Cursing and colouring


askandanswer
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I get the impression from reading Genesis 4:11 and 15 and 2nd Nephi 5:21 that in the cases of both Cain and of the Lamanites, the cursing God gave them was a related but separate event from the changing of their skin colour. In both cases, the skin colouring seems to be intended as a marker, or identifier, in Cain’s case to serve as a warning to people not to kill him or his seed and in the case of the Lamanites, their skin colour was to serve as a warning to the Nephites not to associate with them. There seems to be no prima facie reason to suppose that the cursing was the changing of their skin colour.

Does this sound like a reasonable or correct conclusion?  

Genesis 4:

11 And now art thou acursed from the bearth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;

One event ^^

12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a afugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

13 And Cain said unto the LordaMy punishment is greater than I can bear.

14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall aslay me.

15 And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.

And the Lord set a amark upon Cain, 

Second event^^

lest any finding him should kill him (Reason)

 

 

2nd Nephi 5:21 And he had caused the acursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity.

One event^^

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 bdelightsome, that they might not be centicing unto my people (Reason)

the Lord God did cause a dskin of eblackness to come upon them.

Second event ^^

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6 hours ago, askandanswer said:

I get the impression from reading Genesis 4:11 and 15 and 2nd Nephi 5:21 that in the cases of both Cain and of the Lamanites, the cursing God gave them was a related but separate event from the changing of their skin colour. In both cases, the skin colouring seems to be intended as a marker, or identifier, in Cain’s case to serve as a warning to people not to kill him or his seed and in the case of the Lamanites, their skin colour was to serve as a warning to the Nephites not to associate with them. There seems to be no prima facie reason to suppose that the cursing was the changing of their skin colour.

Does this sound like a reasonable or correct conclusion?  

Yes. In fact, I would argue that any interpretation that ties skin color to these curses is just plain wrong. 

The curse, as I understand it, is a spiritual isolation from God. Perhaps most importantly, a lack of access to the priesthood authority that would permit one to make covenants. 

Personally, there are certain things in the scriptures I take with a grain of salt. Despite being scripture, they were still written by men and even those who wrote the Book of Mormon acknowledge it has flaws. For that matter, Joseph Smith says of the Book of Mormon that it is "the most correct of any book on earth." Not that it is perfect. I'll refer you to an earlier post of mine where I make an argument that racism was a thing among the Book of Mormon peoples and even the authors. Skin color being a willful and acute act of God is one of those things I am deeply skeptical of. I suspect such statements are retrofitted to explain skin color more than anything else.

 

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Yes, IIRC LDS apologists have typically been careful to distinguish “the curse” (spiritual) from “the sign of the curse” (physical).  I’m inclined to think that the visible differences probably arose over generations as a result of the Lamanites being less devoted to Mosaic law and therefore more willing to intermarry with other indigenous peoples.

I’m frankly not sure what to make of Cain at this point.  I believe that a number of Biblical scholars/commentators are now interpreting Cain’s mark as an act of divine mercy.  I rather suspect that that particular story is the result of a few kernels of known history and an awful lot of now-forgotten/unknown history, mixed with at least some allegory; and I’m not entirely sure where I’m comfortable drawing the line. 

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12 hours ago, askandanswer said:

I get the impression from reading Genesis 4:11 and 15 and 2nd Nephi 5:21 that in the cases of both Cain and of the Lamanites, the cursing God gave them was a related but separate event from the changing of their skin colour. In both cases, the skin colouring seems to be intended as a marker, or identifier, in Cain’s case to serve as a warning to people not to kill him or his seed and in the case of the Lamanites, their skin colour was to serve as a warning to the Nephites not to associate with them. There seems to be no prima facie reason to suppose that the cursing was the changing of their skin colour.

Does this sound like a reasonable or correct conclusion?  

Genesis 4:

11 And now art thou acursed from the bearth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;

One event ^^

12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a afugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

13 And Cain said unto the LordaMy punishment is greater than I can bear.

14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall aslay me.

15 And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.

And the Lord set a amark upon Cain, 

Second event^^

lest any finding him should kill him (Reason)

 

 

2nd Nephi 5:21 And he had caused the acursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity.

One event^^

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 bdelightsome, that they might not be centicing unto my people (Reason)

the Lord God did cause a dskin of eblackness to come upon them.

Second event ^^

I dunno. Seems like you have to contend with Alma 3:6 in this sort of interpretation.

"And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men."

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24 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I dunno. Seems like you have to contend with Alma 3:6 in this sort of interpretation.

"And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men."

I think that part of the explanation might be related to the fact that Alma 3:6 was written about 500 years after the events described in 2nd Nephi 5, which were written at a time and by a person much closer to when the cursing and change occured. Another part of the explanation might be the racism that @MarginOfErrorreferred to. If I was American, I'd tend to favor MoE's line of arguement, but being Australian I tend to favour it.  

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2 hours ago, mikbone said:

Just to be clear, my shoe-size is 9 1/2 and there is very little hair on my feet. 

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5 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Yes, IIRC LDS apologists have typically been careful to distinguish “the curse” (spiritual) from “the sign of the curse” (physical).  I’m inclined to think that the visible differences probably arose over generations as a result of the Lamanites being less devoted to Mosaic law and therefore more willing to intermarry with other indigenous peoples.

I’m frankly not sure what to make of Cain at this point.  I believe that a number of Biblical scholars/commentators are now interpreting Cain’s mark as an act of divine mercy.  I rather suspect that that particular story is the result of a few kernels of known history and an awful lot of now-forgotten/unknown history, mixed with at least some allegory; and I’m not entirely sure where I’m comfortable drawing the line. 

Although the wording is not precise, 3rd Nephi 2: 13 - 17 gives the impression that this change in colouring could happen within a year rather than over generations. However, given that there was a higher than usual rate of intermingling between the Lamanites and Nephits at that time, this rapid change could be a result of intermarriage as you have suggested. On the other hand, 3 Nephi 2:16 states that the change happened to their young men and their daughters, and not to their young children and babies. 

Edited by askandanswer
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6 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

Another part of the explanation might be the racism that @MarginOfErrorreferred to.

I have two problems with the "racism" mantra:

1. What does "racism" mean?

In almost all cases I can recall, when most Latter-day Saints discussing the black/Cain thing or the 1978 Priesthood revelation use the term "racism", they mean "politically incorrect stuff that used to be commonly taught but that today sounds bad and embarrasses me". You know, things like "African black people are the descendants of Cain who carry his mark in their skin color" or "African blacks are those who were not sufficiently valiant premortally". In other words, it's not racism per se that they object to (because if it were, they would be spending their time talking about violence against Asians, a much more common racially motivated occurrence today than violence against so-called African Americans). Rather, it's the perception of racism they're concerned about--especially the perception of the woke.

If this is what they mean by "racism", then I and many like me don't care about such racism. In fact, the howls of the woke are as likely to be a response to something good as to something bad.

This same attitude appears to bleed over into discussions on the Book of Mormon. As TFP demonstrated, it's simply not tenable to pretend that the Book of Mormon never equated skin color to a curse. We may suppose that this was just a shorthand, where "curse" and "mark of the curse" were conflated. We may even suppose that poor Mormon was just confused and didn't understand such issues within his own society as well as we do, 2000 years later and with no personal knowledge of that culture. Or we may suppose that, whatever the "mark" and "curse" were anciently, we today understand the "curse" as a self-inflicted turning away from God, and do not view racial characteristics as demonstrations of being cursed.

In short, talking about "racism" when dealing with Church doctrine or scriptural accounts is the wrong way to approach the topic. This is not a matter of racism. It's a matter of understanding the scriptures and what they're trying to teach us. All the nonsense about "racism" in this context simply obscures the real and important issues.

2. Truth always trumps "racism" (existent or not). Is God "racist"? I mean, he created people black, white, and lots of other shades. The racist! How DARE he?! I mean, if you really want to argue that God is a racist, that's fine. But what that actually means is that there is nothing wrong with being a racist. Arguably, it's a compliment. Is that really what you want?

Racism-based arguments are peculiar to our generation. Such arguments will be viewed with confusion and, probably, distaste by our descendants. Everyone today is so utterly terrified by being called nasty names like "racist" that they instinctively flock to support any condemnation whatsoever of supposedly racist behavior. This is Goodthink, which is to say, Antithink. We should be courageous enough to identify and shun such Goodthink, even at the cost of people's sneers and name-calling. It's part of the calling of a Saint.

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1 hour ago, askandanswer said:

I think that part of the explanation might be related to the fact that Alma 3:6 was written about 500 years after the events described in 2nd Nephi 5, which were written at a time and by a person much closer to when the cursing and change occured. Another part of the explanation might be the racism that @MarginOfErrorreferred to. If I was American, I'd tend to favor MoE's line of arguement, but being Australian I tend to favour it.  

I'm not a fan of retconning plain scripture to try and fit modern biases.

The Nephites didn't, apparently, find dark skin as appealing. Do we really need to equate that to the American slave trade, Jim Crow, and lynchings?

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1 minute ago, The Folk Prophet said:
1 hour ago, askandanswer said:

I'm not a fan of retconning plain scripture to try and fit modern biases.

What do you think about the essays the church released on race? From what I read and understood the church itself seems to blame Brigham Young for a lot of the teachings on race. I might be misreading

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Just now, LDSGator said:

What do you think about the essays the church released on race? From what I read and understood the church itself seems to blame Brigham Young for a lot of the teachings on race. I might be misreading

Well, I certainly don't believe the church has disavowed part of the Book of Mormon. ;)

My take on the essays... Well, they're not canon. That's not to say I believe they're wrong. I just tend to let sleeping dogs lie on a lot of those matters. I certainly think it would be particularly unwise to reject the essays and preach the things they've proclaimed as disavowed as if they're true doctrine.

One thing I have presumed is that to "disavow" something is not, necessarily, to declare it wrong. It means to no longer support or to disassociate from. We don't support those old statements as true, or associate them with doctrine. That doesn't mean they were wrong though. I'm not arguing any old teachings were right, mind you. I feel like the take away is "we don't know", and that should be our general attitude on it. We don't know.

So, no, I don't think Brigham Young has been blamed for false teachings. The implication seems more that we don't understand it all, and it's not important that we do. So let it go.

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1 minute ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Well, I certainly don't believe the church has disavowed part of the Book of Mormon. ;)

My take on the essays... Well, they're not canon. That's not to say I believe they're wrong. I just tend to let sleeping dogs lie on a lot of those matters. I certainly think it would be particularly unwise to reject the essays and preach the things they've proclaimed as disavowed as if they're true doctrine.

One thing I have presumed is that to "disavow" something is not, necessarily, to declare it wrong. It means to no longer support or to disassociate from. We don't support those old statements as true, or associate them with doctrine. That doesn't mean they were wrong though. I'm not arguing any old teachings were right, mind you. I feel like the take away is "we don't know", and that should be our general attitude on it. We don't know.

So, no, I don't think Brigham Young has been blamed for false teachings. The implication seems more that we don't understand it all, and it's not important that we do. So let it go.

Very fascinating. Thanks. 

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2 Nephi 5:24 And 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.

The true cursing, as it always is, is the loss of the light of Christ in a person's life. The resulting effect is the natural man having full power over the individual.

21 ...that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

   22 And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities.

   23 And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done.

The cursing of the skin is secondary from the Lamanite perspective but is really intended primarily for the benefit of the Nephites. 

 

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4 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I dunno. Seems like you have to contend with Alma 3:6 in this sort of interpretation.

"And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men."

For the sake of discussion, “mark” can be used as a synonym for “curse.” This is especially so for ancient religions where marks were used to cast as well as signify spells, hexes and curses. The same for blessings; for example: “Behold, I have graven [marked] thee upon the palms of my hands…” Likewise, “according” does not mean “caused by” or “the same”, but rather “corresponding.” So, we have: “And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, [corresponding, answering] to the [curse] which was set upon their fathers…” This allows the event of coloring the skin to follow, or answer, the event of the mark or the curse God pronounces, which follows rebellion, as occurred in Alma 3:18: “Now the Amlicites knew not that they were fulfilling the words of God when they began to mark themselves in their foreheads [third event]; nevertheless they had come out in open rebellion against God [first event]; therefore it was expedient that the curse should fall upon them [second event].

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3 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Well, I certainly don't believe the church has disavowed part of the Book of Mormon. ;)

My take on the essays... Well, they're not canon. That's not to say I believe they're wrong. I just tend to let sleeping dogs lie on a lot of those matters. I certainly think it would be particularly unwise to reject the essays and preach the things they've proclaimed as disavowed as if they're true doctrine.

One thing I have presumed is that to "disavow" something is not, necessarily, to declare it wrong. It means to no longer support or to disassociate from. We don't support those old statements as true, or associate them with doctrine. That doesn't mean they were wrong though. I'm not arguing any old teachings were right, mind you. I feel like the take away is "we don't know", and that should be our general attitude on it. We don't know.

So, no, I don't think Brigham Young has been blamed for false teachings. The implication seems more that we don't understand it all, and it's not important that we do. So let it go.

I would add that the essay that seems to get cited most is very careful not only in what it says, but in what it does not say.  Yes, it situates some old LDS teachings on race in the context of what other Americans of the era said and believed; but:

— It does not say that the priesthood ban was contrary to God’s instructions to then-church leaders.

—It disavows the old explanations for the ban as they apply to black people today.  I happen to think Young’s hypothesizing about Cain’s literal descendants being denied priesthood until Abel could have priesthood-bearing seed, may have something to it (Mormonism is too rife with the idea of patrilineal inheritances and benefits, to completely dismiss out-of-hand that patrilineal liabilities and disadvantages may also be A Thing).  The fact that a group of people now are relieved of a patrilineal liability, doesn’t mean that that group’s ancestors a hundred years ago were immune to it.  But I think it does little good to dwell on the topic, especially because hysteria about “racism”* ultimately crops up and sucks all the air out of the room, foreclosing any further discussion.


 

 

*But in a bit of irony—a case was recently argued before the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which (among other things) lets Indian tribes sweep into a state foster care case to stop an adoption by non-Indian family even if the tribal authorities had previously disavowed/ ignored/ abandoned the child and even if the child has been fostered by the non-Indian family for years, bonded with the foster parents and siblings, etc.  One of the justifications that the law’s proponents offered to the Supreme Court was that ICWA isn’t really racist because the test of whether ICWA applies to a particular child is based on the child‘s lineage [as a descendant of citizens of a [semi-]sovereign nation], not the child’s race.

 

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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7 hours ago, LDSGator said:

What do you think about the essays the church released on race? From what I read and understood the church itself seems to blame Brigham Young for a lot of the teachings on race. I might be misreading

I believe you are misreading. I have never seen anything published by the Church that suggests that Brigham Young was a racist and that BY's racism led to the so-called Priesthood ban. The closest I can think of is the obvious admission that Brigham Young, like Joseph Smith, Peter, Moses, Adam, and LDSGator, was a man of his times.

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4 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

It disavows the old explanations for the ban as they apply to black people today.

Please note that the Church explicitly did not categorize such teachings as false. It simply disavowed them, stating that they were not a part of the Church's teachings.

dis·a·vow
/ˌdisəˈvou/
verb
 
  1. deny any responsibility or support for.

The Restored Church of Jesus Christ is not responsible for or supportive of the teaching that [insert favorite theory here] is the reason for the Priesthood ban; rather, they proclaim that the reason has not been publicly revealed. This is a far cry from decrying said reason as "It's wrong! It's false!", and very far indeed from proclaiming "Brigham Young was a filthy racist who hated black people, which is why he and not God instituted the ban." (Or, equally distasteful and far more theologically awkward, "God let racism rule because he felt sorry for the Saints that couldn't bear such a burden due to their racism."*) I am dismayed that so many who claim the title of Saint would add their voices to such evil speaking of the Lord's anointed.

*This one really cracks me up. The Saints (most of whom were anti-slavery and a few of who were abolitionists) had been treated like dog excrement; had been raped and beaten, had watched their children and other loved ones murdered; had embraced a practice of a type of polygamy that most found extremely repugnant and that threatened their very families; and had finally literally fled their country and crossed a continent to regroup in a lightly populated high desert beside a stinking dead sea in order to build their Zion there. That God himself had decided that such people were simply way too racist to be able to accept African blacks as fellow Saints and enjoy full fellowship with them strikes me as laughably absurd.

Edited by Vort
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24 minutes ago, Vort said:

I believe you are misreading. I have never seen anything published by the Church that suggests that Brigham Young was a racist and that BY's racism led to the so-called Priesthood ban. The closest I can think of is the obvious admission that Brigham Young, like Joseph Smith, Peter, Moses, Adam, and LDSGator, was a man of his times.

Totally fair. 

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