Buffalo wrote:Moses 7:8
For behold, the Lord shall curse the land with much heat, and the barrenness thereof shall go forth forever; and there was a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were despised among all people.
Forgetting for a moment the fact that Israel stole their gods from the Canaanites, what's with this? You can see the familiar Book of Mormon theme of God cursing people with black skin, but the Canaanites weren't black - they were Semites, like the Hebrews. What's up with that?
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_were_the_CanaanitesThe Canaanites were the ancestral occupants of Palestine. They were a Semitic race, and spoke a West Semitic language very similar to ancient Hebrew.
Many Middle Eastern scholars regard the Canaanites as ancestors of today's Palestinians, although no doubt the Palestinians would also include Philistines, Nabateans and peninsular Arabs in their ancestry.
Some scholars believe that the Canaanites were the real ancestors of the Hebrew people.
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_were_the_ ... z1EzvkSxX7
Also, Simon, one of the apostles of Christ, was a Canaanite. How is that possible if the Canaanites were black and cursed out of the priesthood?
http://LDS.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/1.21?lang=eng#2021Now this king of Egypt was a descendant from the aloins of bHam, and was a partaker of the blood of the cCanaanites by birth.
22From this descent sprang all the Egyptians, and thus the blood of the aCanaanites was preserved in the land.
23The land of aEgypt being first discovered by a woman, who was the daughter of Ham, and the daughter of Egyptus, which in the Chaldean signifies Egypt, which signifies that which is forbidden;
24When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land.
25Now the first agovernment of Egypt was established by Pharaoh, the eldest son of Egyptus, the daughter of Ham, and it was after the manner of the government of Ham, which was patriarchal.
26Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that aorder established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the bblessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.
LDS Author Richard L. Bushman discusses these verses on Pages 288 and 289 of his Book. If you have his Book, You can look up those Pages within it.
Here is what Richard L. Bushman wrote on Page 289 of his Book:
Joseph [Smith] never commented on the Abraham text or implied it denied priesthood to blacks.
(Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling: 2005.)