PUZZLE #4 - Just One Word?

And it speaks volumes.

Reference: 2nd paragraph of the Introduction to the Book of Mormon, last phrase.

November 9th, 2007, a change in wording for the introduction to the Book of Mormon was announced. Why? It's a PUZZLE to some but not to me, and not to many other people. Here is what the Salt Lake Tribune had to say.

"[Posted: 6:31 AM- The LDS Church has changed a single word in its introduction to the Book of Mormon, a change observers say has serious implications for commonly held LDS beliefs about the ancestry of American Indians.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe founder Joseph Smith unearthed a set of gold plates from a hill in upperstate New York in 1827 and translated the ancient text into English. The account, known as The Book of Mormon, tells the story of two Israelite civilizations living in the New World. One derived from a single family who fled from Jerusalem in 600 B.C. and eventually splintered into two groups, known as the Nephites and Lamanites.
The book's current introduction, added by the late LDS apostle, Bruce R. McConkie in 1981, includes this statement:

"After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites,
and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."

The new version, seen first in Doubleday's revised edition, reads,

"After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites,
and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians."

LDS leaders instructed Doubleday to make the change, said senior editor Andrew Corbin, so it "would be in accordance with future editions the church is printing."]"

The Salt Lake Tribune further quoted LDS spokesman Mark Tuttle as saying:

"[Many Mormons, including several church presidents, have taught that the Americas were largely inhabited by Book of Mormon peoples. In 1971, Church President Spencer W. Kimball said that Lehi, the family patriarch, was "the ancestor of all of the Indian and Mestizo tribes in North and South and Central America and in the islands of the sea."
After testing the DNA of more than 12,000 Indians, though, most researchers have concluded that the continent's early inhabitants came from Asia across the Bering Strait.
With this change, the LDS Church is "conceding that mainstream scientific theories about the colonization of the Americas have significant elements of truth in them," said Simon Southerton, a former Mormon and author of Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church.
"DNA has revealed very clearly how closely related American Indians are to their Siberian ancestors, " Southerton said in an e-mail from his home in Canberra, Australia. "The Lamanites are invisible, not principal ancestors."
LDS scholars, however, dispute the notion that DNA evidence eliminates the possibility of Lamanites. They call it "oversimplification" of the research.
On the church's official Web site, lds.org, it says, "Nothing in the Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by peoples of Asiatic origin. The scientific issues relating to DNA, however, are numerous and complex."
Mormon researcher John M. Butler and DNA expert further argues that "careful examination and demographic analysis of the Book of Mormon record in terms of population growth and the number of people described implies that other groups were likely present in the promised land when Lehi's family arrived, and these groups may have genetically mixed with the Nephites, Lamanites, and other groups. Events related in the Book of Mormon likely took place in a limited region, leaving plenty of room for other Native American peoples to have existed."
In recent years, many LDS scholars have come to share Butler's belief in what is known as the "limited geography" theory. By this view, the Nephites and Lamanites restricted their activities to portions of Central America, which would explain their absence from the general American Indian genetics.
Kevin Barney, a Mormon lawyer and independent researcher in Chicago, welcomes the introduction's word change.
"I have always felt free to disavow the language of the [Book of Mormon's] introduction, footnotes and dictionary, which are not part of the canonical scripture," said Barney, on the board of FAIR, a Mormon apologist group. "These things can change as the scholarship progresses and our understanding enlarges. This suggests to me that someone on the church's scripture committee is paying attention to the discussion."]"

Ah, isn't that refreshing? Some flunky from FAIR can disavow what has been deemed as good as scripture, and the conflict is supposed to go away. He must not have seen the words of Spencer W. Kimball, the man he sustained as Prophet, Seer and Revelator back in 1971, but, then, Mr. Barney probably wasn't alive back then, so, he doesn't have to believe what that 'previous' prophet of the Mormon Church said.

Here's the link for that article by Peggy Fletcher Stack.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_7403990

It may be a PUZZLE to some, but the PUZZLE can be solved by simply looking what precipitated the word change. Did you see it as you read above? It says:

"DNA has revealed very clearly how closely related American Indians are to their Siberian ancestors, " Southerton said in an e-mail from his home in Canberra, Australia. "The Lamanites are invisible, not principal ancestors."
LDS scholars, however, dispute the notion that DNA evidence eliminates the possibility of Lamanites. They call it "oversimplification" of the research.
On the church's official Web site, lds.org, it says, "Nothing in the Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by peoples of Asiatic origin. The scientific issues relating to DNA, however, are numerous and complex."

Did you see the video/DVD about the DNA proving that the native Americans are not connected to any of the middle eastern peoples? That's what made this happen.

Why? If they have a prophet of God at the head of the LDS Church, why hadn't he already told them these things? Why did they wait until it was discovered by others? The answer is simple and final. The man/men at the head of the LDS Church are not prophets, seers nor revelators. 'Twas always thus, and thus 'twil always be.' Count on it.