Here are some additional
comments or questions sent in by readers of this website:
Comment #1: ”Since Laman and Lemuel and their families were
cursed, how should we understand that curse today? That is, will the curse be
lifted, taken away, forgotten by the Lord based on repentance and acceptance of
the gospel or remain a curse?”
Response: According to Nephi,
the Lord “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 exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they
might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness
to come upon them…I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people,
save they shall repent of their iniquities” (2 Nephi 5:21-22). In so doing, the
Lord commanded the Nephites not to intermarry with them for “Cursed shall be
the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with
the same cursing” (2 Nephi 5:23).
However, at the time
of the Savior’s visit to the Nephites all of the people became united, and the
dark skin, which was the sign of the curse, was removed. The two peoples became
one and lived in full harmony and peace for about two hundred years. During
that time, “There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites,
nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and
heirs to the kingdom of God” (4 Nephi 1:17). Unfortunately, as is always the
case, there was a return to evil by some after this 200-year period of peace,
and in this case, some of the dissenters took upon themselves the Lamanite name
in complete disobedience, and the dark skin returned.
In direct answer, the
Lord has said that, “Before the great day of the Lord shall come, Jacob shall
flourish in the wilderness, and the Lamanties shall blossom as the rose”
(D&C 49:24). It would seem that this would be a removal of the curse and
sign as happened after the Lord’s appearance to the Nephites. In fact,
according to Joseph Fielding Smith, “Many of the Catawba Indians of the (Carolinas)
could readily pass as of the white race; also in other parts of the
South…perhaps there are some Lamanties today who are losing the dark pigment.”
In South America, there are many reports of certain Indian groups that look
almost white.
Comment #2: “In 2 Nephi 3:3, father Lehi blesses his
youngest son, Joseph, and tells him that his seed will not be utterly
destroyed. Yet in Mormon 8:7, the Nephites were totally destroyed. Was Lehi
wrong in his blessing to his son?”
Response: It is not possible to know what Lehi meant,
since there is no secondary scripture to compare this comment against. However,
we do know that at one point, about 46 B.C., numerous Nephites went north to
“the land which was northward” (Alma 63:4), and were never heard from again
(Alma 63:8). We have addressed this event numerous times in this blog as those
who went “to the land which was northward” as reaching a disjointed land,
separate from the Land of Promise, which in the setting of the Western Hemisphere,
would have been Central America. Thus, it would be assumed that among these
25,000 or so Nephites (63:4), there would have been a representative number of
Joseph’s lineage and, as such, would not have been wiped out during the
annihilation of the Nephite nation in the Land of Promise.
Comment #3: “Why do you think that the small neck of
land mentioned in Alma was the only connecting land between the land northward
and the land southward? One look at various models shows that there are
numerous connecting lands between the two areas” Lenny W.
Response: Because
Mormon tells us so: “thus the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were
nearly surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land
northward and the land southward” (Alma 22:32); and because Jacob tells us “We are on an isle of the sea” (2 Nephi 10:20),
and when you put those two sttements together, it is inescapable. That is, the
Land Southward (Land of Nephi and Land of Zarahemla) was surrounded by water
except for a small neck of land which led between them. The various models you
have seen are not patterned after Mormon’s description, but are models of
someone’s belief that the Land of Promise was located there. However, when you
get into the details of Mormon’s description, they have to explain away many things
in order to justify their models, such as a land laying east-west to match
Mormon’s description of a north-south land, etc.
Comment #4: “Do
you really think that what the writers and scribes of the Book of Mormon were
all inspired of the Lord to write what they did? This seems to be in opposition to
what John L. Sorenson and others have suggested” Wilbur
J.
Response: First of all, with probably the exception of some
of those who wrote in the books of Jarom and Omni, they were not “writers and
scribes,” but prophets of God. Men who repeatedly told us the Lord constrained them
from writing further. Now, we find an interesting thing in the Doctrine &
Covenants about this. The Lord, knowing the first translation of the
beginning of the Large Plates would be lost, the Lord had Nephi abridge his
father’s record on the Small Plates as well as his own, of which the Lord said, “there are many things engraven upon the
plates of Nephi which do throw greater views upon my gospel” and “all the remainder of this work does
contain all those parts of my gospel which my holy prophets, yea, and also my
disciples, desired in their prayers should come forth unto this people”
(D&C 10:45-46). Therefore, we can only conclude that the Lord was involved
in what was written on these plates, for he knew what would happen and made
sure his words (gospel) would be available in their entirety on the Small
Plates.
Comment #5: “I simply cannot swallow the ages-old tale
of a universal Flood, what you call Noah’s Flood. When you write of it, it
makes your other statements less credible” Paxton.
Response: There can be no apology for
stating facts as stated in the holy scriptures. But when it comes to the Flood,
we can look into almost every culture that stretchers back three or four thousand
years and find some form of the universal Flood theme. Along with Noah's flood in the
Bible were the Babylonian Utnapischtim of the Gilgamesh epic, the Sumerian
Ziusudra, the Persian Jima, the Indian Manu, the Maya Coxcox, the Colombian
Bochica, the Algonkin's Nanabozu, the Crows' Coyote, the Greek Deukalion and
Pyrrha, the Chinese Noah Kuen, and the Polynesian Tangaloa. All of these
consistent “myths” make it evident there was a world-wide deluge. In
addition, Global doomsdays are conspicuous in the Hopi Indian legends, the
Finnish Kalevala epic, the Mayan Chilam Balam and Popol Vuh, and in the Aztec
calendar, which cyclic theory states that the Flood was the fourth doomsday
after the "death of the Jaguars," "the death of the
Tempests," "the death of the Great Fire" (volcanoes), and the
“Great Deluge.” I hate to belabor a point, but sometimes you have to in order
to get through to people’s sacrosanct ideas: There are universal flood legends
of one type or another among language groupings in the following countries and
regions: 32 languages in South America; 24 in Central America; 83 in North
America; 17 in the Pacific Islands; 17 in Australia; 57 in Asia; 17 in Africa;
9 in the Near East; and 11 in Europe.
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