 1975 version has "white and delightsome". 2 Nep 30:6
But I notice in the 1985 Gordon B Hinckly speech someone linked to, and in the ebook version of the BoM, it now reads "PURE" and delightsome. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1985/10/rejoice-in-this-great-era-of-temple-building?lang=eng

Did they change that verse the same year they started allowing blacks to have the priesthood.

Was any official MENTION made about that change? Did they do anything to get people to repurchase new BoMs to get rid of the old versions?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2015 08:36AM by seekyr.

Looks like it was 2010:


http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50882900-76/mormon-book-changes-church.html.csp

I think that 2010 article was only talking about chapter header changes. However, it did mention that the "white and delightsome" verse was changed in 1981:

"Chapter summaries were added in the 1920s, then rewritten by the late LDS apostle Bruce R. McConkie in 1981. That same year, a verse that used "white and delightsome" to describe what will happen to dark-skinned peoples when they repent was changed to "pure and delightsome."

Of course they were pure. God explicitly changed their skin to white in the same book.

How is pure not still insulting to all people of color?

Yeah, and "pure and delightsome" doesn't rhyme as well either!

I mean really, though, supposedly the BoM was perfectly translated. In fact, I recall them making a specific point that their process supposedly proved that none of the words were coming from THEM. How does the church explain just up and changing something like that? Nephi was speaking as a man when he PROPHESIED that?

I thought that too. Pure and delightsome isn't poetic anymore. But white and delightsome is clearly offensive. In the end deceit is artless.

Perhaps the newer versions will read Black and Beautiful to balance it all.

...unless blue is your color!

I'm not really WHITE. I'm more of a tan.
"Skin of tan. Praise the man!"

Except I'm a woman. Dang.

Oh! But my hips are wide and delightsome.

I have lost complete track of the exact date and time that I became "...pure and demur.."

As a brown person, who every freakin' summer looked more sinny as the days got warmer, I was very appreciative of the change from 'white and delightsome' to 'pure and demur.'

And then when I learned to curtsy, I became the Saint that I am today, and I simply CAN'T stop praising ghawd. Or as Raj says, on The Big Bang Theory, "Oh, Vishnu, I have got to get me some of that!"

I'm white and I'm GD sure not pure....and I am proud of every anti Mormon/doctrine thing I've ever done.

RB

I am an American Cockney ex Mormon and have no goddam choice in the matter. I had Army barracks for dorms and trash for parents. I cannot and will not attempt to bury it all under the fertilizer of deceit, no matter the protestations of my antagonists.

As I recall, it was in about 1986 when we were all admonished to get new scriptures. Nobody explained that it was because there were changes. Nah.
But I have my copy of the BOM from 1961 (copyright before that) and my "new" 1986 copy and bingo, there are some changes, I forget how many but the white and pure thing is one of them. Plus there were a lot more references.

If my memory is not on target,someone please correct me! :-) I'm old and senile, you know! :-)

I have never read the old ones....

RB

Yeah, i remember that time when people were encouraged to get new scriptures and no reason was given.

If I remember, right it was my senior yr in high school so it would of been in 1981. 3 yrs after the 1978 proclamation. This was also when they started with the new quads with all of the footnotes and adding in the JST footnotes which we had never had before. I'll have to check though.

http://www.utlm.org/images/3913intro_bom1920to1981chart.gif

Speaking of the church being a "mirror image" (my term) of the 'ancient church', viz, prophets, etc. no OT prophet was the president of anything--in fact, mostly unwanted. And there were always 'prophets', plural; and the new ones have more duties in their job description.
BTW, removing "and it came to pass" from over 200 places takes place IN THE TEXT; no heading addresses that.
As I see it.

In the 19th and 20th Centuries, two Mormon prophets asked in temple dedicatory prayers that prophecy be fulfilled.

Mormon prophet Wilford Woodruff prayed for Indians to turn white when he dedicated the Salt Lake Temple in 1893,

"Restore them we pray Thee, to Thine ancient favor, fulfill in their completeness the promises given to their fathers, and make of them a white and delightsome race, a loved and holy people as in former days."
http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/61688/Salt-Lake-Temple-O-Lord-we-regard-with-intense-and-indescribable-feelings-the-completion-of-this-sacred-house.html

And the Mormon prophet George Albert Smith also prayed for their skin color to change when he dedicated the Idaho Falls Temple in 1945.

"O Father, remember Thy promises made unto Thy holy prophets regarding the remnants of those whom Thou didst lead unto this western hemisphere, that they should not be utterly destroyed but that a remnant should be preserved which would turn from their wickedness, repent of their sins, and eventually become a white and delightsome people. May the day speedily come when those promises will be fulfilled."
http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/61725/Idaho-Falls-Idaho-Temple-We-pray-for-the-youth-everywhere.html

In the October 1960 General Conference, Spencer W. Kimball told the world that the prophecy of Lamanites turning white was being fulfilled.

"For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos, five were darker but equally delightsome. The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation."

"At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl–sixteen–sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents–on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather."
http://scriptures.byu.edu/gettalk.php?ID=1091&era=yes

For 151 years Mormons believed that American Indians would turn white. Mormon prophets believed it, taught it, prophesied that it would happen, prayed in their temples for it to happen soon and finally announced that prophecy was being fulfilled.

But none of it was real. The temple prayers and conference talk were based on 2 Nephi 30:6 in the Book of Mormon. The first edition in 1830 said "many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people." In 1981 the Mormon church changed the words to say "a pure and a delightsome people."

Where was the Mormon god to reveal to the prophets that there was a mistake in the Book of Mormon? Why didn't god tell the prophets about that mistake?

This mistake played sick games with the minds of American Indian children in the education placement program. Mormon prophets and apostles expected the impossible, that skin color would be changed. Beautiful children were burdened with thoughts that their skin color indicated they were not righteous enough.

What good are Mormon prophets if they can't even receive revelation of a mistake in their scriptures? They are useless and dangerous.

"The temple prayers and conference talk were based on 2 Nephi 30:6 in the Book of Mormon. The first edition in 1830 said "many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people." In 1981 the Mormon church changed the words to say "a pure and a delightsome people."

But changing the wording did not, nor could not, change the theology which holds that native Americans' skins are dark because God cursed their forefathers with a dark skin thousands of years ago because of their wickedness.

And they didn't change the wording in other passages which describe the Lamanites as "dark and loathsome." Associating "dark" with "loathsome", as thought the two go together, is just as racist as the "white and delightsome" combination.

In order to completely eliminate the racist and scientifically disproved premises about native Americans in the BOM, the church would have to reject the entire BOM. The very *reason* for the skin color of the Lamanites is God's curse; the church can't eliminate that storyline without rejecting the entire book.

Exactly. 3 Nephi 2:15 wasn't changed and it tells the fantasy of Lamanites skin turning white.

"And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites"

All the church did in 1981 was change the reference for the prophecy that it would happen to modern Indians but left the so called miracle that happened in the past. The church should denounce and discard the entire Book of Mormon but the top 15 don't have the moral courage and integrity to do that. They keep the lie going as long as money is flowing.

They changed it for one very obvious reason. Lamanites (American Indians) did NOT Turn white after they joined the church. It's just another of Smith's numerous erroneous prophecies.

The 1841 edition of the Book of Mormon had "pure and delightsome" which was different from the original 1830. The RLDS church used the 1841 edition, but the LDS used later editions that went back to "white and delightsome". So the 1981 change used that 1841 edition to get Kimball off the hook. But the funny part is, the RLDS found what the 1830 edition said so they changed theirs to "white and delightsome".

The screwed up part is that Joseph Smith supposedly saw words appearing on the rock in the hat and even had his scribe read back what he said while looking at the stone to make sure it got written down correctly. How in the hell did that word get changed in 1841?

I seem to recall something also about "dark and loathesome"... Spencer Kimball made some outrageous statements about blacks. These quotes are out there on the internet.

some dark skinned members are not so delighted with this situation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww3BGFhGbMA

They should just put the word "NOT" at the end of the BoM and then they wouldn't have to keep updating failed prophecies and worry about all those inconvenient anachronisms and such.

This subject brings back a lot of memories from Seminary with my Nazi Seminary teacher.

He was a convert from the late '50s, & was really Nazi-ish in his belief. However, he was very anti-racist, & he swore up & down that "white & delightsome" really meant "light & delightsome", as in having to do with countenance, not race or skin color. He said that anyone who tried to conflate it with race was just a racist.

A non-racist Nazi. That's a new one! I get what you're saying though.

How anyone could read 2 Nephi 5:21 and come away with it just being their countenance, and not their skin, is beyond me. It's kind of hard to get around the words "skin of blackness". That seems specific.

But if your teacher was non-racist and really wanted to stay Mormon, I guess he'd have to twist this section around a bit in his mind.

Mormons like him have selective reading comprehension. There are so many other verses that still talk in terms of skin color.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/5.21-23?lang=eng

21 And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

This verse says white and skin of blackness. Its still very clear that its about skin color.

3 Nephi 2:15 And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites;


Jacob 3:8 O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.

"he swore up & down that "white & delightsome" really meant "light & delightsome", as in having to do with countenance, not race or skin color."

When I used to debate TBMs years ago, one of them, Guy Briggs, used that same argument---that the Lamanite curse was actually being separated from God, losing the spirit, and thus their "countenances" becoming dark.

But I pointed out to Guy that the BOM also states that God made the Lamanites' skins dark "so that they would not be enticing to my people, the Nephites"---inferring, of course, that dark-skinned people are less sexually desirable than light-skinned people. Duh, how could the "righteous" Nephites refrain from breeding with an "accursed" Lamanite, if he couldn't identify a Lamanite by their dark skin?

The whole storyline is stupid, and is an obvious product of the common racist ideas of Joseph Smith's time.

Its racist even if skin color is left out. The church can try to explain away all of the skin color verses but 1 Nephi 13 is still morally condemnable. The basic teaching that god is with one group of living people and his wrath is on another doesn't fly in the 21st century.