I know you are deeply familiar with the following racial verse in the Book of Mormon:
I trust you are familiar with the content of a recent article at SCRIPTURE CENTRAL: What Is the “Skin of Blackness” in the Book of Mormon?2 Nephi 5:21 wrote:And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.
So, I was wondering what your position on this matter is because I resumed reading your book (The Lost 116 Pages) and came upon this statement (emphasis added):SCRIPTURE CENTRAL wrote:
- For many modern readers, these and similar passages in the Book of Mormon are understandably jarring in their seemingly “racist concepts of nonwhite racial inferiority as contrasted with white racial superiority.”
- “Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse.”
- Despite this pronouncement, some scholars persist in reading the Book of Mormon through an old racial lens, albeit often with the twist that this lens actually subverts the racism of the nineteenth century.
- Likewise, the “skin of blackness” Nephi describes falling upon the Lamanites was not necessarily physical but was given in the context of some people violating the Lord’s covenant and thereby being “cut off from the presence of the Lord,” bringing upon themselves the sore cursing that Lehi had warned of previously.
- 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.
Nephi, Laman, and Lemuel were brothers having the same mother and father. Please explain your use of genetic in association with seed as it relates to the curse at hand.Don Bradley, p.172 wrote:Nephi attributed to the curse several secondary effects on the Lamanites: "because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey" (2 Ne. 5:21-24). To keep his own people from this curse, Nephi prophetically prohibits the Nephites from marrying Lamanites, claiming that the Lamanites were marked with "a skin of blackness" to discourage such intermarriage (vv. 21-23).
However, despite their genetic and geographical isolation, the Lamanites were to fulfill an important function in the Nephite covenant. If Nephi's people failed to keep God's commandments—a condition for their prospering in their land of promise—then:
[The Lamanites] shall be a scourge unto [Nephi's] seed, to stir them up in remembrance of me; and insomuch as they will not hearken unto me, and hearken unto my words, they shall scourge them even unto destruction. (2 Ne. 5:25)
This threat and promise would shape much of the rest of Nephite history.
Thank you.
Shulem