Should the Church "retire" the Pearl of Great Price?

[Hobble Creek]

What is racist about saying the seed of Cain were black? It's simply a fact being presented.

A fact?

[thesometimesaint]

bjw:

It's worse than that as ALL Scripture that we have has racist, sexist, and misstatements of fact. We should therefore "retire" All scripture.

We should become Unitarian Universalists.

[Kevin Christensen]

It is worth mentioning that 1 Enoch contains a vision (the animal apocalypse) in which various peoples are represented by white or black bulls. Kerry Shirts reported that Andre Orlov was fascinated by this particular verse in the Book of Moses read in that light. What it suggests to me that we'll get more out of our text if we contextualize it in light of the ancient world, rather than imposing modern knee-jerk prejudices and hot button approaches.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[cinepro]

Elder McConkie's Mormon Doctrine is heavily based on the standard works, including the ideas that are thought of as racist folklore and as having originated with Brigham Young, such as the "Curse of Cain."

There was nothing really "un-Mormon" about McConkie publishing these ideas in Mormon Doctrine.

That's a good point. Obviously, my other thread was based on the belief many people have that the book contains passages that aren't "doctrinal" and are erroneous. If those passages are doctrinal, then that would clarify the issue, and I would agree that the book shouldn't be taken out of print, or changed in any way. As far as I can tell, no one made that argument (until now).

LDS Missionaries were using the same passages of scripture from the Pearl of Great Price that Elder McConkie quoted in Mormon Doctrine in the "Lineage Lesson" that they taught in missions with large black populations like Brazil and Puerto Rico:

Yes, but the "lineage lessons" were retired. They serve only as a historical artifact from a bygone era. If the Church still made them available in any way, I would have also started a thread entitled "Should the Church retire the Lineage Lessons?"

As for the passages in the PoGP, they are canon, so the Church can really only continue doing what it currently does: pretend they don't exist, and when they are discussed, pretend they say something else.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

A fact?

Contribute much? All of your posts have been one liners. Why don't you try to actually engage in the conversation?

[docrick]

How do you retire scripture? The pearl of great price contains precious truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. "Retiring" it is akin to retiring the Savior Himself.

I love the scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants that says, "I the Lord have said what I have said and I excuse not myself, though the heavens and the earth pass away my word shall not pass away......"

We make no apologies if the current whim and philosophy of men doesn't like the pearl of great price.

[LifeOnaPlate]

"Retire" the Pearl of Great Price? No. More specific clarifications from official capacities? Yes.

[Jeff K.]

Such scripture is only retired when no longer needed. Since I haven't seen the world embrace righteousness or the Lord, I fail to see how it is no longer needed, which negates retirement.

[cinepro]

How do you retire scripture?

You remove if from the canon. As happened to the Lectures on Faith.

[Jeff K.]

The Pearl of Great Price was received as revelation was it not?

[cinepro]

The Pearl of Great Price was received as revelation was it not?

Revelation can be changed and improved, can it not?

[Jeff K.]

One supposes it can be added upon. But I do not know if revelation has ever been "retired".

[ERayR]

In case you guys haven't noticed, this thread happens to bear a resemblance to cinepro's thread about retiring McConkie's book Mormon Doctrine, and I'm being facetious in suggesting this in order to make a point. My point is that if we're proposing to get rid of all the racist ideas, we might want to get rid of a few passages of scripture as well.

Which reminds me -- if we're going to retire the Pearl of Great Price, including the Book of Moses, then we may as well retire the rest of the JST too:

For a while there you had me worried.

[Nevo]

As for the passages in the PoGP, they are canon, so the Church can really only continue doing what it currently does: pretend they don't exist, and when they are discussed, pretend they say something else.

I don't think the Church has to "pretend they say something else." The verses don't obviously to refer to black Africans. Moses 7:22 says "the seed of Cain were black." The meaning of this statement isn't self-evident. It requires interpretation.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls the "Sons of Light" are arrayed against the "Sons of Darkness," the people of God against a benighted, dark Other. We see something similar in the Book of Mormon, where the the light/dark contrast describes cultural difference as much as anything else. As Nibley puts it, "dark skin is mentioned as the mark of a general a way of life; it is a Gypsy or Bedouin type of darkness."

A modern example of this sort of cultural "color-coding" comes from Benjamin Franklin: "...in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians, and Swedes are generally of what we call a swarthy complexion; as are Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who, with the English, make the principal body of white people on the face of the earth. I could wish their numbers were increased."

He further complained that Pennsylvania was becoming "a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us, instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our language or customs any more than they can acquire our complexion" (see Benjamin Franklin, "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind and the Peopling of Countries," [1751], in The Autobiography and Other Writings of Benjamin Franklin [New York: Bantam, 1982), 226, quoted in Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998], 40).

In the context of his anxieties about encroaching poor, ill-educated foreigners, even northern Europeans were decidedly not "white" from Franklin's perspective. In his description, perceived cultural inferiors are "generally" dark and "swarthy." That this was an accurate description of their physical appearance seems unlikely.

[kamenraider]

I don't think the Church has to "pretend they say something else." The verses don't obviously to refer to black Africans. Moses 7:22 says "the seed of Cain were black." The meaning of this statement isn't self-evident. It requires interpretation.

...

If Joseph Smith had learned while translating the Bible that "the seed of Cain were black" referred to spiritual status rather than race, why did he later refer to negroes as "sons of Cain"? Ought he not to have known better?

Which understanding of "the seed of Cain were black" makes the most sense and the fewest assumptions?

[Nevo]

If Joseph Smith had learned while translating the Bible that "the seed of Cain were black" referred to spiritual status rather than race, why did he later refer to negroes as "sons of Cain"? Ought he not to have known better?

I don't think we should necessarily assume that Joseph Smith understood perfectly every revelation he received. For example, he recorded his vision of the three degrees of glory in February 1832 yet continued to preach the traditional saved-damned dichotomy for a full decade afterwards. He apparently didn't fully grasp the implications of the vision until the last months of his life, when he finally renounced traditional notions of heaven and hell. See Grant Underwood, "'Saved or Damned': Tracing a Persistent Protestantism in Early Mormon Thought," BYU Studies 25 (1985): 85â??103.

[Calm]

If Joseph Smith had learned while translating the Bible that "the seed of Cain were black" referred to spiritual status rather than race, why did he later refer to negroes as "sons of Cain"? Ought he not to have known better?

He could have assumed it meant both, the one learned through revelation, the other assumed because of tradition.

In the BoM, the final Lamanites and Nephites were actual mixtures, some Nephites by descent included in the Lamanites and the reverse true according to the description of how the latter "-ites" labels were chosen. Thus these terms can mean both actual physical descendants and those who chose 'spiritual' descent.

And from the NT: " Gal 3:28., 29 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."

Scripturally speaking "seed" can referred to physical or spiritual 'descendants'.

another example: both Cain and Lucifer are given the title "Perdition". Does anyone read the term "Sons of Perdition" as indicating only direct physical descendants of either of them (it isn't even possible in the second case).

[Eden*]

Moses 7:22 And Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; 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.

Perhaps the best thing to do is for the Brethren to tinker with the scriptures to bring them into conformity with the current Non-Racist (priesthood) policies of the Church today? Perhaps all these discrepensies could be collated and outsourced to the correlation department so they can tweak the scriptures to bring them up to date, and iron out the problems.

I don't see why not after all James E. Talmage was given permission by the Brethren to tinker with the scriptural cannon. Although today tinkering with the scriptural cannon is more problematic because it's too easy for people to find out, it's too easy and accessible for people to cross check and compare changes so that can be problematic. For example even changing one single word is problematic today because people tend to notice.

For example the recent, "The Lamanites, and they are "Among" (changed from they are the principal ancestors) the ancestors of the American Indians." When the Church brought out a commemorative Book of Commandments for nostalgic reasons they had to do a suddenly recall and withdraw it off the shelves of the Church's distribution centers, completely removing it from circulation, because too many members noticed scriptural tinkering when comparing it with D&C.

I really think the correlation department needs to alter and edit this stuff out otherwise threads and blogs like this start up on the internet pointing out the discrepancies and it's bad for Public Relations don't you guys agree?

[kamenraider]

...

I really think the correlation department needs to alter and edit this stuff out otherwise threads and blogs like this start up on the internet pointing out the discrepancies and it's bad for Public Relations don't you guys agree?

Someone forgot to run the PofGP by the correlation committee -- D'oh!!!

[Helmuth]

Calmoriah, Nevo: that really seems to be a stretch, to me. The verse seems pretty clear that blacks are descendants of Cain. To read it (and other related scriptures) any other way seems to me trying to get it to say what you want it to say, or more precisely, to not say what you don't want it to say. But, you could be right. It's a possibility.

Truly, though, what is the problem with believing negroes to be descendants of Cain/Ham? I don't see how that's "racist". Everyone's descendants of someone! We're punished for our own sins, not Adam's nor Cain's. The lineage lesson posted by Kamenraider put it very nicely. My understanding is that this is still Church doctrine -- the lineage lesson was withdrawn not because it was false, but because the occurrence it prophesied finally happened, all lineages could be ordained to the priesthood, and so the lesson was obviously obsolete.

[Calm]

Calmoriah, Nevo: that really seems to be a stretch, to me. The verse seems pretty clear that blacks are descendants of Cain. To read it (and other related scriptures) any other way seems to me trying to get it to say what you want it to say, or more precisely, to not say what you don't want it to say. But, you could be right. It's a possibility.

Truly, though, what is the problem with believing negroes to be descendants of Cain/Ham? I don't see how that's "racist". Everyone's descendants of someone! We're punished for our own sins, not Adam's nor Cain's. The lineage lesson posted by Kamenraider put it very nicely. My understanding is that this is still Church doctrine -- the lineage lesson was withdrawn not because it was false, but because the occurrence it prophesied finally happened, all lineages could be ordained to the priesthood, and so the lesson was obviously obsolete.

I have no personal issues with the concept; I am merely pointing out that the meaning is not consistent throughout scriptures.

Considering the time period involved, we are all descendants of Cain....yet we are not all black.

[why me]

Someone forgot to run the PofGP by the correlation committee -- D'oh!!!

You tried to make a point but you failed. Oh by the way, did you know that christ was a racist? He only preached to the Jews and ignored totally the gentiles. Now that is racism.

[why me]

So, do you think the Church should put the Pearl of Great Price out to pasture? I recognize there is much good in the book, but are there not better resources for modern LDS to find the "good" stuff without promoting the dissemination of racist doctrine in the process?

Lets make a deal: If you can prove without a shadow of a doubt that the books in the Pearl of Great Price are not what they are claimed to be, I will be the first one to shout it out! TIME TO PUT THE BOOK OUT TO PASTURE[/color

But you can't do it.

[Mortal Man]

So, do you think the Church should put the Pearl of Great Price out to pasture?

Why would you want to get rid of something that has sparked so much interesting research and debate? We need more of this stuff not less. I can't wait for the day when President Monson translates some ancient Sumerian cuneiform tablets and gives us the Book of Adam.

[LifeOnaPlate]

I don't think we should necessarily assume that Joseph Smith understood perfectly every revelation he received. For example, he recorded his vision of the three degrees of glory in February 1832 yet continued to preach the traditional saved-damned dichotomy for a full decade afterwards. He apparently didn't fully grasp the implications of the vision until the last months of his life, when he finally renounced traditional notions of heaven and hell. See Grant Underwood, "'Saved or Damned': Tracing a Persistent Protestantism in Early Mormon Thought," BYU Studies 25 (1985): 85â??103.

I think, while JS's understanding did adapt, and rather significantly from the time section 76 was received, we'd also need to account for JS being circumspect in not causing folks to "fly to pieces like glass" by preaching too contrary to their traditions. By his last year he seems to have thrown caution to the wind, though. Interesting paper, it goes along with recent projects I've been working on.

I really think the correlation department needs to alter and edit this stuff out otherwise threads and blogs like this start up on the internet pointing out the discrepancies and it's bad for Public Relations don't you guys agree?

Not really, no.

But you can't do it.

Nibley would have had a cow!