Invariably, the usual way of thinking was in terms of A/not-A, either/or, for/against, true/false, in/out, heaven/earth—with no middle term. The curse is a fulfillment of Lehi’s prophecy about the land: “If iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes” (2 Ne. John L. Sorenson suggested: Where Rodney Turner clearly believes that the change is not metaphorical, Sorenson just as clearly declares it to be precisely metaphorical. While there is a set of people whose skin can be very black, they are not native to the western hemisphere. 2 Nephi 10. Once they are Nephites, they are fully and wholly Nephites, incorporating all of the “good” qualities of Nephites. Lamentations 4:7–8 (Revised English Version), ascribes metaphorical color to capture the before/after conditions of the Babylonian captivity: Obviously no pigmentation change occurred as the “white” faces of the princes became “blacker than soot.” Here are two other examples: The metaphor can also use “skin”: “When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness. Yet as in the case with other animate beings, the shape of the individual human more than adequately reveals the type of personality he or she can be and explains his or her ‘nature.’ For humans, too, anatomical form determines behavior and reveals the nature of the human being in question.”. He Had Caused the Cursing to Come Upon Them that They Might Not Be Enticing Unto My People, “The Lord God Did Cause a Skin of Blackness to Come Upon Them”, “Lord God Did Cause a Skin of Blackness to Come Upon Them”, “They Shall Be Loathsome Unto Thy People”, Cursed Shall Be the Seed of Him That Mixeth with Their the Lamanite Seed, “Nevertheless They Are Cursed with a Sore Cursing”, “The Lamanites shall Scourge You Even Unto Destruction”. The use of that skin color to make cultural assumptions about race is social. This barrier is similar to the explicit prohibition against marrying Canaanites. How can Lamanites be whiter than the Nephites? Hence, Nephi’s record seems to follow the same pattern as the “plan of salvation,” namely the creation, the fall, the atonement, and then passing through the veil and into the presence of God. Nephites cannot be Nephites and not be “white.” “White” defines the insider. 1:7). The question of marriage is an important one, because Yahweh has now excluded a number of the potential marriage partners who might be seen as more desirable than the native populations because they are both racially and culturally similar to the Old World peoples among the Nephites. Therefore, the Nephites do not become black. This is the origin of the term “barbarian,” which the Greeks frequently used as a generic term for anyone who was not Greek and who was, therefore, inferior. Their prejudices ran deeper and broader, as Malina and Neyrey explain: “In their assessment of their fellow human beings, elite ancients utilized a set of fixed categories, each with a limited range of descriptive, distinct features.… It is important to note that these categories were regularly presented. There is only one clear example. 2 Nephi 31:13 Follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no … Redemption comes through the Holy Messiah—Freedom of choice (agency) is essential to existence and progression—Adam fell that men might be—Men are free to choose liberty and eternal life. 2 Nephi 23. It is not significantly different from ascribing emotion to the heart, which is an organ having no biological relevance to emotions at all. Before beginning with the text itself, it is important to clarify some facts that will help us sort the textual usage from our modern assumptions. Modern readers may be uncomfortable with Nephite racial prejudices, but they existed. Even though skin color has come to be associated with race, the value of relative skin color was social, not racial. Humans have certainly placed values on the color of one’s skin, but for most of history the value is social. He provides no explanation for how this alteration occurs, other than to note that it comes through God. The two “colors” are considered to be opposites of each other. 2 Nephi 3. To each of them a social value is attached, with white representing good and black representing bad (with good/bad being similar binary oppositions). 2 Nephi 32:9 -- On Praying Always "But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul." Obviously, the writer is not describing their skin color, but their spiritual state. Ezekiel 9:4–6 describes literally marking the forehead as a protection: “And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. 2 Nephi 19. Because they would not accept such a gift from a Nephite, Moroni finds a Lamanite in his own troops, a former guard of the Lamanite king. 2 The people (the house of Israel) that walked in darkness (spiritual darkness -- apostasy and captivity) have seen a great light (that is, they will see the Savior and hear his teachings); they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined (or upon them will the light shine). All refer to identifying letters. Textual Evidence for Actual Skin Pigmentation: Does the Book of Mormon text contain events where distinguishing race by skin color becomes important? For example, 2 Nephi 5:21 still says: “And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. After Lehi's sons obtained the brass plates and brought them to their father in the wilderness, Lehi searched them to understand their contents. 2 Nephi 22. 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. This referential gulf between intent and interpretation explains our tendency to read “skin of blackness” with modern racial overtones. “Fair and delightsome” contains no reference to either “skin” or “white.” It would be a mistake, however, to assume that their absence means they are not part of the oppositional pairing since they do appear in other contexts. The cursing follows the people who work iniquity. Even though it was written for a future audience, it was written in a time and manner that reflected the social constructions of the authors, not those of modern readers. Nephites had to be explicitly prohibited from marrying Lamanites because they would otherwise be an attractive choice. The ancient world was actually quite prejudiced but did not necessarily base such prejudices upon skin color. It would be seen as a prevention of apostasy, exactly like the prohibition against marrying Canaanites in the Old World. There are some keys that we should use, and the very first is to remember the dangers of reading ourselves into a text in ways that the text did not intend. Enos. We must understand how the text sees those statements. 2 Nephi 33. For this reason, it was much less of a problem for men to marry “outsider” women than for women to marry outsider men. 11:35). 2 Nephi Chapter 27. Captain Moroni1, working to free Nephite prisoners, sends wine to their Lamanite guards, hoping to intoxicate them (Alma 55). Malina and Neyrey continue: “When considering a person, the ancients thought that there was really nothing inside that did not register on the outside.” In this conception of humanity, the skin or face would be the logical location for spiritual characteristics to register. 43–63 for an elaboration on these identifications, yielding the evidence justifying the “plan of salvation” model. )) This assumption fails to explain (or counter) other passages in the Book of Mormon that still make a connection with “iniquity” and skin color. When they are insiders, they are “delightsome,” available as marriage partners. Possessing the mark cannot prove that the curse is skin color, because that would beg the very question that needs to be proved. The curse’s purpose is to set a social barrier between the two peoples. Colors also have social meanings that are quite separate from describing the eye’s perception of light waves. 2 Nephi 11. This is a marvelous rhetorical device because the collectivist perspective of this ancient culture would consider such a condition unthinkable. 2 Nephi 26. A representative of this school of thought is Milton R. Hunter of the Council of the Seventy: For Elder Hunter, the change in the skin color is absolutely physical and remains a distinction throughout Book of Mormon history. This was done so that the righteous would not intermarry with the wicked and thereby adopt their wicked ways. And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. Chapter 2. 1:10) and white/delightsome occurs only once, nevertheless these phrases are repeating the same concept. That cursing was pronounced upon the land, but the iniquity must come from people, not land. 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