https://www.ldsliving.com/How-We-Misinterpret-Black-and-Curse-in-the-Scriptures-Insights-from-a-Black-Convert/s/88562/?utm_source=ldsliving&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_campaign=popular


"Perkins was not a stranger to speaking on sensitive or divisive topics. In fact, Perkins was one among six presenters—including Sharon Eubank, now first counselor in the Relief Society general presidency—sent to Kungsbacka, Sweden, to strengthen Latter-day Saints in that region as they grappled with difficult gospel questions after former Area Authority Seventy, Elder Hans Mattsson, publicly left the Church."

The swedish rescue did not go well.

"The Saints, and those of other faiths as well, instinctually assume that this word is in reference to race, nationality, or color of skin. . . . The LDS version of the King James Bible and the Book of Mormon help us to understand that the word black is actually a Hebrew idiom, meaning gloomy, dejected, or spiritual darkness, and has nothing to do with skin tone. Though we have this clarity in the scriptures that we carry with us daily, few members are aware that this insight is there.”

Whew, what a relief! Strange how this was overlooked all these years.

As BY said, “And if a man have one drop of gloomy blood coursing through his veins...”

And the missionaries who went to Brazil were taught to look at family photographs in order to spy out gloomy ancestors!

But thank ghawd for the passing of all the gloomy rights legislation back in the 60s and 70s!

2 Nephi 5:21 says "skin of blackness". So what the stone in the hat really meant to say was "skin of gloomy, dejected, or spiritual darkness".

This really clears it up!

There are also all those prophets who used the doctrine to deny black people full church status. I guess God chose not to tell them what the scripture meant.

Perhaps God was too busy with more important things like white shirts for the priesthood boys and Coca-Cola.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2020 12:49PM by Lot's Wife.

LDS Living is a joke. It publishes leftover articles that can't make it into the "official" publications. It’s the BYU-Idaho of mormon magazines. The article itself is nothing more than lame-ass excuses, ex post facto rationalizations, and wishful thinking.

The (presumably older white members) were "lovingly" telling him that he was cursed and less valiant because that was the actual doctrine taught over the pulpit and in the classrooms for 130 years. Then as a brand-new mormon in 1988, he decided that he knew the doctrine better than all previous prophets and apostles, and that the words couldn't possibly mean what all those leaders had explicitly taught from the beginning. Who had a better understanding of properly orthodox mormon doctrine: McConkie, JFSmith, and Kimball (among many others) on the one hand, or this one new African-American member on the other? LDS Living would have you believe the latter. I'm not going to bother posting leaders' quotes; you know them as well as I do.

On to the article itself. The anecdote about the racist couple sounds sketchy to me, but even granting it to be an actual event, the rest of the piece is pure trash. Leading off, the Jeremiah verse simply says "I am black," and the associated footnotes do *not* reference 2 Nephi or 3 Nephi. So that's misleading.

2 Nephi 5:21, of course, is the infamous "skin of blackness" verse. It shouldn't have to be pointed out to the Einsteins at LDS Living that "skin of blackness" is not at all the same thing as "I am black," the obvious difference being the specific reference to "skin."

3 Nephi 3:15, the next scripture referenced, doesn't even mention skin color at all. It's a misquote that slipped past the rag's idiot editors, twice. What they probably meant to reference is 3 Nephi 2:15, when the skin of the good Lamanites changed back from black to white. Not exactly supportive of the case that it's a metaphor for spiritual condition. Just for fun, here's the pre-1981 chapter heading for 3 Nephi 2: "Nephite degeneracy — White Lamanites — Both peoples unite for defence [sic] against robbers and murderers."

Immediately after, readers are directed to 2 Nephi 30. What LDS Living fails to mention (surprise!) is that the text of verse 6 was changed in 1981 from "white and delightsome" to the present "pure and delightsome." Few mormons will even be aware of that, and the few that are will not bring it up.

Next up is Alma 55:1-9 when the Nephites went into the Lamanite camp. However, verse 4 says that Moroni specifically needed a descendant of Laman to lead the raid. The clear implication is that this descendant had dark skin so he would be easily identified and recognized as a Lamanite. Otherwise, any Nephite would have been sufficient. So the use of this passage actually undermines their position rather than supports it, and LDS Living doesn't even have the presence of mind to realize it.

I'm running out of patience to address the rest of this nonsense, so I'll just take on one more. On the third page, it says:

"Those having a lighter shade brown are merely our sisters and brothers whose ancestors migrated out of the hotter climates. Those having the darker hues are simply family of ancestors that remained in or closer to our original homelands of Africa and the Middle East."

Well, yeah, evolution. Can't argue with that. The problem is that it goes against the basic mormon doctrine of a 6000-yo earth, Adam & Eve, the garden in Jackson County, Missouri, and all the rest. He's saying Genesis is BS, and it is, but that position contradicts generations of General Conference addresses and Ensign columns. It also contradicts the Book of Moses, which in turn directly undermines Joseph Smith. Oops. I bet they haven't considered that. Or perhaps they are simply counting on their loyally dumb readership to ask no questions, think no thoughts, and connect no dots. No doubt that strategy will work.

Somebody wrote an essay last week about how the "skin of darkness" really meant dark clothing, since skin was sometimes used as a synonym for clothing. I don't remember who wrote it or where it was published. I thought it was in the SLTrib, but I can't find it. Maybe they were embarrassed and took it down. Or it was printed somewhere else. Whatever.

A comment from a friend of mine was "oh, so dark clothing was the distinguishing mark that kept Nephites from intermarrying with Lamanites. Who knew they had such a well defined fashion sense."

And my thought is, so all those Mormon dark suits are signs of being wicked and loathsome? OK, works for me,

It's amazing the amount of pretzel-logic people can swallow to deny the obvious, if the obvious damages their worldview.

Edit-To-Add:
I found the article - Jan 24 2020 SLTrib. For our European readers who aren't allowed to open Trib URLs, the text:

Holly Richardson: What if ‘skin’ doesn’t mean human skin?

I want to carry on the conversation from last week about racist doctrine being included in LDS manuals. (And if you’re not LDS, this week’s conversation probably won’t be of much interest to you. Fair warning.)

First, I am grateful for Elder Gary Stevenson’s remarks at a NAACP luncheon on Martin Luther King Day, where he said that he was both saddened and hurt for any pain caused by the error in the printed “Come, Follow Me” manual. He also reiterated that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints condemns “all racism past of present in any form” and perhaps most importantly, “we do disavow any theory that black or dark skin is a sign of a curse.”

So how did we get the idea it was?

What if our interpretation was a cultural artifact of the mid-1800s, when slavery was still legal in the United States? What if we have misunderstood words like “skin” and “black” and “dark”? Could there be another interpretation?

In 2015, Ethan Sprout, a professor of English at Utah Valley University, published an article in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies that explored the idea of “skin” or “skins” referring to clothing and not to human skin.

Pointing to verses in Alma 3:5-6, he shows us why we can interpret “skin” as clothing: First, the Lamanites were naked, “save it were the skin which was girded about their loins,” and then, “the skins of the Lamanites were dark.” He asks — as we should ask — do they not refer to the same thing? Clothing, or garments? Surely that is a possibility.

Back to the Book of Mormon and its stories. In Alma 55, we read Captain Moroni searching for one of Lamanite heritage. If “skin” were a racial thing, rather than clothing that could be put on and taken off, why would it not have been immediately obvious? Further, when they do find a genetic descendent of Laman who, by the way, is a member of the Nephite Army, they send him with a small band of Nephite soldiers to go entice Lamanite guards to drink. If race was the separating factor, why did the guards not become immediately suspicious of a bunch of white soldiers coming toward them? I ask again — can “skin” actually mean animal skin and not human skin? Can “skin” be used symbolically?

Indeed it can. There are multiple scriptural references in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants that refer to skins-as-garments (clothing). Think Adam and Eve, or Aaron and his sons, among many.

There are also multiple references to garments — (skin or skins) — being made white in the blood of the Lamb. Clearly, that is symbolic of Christ’s Atonement. It is not a literal interpretation of what happens if we dip clothing into blood. Could there be a symbolic meaning to “skin”? What about “black,” “blackness, “dark” or “darkness”?

Black and blackness can mean a color and dark or darkness can refer to hue. But they can also mean emotions, countenance or state of one’s soul. Words like “gloomy,” “despondent” or “dejected” are dark. Despair — and the pit of grief — are black. I would argue that Hitler had the blackest of souls while the white light that emanates from Reverend Desmond Tutu is inspiring in all the best ways.

For Latter-day Saints who truly believe that God is no respecter of persons, doesn’t it make sense to ask ourselves if there could possibly be other interpretations from a translated record written over 2000 years ago than the one passed down through the lens of Civil War and then Civil Rights culture? That perhaps our lens of white privilege has colored our view? I believe we can and should be asking those kinds of questions, especially as members of a church that began because of a counter-cultural question asked by a teenage boy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2020 02:03PM by Brother Of Jerry.

The are a lot of mental gymnastics in that article.

I conclude, after reading the wonderful "anal"-ysis that "skin of blackness" doesn't, you know, actually mean what is clearly stated in the BoM text, that God cursed the Lamanites so they would not be "enticing" to the Nephites, that your typical Lamanite would be skulking around looking dark and gloomy, with possibly a paperback copy of 'Less Than Zero' in the pocket of his death metal hoodie. Problem is....chicks dig that stuff.


Still not 100% sure about the "skin" meaning an animal skin, but perhaps he's be wearing buttless black leather chaps.