Skin of Blackness and Mormon Apologetics

Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin 0:01 Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, LDS Discussions Edition. I am your host, John Dehlin. It's Wednesday, August 21, 2024. I'm officially 55 years old. Yesterday was my birthday and we're excited to be back discussing Mormon Church truth claims as dispassionately and as objectively as is possible with this LDS discussion series. Today we're going to be covering part three in a three part series on LDS discussions where we're discussing both the Book of Mormon's teachings around the skin of blackness or the curse of the Lamanites. The Lamanite curse. And how modern day apologists like Jasmine. Oh, how do I pronounce it? What's the correct pronunciation?

Julia 0:54 Rapley. I can't remember. It's Rapley.

John Dehlin 0:58 How Jasmine Rapley and her husband Neil have done their best to pollute the waters, maybe not intentionally, but at least unintentionally, to try and claim that when the Book of Mormon. Because the skin of blackness teaching is so horrendous, so vile, so racist, and that's just objective fact, modern day Mormon apologists are trying to claim that when the Book of Mormon said skin of blackness, it meant animal furs or tattoos or paint. And my friends Julia, Gerardo and Nemo are having none of that. And so we're bringing them back for part three. Remember, everyone, that this LDS discussion series is best consumed in sequence. This is like the 46th or something episode. Is that right in the series? And your best to benefit from it by going back to the beginning and watching them in sequence. You can find it on Spotify as its own podcast, Apple Podcasts. And there's a playlist on the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel where you can watch these in sequence. Did I get that episode number right, Julia?

Julia 2:20 Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:21 Okay. All right, well, welcome, Julia. How you been doing?

Julia 2:25 I'm great. Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:26 It's good to have you back. Of course we have Nemo the Mormon from Nemo the Mormon. Hey, Nemo. Hi.

Nemo 2:33 How are we going?

John Dehlin 2:34 How's your. How's your waxy chocolate today?

Nemo 2:37 My, my delicious national treasure of a chocolate is excellent. You don't look a day over 55, John. Happy birthday,

John Dehlin 2:49 Ed. Gerardo. How you doing? Oh, you're muted, Gerardo.

Gerardo Sumano 2:56 There we go. I'm doing great.

John Dehlin 2:59 All right, well, it's good to have you. Okay, well, this is part three in the series. So, Julia, where should. Where did we leave off and where do you want to take us?

Julia 3:06 Yeah, so the first episode that we did, we talked about the different theories and then how Joseph Smith framed those and how it was skin meant skin. And then this part two that we've done, we went through the teachings of the past prophets up until till now, and then talking about how they understand the, the skin of blackness in the Book of Mormon and how it actually did mean skin. And today we're going to look at the text of the Book of Mormon and combat these. There's like really four different theories of, of paint, skin color, tattoos, and then sim symbol that it's symbolic. And so today we're going to go through those and the Book of Mormon text to see if that supports, if the text supports these different theories and show that it doesn't. So to start, you've already kind of introduced Neil and Jasmine Rap Rapley, I think is, is how we've been told that it's actually pronounced. So Neil, I don't know if you guys know more than I do. Neil Rapley is the director of research and they're in the Book of Mormon central and then Scripture Central. So those are two different websites, if I understand correctly.

Funded Mormon Apologetics and Book of Mormon Central

John Dehlin 4:06 They're basically professional paid Mormon apologists.

Julia 4:10 Right?

John Dehlin 4:10 You know, doing the bidding of the Church, basically.

Julia 4:12 Right. And then as the director of research, I don't know how much backing he has about, like, is he coming up with these theories or is he the one that's pushing, like, hey, is there, is there like. Because I know that they're looking at, they're looking at the scholarly research of others, but I don't know who's pushing these theories. I don't know if it's him or others, but I know that Jasmine, his wife, is the face of, of Book of Mormon Central or Scripture plus, particularly

Nemo 4:39 the Know why series. It was interesting in his bio it said that he's the director of the Know why series and she's the one that presents that series. So there's a direct link of them working together there.

John Dehlin 4:52 I mean, Gerardo and I have covered in the past the way the Church has always worked with Apollo. Well, has traditionally worked with apologetics for a long, long time. They formally sponsored like FARMS or the Maxwell Institute through byu and that's how Mormon apologists would get funded. At some point, the Church lost confidence in the Maxwell Institute. They actually got rid of Daniel Peterson. They got rid of Spencer Fluman, as I am, as I am now being told. And the Maxwell Institute isn't really doing apologetics anymore. They're just kind of floating at byu trying to do faithful scholarship, but not apologetics. And so the church realized that it gets a black eye when it formally supports bad arguments, unprofessional, unscientific reasoning, ad hominem attacks. And so what they do is now the church encourages wealthy Mormons to donate to these nonprofits like Book of Mormon Central, like the More Good foundation and others. And then these arms length nonprofits will support literally any apologetic that they think is working. Whether it's Ward Radio and you know those folks or, or whether it's Neil and Jasmine and others. They don't care what's true. I think they just care about what apologetics make Mormons feel better about believing in orthodox Mormonism. What do you think, Julia and Gerardo?

Julia 6:33 Yeah. And you. And you did say previously that the church is funding Book of Mormons Central and Scripture Central. Right.

John Dehlin 6:41 Through wealthy Mormons.

Julia 6:43 Okay. So yeah.

John Dehlin 6:44 Church, those wealthy Mormons and I think sometimes their own.

Gerardo Sumano 6:48 Yeah. I think on the episode we were. We did about or actually you did join John called entitled Mormon Apologetics and Violence on that one. We were able to show from the 990s that the LDS Church itself is funding the More Good foundation and Book of Mormon Central at at least those two.

John Dehlin 7:11 Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano 7:12 Especially Morgan Foundation. I think a large percentage a few years ago of their contributions came directly from the church. Like hundreds of thousands of dollars if I remember correctly. And also. And then More Good foundation then funnels the money to Fair Mormon and Book of Mormon Central and, and the. What's the other Interpreter Foundation.

John Dehlin 7:39 Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano 7:40 But the Book of Mormon Central receives also money directly from the Church.

John Dehlin 7:44 Yeah.

Julia 7:44 Okay. Yeah.

Nemo 7:46 I just want to throw, throw something out there because John mentioned Spencer Fluman. I just want to say he was in my ward for a little while last year and I really like him as a person. May not always agree with his views or his positions, but you know, we're trying to be dispassionate and fair. So I thought I have an opportunity there to say there's someone on the opposite side of the argument that I actually really like as a person and have spent some time with. So.

John Dehlin 8:07 Oh, by all accounts, great person. And, and my. What I've been told is that Jeffrey Holland told him that he was like a son to him. And then when the pressures, sort of the maga neo fundamentalist pressures that arose post Covid hit Elder Holland. Elder Holland through Spencer Fluming under the bus and, and had him kicked out. That's what I've heard. I can't.

Nemo 8:36 Yeah.

John Dehlin 8:37 From reliable sources, I don't. But. But yeah, Spencer by all accounts is a great human, so I wish him well.

Nemo 8:43 Yep.

John Dehlin 8:44 Yeah,

Julia 8:47 okay.

Nemo 8:48 Sorry. That was a change of pace.

Joseph Smith's Changes and the Skin of Blackness

Julia 8:51 So, to start, there's a clip from Jasmine that I wanted to share. This is from her TikTok scripture plus, and here she's talking about how Joseph Smith changed some of the text of the Book of Mormon in 1842. So we'll just go ahead and play that clip.

Guest 9:06 Likewise, the skin of blackness that Nephi describes falling upon the Lamanites was not necessarily physical, but rather it symbolizes a spiritual death. Being cut off from the Lord. Their souls were in spiritual darkness. Toward the end of his record, Nephi prophesied that when the Lamanites came to know Jesus Christ again, they shall be a white and delightsome people. Now, later, Joseph Smith clarified this passage in the 1842 edition of the Book of Mormon to read a pure and delightsome people to make crystal clear that this is talking about spiritual purity, not skin color.

Julia 9:36 Okay, so the change in the text was actually made in 1840. You can see the 1840 edition on the Joseph Smith Papers website. And however, also in the most recent edition of the Book of Mormon in 2013, it still has this change. Pure is still. Or white is still changed to pure. And that's still reflected in our scriptures. But one thing she doesn't point out is, is that elsewhere in the text of the Book of Mormon, white is still white. It's not. Not every reference to skin color being white has been changed to pure. So for example, in First Nephi 1315, it says, and I beheld that they were white and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain. And this is talking about skin color. And this one's not changed to pure. Also another example is from 2nd Nephi 5, 21, where the curse actually takes place. And it says, for behold, they had hardened their hearts against him. They had become like unto a flint, wherefore, as they were white and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they may not be enticing unto my people. Therefore, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them, and that is still white, not pure.

Nemo 10:43 I think that's really important to point out the way that Jasmine has done that. The technique she's used is to essentially go, oh, okay, right. Nephi talks in Second Nephi about them receiving a skin of blackness and how they went from being white, but that white wasn't necessarily skin color because look somewhere else in the book that refers back to that changed it to pure. So therefore the meaning has changed in both contexts. But no, because in the original context, it still hasn't changed. White is still white. There's. There's no change there. So we can get into the inconsistency then of Joseph Smith's theology and all that sort of stuff, but it clearly wasn't a theologically consistent change across the board that all of a sudden, actually, wherever it said white, it really meant pure.

Julia 11:28 Right, Exactly.

Gerardo Sumano 11:29 It's also kind of sneaky to kind of give your audience the impression that Joseph Smith went in and corrected white for pure and saying like, that's why he doesn't mean skin, and that's why it's not talking about white skin when she knows that it's not everywhere and it's just a single passage where that was changed. And there's multiple passages where he clearly is talking about skin and white skin and black skin and skin of blackness, and that those passages were not changed.

Julia 12:01 So. Exactly.

Gerardo Sumano 12:03 That's just really.

Nemo 12:04 Because she said that Joseph wanted to make it crystal clear, didn't she? He wants to make it crystal clear that this wasn't about skin. Well, if you wanted to make it crystal clear, he would have changed it

Gerardo Sumano 12:11 everywhere, especially where the curse happens, right?

Nemo 12:14 Yeah, exactly. Especially at the origin of the doctrine.

Julia 12:17 Right, Right. Yeah. Right. Another thing that I wanted to point out this. So the chapter headings are not from the golden plates, but they are taken, I believe, from. From how previously they were taken from apostles. You have verse armor Conky. And then recently they changed. They updated them. And I'm pretty sure it goes through the same process of these apostles approving these. But you'll notice in the chapter heading was changed in this. In second Nephi. So it said it used to say, because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cursed. Receive a skin of blackness. To the new edition in 2013, which now reads, because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cut off from the presence of the Lord and are cursed. So, like, they're even in the heading.

Nemo 12:56 It's changing a point to make there about the headings. Right. Knowing. Knowing how like reluctant our church are to canonize anything, to put anything new in scripture for them to change the headings of canonized LDS scripture. That is not something that's done lightly. It's not something done, you would imagine, by someone other than apostles and prophets. Do we know exactly who does that? John or Harado?

Gerardo Sumano 13:23 I'm not sure.

Nemo 13:25 Okay. Because there's like the Scripture Correlation Committee and that sort of stuff. Right. That goes on but ultimately that that is being signed off by the leaders of the church. I'm sure if you go back, in fact, and look at the 2013 launch videos for the new quad, where they're saying that we've made some updates and whatnot, that was, I believe, Quinton L. Cook or Neil L. Anderson. I always get them mixed up in my sort of mind's eye. But one of those two is sat holding the new quad and talking about some of the changes that have happened to the chapter headings and reassuring everyone that nothing theologically has changed. I can distinctly remember that video in my mind's eye. So, yeah, I'll have to go and have a look into that and maybe

Julia 14:03 we can share that in the show notes, because that's super interesting. So, like, that's even shows that these brethren are approving and that's how they understand they're moving it away from. Trying to move it away from skin color or skin, what that means.

Nemo 14:15 But then just before we move on, has any profit. Actually, this is a question for the group. Has any prophet. We know that loads of them have said skin. It meant skin. Loads of them have said that it was about a skin of blackness. It was about dark skin. Has any prophet or apostle ever come out and said that wasn't the case? Or has it only ever been apologists?

Gerardo Sumano 14:32 Only apologists.

Guest 14:33 Okay.

John Dehlin 14:34 Yeah. For those who aren't Mormon and are just kind of tuning into this, the. The big pickle the Mormon Church has is they, they, they teach to their members that they speak for God and Jesus directly. That when a prophet speaks, it's as if God and Jesus themselves are speaking. But of course, they're products of their time. And in some ways, they're product of 50 years before their time or 80 years before their time. And so when they say racist, sexist, homophobic, hateful, unscientific things, the church gets stuck with it because they can't ever apologize or say they were wrong. Because if any past prophet is denounced or corrected, then it immediately calls into question the authority of current prophets, seers and revelators. And so what the church. The only thing the church can do is have surrogates provide dumb explanations to pacify and mollify the members, and then slowly change, but never admit to the changes and never admit to the members that they're making changes. They just quietly redirect, silence or delete or hide past evidence and then act like it has always been. So, I mean, the way the church

Nemo 15:58 works exactly on that point, John, I've Just been looking on the website at the 2013 Scripture announcement and there's a website about the church and then you click a link, see what changes were made. And it says page not found. So yeah, that's, that's. It couldn't have been better timing. The church often does this. Pages will just disappear off the website five or ten years after they were there. And everyone wonders, okay, I swear I remember that. And no, no, no, it was, it was never the case. We've always been at war with East Asia.

John Dehlin 16:29 But that's how this works. They're never gonna, like in a general conference say, hey everybody, by the way, skin means paint or skin means tattoos. That's never gonna happen.

Nemo 16:43 And it was Anderson, by the way, looking at this webpage, it was Anderson that was talking about the new edition of Scriptures. So it got some apostolic sign off for sure.

Julia 16:51 Maybe we can find that elsewhere rather

Nemo 16:53 than, I'm going to find that video, you know, I'm going to find it anyway, let's carry on with today's episode.

Julia 16:58 I wanted to say too, this reminded me of the. I think we shared the clip or we talked about the clip from the Jubilee episode where I can't remember his name. Who's. The. Who's on the panel of the Jubilee where he says, I've never read it that way. I think Kwaku. It was Kwaku, yeah. Where he says that he, in talking about the Book of Mormon and the skin of blackness, he says he's never read it as skin, but to not understand it as skin color, to actual skin is to not understand what past prophets and apostles have said and what the text is actually saying or what even history has reflected. So, like, it's just silly to think of it in any other way.

John Dehlin 17:36 I don't, I don't think Kwaku can be trusted when he's saying such things. I think he's officially, unofficially on the payroll of the church and he'll say whatever he feels like he should say to keep in good graces with those who pay his salary. And they can say the same thing about us, but I don't think it's the same thing, honestly.

Nemo 18:00 Well, because we have no, no one that dictates what we say or what we think or what opinions we are to hold. Right. There's no line for us to follow.

John Dehlin 18:08 They would say we make money as ex Mormons and so we have to say what ex Mormons want us to say. I think that's what they would say.

Nemo 18:17 Now I'm going to Say it right now. Ex Mormons are far too tribal. Guys, calm it down.

Gerardo Sumano 18:22 Go look at.

Nemo 18:22 That's going to upset some people, but there we are.

John Dehlin 18:26 Yeah, sorry, what were you gonna say?

Gerardo Sumano 18:29 I mean, people are more good. Foundation are making a lot of money. You can go look at the 90s and they get a lot more funds than. Than Mormon Stories does.

John Dehlin 18:40 Oh, you mean overall revenue. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano 18:42 So like, if it was about money, we would off going to the other band.

Nemo 18:47 I think.

John Dehlin 18:48 Yeah, I would have been better staying at Microsoft.

Gerardo Sumano 18:52 Well, even more good. Imagine being the CEO of More good.

John Dehlin 18:56 Yeah. Yeah.

Julia 18:59 Okay. Okay. So one of the things I wanted to do is kind of go through her. Her claims. And so the first one is her clip, and she's talking about seeing skin and blackness as garments, as. As cl.

Apologetic Reinterpretations of the Lamanite Curse

Guest 19:12 When the Book Mormon says that the Lamanites had a skin of blackness, it's not skin. Let me show you why. This is part of a larger series I'm doing on all of the theories surrounding the skin of blackness in the Book of Mormon. So definitely check those out. So this theory requires us to look very closely at what the Book of Mormon text actually says about skins without our modern assumptions and biases getting in the way. So just take a look at this passage and see if you can notice how these skins are being used. The Lamanites were naked. Sabit were a skin which was girded about their loins. And the skins of the Lamanites were dark according to the mark which was set upon their fathers. Based on this one and other passages, Ethan Sproat suggested that the dark skins could have actually been animal skins worn as symbolic clothing. And both the Book of Mormon and the Bible skin can refer to animal skin garments, such as when Adam and Eve were clothed in the coats of skins. And early Christian writers saw Adam and Eve's coats of skins as representing their mortal sinful state, in contrast with the garments of light that they would symbolically gain at baptism. So by this theory, the Lamanites were consciously putting this mark on themselves by wearing distinct, distinctive clothing made out of animal skin as a cultural marker. This is only one of several theories scholars have proposed around this skin of blackness. So if you want to learn about the other ones, watch the next video or read no Y7 18.

Julia 20:25 I had a random thought while she was talking. So in the. In the temple, we receive garments, we see our, like, underwear that's white and it's symbolic of. Of the clothing, the garments that Adam and Eve were given or made. And here she's trying to say that. Or there was a picture of them and they were wearing black fur. So like, why are our garments not black if. Anyway, I just had that thought. But anyway, were there, were there initial thoughts before we go, before we go on?

Nemo 20:51 I mean, there's just. With what she said, she, she's, you know, she's basically saying that skins can mean animal skins. Well, yes, they can, but it's all context dependent, you know. And then she talks about coat of skins. And it's the same with the whole tapia thing where it's like, well, you know, a hippopotamus. It means river horse. Yeah. Cool. So there's a qualifier there. It kind of looks like a horse, but it's a horse of the river. Right. Prairie dog. Etc. It's the same here. Coat of skins makes it very clear. It's a coat made of skins of an animal of some kind. When you just say skin and you're talking about people, you're talking about the stuff that covers their body, the largest organization of the human body. Right. If you were talking about skins in animal skins, you would add that additional qualifier. You would say animal skins or coats of skins or garments of skins or clothes of skins or loin, cloths of skins, whatever. Right. And it's that saying. All right, well, skins can mean something else. Yes, but there's usually a qualifier.

Julia 21:53 Right. Although it was interesting reading through these, these texts and to see how Joseph Smith wrote and how. I don't think of it as really impressive writing, but this is, this, this, these verses in Alma 4, verses 5 and 6 kind of give examples of both of, of what they mean. Skin as in clothing and skin as in actual skin. Do you want to read that, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano 22:19 Yeah. Alma 4, 5 to 6. Now, the head of the, the heads of the Lamanites were shorn and they were naked. Save it where skin which was girded about their loins, and also their armor which was girded about them, and their bows and their arrows and their stones and their slings and so forth. And the skins of the Lamanites were dark according to the mark, which was set up on their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob and Joseph and Sam, who were just. And holy men.

John Dehlin 23:05 Hmm. Wow, that's interesting.

Julia 23:09 Yeah. So here, like. So I was trying to find other verses that could fit with this, but like skin, because here in the same chapter, it means two different things. First it means clothing and then it means the skin. And then it talks about the curse. Do you guys have any other thoughts about, about this passage?

John Dehlin 23:28 I.

Nemo 23:28 Sorry, do you want to mute it? You go, Harada.

Gerardo Sumano 23:31 Okay, so I was just going to say about, I mean, I think the qualifier that the Nemo is talking about is pretty evident here where it's, it's making it very clear that it, that the skin that was, that was covering them was the one that was geared about their loins.

Guest 2 23:53 Right.

Gerardo Sumano 23:53 And it would be animal skin. And then the next one is about the skins of the Lamanites that were marked by, by God. And, and remember, this is a curse. And it's also making the reference that the curse that came upon the Lamanites came from God. God did not give the Lamanites black, black animal skins, animal fur who cover their loins. This was not an Adam and Eve story, you know, like, so I don't know. I see it as very different here and it's clearly making that distinction.

Julia 24:30 Right.

Nemo 24:31 Have you done the footnotes argument next, Julia, if we, if we got that as a slide or do you want me to point that out now?

Julia 24:37 Point that out now.

Nemo 24:38 Okay. Right. So I would say here, the easiest way to do it is if you look at where it says skins of the Lamanites were dark. So not only does it refer back to the curse, like Gerardo said, which means then we have to look at the verse of the cursing to understand what skin means because it's referential back to that. You can't just take it out of the context of the verse with which. And the curse with which it's referring to. But also, what does the footnotes. Where does the footnotes lead? Where did the footnote when it says skins, the skins, the Lamanites were dark. What's the footnote on the word skins? I'm pretty sure you'll find it takes you back to second Nephi where it's talking about the cursing. And we know from plain understanding of that verse that that is a physical curse of their skin going dark. So these later verses can't escape the fact that they are connected by the church itself back to the original curse scripture. That's what I'd say here.

Julia 25:29 But yeah, it goes directly back to 2 Nephi 5, 21, which. In which the curse was given. So yes. So even in the text itself, in the footnotes, it references back to this curse.

Nemo 25:39 And that's key. The church itself is saying skins in this verse, verse six is talking about the same skins that are in second Nephi. When we're talking about the curse being given. So it's tightly bound to the context of that.

Julia 25:54 Right?

Guest 3 25:55 Yeah.

John Dehlin 25:56 I just want to. Can I just add that it's important to understand what, What Jasmine's doing here, what Jasmine and Neil are doing here. They. They're trying to create plausible explanations for a teaching that's just horrid and unacceptable. And you'll, you'll notice that she's not. She doesn't particularly care whether it's animal skins or tattoos or paint. She doesn't care what, what she wants to do is advance any possible theories, throw any mud at the wall so that for a believing member, they'll just say, oh, oh, it doesn't mean it's not God wasn't racist. The Book of Mormon was a racist. It may be skin, it may be tattoos, it may be paint. You know, who knows? But there's some smart person speaking words that make it so that I don't have to face the reality that God and the Book of Mormon are super racist. That's what's going on here. And I just want to make sure we understand that.

Julia 27:04 So I just checked her video on her YouTube channel, and there's over 110,000 views. And of course, people could be viewing it like we are in a kind of a critical way. But I also worry that people are taking these theories seriously. And that bothers me because when to believe anything other than skin is to discredit history is to discredit the apostle, the. The revealed word of God from these apostles and prophets through all till till now, I guess, because even the leaders aren't saying differently. They're not saying it's tattoos or anything like that. So it's. It just is really messy to try to accept this as. As real.

Nemo 27:40 And this is why I think I pointed out in the last episode, these apologists need to be censored by the church more than funded by them because they're undermining the words of past prophets. They're undermining the credibility of prophets. When they make a statement to say, this is what. This is what the scriptures are saying, this is what the doctrine is. Apologists can't just come along and say, no, they were wrong and we know better. If any of us try and say we know better than the prophets, we're shut down immediately and told to stay in our lane. Why did these guys get to do it? And why do they get paid by the church to do it? It's an important thing to remember. That dynamic is hypocritical when the church tries to shut down things that don't agree with them, they'll say, oh, it's because we are the ones that are in charge of the narrative. We are the ones to get the revealed word of God. But these people are free to contradict the words of past prophets as long as it benefits the church's aims now in wanting to appear less racist.

Julia 28:32 Right? Exactly. Right. Okay, so I wanted to keep going with this chapter. John, do you want to read this one? This is from Alma. Three.

John Dehlin 28:41 Okay. Garments. The Lamanite curse. And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph and Sam, who were just and holy men. And their brethren sought to destroy them. Therefore they were cursed. And the Lord God set a mark upon them, yea, upon Laman and Lemuel and also the sons of Ishmael and Ishmael Itish women. And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, and thereby the Lord God might preserve his people, that they might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction. And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed, meaning sperm, with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed. Therefore, whosoever suffereth himself to be led away by the Lamanites was called under that head, and there was a mark set upon him. And I think, Gerardo, don't you agree that these verses take on a whole new meaning after. And you too, Julia, after reading Matt Harris's book. Yeah, Second Class Saints for sure.

Julia 30:03 Yeah. And I think John is referencing. So the whole. The. The. Excuse me. The curse of Ham or the curse of Cain. The reason that was implemented was because Brigham Young did not want black men sleeping with white women or, you know, any black people sleeping with white people. So, like, that's what I was thinking when you were reading that.

Nemo 30:20 And it's like, incredibly trusting of the Lord of a people that he has cursed to be like, guys, you just need to go out and get black animal skins, like, whenever you have a kid, and just make sure they're always dressed in these dark skins just in case. And then, like, if you know, anyone else goes astray and joins your group, then, you know, you got to put those black skins on them straight away. What do you mean? You could use them as a spy and try and undermine Your mortal enemies. No, no, no, no. Make sure you're always distinguishable, please and thank you. And I'm going to trust you to sort that out.

Julia 30:52 Exactly. That reminds me, it's been a while since I read the book Mormon, but there's a story where, where one of the captains, one of the Nephite captains, goes around and he tries to find somebody who's Lamanite descendant and he finds a guy and he's like, hey, I need you to lead this. This band. We'll go get the Lamanites drunk. And so like he went around searching. It's not like he could just throw dark skins on anybody. He went and found this man who had black skin. And his name, I think was actually Layman or Laban. It was one of the names of one of the brothers. But anyway, so like. So like, if it was, if that's the case, then why is this story in the Book of Mormon?

Nemo 31:22 And it also means that Joseph Smith avoided yet another problematic thing. At least Joseph Smith didn't include blackface in the Book of Mormon because that's what that story could have also led to. So I'm glad he didn't go there with that one because it would just be another problematic feather in the cap of this whole thing, wouldn't it?

John Dehlin 31:39 Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano 31:40 So what it seems really disingenuous from Ja. From Jasmine or for Jasmine to do is to talk about this theory of skin, of blackness, meaning animal skin and reference, or in either directly or indirectly this passages that like make. May make it mean animal skin and then literally avoid telling her viewers that the next, the very next verses undermine her theory of it being animal skins.

Nemo 32:20 Right.

Gerardo Sumano 32:21 The one that could make it mean animal skins is verse five. But then 6789, they're all talking about seed and, and mingle his seed. And that. That doesn't have anything to do with animal skin. It's clearly that. That this is a genetic thing that, that, that Joseph Smith was. Was thinking about.

Guest 2 32:44 Right.

Gerardo Sumano 32:44 Like, and, and when two dark people mix, then they create someone, a. A dark baby. So therefore, you know, they pass the. The curse to them. And then if someone else outside of the. Of the Lamanites come and mixes with them, then the curse was also going to be passed to them that this is there. He's obviously talking about having kids and, and anyway. And progress.

Nemo 33:13 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Julia 33:14 And then like I like here in verse 7 of Alma 3, it says layman or Ishmaelitish women. And so like, to reference the women specifically is to reference Seed is to reference having children. And you're not just going to. Like Nemo said, you're not just going to put the skin on these newborn babies and be like, now you're. This is a symbolism of your curse. Or like. And like, it's not God doing it. And like, can you just remove the garments whenever you want and just not be cursed? Like, it doesn't make any sense. It's just really silly to me.

Nemo 33:41 I mean, if God was going to curse anything and he wanted to make it all about skins, and he would have just cursed their sheep so that they only produce dark wool, then they only have access to dark clothing materials from now on.

Julia 33:53 That's great. Okay, so we're going to. So we're going to go back to look at second Nephi 5. 21, where the curse was given, and just look at this verse again with this idea of. Of garments. Neiman, do you want to read this one?

Nemo 34:08 Yeah. And I'll say that this is the one that all those refer Back to.

Julia 34:12 Exactly.

Nemo 34:13 Second Nephi 5. 21. 23. And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint. Wherefore, as they were white, and exceeding fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing as my people. Therefore the Lord God did cause the skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God, I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities. And curse shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed. For they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done. And because of their cursing which was upon them, they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey.

Julia 35:07 Yeah, so again, this is about seeing this you could use to combat. I feel like the. This is the verse where the curse happens and you can use it to combat the garments, the paint, the tattoos, the symbolism. Because he says if your seed mixes with their seed and they're cursed, all the other seed will be cursed. So like. And then. And then again, as we referenced in the last episodes, this is how Joseph Smith understood it. He. His first revelation about polygamy was to mix the seed and to. To turn. Turn the children white. And then even Brigham Young had that understanding, like, throughout the all of it. That's what they had this understanding. Of course you have Spencer Kimball who, who thought that, you know, by their righteousness they would be turn white and then use the, the Indian student placement program to say that it was happening. So I guess there you have righteousness rather than. Anyway, but yeah, all the other leaders understood it to be, to be seed.

Gerardo Sumano 36:02 It's also really interesting how this matches the Mount Builder myth. Right.

Guest 2 36:08 And.

Gerardo Sumano 36:08 Oh, exactly how people in Joseph Smith's time would see the, this quote unquote savages Indians who were dark and, and, and there's no way they could have built this big cities and, and, and, or, or mounds. And then they have to kind of reduce them to this racist idea of them being, you know, hunters and what. Can you put this, the scripture back?

Julia 36:38 Oh yeah, sorry about that.

Gerardo Sumano 36:39 Yeah, now you're good. And where it says and because of this cursing which was upon them, they become idle people full of mischief and they seek in the wilderness where beasts of prey. So he's not just saying they're, they're dark. He's also, you know, matching this racist theme that of how people at his time saw the Indians.

Julia 37:05 Exactly. Yeah. The, the racism in the Book of Mormon is not just the skin color. It is the, is the behaviors. It is the, the, the lifestyle of these people that is so racist. And in the entire Book of Mormon. Yeah. Okay, so the next one, I want to talk about Ethan Sprout for a second. So in, so she referenced him in, in the video that we, we just watched. So Interestingly, in his 2015 paper titled Skins as Garments in the Book of Mormon, a textual. I don't know how to say that word. Exegesis.

Skins as Garments Theory Examined

John Dehlin 37:39 Yeah, that's right, exegesis.

Julia 37:40 Ethan Sprout stated that such inference that the skin of blacks has spent human flesh was perhaps ostensibly sensible and self explanatory to the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon's initial Euro American 19th century audience. And the reason I pull this is because I think this is because to me, from my perspective and my understanding is that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. And I think a lot of scholars now will say that there's a lot of his. Even faithful members of the church will say that Joseph Smith's life or Joseph Smith's experiences made it into the text. And so Ethan's saying that. Yeah, of course it's, it makes sense that Joseph Smith would have understood it to mean, to mean flesh, to mean skin color. Skin color. Like. But if Joseph Smith wrote it, then this is just as evidence to me that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon is because it was so obvious to him and carried throughout all these decades. I don't know if you guys have thoughts.

Nemo 38:29 I love Ethan's face in this slide. It's really like, oh, really, Jasmine? You're using my work to say skin doesn't mean skin, huh? Because, you know, he's. He's making it very clear that that is. I think what I take from this is that he's saying that was what would have been understood by Joseph Smith's contemporary audience. The original. No matter who wrote the Book of Mormon, it would have been absolutely understood by whoever read it at that time that it was talking about skin, because that. That made sense to everyone who was. Who was reading it. And that has been held since that time. That view has been held. A God has not come in with flaming swords or even just a whispered word to tell anyone. That's not actually the case. Not anyone who has the authority to make that declaration anyway. He's possibly appeared to Jasmine and her husband and said, yeah, guys, they're all wrong, but you're right. But, you know, he hasn't. He certainly hasn't said it to anyone who's told us from a position of authority that this isn't what. What Ethan's saying here isn't exactly what the scriptures meant.

Julia 39:33 Yeah, right. So, like, Joseph Smith's audience, he writes this Book of Mormon. And the audience was like, oh, yeah, of course. Of course we believe this because that's what everyone else believes during this time period. But, like, if Joseph Smith. If this wasn't the case, Joseph Smith, who is the prophet, seer and revelator, speaks to God, has his seer stones, has whatever. He's speaking to angels regularly. Like, why wouldn't. Like, this would be the time where to say, oh, no, it's not anything to do with skin color. Like, why did that not happen?

Gerardo Sumano 39:56 Yeah.

Nemo 39:57 I mean, it would have been more incredible if Joseph had turned around to the people at the time and gone, oh, no, no, put away your. Put away your ideas about the mound builders, etc. Right. This isn't about skin. This is something different that would have been quite incredible and revolutionary for the time. Sorry, Gerardo.

Julia 40:11 Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano 40:11 Oh, I was just gonna say, yeah, it's kind of interesting that the guy who translated the.

Julia 40:18 The.

Gerardo Sumano 40:18 The book. The people who read it at the time, the people who it was supposedly written for. Right. The people at 18:20, which was. I think apologists would say that the book of. A lot of the things in the Book of Mormon are most relevant to the people at the time where Joseph Smith came out with the Book of Mormon and all these people, and for over a hundred years plus, all these people, prophets, seers and revelators and apostles, they all got it wrong. But then we have Jasmine and this, a couple other apologists today, you know, trying to change the narrative and interpretation and saying, oh, they got it all wrong the entire time. And then add to that the fact that the brethren today are not aligning or at least speaking publicly about this new interpretation of black skins, not meaning black skins.

Nemo 41:09 And that, I think really tells us that apologists are getting an official nod from church leaders. Because I can't imagine the level of hubris it would take otherwise for a believing member of the church, someone who sustains these men as prophets, seers and revelators, to espouse theories that essentially say, all these men were wrong, they were all wrong. The only way you're going to do that, as a believing member, surely, is if you get the official nod from church leaders to go, yep, you're okay saying that. You're okay to kind of ride roughshod over past beliefs. That's fine. You can do that. That will be helpful to us. Because otherwise that, that's got to take a lot of hubris, which I don't think necessarily Jasmine and her husband possess. I don't think they really think that they know something that nobody else knows. I think they're getting the nod from people that they believe in and sustain to say, yeah, you're okay to espouse that theory. That's fine by us.

John Dehlin 42:03 Yeah,

Julia 42:05 that's so interesting. Okay, so the next one that we're going to talk about is paint, and then we're going to go through her video about paint.

Body Paint and Maya Art Theory

Guest 42:17 This next theory leads us to analyze art from the Classic Maya, which illustrates that many elites darkened their skins with paints, stains and pigments for ceremonial purposes and as camouflage for warfare, hunting and plunder. This fits with the Book of Mormon pretty well. Since the first time the Nephites would have come in contact with the Lamanites would almost certainly have been during a time of war. And Nephi even noted that the Lamanites were known as hunters in the wilderness for beasts of prey. And this is what led Garrett and Mistine Blick to propose that the Lamanites marked themselves by painting their skins dark. This body painting may have been done as part of pre war rituals where the warriors would whisper or curses on the enemy while applying the paint. Charcoal and soot were oftentimes used in these skin darkening paints, which could have linked them to filthiness in the Nephites point of view. On some ceremonial occasions, ritual participants would fast for several days and cover themselves with black paint or soot, only to be cleansed of the black soot, both physically and symbolically purified at the end of the fast. So perhaps something similar took place through the purifying ritual of baptism, when some Lamanites had their curses taken from them and their skin became white, like unto the Nephites.

Nemo 43:34 Oh my gosh, Jasmine. I thought that, you know, I thought that filthiness was purely a spiritual thing. I didn't think that you were espousing. It was physical. But now apparently it's charcoal dust.

John Dehlin 43:44 Right.

Nemo 43:46 How many more?

Gerardo Sumano 43:46 Didn't she say earlier that Joseph Smith changed the word white from pure from white because it's not really a change in color.

Nemo 43:56 Yes, but now it is a change in color. Like it's just. Yeah, it is just throwing whatever at the wall and sees what, what sort of what sticks.

Gerardo Sumano 44:05 Well, and one thing I'll say, because since I have a significant percentage of Maya blood in me, is that the Lamanites are not the Maya. The Maya are not the Lemonites. So even though this is a Maya tradition, it serves of no purpose if you can't prove or say that the Maya were, were the Laymanites, because we don't know who the layman desire are. We don't know where they lived or who their descendants are.

Nemo 44:39 Yeah, no offense to your Maya ancestors, but they're not really relevant to this, are they? You know, it's like, and, and this is the problem again with this whole hemispheric model. It just wasn't what was believed by Joseph Smith and his contemporaries. The people that started the religion didn't believe that this was all going on in Central and South America. So looking to Central and South America for justifications for things that happened in the Book of Mormon that according to Joseph Smith, happened purely in the north part of the United States. That's not really helpful to anyone.

Julia 45:10 Right, right.

Nemo 45:13 Joseph Smith didn't believe that it happened in Central.

Julia 45:15 Oh yeah, because like, because as we talked about in part one, Joseph Smith was sending men on missions to like Ohio, New York, Missouri. Like the Lamanites were here in the United States. They're not. Joseph didn't see them as being Maya. And so like. But also she also referenced in the video that, that for ceremonial reasons, that's why they painted themselves so like they're only cursed during the ceremonies. Like, and then not all of them are, are cursed and only go and

Nemo 45:38 mingle your seed during ceremonial times and then paint the babies.

Julia 45:42 And like, like it doesn't like to have it be. Paint makes no sense.

Nemo 45:46 Like for something that's described so negatively and is clearly meant to ruin their social status amongst the Nephites and is clearly meant to make their life difficult when it comes to the only other group that they can trade with. And you know, they aren't half trusted, according to Jasmine, to just distinguish themselves at all times.

Gerardo Sumano 46:03 Yeah, I agree.

Julia 46:05 Right.

Nemo 46:06 And human beings naturally, we want to try and get along when we can. We want to try and, you know, be, be a bit closer and that sort of thing. So.

Guest 46:15 Yeah.

Julia 46:16 So there's a verse in third Nephi that I wanted to read. This is 35, 2:15 through 16. And it says, and it came to pass that those Lamanites which had united with the Nephites were numbered among the Nephites. And their curse was taken from them and their skin became white. Became white like unto the Nephites, and, and their young men and their daughters became exceeding fair. And they were numbered among the Nephites and they were called Nephites.

Nemo 46:37 So like, example of where Joseph didn't change white to pure.

John Dehlin 46:43 Oh, gosh.

Julia 46:45 Right. So like, like here I, I guess you can see it as like the. Because they're saying that as soon as they were, they were numbered among the Nephites, they became white. But also like, you have the, you have Spencer Kimball who was looking at the skin color and how he really thought that their skin color was changing to white.

Gerardo Sumano 47:01 Right.

Julia 47:01 And like, he didn't take into account that they were in homes now and that they were being fed differently or they're like receiving different sunlight levels. Like, but I mean, it was still skin color. So like, anyway.

Nemo 47:14 Yeah, no, and. And again, something I just want to point out here where it says exceeding fair.

Guest 2 47:20 Exactly.

Nemo 47:21 Wanting to say exceedingly fair. That's so much Joseph Smith's own words there. Right. That is so much 19th century American grammar. They became exceeding fair. It's, it's like, it's. That's just one of the little sort of thumbprints of Joseph through the text. Gerardo, did you want to say something about that?

Gerardo Sumano 47:42 Well, also, what if it was pain? What does exceeding fair have to do with like removing someone's paint from their. Yeah, you know, it's saying that they became more beautiful. So it's equating white skin or whiter skin to, to, you know, being beautiful. Or more attractive, which is totally what people in Joseph Smith's time would believe.

Nemo 48:05 And again, it was taken from them. We've talked a lot about the fact that the skin, you know, the skins doesn't work because God put the curse on them. It's like the curse here was taken from them. Like, was the paint just forcibly removed in some way? Because you would imagine if this was a ceremony of washing oneself, then it would be described as such, not just that this paint was taken off them and all of a sudden they became white. And then their young men and their daughters also just became white like that. If that was the case, it would be described as such.

John Dehlin 48:38 Yeah.

Nemo 48:38 I don't see the. The utility of just it being a short of curse, being a shorthand for a physical process that could be described. Because if you could describe it, you would. But you can't describe a cursing of the changing of skin color other than in the terms of calling it a curse and then talking about skin becoming white and people becoming fair, which is what's being described. So it seems obvious that that's what's happening.

Julia 49:04 I also think it's interesting that he talks about young men and their daughters. Like, he often brings in these. These, like the women and how, like, they were also seeding fair. Because I think he's trying to perpetuate this idea of. Of having seed. And like, now they're young men and they're young women who have lots of seed or, you know, are able to have children. They are also fair so that their seed is not cursed.

Nemo 49:21 So it's like there's always like a genealogical element, isn't there? There's always.

Julia 49:25 Right, exactly.

Nemo 49:26 And the children also then become this. So he's. He's showing that it's a cross generational thing, and it's about the mixing of the seed. It's about how the next generation then look. Because. Because this is a story ultimately of how. Because we're looking back at the Mound Builders myth, how a group of white individuals were wiped out and became dark by the mixture of seed and other reasons. Right. So he's constantly laying that narrative out.

Julia 49:50 Right. Okay. So there's another. So I think one of the biggest reasons. And she doesn't talk about this, and I think she talks about it in a different video. But one of the things that was obvious in my mind is this the story of the. Is it Amlicites or Amlicites? I don't know how to say it.

John Dehlin 50:06 It's all made up. It doesn't matter.

Julia 50:08 Right, right. So there's a story in Alma 3 where it says that the Amlicites were distinguished from the Nephites, for they had marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites. Nevertheless, they had not shorn their heads like unto the Lamanites. Now the heads of the Lamanites were shorn and they were naked, save a word skin, which was girded by their loins. And so like, like they're. They're marking themselves with red. And so, so there's an image here on the side where this is from the Book of Mormon Stories reader, the children's reader. And they're painting themselves like it's literal paint. And then the caption says, like the Lamanites, the Amlicites or Amlicites mark themselves with red, which fulfill the prophecy. The Amlicites had separated themselves from the blessing of the Gospel. Blessings of the gospel.

Nemo 50:50 And why did they have to mark themselves with. With red, I wonder? Is it because they weren't dark skinned per chance, and they wanted to make themselves look like not Nephites anymore?

Gerardo Sumano 51:01 Yeah, right.

Julia 51:02 So they're like both white and then you have.

Nemo 51:05 Yeah, because if it wasn't dark skin, and if everyone was. Had the same skin color in this book, then you know, why.

Gerardo Sumano 51:12 Why wouldn't they mark themselves with black?

Nemo 51:14 Yeah, why would they mark themselves with black paint?

Julia 51:16 And if it's a sim, if it's symbolic, which we'll talk about later, then why are they just not automatically black? Like, why are they marking themselves? I don't know. Like. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Nemo 51:26 Why do they physically do it? Was there another slide on this from when we went through the slides?

Julia 51:31 Yeah, so this one's a little bit more. Do you want to read this one, Nemo?

Nemo 51:34 Yes. Because then I guess, I think here's another one where we follow the footnotes. It says, and the skins of the Lamanites were dark, because this is Alma 36 again. So. And the skins of Lamanites were dark according to a mark which is set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob and Joseph and Sam, who were just. And holy men and the Amlicites. What scripture is that again?

Julia 51:56 Sorry, it's just earlier in the chapter.

Nemo 51:58 So it's Alma 3, 4, 5. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Julia 52:01 So, yeah. And then again, the reference, the footnote just goes right back to 2, 5. What is it? 5, 21.

Nemo 52:07 Because what they will try and say is in Those verses before, it talks about the Lamanites having skins around their loins, and then it says the skins of the Lamanites were dark according to blah, blah, blah. But again, we've just shown it. Just the footnote takes you straight back to second. Nephi. It's talking about the cursed skin, which is actual skin.

Julia 52:22 Yeah, right.

Nemo 52:25 Moving swiftly on.

Julia 52:27 Okay, so this is just another. This. This is the same one I've showed already, I think, where it's just the seed again. Like, I think this idea of seed or the genealogical aspect of all of this just combats all of these because it's. You can't. Like, you can't pass on paint. You can't pass on body paint or. Or coats or tattoos even. Like, it's just silly. So I just wanted to show that again.

Guest 2 52:49 Yeah,

Julia 52:52 so in the Book of Mormon, the Amlicites, there were a group of Nephites. Yeah, we've talked about this before, where they're Nephites, and the only way to distinguish themselves is to set this mark upon themselves, because the Lamanites are already black. And I don't know if we need to go through this one. So this. This one. The Lord. The Lord sets. Hang on. Maybe we should just read this one.

Gerardo Sumano 53:10 Yeah. So this is Alma 3, 13, 16. So it's the same chapter. Right?

Julia 53:16 Just later on. Yeah. So now we will return again to the Amlicites. For they also had a mark set upon them. Yea, they set the mark upon themselves, even a mark of red upon their foreheads. Thus the word of God is fulfilled. For these are the words which he said unto Nephi. Behold, the Lamanites have I cursed. And I will set a mark on them. And they and their seed may be separated from thee and thy seed from this time, henceforth and forever, except they repent of their wickedness and turn to me that I may have mercy upon them. And again, I will set a mark upon him that mingleth his seed with thy brethren, that they may be cursed also. And again, I will set a mark upon him that fighteth against thee and thy seed. And so it's just like he's talking about seed again. He's talking about how he barks them and how the Lamanite curses. You know, it's God marking them. The Amlicites mark themselves.

Nemo 54:05 Yeah, right. And so I think the point I've made about this when we were. When we were going through these slides is again, if you go to where it says, the Lamanites have I cursed, where does the Footnote Take you to. It'll take you straight back to second Nephi. But here, for some reason, in his infinite wisdom, God's chosen not to immediately cause the Amlicites to have black skin, but instead has allowed them to mark themselves as separate using a red mark. Fine, whatever. That doesn't in any way affect the curse that these verses talk about when it comes to having been applied to Lamanites. So the curse of the Lamanites is still exactly as it's always been understood. It's about skin. The Amlicites were a slightly different case. And that's okay. You know, we're here trying to judge the. The consistency of God's dealings with these people rather than what the curse itself actually means. Because when it says in these verses, the Lamanites have I cursed, it's very clear. It will take you straight back to second Nephi. Again, that curse that we understand means skin. So just because in this instance a mark is something else doesn't mean that all of a sudden the understanding of the. The original cursing of the Lamanites is any different.

Julia 55:16 Right. And there's more if we want to keep going with this chapter. Do you want to read this one?

Gerardo Sumano 55:24 Yeah. Alma 13:17 to 19. And again I say, he that depart from thee shall no more be called thy seed, and I will bless thee, and whom whomsoever shall be called thy seed henceforth and forever. And these were the promises of the Lord unto Nephite and to his seed. Now, the Amlicites knew not that they were fulfilling the words of God when they began to mark themselves in their foreheads. Nevertheless, they had come out in open rebellion against God. Therefore it was expedient that the curse should fall upon them. Now, I would that ye should see that they brought upon themselves the curse. And even so doth every man that is cursed bring upon himself his own condemnation. Yeah. So I think this is pretty clear, right, that it's really making a distinctions between the Amazites and the Lamanites, because the Amlicites brought the curse upon themselves, unlike the Lamanites, who God himself cursed.

Nemo 56:31 So God cursed their genealogical lineage, whereas the Amnesites have come in and brought upon themselves the curse. But because it's physical, they're not getting it straight away, perhaps.

Julia 56:44 Right.

Nemo 56:45 As in they're not getting the change in skin color, but as they mix their seed, it will darken.

Julia 56:51 Right. And then again, the footnote, like you were saying, it just goes right back to second Nephi 5, 21. This is all these reference back to the original cursing.

Guest 3 57:00 Yep.

Julia 57:01 So, yeah.

Nemo 57:02 Which we've done to death at this point.

Julia 57:04 Right, Right. Okay. So the next one is about tattoos, so we'll watch her her video.

Guest 57:09 Latter Day Saints have a lot of theories about what the skin of blackness could be in. The Book of Mormon says it's probably not skin. And I know you've never heard of this theory before because it's brand new, but if you want to learn about the other theories, definitely go check out my other videos on this topic. So Alma said that the Lord would set a mark upon him that fighteth against thee and thy seed. And we can get a hint of what this word mark means by looking at the Hebrew behind Leviticus 19 when it says, ye shall not print any marks upon you. The word translated here as mark is the Hebrew kaaka, which means incision, imprint, tattoo. Tattooing was known in the ancient near east and in the ancient Americas among various indigenous tribes in both north and South America. And Mesoamerica was documented as early as possibly the Olmecs, Maya, all the way up through the Spanish conquest, going back to Leviticus. Tattooing yourself like this would have been a violation of the law of Moses. So this kind of a mark would literally be a cursed thing upon the Lamanites, a visible sign of their rebellion against the Lord's covenants. After Lemonite conversion, they would discontinue this practice. And so future generations would lack the mark, just like it describes in 3rd Nephi, that their young men and their daughters became exceedingly fair. If you want to learn about all of these other theories or understand why it's probably not actually skin, you're going to want to read. No, I. Number 718.

Gerardo Sumano 58:22 Oh, my God. Doesn't she misreads or misquotes the scripture? Because it's the scripture that we just read, which is the one she cites is the one that not only is talking about the young men and the daughters, is also talking about the parents. Right?

Julia 58:38 Yeah, yeah.

Gerardo Sumano 58:39 She's trying to say, well, they discontinued the practice of tattooing themselves. So then the scripture is only talking about it.

Nemo 58:47 Yeah, yeah. She says this scripture says that their children became fair. And that means because they discontinued the practice, of course their children would lack the tattoos. But like I said, the scripture also said the parents became fair who would have had the tattoos. Is laser tattoo removal around in the Book of Mormon, like, right? This annoys me in so many ways because, again, she's missing out words linguistically. She's a mess, honestly. She says the print marks upon yourselves. That's what Leviticus says. My first question is, why does Leviticus matter to, to philemonites in any way? Why are they under the law of Moses? I don't, I don't remember that part of the Book of Mormon particularly. But then she's talking about the Hebrew and saying that, oh, it says you won't print any marks upon you. And that marks could mean imprints. Well, yes, it could mean imprints because the word print is also included in the sentence so very context, specifically that word mark there could very well mean tattoos. But the word mark in and of itself doesn't just mean tattoos outside of any context. It's very clear when you talk about printing marks upon yourselves. The word print is very important there because it's the idea of imprinting a mark onto your skin, of tattooing yourself. It's verbs that make the word mark have that specific meaning. And without that verb, mark just means mark. Doesn't mean tattoos.

Julia 1:00:15 Well, and then her other video where she talks about paint and how like she said at baptism, they became, you know, white or whatever, or the paint could have washed off. That doesn't happen with tattoos. They can get, they can join the church, they can get baptized, and it's, it's still going to stay there. Unless you. Like you said, if laser hair removal or laser hair removal, Laser tattoo removal was.

Nemo 1:00:33 What's her name? Al Caraway Fox or whatever her name is. Right. The tattoo woman influencer. Did hers just disappear when she joined the church? No, like people's. I know ex soldiers who joined the church who've still got their tattoos from when they're in the military. Like, tattoos don't just disappear.

Julia 1:00:49 And also, if you look at the footnotes in the studies that they're referencing, one of them I couldn't access because it's behind a paywall, but another one that they reference. These tattoos were done ceremoniously and they were done rarely. And when they were done, it was ceremoniously not with everybody. And so like, again, like, why, like you're saying this entire group of people had tattoos when there's no evidence for that? Like that it doesn't make any sense.

Nemo 1:01:11 And sufficient tattoos to distinguish them. Right. It's not just one or two. It'll be this idea of like Maori tattoos that are all covering. And it's like. And who's doing that to children? Who's doing that to, to, to children here? And lest we forget, the legendary Book of Mormon reader shows that it clearly isn't tattoos. It's just skin. So.

Julia 1:01:32 Well, and then even today is in Come follow me now, it still even shows, as we've referenced before in the last video, that it still shows skin.

Nemo 1:01:40 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:01:40 Right. Well.

Gerardo Sumano 1:01:43 And what's most importantly for this tattoo theory to work is you have to be like Jasmine and leave part of the verses out.

Julia 1:01:54 Right.

Guest 3 1:01:55 To work.

Gerardo Sumano 1:01:55 And being sneaky that way.

Nemo 1:01:58 I still can't believe it that she left that part of the verse out about the parents. And he's like, oh, yeah, this is why it works with the kids. But she just completely neglects. That's really deceitful. I'm really glad you caught that Harado, because that's, that's bad.

John Dehlin 1:02:10 And the. Again, I'm just going to keep coming back to it. It's because she's not seeking truth. She doesn't care what the truth is. She just wants to create as many harebrained explanations as is possible to convince a believer who wants to keep believing that that there's something they can hang their hat on. And that's why, Julia, when you say you're disturbed by 100,000 comments or likes or whatever reviews, generally, believers are going to operate by confirmation bias and motivated reasoning. In other words, they're going to want to maintain their beliefs, and so they're going to want to find any evidence or explanation that they can find to reaffirm the beliefs they want to have. And that's why this, this series is really only valuable or useful to people who are actually earnestly seeking truth and who care about evidence and facts and reason and logic. But there are enough listeners and viewers of the series who clearly seem to value those things because we're told this series is making a big difference. So that's why it's important what we do. But it's also important to call out what Jasmine and Neil and others are doing. They're not. They're not honest truth seekers. They're intentionally deceiving people, you know, probably as earnest believers, but with an idea that by any means necessary that it's okay to deceive and manipulate if it keeps people believing.

Scholars Who Accept Literal Skin Color Reading

Julia 1:03:45 Yeah, well. And like, as we'll show later, there are scholars that accept this meaning skin color. They accept that that's the case and they don't have to redefine anything. They just accept it and then they still believe. Like, they don't make apologies for it. And I appreciate that. And also her sentence where she says, you've never heard this theory because it's brand new. Like, we have been led the Church has claimed to be led by prophets, seers and revelators who speak to God. Why are we coming out with new theories? And also if you have a theory and you're making, you have four theories that are very different from each other and they kind of contradict these texts. Like one can't fit if the other one fits.

Gerardo Sumano 1:04:18 Like, yeah, they all contradict each other too.

Julia 1:04:21 Right? Like you're, you don't have strong legs to stand on. None of these arguments are strong at all. Like you're just throwing, like you guys said, throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Nemo 1:04:32 Sorry. You belong to an organization that claims direct access to deity and that the leaders of that organization speak for God. You then have other people in the organization who are throwing three, four or five theories out about what scripture means. They should be useless and no one should be taking them seriously. And the only reason they get taken seriously is because there are questions that aren't being addressed by those people who claim to speak for God. So that leaves a vacuum into which people like Jasmine can step, often with the blessing of those individuals who are neglecting their role as one who speaks for God because they're not speaking to the actual issues that matter to people. That leaves that vacuum for Jasmine to step in with that blessing and go, oh well, here's four or five theories. Pick the one that makes you feel the best about the situation. Let's not talk about it anymore, shall we? Which, which isn't what people need. And it's not a long term solution for the church. It's not going to work forever.

Julia 1:05:24 Yeah, right.

Gerardo Sumano 1:05:26 Also think about this. This issue is probably most, or one of the most important issues for the church today than it ever was. Because the church, it. Where the church is growing the most today is Africa. And you have all these people in Africa reading the Book of Mormon for the first time. You would think that prophets, seers and revelators should be trying to figure out how people should be interpreting this scripture, especially when they are outright so, you know, so racist and, and horrible sounding like if, if this was really, it's not me, it doesn't mean skin and it means something else. Shouldn't be prophets the ones concerned to come up with an answer directly from God to reinterpret these scriptures? Why are these scholars and Jasmine doing this? And then in, you know, while they're doing it, they're also leaving all this context out or to make their, their theories work?

Nemo 1:06:29 Well, how is the church doing in Latin America, Harada? How is it how is it doing in Central South America?

Gerardo Sumano 1:06:34 It's not, not doing great.

Nemo 1:06:37 Well, and I think that's your answer because the church just will, what they will do is they will just be very distinct about their racism. They'll make very clear what racism is. What. So they'll say, oh, hang on. The racism towards black Africans, that's the curse of Cain. We got rid of that. 1978. That's cool. Black Africans, you're all good. But the Book of Mormon says skin of blackness. Yeah, no, that's people over in the Americas. That's, that's, that's them. We're being racist too. Don't you guys worry. It's those dark skinned people that, that are still, you know, it's still in scripture that they're cursed. Right? You guys curse a cane? No, no, we've got rid of that. And I think, honestly I'm being a bit glib, but I think that's what, that's how they're viewing it. They're like, okay, well the church is declining amongst the people that actually have a right to be offended by these verses. I mean, all people that dislike racism have a right to be offended by the verses. But I think, you know what I'm saying, right? The people that the racism would directly affect or is talking about, the church is declining amongst that population.

Julia 1:07:31 Yeah, I think that's, I agree with you and I think that's why the church is focusing elsewhere. But also, like, I'll just point out that the church has been the most racist against black Africans or Africans because they were the ones that were cursed. They were the ones that were limited in their temple attendance, their sealing, their, their abilities to receive these saving ordinances. The church never, never denied Native Americans that, those privileges, but they did deny people of African descent those privileges.

Nemo 1:07:58 They were cursed, but they were main characters. So they still get a pass, right? Yeah.

Julia 1:08:03 Yeah. Okay. So going, going back to the scriptures. So nowhere in the text of the Book of Mormon does a reference tattoos. And like the only thing that I could. They could. You could, in my opinion, you could view. Infer such meaning is from Alma 38, which we've already discussed where it reads that the Amlicites knew not that they were fulfilling the words of God when they began to mark themselves in their foreheads. And I think she talked about that word mark and how that could mean tattooing, but like, but this is also. They're painting themselves. Unless they're tattooing themselves.

Nemo 1:08:32 Like, well, the Book of Mormon reader shows that they were painting Themselves.

Julia 1:08:36 Right.

Nemo 1:08:37 That makes that very clear visually. And also, again, she missed out the word print as it was connected to the word mark, which that makes it very clear it could be a tattoo. Whereas here it didn't say they began to print themselves with marks, did it? Or anything of that nature.

Guest 1:08:53 Right.

Julia 1:08:54 So like, I don't. I didn't have very many slides for this one because it's just so it doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah. Okay, so then, then the. Her fourth one is, is that it's symbolic. So we'll watch this clip.

Ancient Symbolic Uses of Skin Color Language

Guest 1:09:13 Scholars have discovered examples of symbolically describing people as black or white in the writings of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Arabs, Christians, and even the Bible itself. Perhaps the most direct ancient Near Eastern parallel is found in the succession treaty of Assarhaddon. This treaty was sent out to Assyrian vassals, including Judah, around the seventh century B.C. to establish a new king, Ashurbanipal. As was customary in ancient Near Eastern treaties and covenants, curses were pronounced upon those who would violate its terms. One of the curses of this treaty states, may the gods make your skin and the skin of your women, your sons and your daughters dark. May they be as black as pitch and crude oil. In the Bible, Lamentations used similar imagery to describe the Nazarites. The Nazirites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, but now their visage is blacker than a coal. Later adding, our skin was black like an oven, because skin color naturally does not change as quickly. It's pretty clear that these examples aren't referring to literal skin color or race. In its Assyrian context, skin, black as pitch, appears to be a motif for death and destruction. And then its reappropriation and Lamentations might not be referring to literal death, but rather to be more like dead men walking.

Nemo 1:10:34 So she's like, hey, look at all this stuff that happened on the other side of the world. They used to talk kind of quite poetically about black skin and white skin. That makes this all okay, when this book makes it very clear that it's a literal cursing. Because the difference there is you've got an Assyrian king saying, may your skin be black, the skin of your wife's children, etc, be black. Basically asking for a curse to be put upon them. That's not a scripture that says God cursed them with black skin. That's not an environment in which a literal deity, which, if you believe in the power of an omnipotent and deity, has the power to just change from skin. The way Jasmine goes, oh, skin just doesn't change. She herself is therefore discounting the power of an omnipotent deity to make such changes happen. Which, what happens then to her belief in miracles? Because God is a God of miracles. That's the, the Mormon belief. So all of a sudden has God ceased to be a God of miracles? According to Jasmine, because all of a sudden, biologically skin can't change. So, you know, it's just ridiculous.

Julia 1:11:36 Also, it made me think of how Spencer Kimball in October General Conference of 1960, how he held up the pictures and he was like, oh, the people on the. That are in this idiots and placement program, they're. They're brighter, they're whiter than they're, than their family members on the reservation. Like, she's like, oh, skin color doesn't change that quickly. But like, according to Spencer Campbell, it does.

Gerardo Sumano 1:11:56 So, like, anyway, yeah, I think it's kind of interesting. She says, well, that can't happen. But then doesn't the Book of Mormon have all these, like, ridiculous stories, miracle stories anyway, about people chopping hands and stuff like that?

John Dehlin 1:12:14 Like usually Ammon chopping off the arms of all the.

Gerardo Sumano 1:12:20 Yeah,

John Dehlin 1:12:23 and Sam and I'd standing up on the wall and the arrows don't hit him.

Nemo 1:12:27 We want to talk about biological miracles. Right? Biological miracles in the Book of Mormon is how someone is decapitated without a drop of blood being spilt so that their clothes can then be worn without anyone going, why are you covered in blood? Right. Nephi is able just to take Laban's clothes, put them on, pretend to be him, because those clothes aren't drenched in the blood of a man who's just been decapitated.

Julia 1:12:52 Right. And then like, if it's symbolic, then how did Joseph know where to send these early missionaries to the Lamanites? And then like, again, there's a bunch of stories in the Book of Mormon. Like I referenced the one where they, they try to find this guy so that he can deliver wine to the enemies, to the Lamanites. Like, they specifically pick this guy out. If it's symbolic, then why that story doesn't make any sense.

Nemo 1:13:11 Well, with, with their spiritual eyes, he looked dodgy, I think, to be facetious. Yeah, it's just ridiculous. Like, appealing to these ancient civilizations that have no real influence, as far as I can tell, on the Lamanites.

Julia 1:13:26 Right, exactly.

Nemo 1:13:27 It's just like it seems to be. The approach is we can't pin anything to North America anymore, so let's just look at any part of the world we can find to find Something that makes our theory make sense and then we'll just co opt it.

Julia 1:13:42 Right.

Nemo 1:13:42 Honestly, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic there. That seems to be the thing, like any ancient writing we can find that mentions someone as having black skin. Cool. We'll use that as a reason why in this other very specific context that now aligns with the Assyrian understanding of black skin.

Gerardo Sumano 1:14:01 Oh goodness.

Nemo 1:14:02 Reformed Egyptian and Assyrian apparently very, very similar after all.

Julia 1:14:07 Now and again, like if you accept one of these, one of these four theories, it hurts the other one. So it's like they're all really weak. I can't stress that enough at this,

Nemo 1:14:18 but I think this is, I think the whole symbolic thing is kind of like the last bastion. It's like the last retreat post for this. If you can't ascribe it to tattoos, paint, animal skins, etc. You have to step back and go, well, it still wasn't physical skin because it was symbolic in some way or it was spiritual in some way. And that's, that's that kind of like final appeal to something beyond the tangible to go, ah, well, it was something untangible that you can't disprove that it was right, it was meaning, it was nuance, it was this, it was that. That's the kind of final retreat point I would, I would say for a theory like this.

Julia 1:14:58 Right, okay, so she also referenced as she. They're talking, they're taking some of this, their research from Ethan Sprout. And so I have some of his paper here as well. So in his 2015 paper, which I've referenced before, skins as garments in the Book of Mormon, Ethan Sprout suggests that three passages in the Book of Mormon that describe people as white and fair lend themselves to understanding white and fair in a metaphoric or spiritual symbolic sense. And then he gives the references in First Nephi 11, for example, Mary is described as fair and white as she holds an infant Jesus while being directly compared to the white tree from Lehi's dream, which represents the love of God. So the problem with Sprouts theory is that earlier in the chapter, the color whiteness is used in a very literal way. So in First Nephi 11, 8 it says, and it came to pass that the Spirit said to me, look. And I looked and beheld a tree. And it was like unto the tree which my father had seen. And the beauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty and whiteness, and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow. And here the Picture here is from the Book of Mormon videos, and the tree is literally white. And then if you keep going in verse 11 of chapter. Of chapter 11, verse 13. And it came to pass that I looked and I beheld the great city of Jerusalem and also other cities, and I beheld the city of Nazareth, and in the city of Nazareth, I beheld a virgin, and she was exceeding fair and white.

Gerardo Sumano 1:16:21 Why would you put those two words together if it was. If it was symbolic? What is fair? Is fair symbolic?

Julia 1:16:29 Right. Well, and then also elsewhere, it says. Throughout the Book of Mormon, it says white and pure. It just uses those. So, like, why. If it's all pure, why are you using white at all?

Guest 3 1:16:38 Like.

Julia 1:16:39 Yeah, anyway, but like, here he's. Nephi is saying that this tree is very literally white, and that even the church understands that, and that's why they've made this video. Like this, the tree. That the tree is white. And then they're saying the Virgin is also white. So, like, just a few verses later, you're saying it's symbolic now, whereas before it was literal. Like, it doesn't make sense. And then if we keep going. So another problem with Sprout's theory is that Joseph Smith seemed to teach that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was literally a white woman. Alexander Niebuhr's account of Joseph Smith's first vision, he says that Joseph described Jesus as having a light complexion and blue eyes. So Joseph understands that Jesus is a white man. And then also if you look at the text of the Book of Mormon itself and throughout all of Third Nephi. But Third Nephi 1930 is one I'm using as an example. It says, and when Jesus had spoken these words, he came again unto his disciples. And behold, they did pray steadfastly without ceasing unto him, and he did smile upon them again. And behold, they were white even as. Even as Jesus.

Nemo 1:17:44 Sorry, I was gonna say Simon Dewey clearly understands Jesus to be white as well, as does Del Parsons, as does Carl Block, that the church likes to steal a lot of artwork for him. Like church artwork. It's very clear that Jesus was white.

Julia 1:17:57 And then in their videos, like the Testaments, which is. Which was shown almost in every visitor center, that they can show it like, Jesus is very white, blonde hair, blue eyes.

Nemo 1:18:07 Like, yeah, Swedish tennis player. Jesus is like Mormon doctrine. Like, that's.

Julia 1:18:13 Yeah, right.

Nemo 1:18:14 Yeah, very white guy.

Julia 1:18:16 It's. It's not symbolic. Like, yeah, okay. So she gives this last little clip, and I wanted to share it because I think it's interesting

Guest 1:18:27 Dark is frequently paired with terms such as filthy and loathsome that are clearly intended to describe the spiritual state of the Lamanites, not lack of hygiene or physical attractiveness.

Nemo 1:18:39 Based on what justification?

Gerardo Sumano 1:18:41 Yeah, yeah. Oh goodness. Doesn't it say the scriptures say that they were. That they were turned black because. So they wouldn't be enticing to my people?

Julia 1:18:54 Yeah, yeah. So we keep referencing back to this the. Where the original curse was given in second Nephi 5, 21 through 23. Like, it's very specific that they would not be enticing that the curse was given, that they would not be enticing to the people. And so the Lord caused.

Guest 2 1:19:10 Right.

Gerardo Sumano 1:19:10 So then. And I think it even says later, so. So that the, the seed of him wouldn't mix because if they mix, then the, the. The offspring would be cur will be cursed.

Julia 1:19:23 Exactly. Yes. So like, it doesn't. To see it as symbolic doesn't make any sense.

Nemo 1:19:29 Oh gosh.

Julia 1:19:30 But also like, as we've said, you know, she talked about it's nothing to do with their physical attractiveness. Like in. Throughout the scriptures it talks about. This is First Nephi 1223, where it says that they, they dwindled in unbelief. They became dark and a loathsome and filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations. Like, like, I guess you can see. And then like here it references like, she's like, it's, it's not lack of hygiene. Then in Jacob 3, 8, it talks about how the, it says, oh my brethren, I fear that unless you repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours when you shall be brought with them before the throne of God. Wherefore a commandment I give unto you, which is the, which is the word of God, that you revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins. Neither shall you revile against them because of their filthiness, but you shall remember your own filthiness and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.

Nemo 1:20:20 This is where I think it could get a little bit complicated. And I'm putting like my devil's advocate hat on for a moment because when he says, you shall remember your own filthiness. Okay, what like the Nephites that are being taught to in this verse, are they dark skinned too? If they had the curse too, like, or are they all just lacking hygiene? Or is this, could this be spiritual? Could this be, you know, don't revile against them because of their sins, but Remember your own sins, too. Could it be that again, that they shall not be enticing? There's that scripture in Mosiah about yielding and the enticings of the spirit. Enticings could be a spiritual enticing as opposed to physical. Now, that said, and this is really important, if that is the case, and Jasmine is right about that, then all the prophets since Joseph Smith misunderstood this, all of them did, in order for her to be right about this. None of them have corrected that. None of them have made this clear because they all believed it was physical. They all believed that they were physically filthy, that there was a lack of hygiene, there was idleness, laziness, that they were not desirable as mates to the white Nephites. Right. They all believed that. So

Gerardo Sumano 1:21:30 you also have to get rid of all the scriptures that talk about seed.

Nemo 1:21:34 Exactly. Right. So in order for this to work, they all had to be wrong. They all had to misunderstand. It had to not somehow be about genealogy and all the references to mixing their seed, et cetera. It had to not be about any of that in order for Jasmine to be right. And then that raises the question, who should we be following? Jasmine or the prophets? Right.

Julia 1:21:54 Yeah, Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Nemo 1:21:57 And so one thing, I charge 10% also.

Julia 1:22:02 So not every scholar is trying to redefine what these words mean, and Grant Hardy is an example. So in the Oxford Annotated Book of Mormon, Latter Day Saint scholar and textual critic Grant Hardy commented on the Lamanite curse. In the footnote under 2 Nephi5.21, he writes, Some LDS readers have interpreted descriptions of the Lamanites being dark as cultural or symbolic rather than biological. But this appears to contradict the plain meaning of the text.

Nemo 1:22:31 Bravo. The man is talking sense. I like that.

Julia 1:22:35 Right, like we don't. You can. And he's a believer. He. He helped publish this book. Like you can. You can still maintain belief and accept that the Book of Mormon is racist.

Nemo 1:22:44 It just means you have to, you know, actually deal with the racism within the Book of Mormon rather than try and explain it away as something that didn't really happen. Because that's the only difference here is that if you just accept it, you then have to just deal with it and apologize and. Or do whatever or. Or in some way come to terms with it. But I don't think the church is willing to do that. So instead, they allow people like Jasmine to try and excuse it away and pretend like it didn't happen.

Gerardo Sumano 1:23:08 Yeah.

Julia 1:23:09 Right.

Guest 3 1:23:11 Yeah.

Black Latter-day Saint Perspectives on the Text

Gerardo Sumano 1:23:12 Julia, I added a slide. So if you exit the. The the slides and then put it back on. There's a video that I thought was that I. I think we should play a part section of.

Nemo 1:23:24 I think. I think we're all very excited for Gerardo's surprise slide.

Julia 1:23:30 Can we. Hang on.

Nemo 1:23:30 Can that be a new segment? John? Moving on is Harado's surprise slide, where he just adds a slide.

John Dehlin 1:23:35 Yeah, that should.

Guest 2 1:23:36 Episode.

John Dehlin 1:23:37 That should be a feature.

Nemo 1:23:39 I think so. I think so.

Julia 1:23:41 Let me see if I can figure this out.

Guest 2 1:23:43 So.

Nemo 1:23:44 So.

Gerardo Sumano 1:23:44 So this video is one that the church published on. On their own YouTube channel. Okay. And I. It's talking about the skin of blackness in the Book of Mortar.

Nemo 1:23:56 So this is as official as it gets. How dare you use their own words, Gerardo.

Julia 1:24:05 Okay, so should we just play it?

Gerardo Sumano 1:24:06 Yeah. Let's look at what the church has to tell us through this convert. About what skin of blackness. How to. How to deal with skin of blackness in the Book of Mormon.

Julia 1:24:17 Okay, so we're going to play it.

Gerardo Sumano 1:24:19 Yeah.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 1:24:22 And two or three weeks later, I get a text that says, kay Clark questions about the Book of Mormon. I said, great, you're doing what you said you're going to do. You're reading. Good job. And so we have this text stream going along on Callie's questions about the Book of Mormon. And for the first two to three weeks, it is, like, rough. Every time the phone buzzes with a question from Callie, I'm like, oh, boy. And I'll show my wife. And Cammie's like, good luck with that one.

Video Clip 1 1:24:53 I started reading it, and there's a lot of scripture or text in there that come off very racist. So that was a lot of our arguments. I have a whole. Like, my whole back of my book is just as many times as it's, like, it refers to, you know, the curse of blackness and their skin became white. And so I was arguing with him. I'm like, how can there be this religion? And it's like, faith in God, but yet there's so much text in it that just feels like you're alienating a whole group of people. Like, this is for me as a black person, you're telling me that I'm cursed.

Video Clip 1 1:25:37 I think about three weeks into it, I'm like, you know what, Callie? This isn't gonna work. I thought this was a bad idea. Just give it back to me. Thanks for trying. This is. This is clearly not gonna work. And she just laughed. She said, nope. I said, I'm gonna read it, so I'm gonna keep plowing ahead.

Video Clip 1 1:25:52 And that night I read 2 Nephi 2633. For none of these inequities come of the Lord. For he doeth that which is good among the children of men, and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men. And he invited them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness. And he denieth none that come unto him. Black and white, bond and free, male and female. And he remembereth the heathen, and all are alike unto God, both Jew and gentile. And so it was that moment right there was. Was like an aha moment. So here I've been arguing, you know, racism and, you know, we're talking about inequities and all that I did. And it's like, God loves everybody. No matter who you are, no matter what you are, no matter what you've done, God loves everybody.

Video Clip 1 1:26:56 Based on the questions she'd be asking me, the conversations we were having, I knew the second Nephi 27 would be good for her.

Video Clip 1 1:27:03 And I'm on my way to pick up some supplies for a party, and I start reading it, but I start to cry. And I was like, you know, okay, I can't read it right now. Let me, Let me finish doing what I'm doing, right?

John Dehlin 1:27:19 I mean, oh, man, there's so much we could say.

Nemo 1:27:22 I have a point real quick. It's that, like, why does the church get to eat its cake and have it when they say, oh, black doesn't mean black, and white doesn't mean white. But then when that scripture helps her, and it's like, God denies none. Black and white bond of free. No, no, no, no, no. God denies none that wear black clothes or white clothes. That's what that scripture says right there. God denies none who are tattooed. God denies none who paint themselves black or white. God, like, all of a sudden, when that helps the church's case to say God doesn't discriminate, Black all of a sudden very clearly just means black people, and white all of a sudden means white people, even though just two chapters before, black apparently doesn't mean black at all. It just means something else. Or it's a spiritual thing. And white doesn't really mean white. It just means pure and delightsome and

Julia 1:28:06 fair

Nemo 1:28:10 takeaway from that video.

Gerardo Sumano 1:28:11 Also, isn't it disingenuous for this, for this member who's trying to convert her to not tell her about the history of a hundred plus years when black people were actually, you're not not allowed in the temple or sealed with their families forever or. Or get the priesthood or bless their families. How about all that?

Nemo 1:28:33 Well, because what she's reading is referencing a different racism again. Right. There's the two mainstreams of racism within the church. So she's reading something about people of the Americas that doesn't even, I assume she's like black of African descent. I'm imagining, I think that's the way she seems to be describing it. I could be wrong, but in that case, yeah, she wants to actually be more concerned about the pre1978 church that just wouldn't let black people go to heaven with their families forever.

Gerardo Sumano 1:28:59 Right.

John Dehlin 1:29:02 But also, you know, it's not just past racism. You talked to Nate Bird or Summer Rain or, you know, any of the black menaces or the people we've had on Mormon Stories podcast. Black students at BYU feel awful. They have terrible experiences on average that makes them want to leave the church. So I mean, the church is, it's stabbing itself. It's shooting itself in the foot by trying to create these marketing messages that the church is no longer racist because you just have to be black in the church to know that this place doesn't feel good for black people in general. And it's not going to work. And it's going to lead some people to be committed to the church and then to have really awful experiences afterwards. But, you know, that's, that's what's tricky, is that the people come to the church when they really need it. They come to the church when they're alone, when their life is in shambles, when they have no community and they feel desperate and they're down and out. And that's the tricky rub here is that even Darren or Nate or Sebastian or Rachel or Summer Rain will admit that the church helped them before it hurt them or it helped their families before it hurt them. And so the church is going to continue to do and say and be racist things and people like us are going to be there to speak the truth to people of color and to help try and support them the best we can when their Mormon worldview falls apart. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Guest 3 1:30:47 Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano 1:30:47 Because I, I'm willing to bet that she did not know about the priesthood band when, when she got.

Guest 1:30:53 Yeah.

Julia 1:30:54 Nor does it seem like she was told.

John Dehlin 1:30:55 Yeah, like you said, if anybody knows this woman, please, please buy for her second class saints black Mormons in the struggle for equality. Let her read that book. And by the way, I'm gonna read that book. Just because God contradicts himself in the Book of Mormon that doesn't make the Book of Mormon true. Just because God's super racist in the Book of Mormon and then almost in a. In a bipolar, schizophrenic way says that God denies no one, black or white, bond or free. That doesn't make the Book of Mormon true. It just makes the Book of Mormon schizophrenic and contradictory.

Nemo 1:31:33 Let's see, like two. Two chapters later, he goes like, oh, yeah, I don't deny anyone black or white. He's like, actually, I'm pretty sure two chapters ago, you denied a very specific group of black people.

Gerardo Sumano 1:31:42 Well, and. And that's. And REM. Remember, this is second Nephi 20. Something like, you still have all the Jacob racist scriptures. You have the Alma racist scriptures, people turning white after they get baptized. Third Nephi racist scriptures. She has a long way to go. And so this single, single scripture that says that black people are not. Are not denied to come to God doesn't have anything to do with the fact that the Book of Mormon is talking about black people being cursed.

John Dehlin 1:32:13 And let's be clear, like, women are denied all sorts of priesthood and authority and power in the church today. So what they're trying to do, they're trying to. They're trying to nuance the difference between salvation and sort of bigotry. And it's basically saying the church and Jesus offers salvation to all. It's just. They don't offer equal rights and privileges and power and access to all. That's true. Technically, it's true that a black person in Mormonism can. Can achieve exaltation, but it's not true. Isn't bigoted. The church is super bigoted to LGBTQ people, to people of color, to women, to all sorts of people. So I think. I think there is. I do think we have to acknowledge that that verse in the Book of Mormon is talking about salvation and, and not equality.

Nemo 1:33:20 And it's technically true in that God doesn't certainly, again, black and white as it refers to the people that have been cursed with blackness in the Book of Mormon. Right? As it. As it refers to Nephi and Lamanite in the Book of Mormon, God doesn't deny any that come unto him, because what he does, he turns them white. So he doesn't deny any black person in the Book of Mormon who comes unto him. He just turns them white, as we'll see later on in the book. And that's what she needs to bear in mind is that actually what that book's saying is, okay, black people can come unto God, but they're then going to get turned white. And that was the belief and understanding of prophets right up until Spencer W. Kimball is that as members of that dark skinned group would come unto God they would be turned white.

John Dehlin 1:34:04 Right.

Julia 1:34:05 I would argue that it's even after. So like, so like in Second Class Saints in his book he references a lot of times where black people were told that they would turn white either in this life or in heaven. And one of the stories was Jane Manning James where she was told in her patriarchal blessing that she would become white. And also you could say like she was saved in the celestial kingdom, but she was sealed as an eternal servant

John Dehlin 1:34:24 to Joseph Smith, the celestial slave.

Julia 1:34:27 Yes. So like she's being saved, so she's not being denied salvation, but she's doing it at a very low, unequal level. Like you were saying, John. So like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin 1:34:39 But I mean if this woman, if this woman's not a paid actress, which she likely is if she's, but if she's not a paid actress, and that's really her story, she won't last long in the church unless she's making a lot of money as a black spokesperson to try and deceive the world that the church isn't racist. That's the only way she survives this church, likely.

Nemo 1:35:03 I do appreciate the, I appreciate the candid nature of the guy being like, yeah, maybe this won't work. Let's just, let's just give up on this. Right. Exact place of the guy. I would feel the same.

Gerardo Sumano 1:35:14 Oh yeah, yeah, that's.

Nemo 1:35:15 I think that's the most authentic thing I've ever seen in a church video,

Gerardo Sumano 1:35:18 to be honest, that on her scriptures he has all those references. It, I mean the story doesn't really make sense because she says, I have all these references on the back that mentioned the black, the skin of blackness. And then I, I kept reading and then I found this amazing scripture. But then most of the scriptures about skin of blackness are after second Nephi 2026. So I don't know, the story doesn't, doesn't make a lot of sense in my mind.

Broader Racial Teachings and Final Discussion

Julia 1:35:48 But right as I was listening to that video, I was also reminded of the episode we did John with about Tim Ballard's Lincoln Hypothesis where Brigham Young had slaves in his home. He. Or people who were enslaved, he had Native American slaves and he had people of African descent who were slaves in his home. And so like, and he put law, you know, he's the governor or the, the leader of Utah and he Put laws that would. That allowed the slavery. And like, so then you're saying. And that carried on for years. And then. And then Link or Tim Ballard is saying that, oh, because Lincoln got the Book of Mormon. He was so inspired and that. And then he, you know, abolished slavery. But like the Book of Mormon and the Bible were used to justify slavery all those years. So, like, it doesn't make sense that the story just doesn't make sense at all.

Nemo 1:36:32 It's almost like you can make the scriptures say whatever you want to support your current worldview. Almost. Yeah, not quite, but almost.

John Dehlin 1:36:41 I really want to play that video for the Black Menaces and for Summer Rain and get the reaction.

Nemo 1:36:47 I think you could do a pattern discussion just on that video, that woman's

John Dehlin 1:36:51 actual name and try to invite her on Mormon stories. Can you. Can y' all write that down? Julia, let's find out if anybody listening and viewing can let us know who that woman is and how to contact her. I would love to interview her on Mormon stories.

Guest 1:37:05 Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano 1:37:06 The video has half a million views on YouTube.

Julia 1:37:09 What do you know when that was published? Was it this year?

Gerardo Sumano 1:37:11 Three years ago? March 11th of 2020.

Nemo 1:37:14 That's long enough for a faith crisis, I reckon. You can find her.

John Dehlin 1:37:18 She's probably out of the church. I mean, so many of those people that start out as. As spokespeople for the church wash out. I mean, it's. It's almost cliche at this point.

Gerardo Sumano 1:37:28 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nemo 1:37:30 Right. So who are we listening to, Julia? Who should we listen to? Jasmine Rapley and her husband.

Julia 1:37:37 Right. The last slide that I have is so, you know, all this time we've been listening to people in the church who are called as prophets, seers and revelators that they have received this from God, they have not changed it, they've not felt the need. And even in the our manuals today, it's still dark skin rather than being tattoos or paint or symbolism or what was the other one? Or garments. So, like, are we. Are we to listen to these apologists paid by the church, or are we listening to the men still paid by the church, but like prophet seers and revelators? Yeah,

Nemo 1:38:09 contradict them.

Julia 1:38:11 Right, Paid to contradict them.

Nemo 1:38:13 Yeah. Sorry, John gone.

John Dehlin 1:38:14 No, because. Because the church leaders are behind these apologists. That's the thing. It's not either or. The Mormon Church is paying and funding these apologists to muddy the waters, to continue the deception of the membership. And it's been doing it.

Nemo 1:38:31 This is old.

John Dehlin 1:38:32 An old play in the Mormon Church. Playbook is to foster. To intentionally foster ambiguity to allow continued belief. And so it's not either or. It's literally one funding the other on purpose. Go ahead, Julia.

Julia 1:38:50 Oh, no. Yeah, just so it's like, yes, think against on both. Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:38:55 The answer is. And this is just my answer. Y' all can have your own answer. The answer is. Ask yourself. Ask yourself, what does the Book of Mormon say? Learn this is the great quest of humanity, not just of Mormonism or ex Mormonism. It's learning to trust your own thinking and your own feelings and your own heart. And just ask yourself, read the Book of Mormon. Is the Book of Mormon meaning skin of blackness metaphorically? Or is it meaning it literally read Second Class Saints, Read the history of the church as it's treated black people and Native Americans, and ask yourself whether it makes sense that God would author the Book of Mormon and God would call these prophets and revelators for almost 200 years to teach that skin meant skin, black meant black, curse means curse, and then deny all of them privileges and access, or teach that their skin will get lighter once they're righteous in the case of Native Americans, that God would do all that as the man who claims to be not the author of confusion. Whether that is what happened or whether the Book of Mormon is just simply racist and disgustingly racist and the Mormon Church leaders have been disgustingly racist for a couple hundred years. Ask yourself and, and, and follow. Follow what your own heart and mind tell you. Don't trust Neil and Jasmine rapally, or however you pronounce their name or any of the other apologists that the church is literally are literally paying to deceive you.

Nemo 1:40:53 Yeah, John, God is not the author of confusion. The church is. Because like you said, they're holding one position officially as leaders of the church, and then they're paying other people to hold a contradictory position so that people can just pick which one they want and go, yeah, right, I'll take the one that makes me feel best. So they're bigoted and racist. Members still get to say, all right, yeah, no, my church justifies my bigotry and my racism. And then people who are like, I don't like bigotry and racism. Oh, well, we've got an offering for you too. It's from this lovely couple who we pay to provide excuses for our behavior. Yeah, man. And then. And then the other thing real quick, though, is we have to pay attention to Jeffrey R. Holland's latest article in the Liahona about garments, where he was saying that the spirit will not reveal to you that you ought to do any less than what you've been told to do in the Temple and what we've told you as members of the First Presidency. Presidency to do. So people aren't able to go for their own revelation about this issue. They can't actually pray about it themselves because Jeffrey R. Holland's just said, no, no, the Spirit won't ever incite you to disagree with us. It won't incite you to. To say that we were wrong. So then we have to look at the official position of these leaders and go, well, then the Spirit says I should follow what they've told me. And they've told me that it means skin. So the Spirit. So according to Jeffrey R. Holland, you should ignore the people that they've paid to give you that other option because the Spirit can't confirm their message to you because it goes contrary to what the prophets have taught.

Julia 1:42:20 Right.

Nemo 1:42:22 All sorts of issues.

Julia 1:42:25 Yeah. The only way to, I think to move forward is to accept that the Book of Mormon is racist. To not. To not try to play games and make it mean something else. The Book of Mormon is racist. It has been racist. And to. But to accept that. And then you have to accept that Joseph Smith added things in or that he understood it to be racism and he wasn't really talking to God. That the leaders, the leaders after him weren't really talking to God or weren't understanding that this wasn't skin. Like, you have to accept that and then move forward and heal from that. Like, if this is the church of Jesus Christ, then that's what would happen. He wouldn't try to make apologies for these things.

Nemo 1:43:00 Yeah. What is it? I, the Lord, who will forgive who I forgive, but excuse not myself? Is that the scripture? It's like Jesus should just be able to rock and own this. He's like, yeah, I cursed him.

John Dehlin 1:43:13 Prophets, seers, and revelators don't hide behind paid millennial apologists. They speak the truth. They don't. They don't hide behind paid apologists.

Nemo 1:43:25 They shouldn't do.

Gerardo Sumano 1:43:26 They shouldn't.

John Dehlin 1:43:29 I don't think they do.

Guest 3 1:43:30 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:43:31 So I, I mean that. Draw your own conclusions. But real prophet seers of revelators wouldn't hide behind millennial paid apologist Internet influencers.

Gerardo Sumano 1:43:44 Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:43:46 They wouldn't need to if they were special witnesses of. Of God, the Eternal Father and his son, Jesus Christ.

Julia 1:43:52 Yeah.

Nemo 1:43:52 They have the backing of almighty deity. Sorry, Judah.

Julia 1:43:55 Well, there's. There are special witnesses of the name of Christ as oaks has clarified.

John Dehlin 1:43:59 That's spin.

Nemo 1:44:02 But then as Anderson or Cook said, I know his voice and I've seen his face.

Julia 1:44:06 So he said that.

Nemo 1:44:08 Yeah, they're still pedaling that. That's still out there.

Julia 1:44:10 Oh, my goodness.

Gerardo Sumano 1:44:11 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:44:13 Well, Jul and I. I know Julie, you worked with R and Nemo on. On getting this all together. So I. I think this has been really important. And, you know, weirdly, Jesus said, those with ears, let them hear, those with eyes, let them see. Not everyone's going to care about or go for the truth of what y' all have put together, but I'm very confident that there will be people out there who find this and who find the evidence and the logic and the reasoning you've put together is compelling, and it's going to help them see the truth.

Julia 1:44:43 I sure hope so.

John Dehlin 1:44:45 Yeah. So thanks, three of you, for. For playing a role in this.

Nemo 1:44:49 If they can get past my sassiness, I feel like I've been a little bit. I've been on one today.

John Dehlin 1:44:55 Yeah, it's the Laxi chocolate.

Nemo 1:44:57 Yeah, that's what it is. It's the sugar rush.

John Dehlin 1:45:03 All right. Anything else, Julia?

Julia 1:45:05 No, I think that's it.

John Dehlin 1:45:07 All right. Thanks, Julie. Thanks, Gerardo. Thanks, Nemo. This has been great. Are we going to do more LDS discussions, or is this series dead?

Julia 1:45:14 Oh, no. Yeah. We're absolutely doing more.

John Dehlin 1:45:17 Okay.

Julia 1:45:18 I want to respond next to if it's okay to Richard Bushman.

John Dehlin 1:45:23 Oh, yeah, that's nice. We're have Sandra Tanner on translation on to Richard Bushman about she's agreed attacks. Yeah.

Nemo 1:45:32 Am I gonna get to share the screen with Sandra Tanner?

John Dehlin 1:45:34 I don't know. We'll see. Timing. Oh, you've never been. You've never been on screen with her before?

Julia 1:45:41 I haven't either.

John Dehlin 1:45:42 I'm sure she's so excited.

Nemo 1:45:44 I've met her and she's lovely, but I would. I would love to. To be on a panel with her.

John Dehlin 1:45:48 Don't be hurt, Nemo. She asked for Gerardo by name. She said available. He's really good.

Nemo 1:45:55 I can't compete with that.

John Dehlin 1:45:57 Better off your game, Nemo.

Nemo 1:45:59 What you trying to pull, John? I can't compete with Gerardo.

John Dehlin 1:46:02 It's pretty hard to compete with.

Nemo 1:46:04 All right, all right, all right.

John Dehlin 1:46:06 So we'll see you all again soon, not just on Mormon stories, but also on another episode of LDS Discussions. Thanks, everybody.

Nemo 1:46:12 Take care.

John Dehlin 1:46:13 And Neil and Jasmine rapidly do better. All right, take care, everybody.

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