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Here is a wonderful article on this topic. It talks about the skin color change in the BoM and all the reasons behind it. It also addresses all the questions and concerns about the priesthood ban, and that it didn't start in the latter-days. The article shows how some white male members have been denied of the priesthood in the past and that some black male members not of a certain descent have been allowed the priesthood prior to 1978. After reading this article, I have been able to make much better sense of this issue.
Black Mormons and the Priesthood
QUOTE (DanInTheDen) |
...some black male members not of a certain descent have been allowed the priesthood prior to 1978. |
I think that this can be either metaphorical and literal. Hugh Nibley does argue for a metaphorical concept of the darkness of skin of Lamanites. Perhaps as another post mentioned above, that Lamonites married the other indigent cultures of the America's. Perhaps through time that term Lamanite became a generic name to refer to all of the indigenous people, whether they were literal lamonite blood or not. ( For we now that they BOM says that the Lamanites were much more numerous then Nephites.) The Nephites would have not married other cultures simply because the law forbid. Thus if some of the people who followed Laman did leave the Nephites they would not have lived the laws that would had prevented inter-racial marriage. Thus this would be seen as a curse through a Nephite perspective. I personally do not buy the Curse of Cain idea. It is not biblically supported. Its an idea that was popular in Europe and America before Joseph Smith that influenced the church's idea on race. This is not an idea that only the church believed.