Book of Mormon/Textual changes/"white" changed to "pure"

This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.

Answers portal
Book of Mormon
RESOURCES
General information: Basics Gospel fulness Most correct book Plain doctrines Book of Mormon & Bible: Plagiarized from Bible? Keeping KJV errors? Translation method Dead Sea Scrolls Criticisms: Translation Chronology of events List of methods Textual changes Anachronisms? "Familiar spirit"? Author and proprietor? Hebrew in New World? Plagiarism accusations Apocrypha The King James Bible The Golden Pot The Westminster Confession The Wonders of Nature The Spalding manuscript View of the Hebrews North American place names The Comoros Islands Joseph Smith, Sr.'s dream
PERSPECTIVES
Heartland as Hinterland
MEDIA
OTHER PORTALS
DNA Geography Holy Bible Joseph Smith, Jr. Witnesses

Criticism

• The phrase "white and delightsome" was changed to "pure and delightsome" in the Book of Mormon.

Source(s) of the criticism

• Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism (Harvest House Publishers: 2005). 73, 367 n.137. ( Index of claims )
• Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults (Revised) (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1997), 194. ( Index of claims )
• Simon Southerton, Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 2004) 12. ( Index of claims )
• Contender Ministries, Questions All Mormons Should Ask Themselves. Answers

Response

This change actually first appeared in the 1840 edition, and was probably made by Joseph Smith:

• 2 Nephi 30꞉6 (1830 edition, italics added): "...they shall be a white and a delightsome people."
• 2 Nephi 30꞉6 (1840 edition, italics added): "...they shall be a pure and a delightsome people."

The 1837 edition was used for the European editions, which were in turn used as the basis for the 1879 and 1920 editions, so the change was lost until the 1981 (current) edition. This particular correction is part of the changes referred to in the note "About this Edition" printed in the introductory pages:

"Some minor errors in the text have been perpetuated in past editions of the Book of Mormon. This edition contains corrections that seem appropriate to bring the material into conformity with prepublication manuscripts and early editions edited by the Prophet Joseph Smith."

It’s doubtful that Joseph Smith had racism in mind when the change was done in 1840 or other similar verses would have been changed as well.

Conclusion

This change was originally made in the 1840 edition but went unnoticed until the preparation of the 1981 edition. The change is not (as the critics want to portray it) a "recent" change designed to remove a "racist" original.

Endnotes

None

Further reading

FAIR web site

• FairMormon Topical Guide: Changes in the Book of Mormon FairMormon link
  
• Royal Skousen, "Changes In the Book of Mormon," 2002 FAIR Conference proceedings. FAIR link

Videos

The Charge of Racism in The Book of Mormon, John Tvedtnes, 2003 FAIR Conference

• Part 1: The Charge of Racism in The Book of Mormon
• Part 2: The Charge of Racism in The Book of Mormon
• Part 3: The Charge of Racism in The Book of Mormon
• Part 4: The Charge of Racism in The Book of Mormon
• Part 5: The Charge of Racism in The Book of Mormon