Changes To Book of Mormon Chapter Summaries
In December 2010, the LDS Church made changes to the non-canonical chapter summaries and also to some of the footnotes in its online version of the Book of Mormon. In Second Nephi chapter 5, the original wording was: "Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cursed, receive a skin of blackness, and become a scourge unto the Nephites." The phrase, "skin of blackness" was removed and became: "Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cut off from the presence of the Lord, are cursed, and become a scourge unto the Nephites." The second change appears in summary of Mormon chapter 5. Formerly, it included the phrase that "the Lamanites shall be a dark, filthy, and loathsome people ..." The new version deleted the phrase "dark, loathsome, and filthy" and now reads, "... the Lamanites will be scattered, and the Spirit will cease to strive with them."
These changes are seen by some critics to be another step in the evolution of the text of the Book of Mormon to delete racist language from it. On the other hand, some believers in the Book of Mormon, such as Marvin Perkins, see these changes as better conforming the chapter headers and footnotes to the meaning of the text in light of the LDS Church's 1978 Revelation on Priesthood. In an interview, a former BYU graduate student suggested that the changes were made for "clarity, a change in emphasis and to stick closer to the scriptural language."
Read more about this topic: Lamanite
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