"The term Lamanite includes all Indians and Indian mixtures"

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

When I was a member of the LDS Church, I never believed an article in a church publication was enough to establish something as doctrine. This was especially true if the article was not written by the President of the Church and declared to be doctrine in the article. The various General Authorities contradicted each other too often for me to believe that.

Really?

You never binded all the Ensigns together?

Heretic.

- VRDRC

[_Buffalo]

Sorry, when a prophet of the Lord publishes something via an official church publication, it becomes official church doctrine. Nothing FAIR FARMS or SHIELDS (someone in there is a comic book fan) publishes has any authoritative weight whatsoever.

When I was a member of the LDS Church, I never believed an article in a church publication was enough to establish something as doctrine. This was especially true if the article was not written by the President of the Church and declared to be doctrine in the article. The various General Authorities contradicted each other too often for me to believe that.

Obviously you were never destined to be a faithful member of the church. Your tolerance for cognitive dissonance is too low.

[_BartBurk]

Obviously you were never destined to be a faithful member of the church. Your tolerance for cognitive dissonance is too low.

When I worked at the BYU Library after my mission, I was asked to compile quotes from General Authorities from various church publications. The quotes came from BYU devotionals and General Conference talks going back to the time of Brigham Young. The librarian in charge of the project was going to put the quotes together for a publication. I don't think the publication ever happened, but I can tell you it was an eye-opener for me and the others working on the project.

[_Chap]

More on Lehi in China:

If we follow the ideas referenced above, Lehi and his group will have had to travel in a straight line all the way up into Tibet (passing quite near present-day Lhasa), and hitting the Chinese coast somewhat to the south of present day Hangzhou. The Book of Mormon editors suggest that they departed in their boat about 591 BC.

A couple of points on this:

1. This is the period known in China as the Spring and Autumn period, when China was divided into a large number of feudal states engaged in frequent low-intensity warfare. The only extensive historical source from that period is the so-called 'Spring and Autumn Annals' Chunqiu, with a longer text that supplements it, the 'Zuo Chronicle' Zuozhuan. These documents arrange events in accordance with the reigns of successive Dukes of Lu, the home state of Confucius, and Lehi's departure would have been on the cusp of two reigns:

Duke Xuan 608 - 591
Duke Cheng 590 - 573

You can read the annals of those years in the online translation here. If we look at the last year of Duke Xuan, 591 BC, it does not seem to make any mention of a bunch of weird guys with a strange bronze thing:

XVIII. Eighteenth year.

1. In the [duke's] eighteenth year, in spring, the marquis of Jin and Zang, heir-son of Wey, invaded Qi.

2. The duke invaded Qi.

3. It was summer, the fourth month.

4. In autumn, in the seventh month, an officer of Zhu murdered the viscount of Zeng in his capital.

5. On Jiaxu, Lü, viscount of Chu, died.

6. Gongsun Guifu went to Jin.

7. In winter, in the tenth month, on Renxu, the duke died in the State-chamber.

8. Guifu was returning from Jin; but when he got to Sheng, he fled to Qi.

COMMENTARY (By James Legge, with extracts from Zuo Zhuan)

Par. 1. The Zhuan says:——'When the invading armies had reached Yanggu, the marquis of Qi had a meeting with the marquis of Jin, when they made a covenant in Zeng, the former agreeing that his son Jiang should go to Jin as a hostage. On this the army of Jin returned, and Cai Zhao and Nanguo Yan made their escape back to Qi.'

Hu An'guo thinks this invasion of Qi was brought about by Xi Ke, to gratify his resentment against that State. The Kangxi editors argue that it was a public movement on the part of the marquis of Jin to punish Qi, because its marquis had kept away from the meeting at Duandao. Certainly the growth of the power of Chu was mainly owing to Qi's standing aloof from Jin as the chief among the northern States.

Par. 3. [The Zhuan appends here:——'In summer, the duke sent to Chu, to ask the assistance of an army;—wishing to invade Qi.']

Par, 4. Guliang has 繒 for 鄫. Acc. to Zuoshi, 戕 is the character employed to denote the murder of the prince of a State by some one of another State, just as 弒 indicates that the perpetrator was one of the prince's own subjects. Zeng,—see V.xiv.2. In V. xix. 4 we have an account of a terrible outrage by the people of Zhu on a former prince of Zeng. Wang Kekuan (汪 克 寬) thinks that by 邾 人 in the text we should understand the 邾 子, 'the viscount of Zhu;' but this seems inconsistent with the use of the character 戕. 邾 人, however, may denote—'a party of men from Zhu.'

Par. 5. Here for the first time we have the death of one of the viscounts of Chu recorded. His burial, however, is not mentioned, and there would have been a difficulty in recording it, as the deceased viscount must have then received the title which he claimed of 'king.' The Zhuan says:——'In consequence of the death of king Zhuang, the army [The help of which Lu had asked] did not come forth. Afterwards Lu availed itself of an army of Jin [See VIII. ii.2], in consequence of which Chu had the meeting and covenant at Shu (VIII. ii. 10].'

Par. 6. The object of this visit is given in the Zhuan:——'Gongsun Guifu was a favourite with the duke, whose elevation was due to [Guifu's father], Xiangzhong. Wishing to remove the three clans descended from duke Huan, and thereby increase the power of the ducal House, he consulted with the duke, and went on a friendly mission to Jin, hoping to accomplish his object by means of the people of Jin.'

Par. 7. See on III. xxxii. 4. Par. 8. The Zhuan says:——'In winter, on the death of the duke, Ji Wenzi [Jisun Hangfu] said in the court, "It was Zhong who made us kill the son of the proper wife, and set up the son of another, so as to lose the great helper we might have calculated on." Xuanshu [Zang Xu; son of Zang Wenzhong, or Zangsun Chen in III.xxviii. 6], was angry, and said, "Why did you not deal with him at the time? What offence is his son chargeable with? But if you wish to send their clan away, allow me to do it." Accordingly he drove the Dongmen clan out of the State. Zijia had then returned from Jin as far as to Sheng. He there cleared a space of ground, and raised a tent on it, where he delivered the account of his mission to his assistant, [that it might be transmitted to Lu]. Having done so, he took off his upper garment, bound his hair up with sackcloth, went to the place for it and wept, gave three leaps, and left the tent. He then fled to Qi. The style of the paragraph,—"Guifu returned from Jin," is commendatory of him.' For 笙 Gong and Gu have 檉. The place was in Lu.

2. But in any case, at that time the region of present-day Hangzhou was pretty well beyond the borders of Chinese civilization, in a region the writers of the above texts would have considered barbarian. So it would not have been a place where Lehi and party could have found the resources and technology to build an ocean-going ship. They might not even have survived the encounter with the natives.

I bequeath to LDS apologists the wondrous possibility that the Liahona carried by Lehi could have been at the root of the Chinese idea of the direction-finding device known as the south-pointing chariot ...

[_malkie]

Could the skin colour changing be a reflection of righteousness, as specifically stated by the Mormon Prophet?

I've answered your question.

Anyone know if this is a "yes" or a "no"?

My guess - it's a deniable "maybe".

[_SteelHead]

Survive an encounter with the natives? The natives from the Arabian peninsula to the far coast of China would have considered them fair game for robbing, killing, and enslaving.

They must have been masters of stealth and subterfuge.

So not only did they inspire the compass, they also gave rise to Chinese martial arts and ninjitsu.

[_ldsfaqs]

"The term Lamanite includes all Indians and Indian mixtures, such as the Polynesians, the Guatemalans, the Peruvians, as well as the Sioux, the Apache, the Mohawk, the Navajo, and others. It is a large group of great people." - Spencer W. Kimball

http://LDS.org/ensign/1971/07/of-royal-blood?lang=eng

That's the official doctrine. Don't let the apologists try to tell you otherwise. :)

This is a funny statement..... Because THIS is exactly what I've been trying to tell you guys, but then you guys call me a liar.

"Lamanite" was ALWAYS a "general" term to describe ALL Natives of the America's, Islands, etc.
It was NEVER a term used to only describe those directly descended from Laman/Lemual.

Further, contrary to the post after this, there is no contradiction between Local and Hemispheric. It all entirely depends on what you are talking about.

Lamanite as a generic term is Hemispheric..... Lehi's party and the area in which they populated was a Local event.

Again, anti-mormon ignorance of Mormonism, the Book of Mormon, and ALL of LDS leaders words is not the same as anti-mormon assumptions and claims being true and accurate of Mormonism.

[_ldsfaqs]

by the way, the guy that started the China claims sounds like some anti-mormon simply mocking Mormonism.

[Guest]

You have to read the whole article and not just cherry pick.

With pride I tell those who come to my office that a Lamanite is a descendant of one Lehi who left Jerusalem six hundred years before Christ and with his family crossed the mighty deep and landed in America. And Lehi and his family became the ancestors of all of the Indian and Mestizo tribes in North and South and Central America and in the islands of the sea, for in the middle of their history there were those who left America in ships of their making and went to the islands of the sea. SWK from the link provided earlier on LDS.org

I do not know how: "a Lamanite is a descendant of one Lehi" can be mangled to mean anything else, but I have faith in your (speaking to the apologists) ability to do so.

Ditto for "the ancestors of all the Indians..." Notice the lack of any qualifying verbiage.

[_BartBurk]

This is a funny statement..... Because THIS is exactly what I've been trying to tell you guys, but then you guys call me a liar.

"Lamanite" was ALWAYS a "general" term to describe ALL Natives of the America's, Islands, etc.
It was NEVER a term used to only describe those directly descended from Laman/Lemual.

Further, contrary to the post after this, there is no contradiction between Local and Hemispheric. It all entirely depends on what you are talking about.

Lamanite as a generic term is Hemispheric..... Lehi's party and the area in which they populated was a Local event.

Again, anti-mormon ignorance of Mormonism, the Book of Mormon, and ALL of LDS leaders words is not the same as anti-mormon assumptions and claims being true and accurate of Mormonism.

No, it was used to describe people descended from the Book of Mormon characters such as Lehi and the Mulekites, not just Laman and Lemuel. And it was stated that all the Native Americans in North and South America were at least in some way descended from them though it was admitted some groups from Asia might have intermingled with them. At least that's what I was taught when I was joining the church in the early 1970s.