"Mormonism is the truth"

[_Sethbag]

Yeah, which is too bad. This Prophet, Seer, and Revelator couldn't get a "heads up" from the Lord about the mistake either, could he? Nope.

[_Mister Scratch]

Here's how it happened:

In 1841, the LDS apostles doing mission work in England published another edition of 4050 copies (the printer had shorted some of the signatures so that the order of 5000 was not filled). This edition did not sell out for some years. It was based on the 1837 edition since word of the 1840 edition reached England too late to serve as a basis for this British edition. In Nauvoo, Joseph Smith reprinted the 1840 edition in August 1842. In 1849 Orson Pratt published a new edition in England, making various changes to the text, but for some reason he did not use the 1840 edition as the basis of the text. The LDS 1852 edition published by Franklin D. Richards, used the 1849 edition making some further changes in the text and adding numbers to the paragraphs creating a primitive verse structure. British spellings were used in the editions published in England.

It's essentially Orson Pratt's use of the 1841 British edition as the source for the 1849 version that lost the 1840 changes. Here's Royal Skousen's explanation of what was done for the 1981 edition:

1981: Edited by a committee headed by members of the Quorum of the Twelve. This edition is a major reworking of the 1920 edition: The text appears again in double columns, but new introductory material, chapter summaries, and footnotes are provided. About twenty significant textual errors that had entered the printer's manuscript are corrected by reference to the original manuscript. Other corrections were made from comparison with the printer's manuscript and the 1840 Nauvoo edition.

Thus, in the 1840 edition 2 Nephi 30:6 reads that the Lamanites became “a pure and delightsome people” rather than “a white and delightsome people.” That change was lost as of the 1849 version.

Hope that helps.

Edit: Why I know this is on the level. When I worked for the church, I worked for a time on the "Translator's Edition" of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. A guy in our department was given a large-print Book of Mormon and read every edition from 1830 on, including extant portions of the OM and the PM. He marked the changes in the margins of the big book in different colored pencil. At the same time, Royal Skousen was working on his "Critical Edition" of the Book of Mormon and came and spoke to our staff for a couple of hours. The things Skousen said verified what my colleague had shown me. The 1840 edition does indeed contain the change from "white" to "pure" and other changes you would be familiar with.

I have no idea how the mistake happened. Incompetence? Ignorance? I don't know. Maybe Orson Pratt wasn't aware that the 1840 Nauvoo edition differed from the 1841 British edition.

All of this is extremely interesting, and no doubt Joseph Smith's original intent was important to a certain extent, but I cannot escape the suspicion that the 1981 change arose at least in part from political/PR savvy. This was a mere three years after the lifting of the priesthood ban, the Church was looking to alter its image vis-a-vis race, and so the changing of the text was in order. I mean, we have to face the fact that multiple editions of the Book of Mormon had appeared since Joseph Smith's changed the text from "white" to "pure," and no one, be it via scholarship or divine revelation, ever bothered to correct it during that time.

[_Runtu]

All of this is extremely interesting, and no doubt Joseph Smith's original intent was important to a certain extent, but I cannot escape the suspicion that the 1981 change arose at least in part from political/PR savvy. This was a mere three years after the lifting of the priesthood ban, the Church was looking to alter its image vis-a-vis race, and so the changing of the text was in order. I mean, we have to face the fact that multiple editions of the Book of Mormon had appeared since Joseph Smith's changed the text from "white" to "pure," and no one, be it via scholarship or divine revelation, ever bothered to correct it during that time.

Well, to be fair, the 1981 edition was the first major edition since 1920, and that one was the first major edition since the 1849 edition. I don't know that it's fruitful to speculate about motives, but I would imagine that the folks on the revision committee were not unhappy to make the change from "white" to "pure."

[_Roger Morrison]

Runtu, thanks for tha additional information. You said:

Well, to be fair, the 1981 edition was the first major edition since 1920, and that one was the first major edition since the 1849 edition. I don't know that it's fruitful to speculate about motives, but I would imagine that the folks on the revision committee were not unhappy to make the change from "white" to "pure."

Yeah, me thinks yer right... Interesting that "...the most perfect book..." required so many editions/alterations to remove so many imperfections... Curious, how many clean-ups to the KJV has there been since its presentaion:

"To the most High and Mighty Prince JAMES, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith..." found on the front page.

This 'book' dates back to the 1600's, not to 1830... ANYWAY.. it does show LDSism to be what it is, not what it professes to be... Warm regards, Roger

[_Mercury]

by the way, I've been told by several different Australians that Fosters is strictly an export product - nobody drinks that in Australia. They all laughed at the notion, saying it's funny Americans all think the Aussies drink Fosters, when they actually don't.

that's part of the joke. I used to raz ray when he was on his meds about drinking Fosters. It was an in-joke I thought was clever.

[_Mercury]

I am curious about one thing Ray said though. I have noticed that very, very few people read the Book of Mormon again after leaving the LDS faith. This was my experience when dealing with inactives and critics. Have any of those here who have left the LDS Church read the whole book again after leaving? I've personally never found anyone who did.

Infymus, I have a replica of the 1830 Book of Mormon and have read it several times. I haven't found any substantive changes that would justify calling the current version 'sanitized'.

The racial scrubbing is pretty obvious dude.