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I just saw this on the MAD board in a thread about what constitutes 'canon'.

Scott Lloyd wrote:

I stopped off at Deseret Book on the way back to the office. There, they have the Doubleday edition of the Book of Mormon, only in a popular-priced version with smaller dimensions, about the size of a paper-back book, although still hardbound. In this newer printing, the wording in the introduction has indeed been changed from "principal ancestors" to "among the ancestors."

So we have seen a very subtle change occur, just within the last little while. As I mentioned, the Doubleday edition was prepared with the cooperation of the Church, so I'm confident this change has the approval of the Brethren.

Is this yet another example of religion bending to fit with science?

Scott Lloyd wrote:In this newer printing, the wording in the introduction has indeed been changed from "principal ancestors" to "among the ancestors."

So we have seen a very subtle change occur, just within the last little while. As I mentioned, the Doubleday edition was prepared with the cooperation of the Church, so I'm confident this change has the approval of the Brethren.

Who Knows wrote:Is this yet another example of religion bending to fit with science?

All they need now is to add the word "imaginary" in front of "ancestors," and then I think they'll have it spot on!

Sorry to burst your little bubble, but that is what principal ancestor always meant. That among their pedigrees , Lehi was there, and because Lehi carried the covenant promise of Abraham to these people, he was the "principal ancestor" among the millions of their ancestors.

That has always been the meaning. But becasue people are so ignorant about genealogy, they changed it to make it more understandable to the less educated (in matters of genealogy) masses.

Those silly little ignorant people, who actually believed the Lehites moved into a previously unoccupied land.

I thought we all agreed they were definitely NOT any of the ancestors of the American Indian.

charity wrote:Sorry to burst your little bubble, but that is what principal ancestor always meant. That among their pedigrees , Lehi was there, and because Lehi carried the covenant promise of Abraham to these people, he was the "principal ancestor" among the millions of their ancestors.

That has always been the meaning. But becasue people are so ignorant about genealogy, they changed it to make it more understandable to the less educated (in matters of genealogy) masses.

How does changing it to 'among' make it 'more understandable' and consistent with your definition of 'principle'?

Here is how it reads:

After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.

Who Knows wrote:After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.

Book of Mormon Intro in the year 2025:

The Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. It is a record of God's dealings with a few people who lived among vast hordes of Mayans in some village of Mesoamerica, and it contains the fulness of the everlasting Gospel.

Although this book was written by prophets through the spirit of prophecy and revelation, they also exaggerated egregiously. So, whereas the Book of Mormon gives the impression of being written about all of the inhabitants of ancient America, at best we are talking about what took place over the course of a few days in a single neighborhood in a village in Mexico. The people in this village had two gangs called Nephites and Lamanites, who could not get along. Eventually the Lamanites exterminated the Nephite gang, and even their own DNA is lost in a giant wash of Mayans and other peoples.

The Lamanites are important among the ancestors of the American Indians, even though there may have been 20 of them at most, because they talked to a couple of Nephites who claimed to have seen Jesus. Through these few Lamanites, all of the Native Americans will be blessed. We have no idea why, but God tends to do things this way. Just consider Abraham. Can you find his DNA?

The last of the Nephites left a record of their gang war on some gold plates. And Moroni, one of these guys, appeared to a completely illiterate farmboy who could not even put his britches on without help from his mother named Joseph Smith. God tried to teach Joseph Smith to read the Nephite language, but because he was so incredibly stupid, God just gave up and read it to him.

In spite of his ignorance of all learning, Joseph declared that the Book of Mormon was the most correct book on earth, and we trust that testimony implicitly, even though Joseph apparently hardly read anything at all.

We invite all men (that's right ladies, your husbands do the reading, not you) everywhere to read the Book of Mormon and ponder its message, and not to submit it to any real rational scrutiny, and then pray to ask God to tell you it is true, because the answer will definitely be "yes!"

Trevor wrote:

Who Knows wrote:After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.

Book of Mormon Intro in the year 2025:

The Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. It is a record of God's dealings with a few people who lived among vast hordes of Mayans in some village of Mesoamerica, and it contains the fulness of the everlasting Gospel.

Although this book was written by prophets through the spirit of prophecy and revelation, they also exaggerated egregiously. So, whereas the Book of Mormon gives the impression of being written about all of the inhabitants of ancient America, at best we are talking about what took place over the course of a few days in a single neighborhood in a village in Mexico. The people in this village had two gangs called Nephites and Lamanites, who could not get along. Eventually the Lamanites exterminated the Nephite gang, and even their own DNA is lost in a giant wash of Mayans and other peoples.

The Lamanites are important among the ancestors of the American Indians, even though there may have been 20 of them at most, because they talked to a couple of Nephites who claimed to have seen Jesus. Through these few Lamanites, all of the Native Americans will be blessed. We have no idea why, but God tends to do things this way. Just consider Abraham. Can you find his DNA?

The last of the Nephites left a record of their gang war on some gold plates. And Moroni, one of these guys, appeared to a completely illiterate farmboy who could not even put his britches on without help from his mother named Joseph Smith. God tried to teach Joseph Smith to read the Nephite language, but because he was so incredibly stupid, God just gave up and read it to him.

In spite of his ignorance of all learning, Joseph declared that the Book of Mormon was the most correct book on earth, and we trust that testimony implicitly, even though Joseph apparently hardly read anything at all.

We invite all men (that's right ladies, your husbands do the reading, not you) everywhere to read the Book of Mormon and ponder its message, and not to submit it to any real rational scrutiny, and then pray to ask God to tell you it is true, because the answer will definitely be "yes!"

He he, awesome.

A couple comments:

Why does the church quietly slip these things in? This is the type of thing that only those "in the know" will know about, and the naïve sheep in the chapel will have no idea there's been a change, and keep parroting the teachings of the Native Americans all being direct descendants of the Nephites, and the Book of Mormon taking place across North and South America, etc. Then a couple years later they'll discover this newfangled Limited Geography theory, and ask an apologist "When the hell did they change this?" and the apologist will say, "Duh. THe church has been teaching this for years. It's in the Doubleday intro, you moron. What, do you expect the church to spoonfeed you this stuff?"

Is this change only occurring in the Doubleday Book of Mormon? If so, it creates the impression, whether it's true or not, that the church is telling the outsiders one thing (Lamanites are among the ancestors of Native Americans) while teaching the members something different (Lamanites are the principle ancestors of the Native Americans.) Even though the only people I know of that are buying the Doubleday version are members, but it was designed for non-members, correct?

Sorry to burst your little bubble, but that is what principal ancestor always meant. That among their pedigrees , Lehi was there, and because Lehi carried the covenant promise of Abraham to these people, he was the "principal ancestor" among the millions of their ancestors.

That has always been the meaning. But becasue people are so ignorant about genealogy, they changed it to make it more understandable to the less educated (in matters of genealogy) masses.

What an idiot.