The beginning of the priesthood/temple ban

[CA Steve]

16 minutes ago, cinepro said:

You may be feeling some frustration, because we're not buying what you're selling.  Because you're making a distinction without a difference.

You are trying to pretend that since skin color wasn't the root cause of the ban, it therefore isn't part of the discussion.  But even if "lineage" or "race" were the root causes, once you inexorably link "lineage" and "race" to "skin color", then it's all the same thing.

Suppose I own "Cinepro's Deli and Soda Fountain" in Downtown Burbank.  Last night, I had a dream that thousands of years ago, Satan literally fathered a family of children with a human woman.  And the children were all the first to have red hair and freckles.  And so through the ages to this day, people with red hair and freckles are biologically the children of Satan.

So I make a decision that I'm no longer going to serve the Children of Satan at my Deli.  I put up a sign that says "People with red hair and freckles may not enter."  Is my discrimination based on my belief that Satan's lineage walks the earth, or is it based on hair color and skin pigmentation?  Or does it not matter, because I've linked them to be the same thing?

10 years from now, I have another dream in which I learn that I was wrong.  Red hair and freckles are not indicators of Satantic lineage.  It's just a genetic variation that has no supernatural or spiritual meaning.  I apologize for my error and take down the sign.

Now what was my discrimination based on?  If the discrimination couldn't have been based on the fact that they were the descendants of Satan (because I now know they never were), then what was it based on?

 

So if Tina Louise walked into your deli asking  what herbs you sell, you would have to say:

"Sorry Ginger, we don't sell ginger to gingers."

 

 

Edited May 11, 2018 by CA Steve

[stemelbow]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Actually hold on that. I may be conflating it with the 1969 attempt when Harold B. Lee was absent and Hugh B. Brown attempted to end it. Let me see if I can find it before quoting me on this. I'll fully confess this is a part of history I don't study as much so things aren't as fresh in my memory.

Edit: I'm mixing up elements of the 1969 attempt with the 1948 change allowing anyone with black skin but who aren't African to get the priesthood. That was under George Albert Smith. Of course in reality most of the Brazilians authorized were descendants of Portuguese slaves. So it gets at the inconsistencies. 

Hugh B. Brown is an obvious one. But if your point was that most of the brethren from more liberals like McKay to conservatives like Benson were not exactly adopting civil rights views I completely agree. That more than anything else made the revelation difficult and if anything makes the 1978 revelation that much more from God since it went against many of their strongly held beliefs.

Fair enough on both points.  Thanks.

[stemelbow]

58 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I'm not sure what you mean by "literally" here.

I don't know after reading this response you gave I may be misunderstanding you anyway.  

58 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Please note that while I don't think Joseph held to the southern apologetic,  I also think he was a product of his times. My point is that the patriarchal nature of the priesthood in Abraham matters. The Melchezedek Priesthood just isn't patriarchal in that sense. Now there are other ways to read it. As I mentioned Jonathan Stapley in his new book as a whole model in terms of what he calls the cosmological priesthood. We'll see how well that model holds up over time. Previous to Stapley's work you had the Ehat model in the 90's where he has three levels of priesthood. The cosmological was the Melchezedek and a higher order than the patriarchal. Stapley by contrast sees them as more closely tied together and more of an evolution of theology on priesthood. However I've just not had time to read Jonathan's book yet so I'm more just going by previous writings and discussions with him. So I'm loath to say too much here.

SOunds good. Looks like I may have to look up the book myself.  

58 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Of course a person who thinks Joseph is just making it all up will simply say all the curses are just Joseph modifying the popular views of the time. So, as you suggest, the Lamanite curse is as much a variant as the Egyptus curse or the Cain curse. I'd just note that this works only by really downplaying the pretty clear differences in the texts.

Maybe a little too binary in my view.  I think one can certainly think Joseph heavily influenced the texts as result of his cultural training (as a way to put it) and still consider the texts scripturally significant.  

[Gray]

17 hours ago, MormonMason said:

Nope.  Lineage is lineage and race is race.  Some people tend to overlap them and sometimes there can be overlap under the right circumstances.  But this is not the case with the priesthood ban.  If it were strictly based on race, then why were some Blacks ordained even during the ban? No one seems to want to discuss that.  It happened.  And I know for a fact that some Blacks were ordained while during the ban, two of whom were the son and grandson of Elijah Abel.

It wasn't based on any kind of actual lineage, but cause the ban was on black people of African ancestry, which isn't a single lineage. That is a race, though.

 

Quote

As to Joseph and Asenath, we are not told what her lineage is, only that she was Egyptian.  But at the time of Joseph was around the time of the Hyksos.  Hyksos were foreign rulers of Semitic descent.  Some priests in Egypt were called Egyptians even though strictly they were not descended from Ham.

 

The last of the Kyskos should have been expelled a century before Joseph's time. (Keeping in mind that Joseph is most likely a fictional character)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khamudi

 

Quote

The claim that the Israelites came out of the Canaanites is based on tenuous assumptions at best.  And some people identified as Canaanites weren't.  We have Bible mistranslations to blame for that.  Still doesn't change the fact that it was not based on skin color, as was stated in the 1847 Church Council.  And it wasn't.  If it were, again, why did some Blacks continue to be ordained, with those ordaining them knowing their race?

 

See The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel by Mark Smith. Israel is native to Canaan.

Again, it was based on race, not skin color. Many non-Africans have dark skin color.

I can't comment as to irregularities in church practice.

 

Quote

That all came out of Africa also is based on limited information that could change at any time.  I mean, if we go back far enough, sure, hominids may have come from there but the lineage question did not come up until there were established lineages to bring up.  It began with a specific human ancestor in a specific period in the timeline and thereafter.  It was not based on initial biological origin of the entire species.

No, it's not based on limited information. This is bedrock stuff.

The character of Ham is also fictional, from the mythical flood narrative. Supposedly he was cursed and passed his curse to the Canaanites, who at the time of this doctrine were thought to have been black. The canaanites were actually Semitic.

The priesthood ban doctrine was based on American Christian folk doctrine made up in America to justify the enslavement of Africans. The entire priesthood ban is a doctrine of straw, from start to finish.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Gray

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Jeanne said:

As Prophets though, would there be a reason why Our Father in Heaven..not correct those intepretations?

 

3 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

He did.  In 1978.

Prophets are not infallible conduits direct from God, and never have been.  They must first seek Him, and must be open to instruction.  All kinds of cultural baggage can be a problem.

Bruce R. McConkie said "I do not know all of the providences of the Lord, but I do know that he permits false doctrine to be taught in and out of the Church and that such teaching is part of the sifting process of mortality."   McConkie letter, February 19, 1981, online at  http://www.mrm.org/bruce-mcconkies-rebuke-of-eugene-england .

Prof. Bob Millett, Dean of Religious Instruction at BYU, said:

Quote

“When God chooses to speak through an individual, that person does not become a mindless ventriloquist, an earthly sound system through which the Almighty can voice himself.  Rather the person becomes enlightened and filled with intelligence or truth.”  at Feb 2011 BYU symposium: “The King James Bible and the Restoration,” in his paper “What the Bible Means to Mormons.”

 

Edited May 11, 2018 by Robert F. Smith

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

Sorry, but no matter how thin Nibley (or anyone else) slices it, it's still baloney.  Joseph Smith produced (through whatever method) these verses in English.  You can try and explain why these words don't mean exactly what they say, but to English speaking readers of any era, the obvious meaning is still the most obvious one.

This.

We are speaking of the origin of the ban in the LDS Church and the doctrinal justification of the ban by the early leaders.

Nibley et al may be able to show historical or cultural issues with that interpretation of Abraham and Moses, but that has zero significance to the beliefs and actions of Joseph and Brigham at the time.  Those considerations didn't impact their doctrinal justification of their beliefs.

So then there's the cultural argument that Joseph and Brigham were products of their time.  And they were.  That may have colored their views, but either Joseph allowed his cultural  racism into the BoA etc meaning it was not inspired by God and can be dropped from canon.  OR it was inspired but misinterpreted.  Which would still make it the source revelation  of the priesthood ban.

Either way, we know where Joseph and Brigham got the teaching, and I am not prepared to believe they had sinister motives.  Right or wrong these early prophets believed these racist doctrines were from God.  They either got the teaching from scripture or they inserted their bias into scripture.

Showing their error is one thing. Incorrectly pretending it came out of their biases and was not sincerely attributed to God and revelation by them is another.

[JLHPROF]

26 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Bruce R. McConkie said "I do not know all of the providences of the Lord, but I do know that he permits false doctrine to be taught in and out of the Church and that such teaching is part of the sifting process of mortality."   McConkie letter, February 19, 1981, online at  http://www.mrm.org/bruce-mcconkies-rebuke-of-eugene-england 

I like and agree with this quote.

The problem is that the majority of members don't believe it applies to their day and never have.

Ask a member in 1870, 1900, 1920, or 1950 what false doctrine was being taught and they'd say none.  Disavow those teachings today and then ask a member today what false doctrine is being taught today.  Guess what they'd say?

That's right, "there is none".  Never changes.  The doctrine of the day is never false till later.  I wonder what false doctrine is in the manuals today?

[cinepro]

20 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

That's right, "there is none".  Never changes.  The doctrine of the day is never false till later.  I wonder what false doctrine is in the manuals today?

That's always the most interesting (and ignored) question.  If anyone tells you they believe President Nelson is a fallible prophet, then simply ask them what he has taught that was false? 

Can you imagine asking that in Sunday School?  

 

[EdGoble]

2 hours ago, cinepro said:

Sorry, but no matter how thin Nibley (or anyone else) slices it, it's still baloney.  Joseph Smith produced (through whatever method) these verses in English.  You can try and explain why these words don't mean exactly what they say, but to English speaking readers of any era, the obvious meaning is still the most obvious one.

 

We can say we don't believe that anymore, but it's disingenuous to try and pretend it doesn't say what it says.

Its reading something with the expectation that our modern context is not its background, but that an ancient context is its background that doesn't necessarily match the modern context.  There is nothing disingenuous about that, and for you to demand that the modern one is the context it has to be read in at all costs is what is disingenuous.  It purports to be ancient, and therefore, it ought to be given its due of being required to be read in the context that it purports to be.

Edited May 11, 2018 by EdGoble

[JLHPROF]

13 minutes ago, EdGoble said:

Its reading something with the expectation that our modern context is not its background, but that an ancient context is its background that doesn't necessarily match the modern context.  There is nothing disingenuous about that, and for you to demand that the modern one is the context it has to be read in at all costs is what is disingenuous.  It purports to be ancient, and therefore, it ought to be given its due of being required to be read in the context that it purports to be.

How we read these revelatory texts today have no impact on the origin of the ban.  How Joseph and Brigham read these revelations are what brought the ban about.

[cinepro]

33 minutes ago, EdGoble said:

Its reading something with the expectation that our modern context is not its background, but that an ancient context is its background that doesn't necessarily match the modern context.  There is nothing disingenuous about that, and for you to demand that the modern one is the context it has to be read in at all costs is what is disingenuous.  It purports to be ancient, and therefore, it ought to be given its due of being required to be read in the context that it purports to be.

It's just too bad that Nibley wasn't around in 1852 to explain to Brigham Young where he went wrong.  Think of all the grief that could have been avoided if a scholar just could have let President Young know the ways in which he was misinterpreting the scriptures.

I suspect it would have gone over about as well as a BYU biology professor trying to explain to President Nelson about how our bodies are probably the result of an evolutionary process dating back hundreds of thousands of of years.

Edited May 11, 2018 by cinepro

[EdGoble]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

How we read these revelatory texts today have no impact on the origin of the ban.  How Joseph and Brigham read these revelations are what brought the ban about.

There is truth to that as far as history goes.  I am talking about the likely ancient, real meaning of the text, which is not the mythological "curse of Cain" context that modern readers read into it in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Edited May 11, 2018 by EdGoble

[EdGoble]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

It's just too bad that Nibley wasn't around in 1852 to explain to Brigham Young where he went wrong.  Think of all the grief that could have been avoided if a scholar just could have let President Young know the ways in which he was misinterpreting the scriptures.

I suspect it would have gone over about as well as a BYU biology professor trying to explain to President Nelson about how our bodies are probably the result of an evolutionary process dating back hundreds of thousands of of years.

Again, its not my problem how BY interpreted it, since he is dead and gone, as is the ban.  There is no changing what he thought without sending an angel to him in a time machine to deliver the message.  I'm talking about the likely ancient meaning which is not a mythological curse context that was imagined up in the 19th and 20th centuries, as I just wrote in the previous post.

[why me]

I think that this podcast sheds much light on the priesthood ban. It was one of John's first podcasts.

 

https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast/mormon-stories-026-blacks-and-the-lds-priesthood-an-interview-with-darius-gray-and-margaret-young/

It lays it out quite well. Personally, I think that brigham got called feet when a black priesthood member went off the rails and began to have a polygamous relationship with white women  without consent of the church leaders.

[Glenn101]

Whatever anyone's beliefs or interpretations of the scriptures, or anything else, Brigham Young sincerely believed that it came from God and that only God could change it. But, we will continue to spin our wheels on this topic, and others, to no avail until we pass through the veil. I was and am fervently happy that the ban was lifted, by revelation.

Now, if a revelation were to come down Sunday that all men no longer would be able to exercise priesthood powers and those powers would now be exercised only by women, I would accept that also, and go back to washing he dishes, which would not be much of a change because I mostly do them now anyway.

Glenn

[cinepro]

37 minutes ago, EdGoble said:

Again, its not my problem how BY interpreted it, since he is dead and gone, as is the ban.  There is no changing what he thought without sending an angel to him in a time machine to deliver the message.  I'm talking about the likely ancient meaning which is not a mythological curse context that was imagined up in the 19th and 20th centuries, as I just wrote in the previous post.

I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it. 

The story is extremely clear, and doesn't require any "interpretation", other than out of a desire to find a way for it to say something other than what it actually says.

 Moses 7:8  - A curse of "blackness" came upon Cain and his children.  They were "despised" by other people, so the "blackness" obviously wasn't meant to be metaphorical; there had to be a way for non-Canaanites to know who the Canaanites were so they could despise them.

Quote

For behold, the Lord shall curse the land with much heat, and the barrenness thereof shall go forth forever; and there was a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were despised among all people.

 

When God kills everyone on the planet except for Noah and his family, there needs to be a way for the Canaanite lineage and curse to continue.  The Book of Abraham explains clearly that this happened because Ham married a Canaanite woman, named Egyptus.  They had a daughter (also named Egyptus?) who discovered the land of Egypt, and she and her son (Ham's grandson?) start Egypt.  But because the Pharaohs are all descended from Ham and Egyptus, they all have the Canaanite curse and therefore can't have the Priesthood. This would all be taking place in Africa, which is the designated place to "preserve the curse in the land."  How coincidental.

 

Quote

21 Now this king of Egypt was a descendant from the loins of Ham, and was a partaker of the blood of the Canaanites by birth.

22 From this descent sprang all the Egyptians, and thus the blood of the Canaanites was preserved in the land.

23 The land of Egypt being first discovered by a woman, who was the daughter of Ham, and the daughter of Egyptus, which in the Chaldean signifies Egypt, which signifies that which is forbidden;

24 When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land.

25 Now the first government of Egypt was established by Pharaoh, the eldest son of Egyptus, the daughter of Ham, and it was after the manner of the government of Ham, which was patriarchal.

26 Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.

27 Now, Pharaoh being of that lineage by which he could not have the right of Priesthood, notwithstanding the Pharaohs would fain claim it from Noah, through Ham, therefore my father was led away by their idolatry;

Abraham 1

 

Edited May 11, 2018 by cinepro

[juliann]

37 minutes ago, cinepro said:

I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it. 

The story is extremely clear, and doesn't require any "interpretation", other than out of a desire to find a way for it to say something other than what it actually says.

 Moses 7:8  - A curse of "blackness" came upon Cain and his children.  They were "despised" by other people, so the "blackness" obviously wasn't meant to be metaphorical; there had to be a way for non-Canaanites to know who the Canaanites were so they could despise them.

 

 

 

Except that blackness associated with heat/burning is used in the Bible. And Cain and Canaanites aren't the same thing. 

Edited May 11, 2018 by juliann

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

I like and agree with this quote.

The problem is that the majority of members don't believe it applies to their day and never have.

Ask a member in 1870, 1900, 1920, or 1950 what false doctrine was being taught and they'd say none.  Disavow those teachings today and then ask a member today what false doctrine is being taught today.  Guess what they'd say?

That's right, "there is none".  Never changes.  The doctrine of the day is never false till later.  I wonder what false doctrine is in the manuals today?

You are basing that on dead reckoning.  No poll on that has ever been taken.  However, I do know that there have always been LDS members who have disagreed with this or that doctrine or policy of the LDS Church.  Right from the beginning.  Some of them (like Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris) eventually came back.  Some stayed and fought the good fight (like Orson Pratt).  Others started splinter groups or permanently apostatized.  Not all doctrines or policies are equal, and some are applied slowly over a very long period of time (like the Word of Wisdom).  Some are difficult at best, become popular for awhile, and then are abandoned.  The LDS Church is so dynamic that only one thing is sure:  Change will come.

[Calm]

9 hours ago, cinepro said:

Sorry, but no matter how thin Nibley (or anyone else) slices it, it's still baloney.  Joseph Smith produced (through whatever method) these verses in English.  You can try and explain why these words don't mean exactly what they say, but to English speaking readers of any era, the obvious meaning is still the most obvious one.

 

We can say we don't believe that anymore, but it's disingenuous to try and pretend it doesn't say what it says.

But itjust says "lineage", it doesn't identify what type of lineage it was talking about.  And the Priesthood at the time was identified as the patriarchal lineage, not the matriarchal...so it may have to do with the curse of Ham (which is really the curse of his son)through his mother, his father may have been of an unacceptable tribe, or it may be only the sons of the sons of Noah who were eligible (and allthe sons of sons thereafter), which left out Pharoah since he was the son of the daughter of Ham.

If a Levite woman married a nonLevite Israelite, would her sons be given the Levitical Priesthood (sincere question, I know some things came through the mother, but others did not)?

Edited May 12, 2018 by Calm

[Calm]

11 hours ago, cinepro said:

  Last night, I had a dream that thousands of years ago, Satan literally fathered a family of children with a human woman.  And the children were all the first to have red hair and freckles.  And so through the ages to this day, people with red hair and freckles are biologically the children of Satan.

Not quite the same thing as there were at that time least two lineages thought to have a curse of dark/black skin (even though one was never even close to black, yet people still applied the "skin of blackness" verses as literal to them...not that the majority of blacks have dark brown skin these days).  One curse was seen as carrying with it a restriction from the Priesthood, the other not.  So the story is more complicated than yours even if one wereto believe both curse were literally marked by darker skin.

9 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

How we read these revelatory texts today have no impact on the origin of the ban.  How Joseph and Brigham read these revelations are what brought the ban about.

But that interpretation is different from what verses "say" which is what cinepro claimed in 

Quote

We can say we don't believe that anymore, but it's disingenuous to try and pretend it doesn't say what it says.

It refers to "lineage" but does not identify that as Cainite lineage in those verses.

It speaks of a curse and speaks of Ham, but Ham's curse is not Cain's curse.

There is an modern day assumption that Ham's wife was a descendant of Cain...but if so, then why is there no cursing the elder sons of Ham?  And why is there no reference in the story of the cursing of Canaan to his ancestor Cain, but only the action of his father, Ham, mocking his grandfather?***

20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:

21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.

24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

26 And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

----

As Juliann pointed out Cain is not equivalent to Canaan and therefore Canaanites are not another way of saying "seed of Cain", so you cannot assume the lineage is automatically identical..  Not only are they two different people, the names are not likely from the same root:

"The name Canaan may have been original — meaning "land of purple," says HAW Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, which relates it to Phoenicia, also meaning purple — and turned proverbial, but it may also have been taken from the Hebrew verb כנע (kana) and projected back upon this person. Either way, in the Biblical contexts, the name Canaan surely has to do with the Hebrew verb כנע (kana) meaning to be brought into synchronicity..."

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Canaan.html#.WvZrrtHF2hA

"The name Cain is identical to the Hebrew word קין (qyn) meaning spear, coming from the root cluster קנה ,קיןand קנן:"

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Cain.html#.WvZsmtHF2hA

They get confused in English because C is used for two different Hebrew letters/sounds.

Another source:

https://www.blueletterbible.org/search/search.cfm?Criteria=Canaan&t=KJV#s=s_lexiconc

https://www.blueletterbible.org/search/search.cfm?Criteria=Cain&t=KJV&lexcSt=2#s=s_lexiconc

And

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/7014.htm

Qayin: Cain

Original Word: קָ֫יִן
Part of Speech: proper name; of a people; location; proper name, masculine
Transliteration: Qayin
Phonetic Spelling: (kah'-yin)
Short Definition:  Cain

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/3667.htm

Kna'an: Canaan

Original Word: כְּנַ֫עַן
Part of Speech: proper name, masculine; proper name, masculine; noun masculine

Transliteration: Kna'an
Phonetic Spelling: (ken-ah'-an)

Short Definition: Canaan

(I am just getting this stuff from google and am no .hebrew expert, but have read this multiple places.  Any Hebrew experts please correct me if I am wrong)

So Canaanites is not just another way of writing Cainites, the fact that they sound and look similar in English should not be used to assume they are connected.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Calm

[Calm]

Quote

When God kills everyone on the planet except for Noah and his family, there needs to be a way for the Canaanite lineage 

Except cursed Canaan wasn't born until after the flood.

And the people of Canaan fighting the people of Shum mentioned by Enoch are connected in the scripture to neither Cain nor Ham's son, Canaan.  Also it says the blackness came upon the people and it sounds like it is linked with the barrenness and heat*, not an ancestry...which would be strange if the blackness referred to was genetic inheritance from Cain.  Instead it sounds like they were cursed for destroying the people of Shum and it is the land they conquered unrighteously that rejects them and curses them.

*7 And the Lord said unto me: Prophesy; and I prophesied, saying: Behold the people of Canaan, which are numerous, shall go forth in battle array against the people of Shum, and shall slay them that they shall utterly be destroyed; and the people of Canaan shall divide themselves in the land, and the land shall be barren and unfruitful, and none other people shall dwell there but the people of Canaan;

8 For behold, the Lord shall curse the land with much heat, and the barrenness thereof shall go forth forever; and there was a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were despised among all people.

---

Now it is certainly possible that JS was referring here to the seed of Cain that is referred to later**, but if so then "Canaanites" may have been a mistake thinking it was equivalent to Cainites.  Or a people may have been associated with the same land later named Canaan (though if one believes preNoah people's were in the Americas, then not the same land).  Otoh, the people of Canaan and the seed of Cain may be two different groups, both cursed with blackness (which makes sense if referring to spiritual darkness or other form of social evil which causes them to be considered outcasts).

Whatever the problem with these preNoah Canaanites, the Canaanites that were descendants of Canaan, son of Ham were not the same group and scripturally, there is no evidence the wife of Ham (since there were only 8 souls, Ham could not have more than one wife) was of the cursed blood and evidence she was not, otherwise all of Ham's sons would be cursed and not just his fourth son.

**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.

[Calm]

Why would a curse need to be preserved anyway when God was intentionally cleansing the land of unrighteousness and pretty much starting over?

[cinepro]

29 minutes ago, Calm said:

Why would a curse need to be preserved anyway when God was intentionally cleansing the land of unrighteousness and pretty much starting over?

Because they had to explain where black people came from.  If there were no black people, then there would have been no need to have the curse be preserved past the flood.

[Calm]

Who had to explain it?  Ancients or JS?

If it is all a Just So story (how the ____  got its ______), does it need to make sense?  Does it have to be logically connected historically speaking?

If The Book of Abraham was to explain why people were black, why is there no mention of blackness or skin for that matter in it?

Edited May 12, 2018 by Calm

[Rajah Manchou]

12 hours ago, Gray said:

The last of the Kyskos should have been expelled a century before Joseph's time. (Keeping in mind that Joseph is most likely a fictional character)

Hyksos or not, DNA testing does point to the rulers of Egypt from at least 1380 BC having roots in the Levant.

"The study, published on 30 May in Nature Communications, includes data from 90 mummies buried between 1380 bc, during Egypt’s New Kingdom, and ad 425, in the Roman era. The findings show that the mummies’ closest kin were ancient farmers from a region that includes present-day Israel and Jordan. Modern Egyptians, by contrast, have inherited more of their DNA from central Africans....Both types of genomic material showed that ancient Egyptians shared little DNA with modern sub-Saharan Africans. Instead, their closest relatives were people living during the Neolithic and Bronze ages in an area known as the Levant. Strikingly, the mummies were more closely related to ancient Europeans and Anatolians than to modern Egyptians." (source)

So when we consider Egyptians in Joseph's time, we're closer to the mark if we imagine them as ancient Europeans/Anatolians, not modern Egyptians or Africans.