SCRIPTURE CENTRAL wrote:It is easy—even natural—for modern readers of the Book of Mormon to intuitively see contemporary sensibilities regarding race and skin color in passages about a “skin of blackness” or “dark skins,” but such interpretations are misplaced when reading an ancient text.
Spencer W. Kimball was more than just a
modern reader, wouldn't you say? This prophet, seer, and revelator (and future President of the Church) according to SCRIPTURE CENTRAL misled the entire Church with his misplaced interpretations!
ELDER SPENCER W. KIMBALL Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, General Conference, April 1963 wrote:My Brothers and Sisters, and especially my friends of the radio and television audience: May I tell you of a great adventure? As I traveled to a weekend assignment, I took with me an unusual book which was my constant companion. I could lay it down only to sleep, eat, and change trains. It fascinated me, captivated me, and held me spellbound with its irresistible charm and engaging interest. I have read it many times.
As I finished it, I closed the book and sat back, absorbed as I relived its contents. Its pages held me, bound me, and my eyes were riveted to them. I knew the book was factual, but as has been said, "Truth is stranger than fiction."
I am constrained to speak to you of it today. It is a story of courage, faith, and fortitude, of perseverance, sacrifice, and super-human accomplishments, of intrigue, of revenge, of disaster, of war, murder, and rapine, of idolatry, and of cannibalism, of miracles, visions, and manifestations, of prophecies and their fulfilment.
I found in it life at its best and at its worst, in ever-changing patterns. I hardly recovered from one great crisis until another engulfed me.
Across the stage of this drama of life through the ages, marched actors in exotic, colorful costumes from the blood-painted nudity of the warrior to the lavish, ornamented pageantry of royal courts — some actors loathsome and degraded, others so near perfection that they conversed with angels and with God. There are the sowers and reapers, the artisans, the engineers, the traders, and the toilers, the rake in his debauchery, the alcoholic with his liquor, the pervert rotting in his sex, the warrior in his armor, the missionary on his knees.
This dramatic story is one of the greatest ever played by man. The noted tragedians fumble their lines. It is played "on location" with no false fronts for scenery. It is a fast-moving story of total life, of opposing ideologies, of monarchies and judgeships and mobocracies. Its scenes carry the reader across oceans and continents. It promises to tell of the "last days of God," but instead records the "last days of populous peoples" and the triumph of God. Class distinction is there with its ugliness, race prejudice with its hatefulness, multiplicity of creeds with their bitter conflicts.
Since this book, a "best seller" left its first press, it is printed in more than two dozen languages, more than a half million copies a year, and millions of copies are in libraries, public and private, and in numerous hotels and motels along with the Gideon Bible. Even the blind may read it in three thick books of Braille. Can anyone be considered to be well-read who has not perused this pretentious volume which makes such bold claims?
Its story has a vital message to all people. The gentiles will find the history of their past and the potential of their destiny; and the Jewish people, the blueprint of their future. The covenants of God to them are unfolded, as are the promises regarding Jerusalem, their ancient city, and their lands. And it is revealed how the Jews, so long persecuted, scattered and tortured since their dispersion, may come into their own. And the gentiles are warned that they must ". . . no longer hiss, nor spurn nor make game of the Jews, nor any of the remnant of the House of Israel" for the Lord will remember his covenant to them when they respond. It is the life story of the ancestors of the Indians and accounts for their dark skins.
<snip>
The book of which I speak is the keystone of true religion, the ladder by which one may get near to God by abiding its precepts. It has been named, "The most correct of any book on earth." My beloved friends, I give to you the Book of Mormon. May you read it prayerfully, study it carefully, and receive for yourselves the testimony of its divinity. This, I pray in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
So, the
dark skins possessed by modern Lamanites was inherited by the
dark skins of the ancient Lamanites.
It all comes down to GENETICS! DNA!
Isn't that right, Don? You can run but you can't hide. Or is it, you can hide but you can't run?
