Origins: Native Americans as a Lost Tribe

[Johnnie Cake]

1 hour ago, RevTestament said:

Yeah, I know you will never be convinced because you have a preset notion and interpretation which you will not give up. It doesn't matter what I show. You won't accept Hebrew nomenclature because you wish to impose a modern interpretation upon it.

Job 30:30 My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

According to you Job turned into a black man because God cursed him and burnt his bones... or something else is going on...he is describing being outcast of God and losing favor of those in his community...kind of like the Lamanites...could it be that your ship is sinking? 

.Or maybe we should consider the way the Hebrews used the words since the BoM is supposed to be a Hebrew text which reads strangely because it is a unique mix of ancient English and Hebrew syntax, which of course every NY farm boy was able to pick up in Joseph's day. So obviously according to you the modern plain meaning of scales falling from their eyes should apply when they turn white again, and you've been missing the true Lamanites all along because you haven't looked for the Natives with scales over their eyes.

When "skin" is being used with other figurative language, the likelihood it being used figuratively goes way up...at least when one compares it to other ancient Hebrew scripture - just fyi.

I don't think that whoever wrote Job that there was any metaphor at all taking place.  Read other Bible translations other then the King James (which is not considered your best translation) and it become clear that his skin did turn black and began to flake off or peels  which one would expect with the boils and scabbing that Job allegedly endured. see 

New International Version
My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever.

English Standard Version
My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
My skin blackens and flakes off, and my bones burn with fever.

New Heart English Bible
My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.
 

Edited August 1, 2017 by Johnnie Cake

[RevTestament]

13 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

I don't think that whoever wrote Job that there was any metaphor at all taking place. 
 

the prior verse: 29 I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

Gosh I just might have to agree with you....I don't see any metaphor there about darkness... obviously his brothers were dragons.

Quote

Read other Bible translations other then the King James (which is not considered your best translation) and it become clear that his skin did turn black and began to flake off or peels  which one would expect with the boils and scabbing that Job allegedly endured. see 

New International Version
My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever.

English Standard Version
My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
My skin blackens and flakes off, and my bones burn with fever.

New Heart English Bible
My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.

Lamentations 5:10

10 Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.

I have seen people in a starved condition, and they did not turn into black people. Frostbite will do it, but otherwise no. 

The Book of Job is largely regarded as poetical. The language is very metaphorical. 

Song of Solomon 1:

5 I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

6 Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; butmine own vineyard have I not kept.

Daniel 11:35

35 And some of them of understanding shall fall, to ^atry them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.

Here again you are obviously right. Everyone including black people are going to turn white in the end. What shall we tell our black members? When can they expect their skin color to change?

[Robert F. Smith]

12 hours ago, omni said:

What's so odd is that Joseph had the best interpreter imaginable, (the power of God) yet he still chose language that would cause generations of LDS to believe that the curse was a literal darkening of the skin.

People pretty much believe what they want to believe (what they are conditioned to believe), and going along with surface impressions is normal within Bible-believing and Book of Mormon-believing circles.  Scholars tend to look a little more deeply and to read a lot more closely..

Joseph does not appear to have chosen any language, but was merely reading phrase-by-phrase as the "translation" was presented to him on the seer-stone, much as modern solid-state devices present a text on an LED screen.

12 hours ago, omni said:

That's got to make you wonder just a little what was Joseph / Holy Spirit / God /  15th century translation committee thinking?

Every one from Dr John Dee to the Three Nephites have been suggested as the actual translators from Reformed Egyptian to Early Modern English.  In the event, and given such assumptions, one ought to ask whether knowledge of the Americas was then deep enough to have engendered a pseudepigraphon about a very advanced set of peoples in the New World (Jaredites & Israelites) which actually reflects modern archeological knowledge.  Or was popular information about the Spanish conquest of Mexico and of Peru-Ecuador then broadly understood, even in general outline?

[Johnnie Cake]

6 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

the prior verse: 29 I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

Gosh I just might have to agree with you....I don't see any metaphor there about darkness... obviously his brothers were dragons.

Lamentations 5:10

10 Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.

I have seen people in a starved condition, and they did not turn into black people. Frostbite will do it, but otherwise no. 

The Book of Job is largely regarded as poetical. The language is very metaphorical. 

Song of Solomon 1:

5 I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

6 Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; butmine own vineyard have I not kept.

Daniel 11:35

35 And some of them of understanding shall fall, to ^atry them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.

Here again you are obviously right. Everyone including black people are going to turn white in the end. What shall we tell our black members? When can they expect their skin color to change?

I respect that you've come to your conclusions honestly...I just don't share them

[RevTestament]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

I respect that you've come to your conclusions honestly...I just don't share them

I respect that you respect there is a feasible alternative way to read the text.

[Darren10]

12 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

Again, Moroni was looking for someone who was a descendant of Laman the son of Lehi. He wasn't looking for a dissident <- Someone who came over from the Lamanites to join the Nephites, who was raised among the Lamanites. He wasn't looking for someone to communicate to the Lamanites. He was looking for someone who could infiltrate the Lamanites. Since they needed to be a descendant of Laman they clearly needed to look like one. His criteria would not exclude people who were not raised among Lamanites which is necessary for someone to sound like one if there was a difference.

Remember, Lamanites and Nephites are conveyed in the narrative as sharing a written and spoken language. Of course Laman was a recent arrival among the Nephites but that isn't the criteria Moroni cited. I don't get what makes this is so hard to understand. It didn't matter if the person found was born among the Nephites or a recent arrival based on the criteria that they be a descendant of Laman. This makes the question of if he had a Lamanite accent or not irrelevant to Moroni. What does matter is that he shared genes with Laman that are exclusively Lamanite and not Nephite. Language has nothing to do with that.

Descendant v. dissident. This matters.

But "descendent" does not necessitate race whereas "dissident" does necessitate one who crossed over to support the opposing side. So, by deifinition, Laman, whom Moroni / Moroni's men identified as a descendent of Laman, son of Lehi, was a a dissident from the mere fact that he left his native Lamanites to join the opposing Nephites. He was not, however, automatically of a different race than the Nephites. 

Edited August 2, 2017 by Darren10

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

I don't think that whoever wrote Job that there was any metaphor at all taking place.  Read other Bible translations other then the King James (which is not considered your best translation) and it become clear that his skin did turn black and began to flake off or peels  which one would expect with the boils and scabbing that Job allegedly endured. see 

New International Version
My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever.

English Standard Version
My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
My skin blackens and flakes off, and my bones burn with fever.

New Heart English Bible
My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.

As part of the genetic heritage of Canaan, Israelites generally had brown eyes, dark hair, and olive skin -- just as they do today.   Marc Haber, et al., “Continuity and Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History from Ancient Canaanite and Present-Day Lebanese Genome Sequences,” American Journal of Human Genetics, published online July 27, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.06.013 http://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(17)30276-8 . No "white" folk with Scandinavian complexions.  Actual skin pigmentation has always been a matter of degree, anyhow, and there never have been actual "white" or "black" skins on anyone.  People in the Bible and Book of Mormon are often portrayed metaphorically. Nothing new about that.  The problem has always been with fundamentalist christians who think that everything must be read literally -- a fundamental misunderstanding.

[Johnnie Cake]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

As part of the genetic heritage of Canaan, Israelites generally had brown eyes, dark hair, and olive skin -- just as they do today.   Marc Haber, et al., “Continuity and Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History from Ancient Canaanite and Present-Day Lebanese Genome Sequences,” American Journal of Human Genetics, published online July 27, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.06.013 http://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(17)30276-8 . No "white" folk with Scandinavian complexions.  Actual skin pigmentation has always been a matter of degree, anyhow, and there never have been actual "white" or "black" skins on anyone.  People in the Bible and Book of Mormon are often portrayed metaphorically. Nothing new about that.  The problem has always been with fundamentalist christians who think that everything must be read literally -- a fundamental misunderstanding.

Have you read the just released study on Canaanite DNA?  I found it interesting that the Canaanites weren't totally destroyed as claimed by the Bible.  Todays Lebanese can trace 80% of their DNA back to these supposedly destroyed people...sorry this is a unintentional highjack

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Have you read the just released study on Canaanite DNA?  I found it interesting that the Canaanites weren't totally destroyed as claimed by the Bible.  Todays Lebanese can trace 80% of their DNA back to these supposedly destroyed people...sorry this is a unintentional highjack

No problem.  That is the article I am citing (or its precursor), and archeologists have known for years that the claim of total destruction of the Canaanites was hyperbole typical of Holy Writ.  Only now the genetic data fortify that conclusion, even though some major Canaanite cities were in fact destroyed by the Israelites.  In any case, the Israelites, Ammonites, Moabites, and Lebanese are all Canaanites genetically.  What we have is continuity in the region, from ancient times to the present.  Thus, the Palestinians are truly the blood brothers of the Jews.

[RevTestament]

2 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Have you read the just released study on Canaanite DNA?  I found it interesting that the Canaanites weren't totally destroyed as claimed by the Bible.  Todays Lebanese can trace 80% of their DNA back to these supposedly destroyed people...sorry this is a unintentional highjack

It's hyperbole typical of the scriptures - just like the flood of the "whole earth." 

Even the Bible reveals the Canaanites were not utterly destroyed as their gods end up getting worshiped by the early Israelites: ie the many references to Baal. The real meaning is that the Canaanites were destroyed or chased out of the land occupied by Israel. Indeed the archaeological record does show a marked and massive destruction of the major cities of the area with few exceptions such as Jerusalem around the 1400s BC. Terms such as "all the earth" and the "whole face of the land" were used as references to all the areas the people went to or knew about rather than as we tend to think of these phrases as meaning the whole world.

Edited August 2, 2017 by RevTestament

[USU78]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

No problem.  That is the article I am citing (or its precursor), and archeologists have known for years that the claim of total destruction of the Canaanites was hyperbole typical of Holy Writ.  Only now the genetic data fortify that conclusion, even though some major Canaanite cities were in fact destroyed by the Israelites.  In any case, the Israelites, Ammonites, Moabites, and Lebanese are all Canaanites genetically.  What we have is continuity in the region, from ancient times to the present.  Thus, the Palestinians are truly the blood brothers of the Jews.

The Book of Judges tells a whole different story than the Book of Joshua.

[Robert F. Smith]

22 minutes ago, USU78 said:

The Book of Judges tells a whole different story than the Book of Joshua.

Yes, and we need to read the whole Bible, rather than only selected parts.

[Honorentheos]

7 hours ago, Darren10 said:

But "descendent" does not necessitate race whereas "dissident" does necessitate one who crossed over to support the opposing side. So, by deifinition, Laman, whom Moroni / Moroni's men identified as a discendent of Laman, son of Lehi, was a a dissident from the mere factvthat he left his native Lamanites to join the opposing Nephites. He was not, however, automatically of a different race than the Nephites. 

He is absolutely a different ethnicity than Nephite precisely because Moroni was looking for someone of a specific genetic origin. That being a descendent of Laman. It isn't about race. Race is make believe anyway. But it is about blood line. And it doesn't say it is about the culture they were from but what blood line they were from. This was needed to carry out a covert operation where the candidate needed to be able to infiltrate the enemy by being recognized as a Lamanite.

Tell me. What do YOU think the need for ethnic background is if not his appearance? We've established language isn't derived from ethnicity but culture. So, if Moroni needs someone of Laman's blood line, I'm curious as to what you think the "why?" is for that?

Edited August 2, 2017 by Honorentheos
spelling error

[Honorentheos]

duplicated post deleted

Edited August 2, 2017 by Honorentheos

[Johnnie Cake]

2 hours ago, RevTestament said:

It's hyperbole typical of the scriptures - just like the flood of the "whole earth." 

Even the Bible reveals the Canaanites were not utterly destroyed as their gods end up getting worshiped by the early Israelites: ie the many references to Baal. The real meaning is that the Canaanites were destroyed or chased out of the land occupied by Israel. Indeed the archaeological record does show a marked and massive destruction of the major cities of the area with few exceptions such as Jerusalem around the 1400s BC. Terms such as "all the earth" and the "whole face of the land" were used as references to all the areas the people went to or knew about rather than as we tend to think of these phrases as meaning the whole world.

Thanks this makes sense 

[Darren10]

1 hour ago, Honorentheos said:

He is absolutely a different ethnicity than Nephite precisely because Moroni was looking for someone of a specific genetic origin. That being a descendent of Laman. It isn't about race. Race is make believe anyway. But it is about blood line. And it doesn't say it is about the culture they were from but what blood line they were from. This was needed to carry out a covert operation where the candidate needed to be able to infiltrate the enemy by being recognized as a Lamanite.

Tell me. What do YOU think the need for ethnic background is if not his appearance? We've established language isn't derived from ethnicity but culture. So, if Moroni needs someone of Laman's blood line, I'm curious as to what you think the "why?" is for that?

Yes, Laman did have a different ethnicity than the Nephites but that does not necissarily mean he was of a different race than the Nephites. 

"Race is make believe anyway"

I do not know whether to laugh histarically at this comment or be shocked by it. Perhaps you can help me out. 

"We've established language isn't derived from ethnicity but culture."

My understanding is that both have an influence on language especially since ethnicity directly affects one's culture. 

"So, if Moroni needs someone of Laman's blood line, I'm curious as to what you think the "why?" is for that?"

I think Moroni needed Kaman for his language skills and cultural knowledge. It could have been race bit I read the narrative as leaning away from that being a factor. I just don't see the need to "search" for a Lamanite descendent if race truly stood out as a factor dividing the Nephites and Lamanites. 

[Honorentheos]

19 minutes ago, Darren10 said:

 

"Race is make believe anyway"

I do not know whether to laugh histarically at this comment or be shocked by it. Perhaps you can help me out.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue/

Welcome to the 2st century.

[Honorentheos]

1 hour ago, Darren10 said:

Yes, Laman did have a different ethnicity than the Nephites but that does not necissarily mean he was of a different race than the Nephites. 

...

"We've established language isn't derived from ethnicity but culture."

My understanding is that both have an influence on language especially since ethnicity directly affects one's culture. 

"So, if Moroni needs someone of Laman's blood line, I'm curious as to what you think the "why?" is for that?"

I think Moroni needed Kaman for his language skills and cultural knowledge. It could have been race bit I read the narrative as leaning away from that being a factor. I just don't see the need to "search" for a Lamanite descendent if race truly stood out as a factor dividing the Nephites and Lamanites. 

I'm going to try an example here. Let's suppose you know someone whose parents are both 2nd generation American Chinese and live in America. This person is Chinese in their heritage. Their ethnic background is Chinese. Their parents are fully bilingual because they lived in the US and spoke English out of the home but Chinese in the home. This hypothetical person you know grew up speaking English in their home.

Odds are, a person a third generation away from the original immigrant generation will not speak the language their grandparents spoke as native. They'll sound like the kind of American typical of wherever they grew up, be it the Wasatch Front, Lousiana, Californian from the Valley, Wisconson-nice...their culture is American at that point and their language is American English. Their ethnic background (Chinese) will have nothing to do with their language abilities.

Moroni looked for someone from Laman's blood line. He needed someone who could pass for a Lamanite and this apparently meant they needed to be ethnically Lamanite. That means he wasn't concerned about their language abilities. The text demands it be about appearance. It does not demand anything when it comes to language. Yes, the person he found also happened to be a recent refugee of sorts from the Lamanites but that wasn't what Moroni is described as seeking out. It's just who Laman happened to be. He NEEDED to be a descendant of Laman. That he was a dissident from the Lamanites wasn't required based on what the text has to tell us. And when it comes to the BoM, that's all we have to go off of.

Does that help?

Edited August 2, 2017 by Honorentheos

[Rajah Manchou]

On 8/1/2017 at 11:30 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

...one ought to ask whether knowledge of the Americas was then deep enough to have engendered a pseudepigraphon about a very advanced set of peoples in the New World (Jaredites & Israelites) which actually reflects modern archeological knowledge.  Or was popular information about the Spanish conquest of Mexico and of Peru-Ecuador then broadly understood, even in general outline?

Once you place the Book of Mormon translation in the 16th century a range of possibilities emerge. Up until the middle of the 16th century the New World included everything between the East Indies and the West Indies. Unidentified America was to be found both in the middle of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean on several maps and globes of that period, in the general location where the Island of Qamara was said to be.

Very little was known about the location and geography of the Americas in the 16th century, which explains why authors such as Thomas More placed their utopian new worlds somewhere in the East Indies, around where Columbus (and all Christians before him) believed Paradise and the Garden of Eden to be.

If the Book of Mormon was in fact translated in the 16th century, the narrative and geography matches what the translator(s) would have known about the New World.

Edited August 2, 2017 by Rajah Manchou

[Robert F. Smith]

11 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Once you place the Book of Mormon translation in the 16th century a range of possibilities emerge. Up until the middle of the 16th century the New World included everything between the East Indies and the West Indies. Unidentified America was to be found both in the middle of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean on several maps and globes of that period, in the general location where the Island of Qamara was said to be.

Very little was known about the location and geography of the Americas in the 16th century, which explains why authors such as Thomas More placed their utopian new worlds somewhere in the East Indies, around where Columbus (and all Christians before him) believed Paradise and the Garden of Eden to be.

If the Book of Mormon was in fact translated in the 16th century, the narrative and geography matches what the translator(s) would have known about the New World.

Yes, and that may be one of the strongest arguments for the Malaysian geographical correlation.

[Rajah Manchou]

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, and that may be one of the strongest arguments for the Malaysian geographical correlation.

A letter written to Columbus a few years after his discovery of America demonstrates the pervasive belief that Southeast Asia and the New World were one and the same:
 

Quote

"Very soon you will be by divine grace in the Sinus Magnus [Ptolemy's 'Great Gulf’], near which the glorious Thomas left his sacred body [i.e., India]."

Columbus had indeed reached islands off a Martellus-type promontory. Upon crossing or circumventing this promontory, he would, according to this scheme of things, enter Ptolemy's ‘Great Gulf' and shortly afterwards reach the land where St. Thomas died – India. Clinching this scenario is the fact that many maps started to place Maabar, the region of India traditionally associated with St. Thomas' grave, in Southeast Asia. The tomb of St. Thomas as a link between America and Asia continued into the early 16th century, when the Spanish historian Bartolome de Las Casas reported that Brazilian natives preserved the memory of the saint, and had shown Portuguese missionaries his footprint on the bank of a river. Columbus believed that he had reached Asian soil when he made his landfall on the shores of continental South America... (Source)

 

The largest island in Ptolemy's Great Gulf was known as Qamara or Qumr which was named after a Biblical group of Amorites (Mauryans from the Land of Moron according to Indian and Burmese traditions) that sailed to the island around the time of the tower in boats resembling Noah's Ark. Compare to Morian Cumr and the Jaredite land of Moron in the Book of Mormon. This is also the island where God carried the Biblical Kenite Rechabites in the 6th century BC.

If we assume a 16th century context, the Book of Mormon nails it.

Edited August 3, 2017 by Rajah Manchou