Recently the church has has announced that they are making a change in the introduction of the Book of Mormon, which will be used in the 07 Doubleday printing.
The book's current introduction, added by the late LDS apostle, Bruce R. McConkie in 1981, includes this statement: "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."
The new version, seen first in Doubleday's revised edition, reads, "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians."
This change will be added to the future new addition of the Book of Mormon that is going to be released. Rumor has it that there are other changes that are forth coming based on Royal Skousens' textual work on the Book of Mormon.
It will interesting to see the other changes that will probably be minor.
So does this new change stating that the Lamanites are not the principle ancestors of the American Indians, change a big assumption that has always been in the church? Is this a big paradigm shift of how we view the Book of Mormon and who is a Lamonite? Or is this not a big deal to our perception of the book of Mormon as history? Are you excited to the new upcoming edition? (see the salt lake tribune dated 11-8-07 at
[B][/B]salt lake tribune