A clear as mud answer from the Mormon Church in 1975:

http://lds.org/ensign/1975/12/who-and-where-are-the-lamanites?lang=eng

> [Lamanites] are whomever and wherever you need them to be in order to keep following the brethren.

A more succinct statement on LDS, Inc.'s real stance on Lamanites I have yet to see.

+1. Right on the mark.

They must have considered the problems that BH Roberts expressed in his writings about the BofM. That article was a nice little bit of dancing around what Joseph Smith stated about the lamanites, including Zelph.

Any organization that contends against the church could be considered lamanites? I quote from the article:

Thereafter the name Lamanite referred to a religious/political faction whose distinguishing feature was its opposition to the church. (See Jacob 1:13–14.) Lineage became an increasingly minor factor, and later there are many examples of Lamanites becoming Nephites and Nephites becoming Lamanites.

So DNA can be discounted in proving anything in the BofM. Wow. Even as far back as 1975 the church was aware of the problems with the BofM authenticity.

Now the question is, does the skin of unbelievers still turn from white and delightsome to something else? Dum dum dum dum dum

Are we sure this article hasn't been subjected to some Orwellian history revision? In the 70's, I recall it being pretty clear who the Lamanites were. We had "Lamanite Wards" fer feck's sake.

With everything going electronic, it's increasingly more easy to rewrite history. Anyone have an actual copy of the original magazine on hand?

This take on the Lamanites was not so strange in 1975. I remember a display in the religion building at BYU in 1972 which said basically the same thing about the Book of Mormon not denying there might have been other peoples in the Americas before, during and after Book of Mormon times. There was enough information back then even before mtDNA studies to put into question the traditional belief about the Lamanites.

The "others" they speculated were Irish, Welsh, Vikings, Phonecians, etc, and possibly ancient space travelers.

The things you mention about "others" were in regards to crazy ocean crossing theories, bat creek stones, Newark holy stones, etc.

DNA shows the truth. Lets not give the LDS even a ledge to stand on. They were further from the truth in the 70s because of the crazy ideas that Beck is trying to bring back now.

Boilermaker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There was enough information back then
> even before mtDNA studies to put into question the
> traditional belief about the Lamanites.


Yes, the linguistics, archeology and anthropology studies of Amerindians had fairly nicely shown that they descended and migrated from NE Asia. DNA evidence is just one more (solid) confirmation of the same facts. The reason DNA makes it easier to justify leaving is that it was the last corner of the shrinking limited geography.

As a young member my thinking was The Book of Mormon, a physical book, was written about a people who physically exist. It was a close to evidence as it gets (short of the fascimiles of the Book of Abraham). And if they exist and the BoM really is about them, then it is true, Jeebus did visit them and he is real. Blah-de-blah-blah.

The shattering point for me several years ago was the crossroads of DNA and the Book of Abraham dilemmas: If Joe Smith couldn't translate Regular Egyptian (as shown in his shoddy scam of the papyri) How could I ever trust that he translated something called "Reformed Egyptian"? Further, if the Lamanites don't actually exist, then the evidence the BoM is troo is out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2011 11:55AM by Jesus Smith.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2011 01:58PM by notamomo.

The year was 1984. I took my boyfriend (now husband of 24 years) to the SLC Temple Visitors Center. He is of hispanic origin but, at least at the time with his long hair, he looked very Native American. In fact, he may have some small amount of Native American blood, but nothing that would make him consider himself an "American Indian," to use an antiquated term. At the time (in 1984), he took great offense when someone referred to him as one.

Anyhow, here I am trying to convert my new boyfriend to the cult and the minute we walk into the Visitors Center, up rushes a sister missionary and makes a beeline straight to my boyfriend. Her opening pitch: "Would you like to learn more about the history of your people, the Lamanites?"

Now in this day and age, Mormons and gentiles alike knew damn well "the Lamanities" were held to be the American Indians, so this pitch did NOT go well.

Needless to say, never converted my boyfriend. Married him and left the cult instead.

So all this bullshit about what the church used to believe about the Lamanites is, simply, bullshit.

And "who is Lane Smith?" most Mos will ask when refuting his article as doctrinal.

But Spencie Kimball did a number on confusing it in 1971, in his Royal Blood talk.

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


Quote: "Now the Lamanites number about sixty million; they are in all of the states of America from Tierra del Fuego all the way up to Point Barrows, and they are in nearly all the islands of the sea from Hawaii south to southern New Zealand. "

Quote: "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."

Quote: " in Tonga, where 20 percent of all the people in the islands belong to the Church, we have three large stakes. Two of them are presided over wholly by Lamanites and the other almost wholly by them. "

Quote: "you belong to a great race."

Jesus Smith Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And "who is Lane Smith?" most Mos will ask when
> refuting his article as doctrinal.
>
> But Spencie Kimball did a number on confusing it
> in 1971, in his Royal Blood talk.
>
> http://lds.org/ensign/1971/07/of-royal-blood?lang=
> eng
>
>
> Quote: "Now the Lamanites number about sixty
> million; they are in all of the states of America
> from Tierra del Fuego all the way up to Point
> Barrows, and they are in nearly all the islands of
> the sea from Hawaii south to southern New Zealand.
> "

great find jesus smith! thanks. the words preceding that first quote you posted are also really great:
"
Not until the revelations of Joseph Smith, bringing forth the Book of Mormon, did any one know of these migrants. It was not known before, but ***now the question is fully answered***.
"

you cant get more OFFICIAL than that, spoken by a "prophet" of the church: *fully answered*!

i think the apologetic response would be to attack the word "fully"... apologists have shown that semantics can destroy *any* revelation... it is one of their biggest tools, from what i have seen... lol =)

thanks for the link!

oh ... but he was talking as a man, not a prophet. Ah, now I see.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Amerindians_as_Lamanites#Origin_of_the_American_Indians:_20th_century_views

------------QUOTE-------------
When asked about the Church’s official position on this matter by a writer, a Church spokesman said:

" As to whether these were the first inhabitants…we don't have a position on that. Our scripture does not try to account for any other people who may have lived in the New World before, during or after the days of the Jaredites and the Nephites, and we don't have any official doctrine about who the descendants of the Nephites and the Jaredites are. Many Mormons believe that American Indians are descendants of the Lamanites [a division of the Nephites], but that's not in the scripture. "


It is astonishing that critics do not realize that this puts a fairly “official” stamp of approval on this perspective—at the very least, it is hardly out of the ‘mainstream’ of Church thought to think that others besides Israelites make up modern Amerindians, and this perspective existed long before the DNA issue came to the fore.

------------END QUOTE-------------

Did you catch that:

" Many Mormons believe that American Indians are descendants of the Lamanites, but that's not in the scripture. "

That's not in the scriptures!

Problem solved. They're all make believe. It's official.

The Church Spokesman is caught in a lie. Have you noticed how they only talk about the Book of Mormon? Or if it was something Joseph Smith said, they are careful to select it from sources other than scriptures.

The problem the LDS try to hide is right in the canonized Doctrine and Covenants. The LDS claim that this book contains the words of Jesus. Here is a good one:

D&C 57
1 HEARKEN, O ye elders of my church, saith the Lord your God...

Notice that the first verse says it is "the Lord your God" speaking, not Joseph Smith. Look at verse 4:

4 Wherefore, it is wisdom that the land should be purchased by the saints, and also every tract lying westward, even unto the line running directly between Jew and Gentile...

It was talking about purchasing land in Missouri. The lands west of Missouri were Indian country. Jesus said that the western border of Missouri was the line between Jews and gentile. The mormon Jesus said that the American Indian west of Missouri were Jews.

How do the apologists get away with this? How did an LDS spokesman get away with his lie? They even deny the words of their LDS god.

It would seem that the official LDS position now is that Jesus and Joseph Smith were both mistaken.

http://lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/57
"
In contemplating the state of the Lamanites and the lack of civilization, refinement, and religion among the people generally, the Prophet exclaimed: “When will the wilderness blossom as the rose? When will Zion be built up in her glory, and where will Thy temple stand, unto which all nations shall come in the last days?”
"

This will be changed digitally in the coming years ... down the memory hole.

the Lamanites were (and still are) the american indians. Joseph Smith was extremely clear about this.

Its probably safe to say that MILLIONS of faithful LDS through the years based their TESTIMONIES of the TRUTHFULLNESS of the GOSPEL on the fact that the American Indians were the remnants of the Lamanites/Book of Mormon peoples.

As Stray Mutt so eloquently puts it, the Lamanites have now been reduced to being "whomever and wherever you need them to be in order to keep following the brethren."

Countless times through my life i've sat through meetings, local and General Conferences, where the spirit was being invoked to testify to the truth of the divinity of the mission to the Lamanite people. For the LDS church or its apologists to claim otherwise just exposes them for the lying sacks of weasel shits that they are.

That causes a lot of problems, since when he made them up there was no way to validate his claim. Today we have plenty of valid history and DNA to, for those that want real evidence, discount them all together. They are only important to the Book of Mormon God Myth. Other than that, use YOUR imagination! :-)

"
The history of the peopling of the earth is really a history of the scattering of the descendants of Noah, who is sometimes referred to as the “second father of mankind.”
"

hilarious =)

thanks boilermaker, adding that link to my already extensive list of references on this subject:
http://truthundertherazor.blogspot.com/search/label/native%20american



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2011 02:16PM by Nick Humphrey.

You're welcome -- this is evidence the Mormons have been running away from the Lamanites for at least a generation. They knew they didn't have a leg to stand on 40 years ago. Why they can't see what their cousins in Independence can clearly see is beyond me. Too much money involved I guess.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2011 12:26PM by Nick Humphrey.