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Difference between revisions of "Book of Mormon/Lamanites/Curse/Red skin"
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| − | Fawn Brodie | + | Fawn Brodie originated this claim, but does so without attribution or evidence. There is no mention of "red skin" in the Book of Mormon. Other authors who make this claim are clearly parroting Brodie, often without attribution. For example, Sally Denton makes this claim in a chapter which liberally quotes Brodie's book, yet she does not attribute this particular claim to Brodie. Therefore we have one critical author citing ''another'' critical author's erroneous, unsupported assertion as fact. |
This criticism does raise an interesting problem, however, for the critics—if Joseph Smith was (as they claim) writing a "history of the Indians," why did he never refer to their red skins? This was the common way in which they were described by 19th-century Americans. Yet, that characterization is completely absent from the Book of Mormon. | This criticism does raise an interesting problem, however, for the critics—if Joseph Smith was (as they claim) writing a "history of the Indians," why did he never refer to their red skins? This was the common way in which they were described by 19th-century Americans. Yet, that characterization is completely absent from the Book of Mormon. | ||
Revision as of 19:47, 5 March 2009
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Contents
Criticism
Some critics claim that the Book of Mormon describes the Lamanites as "cursed" with a "red skin."
Source(s) of the Criticism
- Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 43. ( Index of claims )
- John L. Brooke, The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 216.
- Sally Denton, American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, (Secker & Warburg, 2003), 8.
Response
Fawn Brodie originated this claim, but does so without attribution or evidence. There is no mention of "red skin" in the Book of Mormon. Other authors who make this claim are clearly parroting Brodie, often without attribution. For example, Sally Denton makes this claim in a chapter which liberally quotes Brodie's book, yet she does not attribute this particular claim to Brodie. Therefore we have one critical author citing another critical author's erroneous, unsupported assertion as fact.
This criticism does raise an interesting problem, however, for the critics—if Joseph Smith was (as they claim) writing a "history of the Indians," why did he never refer to their red skins? This was the common way in which they were described by 19th-century Americans. Yet, that characterization is completely absent from the Book of Mormon.
Endnotes
None