LDS critics were in full force this week when news hit that the church had made a one word change in the 2006 Doubleday edition of the Book of Mormon. To them, the change was nothing more addition to the long line of church doctrine compromises.

The 2006 Doubleday edition changes the phrase “After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians,” to “…they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.” A slight one word change, but significant nonetheless.

The church has long been under fire from groups of intellectuals and members of the scientific community because of a lack of DNA evidence linking the Native American to Jerusalem. Tests studying the DNA of more than 12,000 Native Americans have shown the American Indian as coming from Asia across the Bering Strait. The knowledge brought forth in these studies seems completely incompatible with the church’s teaching of the Indians’ Hebrew ancestry.

These critics see the latest change as the latest manifestation of the church’s efforts to bring its teachings in line with the scientific realm – as if the doctrine was held in the hands of men and arbitrarily changed to fit the tides of secular progress.

These critics hope that if they can prove that Native American DNA does not support Book of Mormon ancestry, the book itself must be false.

This is nothing new to the Church. The same attack has reared its head in the form of horses and elephants being on North America during Book of Mormon times. Such attack-minded reasoning is more agenda driven than truth driven. The ancestral teaching (which was not a part of the original book) of the introduction is far from the core theological witness of the book.

Ironically, these scientific critics allow much larger degree of tolerance to their own profession than they do to the realm of faith. When science admits it was wrong, it is seen as progress. When a religion modifies a statement in the slightest degree, it is seen as being an imposter. When believers accept the change, they are guilty of doublethink. When intellectuals accept science’s changes, they are on the cutting edge of knowledge.

Ultimately, the change is nothing more than Church spokesman Mark Tuttle said in explaining the matter. “[The change] takes into account details of Book of Mormon demography which are not known.” Ironically, the same degree of respect of the unknown is sparsely seen in the book’s scientific critics.

The passage in question is not in the Book of Mormon itself. It is in the introduction. The prophet Joseph Smith never wrote the words and he never claimed that any other Book of Mormon prophet did either. The words were added in 1981 by the then apostle Bruce R. McConkie to help familiarize new readers with the book.

Oddly enough, the page preceding the Book of Mormon introduction sheds some light on the situation. In the book’s title page, Mormon wrote, “And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore – condemn not the things of God.”

This editorial represents the opinion of The Daily Universe editorial board. Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of BYU, its administration or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.



Copyright Brigham Young University 12 Nov 2007