Brigham Young 2nd President, LDS

Declared "The only men who become Gods…, are those

who enter into polygamy"

(Journal of Discourses, Vol. 11, p. 269, August 19, 1866).

June 1978 Declaration-2As we have witnessed the expansion of the work of the Lord over the earth… This, in turn, has inspired us with a desire to extend to every worthy member of the Church all of the privileges and blessings which the gospel affords.

Spenser W. Kimball 1978

…we have pleaded long and earnestly in behalf of these, our faithful brethren, spending many hours in the upper room of the Temple supplicating the Lord for divine guidance.

June 1978 Declaration-2

Spenser W. Kimball 1978

The vote to sustain the foregoing motion was unanimous in the affirmative.

Salt Lake City, Utah, September 30, 1978

June 1978 Declaration-2

Spenser W. Kimball 1978

He [God] has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come…

Salt Lake City, Utah, September 30, 1978Spenser W. Kimball 1978

June 1978 Declaration-2

u

“The Juvenile Instructor”

p.157

LDS Magazine

• Not folklore• Not spurious• Doctrinal• Church Endorsed

Teaching

LDS Magazine

The pure Negro… is generally regarded as the unmixed descendant of Ham. Our engraving of a Negro is of this type.

The Negro Curse of Cain

LDS Juvenile Instructor, October 15, 1868, p. 157)

The Negro Curse of Cain Pure Negroes, …Their skin is quite black, their hair woolly and black, their intelligence stunted, and they appear never to have arisen from the most savage state of barbarism

LDS Juvenile Instructor, October 15, 1868, p. 157)

The Bible:

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD

looks at the heart.”

1 Samuel 16:7

Heart of the Problem is ‘The Book of Abraham’

In The Pearl of Great Price’

1. Considered Scripture by the LDS Faith

2. Basis for most Racist views in the LDS past

A. In 1835 Joseph Smith purchased a collection of mummies and papyri from Michael Chandler, who was traveling through Ohio.

B. One Scroll of Egyptian papyri ‘translated’ into The Book of Abraham; now in Pearl of Great Price

B. Published in 1842, in LDS the church-owned ‘Times and Seasons.’

The Genesis of the ‘Book of Abraham’

Dr. James R Clark, of Brigham Young University, noted: “we know approximately how much material was translated from each character.“Pearl of Great Price Conference, Dec. 10, 1960, 1964 ed., pp. 60-61

In one Case Joseph Smith derived 177 English words out of the word "Khons" - the name of an Egyptian moon god! http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/fallofbookabraham.htm

Translation or Interpretation?

In the Church there was a restriction on the priesthood for male members of African descent. It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the Church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago.

BYU Professor Randy Bott

Washington Post piece by Jason Horowitz. Feb. 29, 2012

“God has always been

discriminatory.”

in a Washington Post piece by Jason Horowitz. Feb. 29, 2012

BYU Professor Randy Bott

Racist Book of AbrahamIn 1961 when a reporter asked LDS President David O. McKay about the basis for the policy of restricting blacks from priesthood, he replied that “it rested solely on the Book of Abraham. That is the only reason… It is founded on that.’”

("David O. McKay and Blacks," by Gregory A. Prince, Dialogue, Spring 2002, p. 146).

Professional Egyptologists

To these the Alphabet and Grammar was submitted for examination … One of them, I. E. Edwards said the whole work was "largely a piece of imagination and lacking in any kind of scientific value."

Regarding the Book of Abraham

(Charles M. Larson By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus, pages 42-43)

What did Joseph Smith teach

regarding the Negro Curse?

ObservationsBook of Abraham

LDS Church Founder Joseph Smith Jr.

In 1836 Joseph Smith stated: “…I can say, the curse is not yet taken off from the sons of Canaan, neither will be until it is affected by as great a power as caused it to come…” (History of the Church, vol. 2, p. 438).

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LDS Church Founder Joseph Smith Jr.

“… from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land.

(Pearl of Great Price, Book of Abraham, 1:21-27).

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Regarding Ham:“…Noah, his father…cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.(Pearl of Great Price, Book of Abraham, 1:21-27).

LDS Church Founder Joseph Smith Jr.

Regarding Joseph Smith, LDS Church Founder

President Young declares that Joseph Smith was a pure Ephraimite. This is true…Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., Doctrines of Salvation, Vol.3, p.253 - p.254

10th LDS President

• Ephraim is ½ African (Genesis 41:50)

• If Africans are cursed, then what about Joseph Smith?

Joseph Smith, A pure Ephraimite?

Mormon Apostle: Mark E. Peterson

Said that "If there is one drop of Negro blood in my children, as I have read to you, they receive the curse.“ (Race Problems—As They Affect The Church, page 7)

• An Ephraimite has a gallon

A. Is a Bogus Book B.Is a Racist BookC.Is a Not Scripture

Remarks on Book of Abraham

Primary source for the Book of Abraham (in PGP)

• Sentenced millions to a curse; • Abuse, discrimination, and degradation• Modern archeology has shed light on

this document as being misrepresented• As such, the LDS Faith should reject it.

Conclusive DNA Evidence

Resulted in a Change in the introduction of the book of Mormon

Each president of the LDS Church is ordained as a

“Prophet, Seer and Revelator."

Salamander Letters etc.

Mark W. HofmannFORG

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Mark W. Hofmann with Church Leaders

President = “Prophet, Seer and Revelator."

Joseph Smith Papyri isreally in the same category

Remedial Suggestions

1. Church to distance itself from book of Abraham

2. Admit that new Archeology has shed light on the papyri

3. Move to expunge the ‘book of Abraham’ from the LDS Scriptures

Break

The Lemba of Southern Africa• These are Found in

– South Africa and– Zimbabwe– Mozambique– Malawi

• A significant number of Lemba men carry a particular haplotype of the Y-chromosome known as the Cohen modal haplotype (CMH), as well as, a haplogrup of Y-DNA Haplogroup J found amongst some Jews… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemba_people

2nd MORMON Church President

Brigham Young

You can see men and women who are sixty or seventy years of age looking young and handsome; but let them apostatize, and they will become gray-haired, wrinkled, and black, just like the Devil (Journal of Discourses, Brigham Young, October 7, 1857, vol. 5, p. 332).

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President Brigham Young

Let my seed mingle with the seed of Cain, that brings the curse upon me, and upon my generations, -- we will reap the same rewards with Cain. (Juvenile Instructor, October 15, 1868

Prophet, Seer and revelator

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A black skin is a mark of the curse of Heaven placed upon some portions of mankind. . . . …When God made man in his own image and pronounced him very good, that he made him white. We have no record of any of God's favored servants being of a black race. . . .

LDS magazine Juvenile Instructor ran a series of articles on race from October 1868.

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Speach by Gov. Young in Joint Session of the Legeslature. Feby. 5th 1852 giving his veiws on slavery.

Where the children of God to mingle there seed with the seed of Cain it would not only bring the curse of being deprived of the power of the priesthood upon themselves but they entail it upon their children after them, and they cannot get rid of it.

President Brigham YoungN

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Speech by Gov. Young in Joint Session of the Legislature. Feb. 5th 1852 giving his views on slavery.

It is a great blessing to the seed of Adam to have the seed of Cain for servants,

President Brigham YoungN

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Regarding Negroes… this delegation of authority from the Almighty. (Abra.1:20-27.) The gospel message of salvation is not carried affirmatively to them… negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are

In His Book: Mormon Doctrine

concerned… It is the Lord's doing, is based an his eternal laws of justice, and grows out of the lack of Spiritual valiance of those concerned in their first estate. (LDS Apostle; Bruce R. McConkie ; Mormon Doctrine, 1966, pp. 527-528)

LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie

Cain, Ham, and the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry.

(Mormon Doctrine, 1966, p. 114)

LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie

The Bible:Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the

Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an

Ethiopian woman. (NKJV)

Numbers 12:1

Break

Racism in the Book of Mormon

". . . 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.” (2 Nephi 5:21)

Racism in the Book of Mormon

Behold the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins . . .(Book of Mormon, Jacob 3:5).

O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought before the throne of God (Book of Mormon, Jacob 3:8).

• Returned Missionary• Committed serious

Crime• Crime knows no

complexion

Racism in the Book of Mormon“…for this people shall be scattered, and shall become a dark, a filthy, and a loathsome people, beyond the description of that which ever hath been amongst us, yea, even that which hath been among the Lamanites, and this because of their unbelief and idolatry (Book of Mormon, Mormon 5:15).

You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation; …When the Lord has a people… then, if they transgress his law… he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people (Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p. 336).

President Brigham Young

Let the Mormon Scriptures Inform

Book of Moses (Pearl of Great Price)“…there was a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were despised among all people …” (Moses 7:8)

"And . . . they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain were black, and had not place among them (Moses 7:22)."

Book of Abraham (Pearl of Great Price)". . . from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land (Abraham 1:24).”

"Now the first government of Egypt was established by Pharaoh, the eldest son of Egyptus, the daughter of Ham, . . . Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, . . . but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood. (Abraham 1:26-27).”

Let the Mormon Scriptures Inform