Book of Mormon Questions #9 (Scriptures)

 To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the introduction, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

Does the Book of Mormon Text Assume a Post-Gutenberg Society?

Scriptures constitute an important topic in the Book of Mormon. It all began when Lehi sent his sons back to Jerusalem to retrieve the brass plates from Laban. These plates contained the scriptures of the time, and once he had them in his possession, Lehi searched them diligently, as did his son Nephi. In Nephi 19:23, Nephi says that he likens all scriptures unto his family.

After Nephi died, his younger brother Jacob became the spiritual leader of the Nephites, who were becoming a large enough people to have “wars” with the Lamanites (see Jacob 7:25). After Sherem came among the Nephites and tried to deceive the people and God cursed him with death, Jacob said that “peace and the love of God was restored again among the people, and they searched the scriptures, and hearkened no more to the words of this wicked man” (Jacob 7:23). It is possible that the Nephites were still a small enough group that the adults among them could take turns reading in the brass plates. Or perhaps they had made perishable copies of certain portions of the plates on some other medium.

The scriptures do not make another significant appearance in the Book of Mormon until Alma’s preaching mission to the people of Ammonihah, a largely apostate city. Alma found Amulek in the city and taught him before they went out together to preach. After Amulek publicly confounded the lawyer Zeezrom, Alma began to speak and “to establish the words of Amulek, and to explain things beyond, or to unfold the scriptures beyond that which Amulek had done” (Alma 12:1). Their preaching was partially successful, and after Alma “had made an end of speaking unto the people, many of them did believe on his words and began to repent, and to search the scriptures” (Alma 14:1). This suggests that the scriptures were widely available among the people of Ammonihah, and that they could read them. Those who rejected the teachings of Alma and Amulek, however, were angry, and they rounded up those men who believed, along with their wives and children, and “caused that they should be cast into the fire; and they also brought forth their records which contained the holy scriptures, and cast them into the fire” (Alma 14:8). So, these new converts had flammable copies of the scriptures, which likely contained at least the most relevant portions of the brass plates (because they had to search them) and perhaps the writings of Nephi and Jacob and others of their prophetic ancestors.

Near the same time, Ammon, the son of King Mosiah, went with his brothers among the Lamanites and converted King Lamoni and “expounded unto them all the records and scriptures from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem down to the present time” (Alma 18:38).

A short time after this, when Korihor came before Alma to be judged, Alma said to him, “Will ye [sic] say, Show unto me a sign, when ye [sic] have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it” (Alma 30:44). The assumption of Alma here was, of course, that Korihor was well acquainted with the scriptures, even though he was a nonbeliever.

Alma then went to preach to the Zoramites, and when the poor approached him, he said to them, “Ye have said that ye could not worship your God because ye are cast out of your synagogues. But behold, I say unto you, if ye suppose that ye cannot worship God, ye do greatly err, and ye ought to search the scriptures; if ye suppose that they have taught you this, ye do not understand them. Do ye remember to have read what Zenos, the prophet of old, has said concerning prayer or worship?” (Alma 33:2–3). Alma took for granted that the poor among the Zoramites had ready access to the scriptures, especially the writings on the brass plates, where the words of Zenos were recorded, even though these poor people were not allowed in the synagogues.

In 3 Nephi 1:24, Mormon observes that “there were no contentions” among the Nephites after the sign of Christ’s birth was given, “save it were a few that began to preach, endeavoring to prove by the scriptures that it was no more expedient to observe the law of Moses.” Again, the scriptures were a central pillar in their society. After Christ appeared to the Book of Mormon people, he “expounded all the scriptures unto them which they had received” and then said, “Behold, other scriptures I would that ye should write, that ye have not” (3 Ne. 23:6). These were the words of Samuel the Lamanite that Nephi had neglected to write down, and also the fulfillment of Samuel’s prophecy that many saints would arise and appear to many at the Savior’s resurrection (see 3 Ne. 23:10–11).

The final significant reference to scriptures in the Book of Mormon comes in 3 Nephi 27. Jesus appeared to his twelve disciples, and they asked him what the name of his Church should be, because “there are disputations among the people concerning this matter” (v. 3). Jesus then asked them, “Have they [the people] not read the scriptures, which say ye must take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name?” (v. 5). His assumption, apparently, is that the people (not just the religious leaders) have ready access to the scriptures.

All of this makes perfect sense . . . in a post-Gutenberg society, where long texts are relatively inexpensive to reproduce and procure. But Nephite society was primitive in this regard. We can probably assume that there was no such thing as inexpensive paper, as we know it, and certainly no such thing as a printing press that could rapidly produce copies of long texts. In ancient societies, copying texts by hand was a laborious and expensive process that was available only to the very wealthy. Ancient societies used parchment—the specially prepared, tanned skins of animals—and papyrus—a thick paper-like material made from the pith of the papyrus plant. Both of these materials would have been difficult to produce and expensive to procure. Similarly scarce and expensive were other media for writing, such as stone, wood, or clay tablets; pieces of ivory; or tree bark, which the Maya used. And this was the inner tree bark of fig trees, not the outer bark, so the process of producing this “paper” would have been laborious.

 For this reason, literacy in ancient societies was very limited. Scholars estimate, for instance, that in Roman Israel, long after Lehi left Jerusalem, literacy was as low as 3 percent, but perhaps as high as 7.7 percent. The Nephite and Lamanite societies of the Book of Mormon would likely have mirrored other ancient societies in this regard because of the expense and scarcity of writing materials. The Nephites presumably kept records on metal plates, but these would have been even more expensive than almost every other medium. And learning to read and write would have been cost-prohibitive for most members of society. We never see the word “school” in the Book of Mormon, although we do see mention of “synagogues.” What they taught in the synagogues is not explained, although in 3 Nephi 6:12 we read that “the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches.” We can assume that the great majority of the people fell into the poverty category. This is simply a fact for almost every civilization, including, to an unfortunate degree, our own.

So, it makes very little sense that Alma should ask the poor Zoramites if they remembered having read the words of Zenos. Most of them likely could not read at all. Reading became a widespread ability only after the invention of the printing press and mass production of paper.

So, as I read the Book of Mormon, it simply jumps off the page at several points that the Nephite society is subtly assumed to be a post-Gutenberg society. Is this something that the translator (whoever that was) inserted into the record? Or was the entire book written sometime in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries? (I strongly believe that Joseph Smith could not have produced it. He was one of the uneducated poor of his day.) Royal Skousen’s critical text of the Book of Mormon that I am well acquainted with (I was the final proofreader of the seven printed books of volume 3) raises some important questions regarding textual anachronisms in the book. This is one Royal did not specifically address, but it dovetails comfortably with some of his other observations.

So, why does the Book of Mormon describe a society in which scripture is apparently ubiquitous and the ability to read and understand it is seemingly universal?

A License to Kill: When the Light of Christ Goes Dark

 

A few years ago, I read a couple of books about psychopaths/sociopaths. The first was Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight, by M. E. Thomas, a pseudonym, although interested online sleuths claim they have identified who she is. The reason I wanted to read the book by “Thomas” is that she self-identifies as an active Latter-day Saint and even worked for a time as a law professor at BYU. Her account of how a person with no moral feelings could navigate a religion like Mormonism was both fascinating and disturbing. The second book was The Psychopath Test: A Journey through the Madness Industry, by journalist Jon Ronson. Ronson, as the subtitle suggests, explored the psychiatric institutions that deal with psychopathy. He visited prisons and mental hospitals and universities and CEO suites, interviewing people who were psychopaths as well as those who diagnose and study them.

The two books, while coming at the topic from vastly different directions—one a confessional, the other an investigation—overlap in significant ways. Ronson’s title comes from Canadian psychologist Bob Hare, who came up with a checklist of 20 characteristics that describe psychopaths. In a previous post, I superimposed that checklist on Donald Trump and found that it fit almost perfectly. The only exception was that Trump had never been locked away in a behavioral health facility and so could not have had his conditional release revoked.

The reason these two books came to mind again this week is Trump’s ongoing lethal attacks on boats in both the Caribbean and the Pacific that he claims (without evidence) have been carrying drug smugglers. These murders (for that is what they are) reminded me of Trump’s famous claim during his first campaign that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York City and not lose any voters. This was probably hyperbole, but I see a through line connecting this statement with Trump’s recent orders for the military to blast boats out of the water.

Trump’s 2016 statement was not just braggadocio, I believe, but a confession that he had considered the idea of murder. The only thing that probably kept him from committing one was the certainty that if he, as a regular citizen, had gunned down someone on Fifth Avenue, he would have been put on trial and convicted. Of course, this fear didn’t stop him from committing fraud and other crimes, but in those cases, he always felt he could beat the system. Murder, however, is another matter altogether . . . unless you cannot be put on trial and held accountable. And that is the immunity the Supreme Court has granted Trump during his second term.

So here we are, watching the president of the United States commit multiple murders, on the flimsiest of pretexts, and the legal system can do nothing about it. He can commit murder without consequence, and so he does.

What, then, does this have to do with psychopathy/sociopathy? While the two terms are often used interchangeably, there are subtle technical differences. According to Google and AI, psychopaths are typically more calculating and manipulative, with a higher propensity for violence, while sociopaths are more impulsive and reactive, with a greater likelihood of engaging in reckless criminal behavior. Psychopaths may be able to maintain superficial relationships and appear charming, but often lack genuine connections, while sociopaths have difficulty forming stable relationships and exhibit more erratic social behavior. Significantly, neither condition is an official diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the bible for mental illnesses. The closest official diagnosis is Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), which includes traits from both psychopaths and sociopaths.

“M. E. Thomas” considers herself a sociopath, but her self-description also includes elements of psychopathy, such as being calculating and manipulative, as well as maintaining relationships and appearing charming to others. Both Ronson and “Thomas” agree that quite often psychopaths/sociopaths are highly functional and very successful, even suggesting that this “disorder” can lead to success, primarily because these individuals lack the restraints that a conscience represents, allowing them to engage in unethical behaviors that an “ordinary” person would shun. This also explains why psychopaths or sociopaths often wind up as CEOs.

One of the books (I can’t remember which, and I no longer have either in my possession) claims that about 10 percent of the population exhibits this mental disorder. I don’t know how anyone would come up with this number, but it is certainly conceivable. It is also obvious that Donald Trump fits the description (19 of 20 characteristics, according to the Hare test), especially number 1 (grandiose sense of self-worth), number 4 (pathological lying), number 6 (lack of remorse or guilt), number 8 (lack of empathy), number 11 (promiscuous sexual behavior), number 14 (impulsivity), number 16 (failure to accept responsibility for his own actions), and number 20 (criminal versatility).

Trump’s criminal versatility has vastly expanded with his second term in office and the Supreme Court’s declaration that a president is pretty much immune from criminal prosecution for acts committed while in office. And so Trump is now free, he believes, to murder at will, as long as it pertains in some way to his duties as president, even though his orders to bomb boats not in U.S. territorial waters are obviously in violation of both international and U.S. law.

“M. E. Thomas” discusses what it is like to live life with no conscience. I found her self-examination both fascinating and frightening, as well as doctrinally disruptive for Latter-day Saints. In our scriptures and prophetic teachings, we learn that the “spirit of Christ” or the “light of Christ” (they seem to be used interchangeably by Mormon in Moroni 7:16–19) “is given to every man [and woman, we assume], that he [or she] may know good from evil. . . . Wherefore, I beseech of you . . . that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil.” We generally consider the light of Christ to be our conscience. But according to “Thomas” and experts who deal with psychopaths/sociopaths, there are many people who are simply born without a conscience. So this “light of Christ” is apparently totally dark for some people. “Thomas” claims that belonging to a highly structured religion with strict rules and guidelines helps her navigate the world without a conscience so that she stays out of legal trouble. Being a law professor and understanding civil and criminal legal standards likely helps also.

Whether Donald Trump was born this way or was simply brought up by his father, Fred, to ignore rules and laws, is unknown and probably unknowable, but his mental disorder is certainly having a devastating effect on the Republican Party, the country, and, indeed, the entire world. Whatever the cause of his lack of a moral compass, the supine Supreme Court has opened the door for him to, in effect, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not only not lose voters but also avoid paying a criminal penalty for his crimes. We used to say in America that no one is above the law, but the current Supreme Court has blown that notion completely out of the water.

Book of Mormon Questions #8 (Concept)

  To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the introduction, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

What Is This “House of Israel” That We Are Supposed to Gather?

A concept that shows up in the Book of Mormon, and that again became quite prominent with President Nelson’s emphasis on it, is the gathering of Israel. Of course, the reason there has to be a gathering is because the house of Israel was scattered. The concept of a scattering and a gathering first appears in the Book of Mormon with Lehi. Nephi records the teachings of his father as follows: “Yea, even my father spake much concerning the Gentiles, and also concerning the house of Israel, that they should be compared like unto an olive tree whose branches should be broken off and should be scattered upon all the face of the earth. Wherefore, he said it must needs be that we should be led with one accord into the land of promise unto the fulfilling of the word of the Lord, that we should be scattered upon all the face of the earth. And after the house of Israel should be scattered they should be gathered together again; or, in fine, after the Gentiles had received the fulness of the Gospel, the natural branches of the olive-tree, or the remnants of the house of Israel, should be grafted in, or come to the knowledge of the true Messiah, their Lord and their Redeemer” (1 Ne. 10:12–14).

The metaphor referred to here, is, of course, expanded at great length in Jacob, chapter 5. And the Savior spends a lot of time instructing the Nephites about the latter-day destiny of the house of Israel during his visit to the Americas after his resurrection. I’ve often found it quite odd that he would spend so much time talking about an occurrence that really had very little to do with the people he was talking to. But that’s a question for another day. Today I’m more concerned with what exactly this house of Israel is that needs to be gathered.

A couple of years ago, Brian H. Shirts, a molecular pathologist who studies DNA sequencing and population genetics, published an article in Dialogue titled “Genetics and Gathering the House of Israel.” In the first portion of his article, he raises a lot of questions that I have wondered about. At the end of the article, he attempts a “spiritual” explanation to try to reconcile the genetic data with Church dogma, and I find it quite unconvincing. But let me quote from the first part of the article:

“It is not just possible but statistically very likely that billions of people alive today are descendants of ancestors from not just one but many of the tribes of Israel. This is particularly likely if the tribes were scattered, intermingled, and had many descendants—a definite historical possibility. So, when it comes to ancestral ties to scattered Israel, I expect that most individuals, if not everyone alive today, qualify as a literal descendant of the tribes of Israel.”¹

This is just scientific fact that has become obvious with our increased knowledge of genetics. Shirts adds, “It is unlikely that any two individuals carry traceable genetic information from any specific common ancestor if they are more than about eleventh-degree relatives (fifth cousins). . . . The human genetic code contains three billion base pairs, which are separated into about a hundred new segments each generation. By the time you get five or six generations back, there will probably be ancestors from whom you have not inherited any DNA. It is likely that you do not have a single DNA base pair attributable to most of your direct ancestors ten or more generations back. . . . Therefore, even with the best genetics possible, we are unlikely to find any genetic confirmation of ‘lost’ Israelite connections in any group living today.”

An article by Scott Hershberger, “Humans Are All More Closely Related Than We Commonly Think,” cites calculations from geneticist Graham Coop of the University of California, Davis, showing that you carry genes from fewer than half of your forebears from 11 generations back. “Because of the random reshuffling of genes in each successive generation,” writes Hershberger, “some of your ancestors contribute disproportionately to your genome, while others contribute nothing at all.”²

The upshot of this is that, as Shirts concluded, “the lost tribes of Israel are not just lost and scattered, but that anything that can be called a ‘tribe’ is completely gone. They are clearly culturally extinct and certainly genetically obsolete as a definable entity. Why should chance ancestral ties be meaningful if the ancestral connections are unidentifiable?”³

In short, population genetics tells us that there is no such entity today as the “house of Israel” to gather. The original Israelites have been scattered and diluted to the point that either nobody or everybody belongs to this supposed “house of Israel.” The gene pool is so mixed that it is impossible to identify a genetic Israelite. Although my patriarchal blessing, received when I was eighteen from my grandfather, tells me I am from the line of Ephraim, it is likely that I have just as much genetic claim to Gad or Reuben or Judah. I’m not sure what to make of patriarchal blessings. I remember my grandpa telling me about a convert couple he gave blessings to. The wife was Japanese, the husband American Caucasian of European extract. Grandpa said he declared in their blessings that the wife was of Ephraim, but the husband was a Gentile, not from any of the tribes of Israel and had to be adopted in. It seems to me that although Ephraimite descendants could easily have migrated to Japan in the misty past, the chances that a European American would have exactly zero genetic connection to any of the tribes of Israel are likely minuscule.

So, what is it exactly that our missionaries are supposed to be gathering? The extended Jacob 5 analogy of olive branches being grafted among wild trees (Gentile populations) throughout the Lord’s large orchard and then returned to the original tame olive tree (Israel) doesn’t make much sense when you consider that those branches ceased to exist millennia ago, as did the original tree. The tame branches intermingled with other branches until their original identity was diluted out of existence, and the tame tree was completely “corrupted” by the wild Gentile branches that were grafted in. All this intermixture of genes has left us with a planet full of people whose Israelite genetic makeup is so small as to be nonexistent.

In the Church, we European Americans often think of ourselves as special, of the literal blood of Israel, when nothing could be further from the truth. Ironically, according to the Book of Mormon, those of us who are of white European descent are actually considered Gentiles. “But if [we] repent and hearken unto [the Lord’s] words, and harden not [our] hearts, [he] will establish [his] church among [us], and [we] shall come in unto the covenant and be numbered among this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom [he has] given this land for their inheritance” (3 Ne. 21:22).

 In 3 Nephi 21, Jesus gives a sign to the ancient Nephites and Lamanites who have survived the mass destruction that they can know when he will “gather in from their long dispersion, my people, O house of Israel, and shall again establish among them my Zion” (v. 1). That sign is the Book of Mormon coming forth to the Gentiles, “that they may know concerning this people who are a remnant of the house of Jacob and concerning this my people who shall be scattered by them” (v. 2). Then these things (the Book of Mormon) will “come forth from them [the Gentiles] unto a remnant of your seed [the Native American tribes], that the covenant of the Father may be fulfilled which he hath covenanted with his people, O house of Israel” (v. 4).

Those Gentiles who do not believe the Book of Mormon will then “be cut off from among my people who are of the covenant. And my people who are a remnant of Jacob [Native Americans] shall be among the Gentiles . . . as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he go through both treadeth down and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver” (vv. 11–12). This is what happens to the Gentiles who do not repent. But if we repent, we can be numbered among “this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their inheritance” (v. 22). Then, we can “assist my people, the remnant of Jacob [Native Americans], and also as many of the house of Israel as shall come [the lost tribes?], that they may build a city, which shall be called the New Jerusalem” (v. 23).

Things haven’t quite worked out as the Book of Mormon predicted. The Native Americans, along with converted Gentiles, didn’t go through and tear in pieces the wicked Gentiles. No, the remnant of Jacob ended up on reservations; by and large, they rejected the Book of Mormon; and the building of the city of New Jerusalem, which Joseph Smith claimed would be in Jackson County, Missouri, was not only abandoned but is now rarely spoken of.

The Book of Mormon, however, speaks of the house of Israel as a clearly identifiable entity that will be gathered to New Jerusalem (3 Ne. 21:24). And, of course, latter-day prophets and apostles have also spoken of the house of Israel as a distinct entity—scattered among the nations of the world, yes—but an identifiable covenant people of the Lord who are just waiting to be found. Our tenth Article of Faith talks about a “literal gathering of Israel” and a “restoration of the Ten Tribes.” But in today’s world, a person of Israelite descent is either everybody or nobody, depending on how you view genetic makeup. And dividing people into the original lost Ten Tribes would be an exercise in randomization.

So, what exactly is the house of Israel? I haven’t a clue.

 

________________

1. Brian H. Shirts, “Genetics and Gathering the House of Israel,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 56, no. 1 (2023): 131, italics in original.

2. Scott Hershberger, “Humans Are All More Closely Related Than We Commonly Think,” October 5, 2020, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-all-more-closely-related-than-we-commonly-think/.

3. Shirts, “Genetics,” 132.

The Death of Justice in America

 

I’ll make this brief. If you are under the delusion that the Department of Justice is still performing its duty to this country, please read this letter by 292 alumni of the DOJ who have either retired early, resigned, or been fired by the Trump administration this year. Here’s the URL: https://substack.com/redirect/5398bdb1-8100-4119-96e5-fb85b0ed1a64?j=eyJ1IjoiMmU2Z3kzIn0.lo0FvQroxRAK1a_LsTg4DB84x2loXfN59P8I1irxICg. Much of what Trump is destroying in this country will be very difficult, if not impossible, to repair. And it is made infinitely harder by the willful blindness of the entire Republican Party, especially those who were elected to Congress or appointed to the Supreme Court. Thanks to the uninformed and easily deceived voters in this country, we are now living in a rapidly developing authoritarian nation that has turned its back on truth, morality, justice, science, compassion, and reality. If you can, join in the No Kings protests this weekend.

Project 2025 Revisited

 

Last August (2024), I posted a description of Project 2025, which at the time Trump was denying any knowledge of. It was so massively unpopular that he distanced himself from it like a Republican politician confronted with a tax increase. Well, Trump has been in office for eight months, so let’s take a quick look at the 50 points I listed over a year ago as a warning to see what Trump really thinks about Project 2025. I’ll put my assessment in bold after each point:

 

1. taking partisan control of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Commerce, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC);

Yes

2. dismantling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS);

No. Instead, Trump has done far worse. He has turned a division of DHS, ICE, into a colossally overfunded secret police force that refuses to identify itself as it disappears noncitizens and citizens and imprisons them without due process.

3. reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuels;

Yes

4. instituting tax cuts;

Yes

5. abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be transferred or terminated; 

Under way.

6. cutting funding for climate research; 

Yes

7. making the National Institutes of Health (NIH) less independent, stopping them from funding research with embryonic stem cells or using quotas to promote equal participation by women;

The funding cuts reach far further than this.

8. cutting Medicare and Medicaid, 

Yes on Medicaid. Medicare will surely follow.

9. explicitly rejecting abortion as health care; 

Many Republican states have accomplished this.

10. eliminating coverage of emergency contraception; 

Not yet

11. enforcing the Comstock Act to prosecute those who send and receive contraceptives and abortion pills; 

Several Republican states have passed laws to  this effect.

12. withdrawing approval of the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol;

Fourteen states have banned mifepristone.

13. criminalizing pornography;

Over 20 Republican states have required adult websites to verify the age of users.

14. removing legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; 

Yes

15. terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and affirmative action by having the DOJ prosecute “anti-white racism”; 

Yes, the anti-DEI program has been extremely effective.

16. arresting, detaining, and deporting illegal immigrants; 

Yes, including many who are in the country legally and many who just look like they are illegal immigrants.

17. deploying the military for domestic law enforcement; 

Yes, in LA, D.C., and more to come.

18. enforcing capital punishment and the speedy “finality” of those sentences;

Apparently not high on the priority list, but we’ll have to see how this plays out with Tyler Robinson.

19. undoing almost everything implemented by the Biden Administration;

Yes

20. infusing Christian nationalism into every facet of government policy;

Yes

21. abolishing the Federal Reserve;

No, but Trump is trying very hard to take it over so that it loses its independence.

22. eventually moving from an income tax to a national sales tax;

Tariffs are a national sales tax, but the Republicans have just reduced taxes on the wealthy, not eliminated the income tax.

23. changing the tax code in ways that would likely increase taxes significantly on lower- and middle-income households;

Yes. Tariffs are a regressive tax, as is the inflation caused by tariffs and by gutting the agricultural, construction, and hospitality workforces through deportations.

24. reducing the corporate tax from 21 percent to 18 percent (before the Trump tax cuts, it was 35 percent);

Not exactly. The Big Ugly Billionaire Bill Act (BUBBA) made the 2017 rates permanent, but there were several other cuts in the bill that affect companies differently, depending on their products and circumstances.

25. reducing the capital gains tax from 20 percent to 15 percent;

No, but BUBBA expanded the capital gains tax exclusion for some investors.

26. abolishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau;

Not yet, but according to NerdWallet, the CFPB is still standing—barely. Most of its activities have been stopped.

27. abolishing the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces antitrust laws;

No, but today (9/22/25) the Supreme Court allowed Trump to fire the last remaining Democratic commissioner, effectively neutering the FTC.

28. shrinking the role of the National Labor Relations Board, which protects employees’ ability to organize and fight unfair labor practices;

Trump has left the board without a quorum, which means it cannot decide cases. It is effectively paralyzed.

29. instituting work requirements for people reliant on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps);

Yes. And Medicaid.

30. allowing states to opt out of federal educational programs or standards;

Some. But states that do opt out lose federal funding.

31. making public funds for education available as school vouchers with no strings attached, even for parents to send their children to private or religious schools;

This varies by state, but the answer is yes for several states.

32. eliminating Head Start, a program that provides services to children of low-income families;

No, but the administration has take actions that negatively impact Head Start.

33. ensuring that “any research conducted with taxpayer dollars serves the national interest in a concrete way in line with conservative principles,” which would, for example, reduce funding for research in climatology;

Yes.

34. abandoning strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change, including by repealing regulations that curb emissions, downsizing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and abolishing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA);

Yes. The NOAA has not been abolished, but its funding has been cut.

35. preventing states from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions;

No.

36. relaxing regulations on the fossil fuel industry;

YES!!

37. reversing a 2009 EPA finding that carbon dioxide emissions are harmful to human health, preventing the government from regulating greenhouse gas emissions;

YES!!

38. dismissing all Department of State employees and replacing them with Trump loyalists;

Maybe not all, but the replacement of federal civil servants is ongoing.

39. reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil service workers as political appointees and replacing them with Trump loyalists, who would be willing to bend or break protocol and in some cases violate laws to achieve Trump’s goals;

Of course.

40. increasing the number of nuclear weapons above treaty limits and preparing to test new nuclear weapons despite the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;

All I can find on this is that the U.S. signed but never ratified the 1992 treaty, which means we are not bound by it, but all presidents thus far have abided by its terms.

41. prohibiting Medicare from negotiating drug prices;

Not yet. The Inflation Reduction Act has not yet been overturned, but this may depend on the balance in Congress after the midterm elections.

42. denying gender-affirming care to transgender people;

Yes, in some states.

43. cutting funding for Medicaid in a number of ways, and allowing states to impose stricter work requirements for beneficiaries;

YES!!

44. increasing Medicaid eligibility determinations to make it harder to enroll in, apply for, and renew Medicaid;

YESS!!

45. withholding federal disaster relief funds to state or local governments that refuse to abide by federal immigration laws;

Despite Trump’s threats to withhold funding from California, he did release the funds.

46. ending same-sex marriage, removing protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual or gender identity, and eliminating provisions pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI);

Same-sex marriage has not been ended, but DEI programs have been attacked relentlessly.

47. defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting;

Yes.

48. allowing more media consolidation by converting local news programs into national news programs;

Nexstar and Sinclair, two right-wing companies, own hundreds of local stations and are appealing to have the rules changed so that they can accumulate more media power. This will undoubtedly be approved by Trump’s FCC, especially after the two companies followed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s orders to stop airing Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show.

49. reforming the Department of Justice and placing it under White House supervision;

Oh my! Reforming is too weak a word for what the DOJ has become under Pam Blondi (intentional misspelling). Trump is demanding that she go after his political “enemies” regardless of whether or not they have done anything wrong. Everyone who opposes Trump is guilty by default in his eyes.

50. making the director of the FBI personally accountable to the president.

The only way to do this was to not promote from within but to appoint a totally incompetent director from among Trump’s most fervent sycophants.

 

Well, considering that Trump denied any knowledge of Project 2025 during his campaign, he has followed it quite closely, and we’re only eight months into his second term. Most alarming, however, are all the unconstitutional acts he has ordered that go well beyond Project 2025, including but not limited to killing boaters in international waters without apprehending them and proving in a court of law that they are drug smugglers, easing restrictions on Russia and turning a blind eye to Putin’s escalation of his war on Ukraine, and demanding that the DOJ and FBI never reveal what is in the Epstein files (wonder why). So, welcome to the Banana Republic of America.

Book of Mormon Questions #7 (Characterization)

 To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the introduction, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

Zoram—Na‘ar or Stock Character?

A year or two before I retired from BYU Studies, we considered an article that I argued against publishing (“Rediscovering Zoram: The Chief Na‘ar of the Commander of the Fortress”). I felt it fell under the category of apologetics that read way too much into the Book of Mormon account. Eventually, after some (but in my mind not enough) revision, we did publish the article. The main premise of the article, in a nutshell, was that Laban was the commander of the fortress in Jerusalem, and Zoram was his chief na‘ar, or right-hand man. Because of this assumption, the author also assumes that the brass plates that Laban had in the fortress’s treasury actually belonged to the king (even though the text says that Laban had the plates because he was a descendant of Joseph, as was Lehi). Zoram, being the commander’s right-hand man not only had the keys to the treasury but was also an experienced soldier and trusted advisor to Laban who would likely have been present when Nephi and his brothers came asking for the plates.

When I say nutshell, I mean it. This article is 38 pages long and goes into great depth in making the case for both Laban as commander of the fortress and Zoram as his na‘ar. Some of it seems reasonable, but the overall assumptions in the article just feel too far-fetched, based on what we are actually told about both Laban and Zoram.

Laban was obviously some kind of important man in Jerusalem. The only indications we have in the text that Laban was a military leader, however, are Laman’s complaint that Laban “is a mighty man, and he can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us?” (1 Ne. 3:21) and the fact that when Nephi found him unconscious from too much wine, Laban was wearing armor and had a sword (1 Ne. 4:9, 19). There is no mention of a fortress. In fact, when Laman goes alone to ask for the plates and then when all four brothers go to barter for them, they go to Laban’s “house.” And when Laban covets their possessions and tries to have the brothers killed, he sends “servants,” not soldiers. This may be nitpicking, but even after Nephi has chopped off Laban’s head and has donned his clothing and armor, he goes straight to Laban’s treasury (not the king’s). I’ve always wondered how Nephi could chop off Laban’s head and take his clothing off without getting any blood on the attire, but that’s a mystery for another day. Significantly, there is no mention of Nephi having to gain access to a fortress, where guards would certainly be posted. Of course, maybe Nephi (apparently with the Lord’s help) can pass himself off as Laban, but that isn’t mentioned. In the account, he meets only the servant who has the keys to the treasury. And Zoram is perfectly fooled and willing to accompany Nephi out of the city with the brass plates.

Here’s where my major problems with the article begin. If Zoram really is the commander’s chief na‘ar and is an accomplished soldier, he certainly wouldn’t leave the city at night without his sword. And when it becomes apparent that Nephi is not Laban but is instead a large teenager who has stolen Laban’s clothing, armor, and sword, wouldn’t he put up a fight for the plates? Yes, he’s outnumbered once the three brothers show up, but if he’s the na‘ar, he would not be so easily cowed. But Young Nephi is able to put him in a half-nelson and extract a promise from him that he will accompany them as a free man into the wilderness. The assumption here, I suppose, is that Zoram is likely not a free man already, which, by the way, a chief na‘ar would be.

The story here just seems too convenient for me. Zoram doesn’t put up any sort of fight, which suggests he’s probably more a clerk than a soldier. He also apparently has no family in the city who will miss him. Certainly no wife and children. A little later, he marries the oldest daughter of Ishmael, which suggests that he is older than Laman. And yet he is endlessly devoted to Nephi, who is likely a teenager when he extracts the oath from the older Zoram. When Lehi blesses all his children and grandchildren in the promised land before he dies, he also blesses Zoram and tells him he is “a true friend unto my son, Nephi, forever” (2 Ne. 1:30). Zoram also goes with Nephi when the family splits after Lehi’s death. But if Zoram were some sort of accomplished soldier, why does he not come to Nephi’s aid when his brothers tie him up and otherwise mistreat him? No, Zoram just disappears during these fraternal conflicts. He’s sort of a shrinking violet. In fact, the odd convenience of this whole account makes Zoram seem more like a stock character than a real person. He’s certainly a conundrum, which is probably why this particular author goes to such great and creative lengths to try to account for who he is—and goes well beyond the evidence in the book to make Zoram into some sort of larger-than-life soldier/hero type.

The article points out that Zoram’s descendants are apparently a militaristic bunch. But that is hundreds of years later. In Nephi’s actual account of Zoram, there is nothing to suggest that Zoram himself is some sort of military man. Even in the wars with the Lamanites, it is Nephi who leads them to battle, not Zoram (see Jacob 1:10). To me, he seems to be a stock character added to make some of the plot work out. He’s rather one-dimensional.

Indeed, the whole brass plates adventure has me scratching my head. If it was so important for Lehi to have the brass plates, why didn’t the Lord just send an angel, put Zoram to sleep, extract the plates from the treasury, and deposit them on the doorstep of Lehi’s tent, as he did with the Liahona? Why cause Laban to be drunk, have Nephi murder him, and steal Zoram away from whatever family he had in Jerusalem? All this creates a more complicated storyline, but some of it doesn’t add up for me, at least not as it is told in the account of Nephi.

So, in conclusion, is Zoram a na‘ar or just a stock character? Maybe neither. Maybe he’s just a largely insignificant element in the story once they have the brass plates, and since engraving on plates is difficult and time-consuming, maybe Nephi just didn’t find him compelling enough to include more about him, his actions, or his background. Same goes, apparently, for Sam and the sons of Ishmael and younger brother Joseph and all the wives except maybe Sariah. And, while Laman and Lemuel are more two-dimensional, they too are pretty flat characters in the story. They serve as Nephi’s big nemesis, but what do we really know about their thoughts or feelings or motivations? Not much.  Nephi’s account is pretty much all about him and his dad.

Rock Star Takes Down Trump’s Communications Director

 

Apparently, Steven Cheung, White House Communications Director, took issue with Jack White’s criticism of all the gaudy gold in the Oval Office. White is a rock star, guitarist, composer, actor, producer, and record label owner. Cheung: “Jack White is a washed-up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career. It’s apparent he’s been masquerading as a real artist, because he fails to appreciate, and quite frankly disrespects, the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of ‘The People’s House.’” Pretty typical response by Trump or his minions to any criticism of the Orange Authoritarian. But Cheung should be careful about his targets. This time, he got more than he bargained for. Here is White’s fairly lengthy response:

“Listen, I’m an artist and not a politician so I’m in no need to give my answer or opinion on anything if I’m not inspired or compelled, but how funny that it wasn’t me calling out trump’s blatant fascist manipulation of govt, his gestapo ICE tactics, his racist remarks about Latinos, Native Americans, etc. his ridiculous ‘wall’ construction, his attacks on the disabled, his attempted coup and mob insurrection and destruction of the sacred halls of congress, his disparaging sexist and pedophilic remarks about women, his obvious attempts at distraction about being a close personal friend of Jeffrey Epstein and his inclusion in the Epstein files, his ignorance of the dying children in Sudan, Gaza, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his lack of empathy for military veterans and those struggling with poverty, his attempts to dismantle healthcare, his obvious wimpy and pathetic kowtowing to the dictators Putin and Kim Jong Un, his nazi like rallies, his attempts to sell merchandise and products like Goya beans through the office of the President, his fake ‘gunshot to the ear’ that he showed no medical records or photographs of, his constant, constant, constant lying to the American people, etc. etc. etc.

… “No, it wasn’t me calling out any of that, it was the [expletive deleted] DECOR OF THE OVAL OFFICE remarks I made that got them to respond with insults. How petty and pathetic and thin skinned could this admin get? ‘Masquerading as a real artist’? Thank you for giving me my tombstone engraving! Well here’s my opinion, trump is masquerading as a human being. He’s masquerading as a christian, as a leader, as a person with actual empathy. He’s been masquerading as a businessman for decades as nothing he’s involved in has prospered except by using other people’s money to find loophole after loophole and grift after grift.

… “His staff of professional liar toadies like Steven Cheung and Karoline Leavitt have been covering up and masking his fascism as patriotism and fomenting hatred and division in this country on a daily basis. And I have ‘ample time on (my) hands’? That orange grifter has spent more tax payer money cheating at golf than helping ANYONE in the country. Improve. Anything. There is no progress with him, only smoke and mirrors and tax breaks for the ultra wealthy.

… “So maga folk, enjoy your concrete paving over of the rose garden, your 200 million dollar ballroom in the WH, and your gaudy ass gold spray painted trinkets from Home Depot, cause he ain’t spending any money on helping YOU unless you fit into his white supremacist country club rich idiot agenda. Wow, he hates who you hate . . . good for you, be proud of yourselves, how christian of you all. No intelligent person can defend this low life fascist. This bankruptor of casinos. This failed seller of trump steaks, trump vodka, trump water, etc. This man and his goon squad have failed upwards for decades and have fleeced the American people over and over. This professional golf cheat, this grifter who has hundreds of thousands of deaths from his inaction of the pandemic on his hands, this man that the majority of the country somehow were fooled into supporting and voting into office (through the flawed electoral college) and their love of reality TV stars.

… “Being insulted by the actual WH that this particular conman leads is a badge of honor to me, because anyone who trump supports and likes is a villain who gives nothing to their fellow man, only takes what can benefit themselves. And no I’m not a Democrat either, I’m a human being raised in Detroit, I’m an artist who’s owned his own businesses like his own upholstery shop and recording label since he was 21 years old who has enough street sense to know when a 3 card monte dealer is a cheap grifter and a thief.”

Well, Cheung got what he deserved: a large helping of the truth.

The Last American President, a Book Notice

 

Thirty years ago, Berrett-Koehler Publishers published my book Economic Insanity: How Growth-Driven Capitalism Is Devouring the American Dream. Berrett-Koehler was founded by Steve Piersanti, who started the company when he was fired as president of Jossey-Bass for refusing to lay off employees. I ran into Steve during the one year I worked as a literary agent. It was a reunion of sorts because Steve and I had been youth in the North Ogden 5th Ward. Steve is three years than I am, so we never went to school together, and I didn’t know Steve all that well back then. But Steve is one of the finest people you could ever meet. His publishing company is a leading-edge publisher of books on leadership, ethics, and organizational issues.

I have submitted a new book manuscript to Steve. It’s a follow-up to my now-thirty-year-old Economic Insanity. In the intervening years, the book market has changed dramatically, so Steve can’t afford to publish a book like mine that wouldn’t sell very many copies. I am, after all, a no-name in the market this book seeks to land in. I can live with that. But a couple of weeks ago, Steve sent me an email asking for my help in publicizing a book that Berrett-Koehler is releasing soon. It is by Thom Hartmann, who has a large following and a radio program, and he has written lots of very fine books.

This one, though, is probably the best and is undoubtedly the most timely and important. It is titled The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink. Berrett-Koehler has made some sample pages available. They quite effectively summarize the book. The link to these sample pages is: https://berrettkoehler.sharefile.com/share/view/s038b78b6b8f444ffaba5aa0640460cd7.

I’ll copy the contents page here, so you can see what this book covers.

Contents
Introduction: The End Begins with a Smile   1

Part I The Making of Donald Trump   5
Chapter 1 Queens, Cruelty, and Fred Trump   7
Chapter 2 Roy Cohn’s Apprentice   17
Chapter 3 The Mask of Success   27

Part II The System That Built Trump   39
Chapter 4 The Party That Sold Itself Out   43
Chapter 5 Powered by Plutocrats   55
Chapter 6 The Death of Democracy Is Profitable   69
Chapter 7 From Birtherism to the Big Lie   81

Part III The Global Damage   95
Chapter 8 The Heist of Democracy: How America’s
Voting Rights Were Stolen in 2024   99
Chapter 9 America Ungoverned   105
Chapter 10 Autocrats United   113
Chapter 11 The Climate Collapse Presidency   123

Part IV The Last American President   125
Chapter 12 The Nightmare Scenario   129
Chapter 13 The Empathy Deficit: Democracy’s
Essential Ingredient   141
Chapter 14 Reform, Resist, and Remember   145

Epilogue   163
Notes   165
Acknowledgments   195
Index   197
About the Author   209

 

I’ve read Thom Hartmann before. He does excellent research and writes engagingly for a general readership. I would encourage everyone who sees this post to read the sample pages and, when it’s available, purchase this book.

Personality Types and Trump Support

 

A friend sent me a link to an article on the ZME Science website that I found both fascinating and disturbing. I checked out ZME to see what kind of reviews it gets. Turns out that ZME is based in Romania but publishes news on science in English. A media bias website considers it factual and reliable, albeit pro-science (which is good). This particular article, “This Study Finds a Chilling Link between Personality Type and Trump Support,” by Tudor Tarita, dated July 30, 2025, reports the results of a study led by University of North Texas psychologist Craig Neumann.

The article begins with this teaser: “In the years since Donald Trump emerged as the face of American conservatism, psychologists have grappled with a vexing question: why do so many Americans remain loyal to a morally questionable leader? Donald Trump has made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims, he had an affair with an adult star, and consistently misused donations, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg; yet, he maintains a cult-like loyal following.” Since the study, Trump has conducted a wholesale attack on the institutions of democracy, unleashed a cruel deportation crusade, and has offended most of our former allies, and that’s still the tip of the iceberg. And yet his support among the MAGA faithful remains strong, although his overall approval rating is tanking. So, what explains this fervent devotion among the MAGAts? (No, that’s not a misprint. And they really are feasting upon the rotting corpse of the Republican Party.)

Neumann’s study was published in July in the Journal of Research in Personality and suggests that at least “part of the answer may lie deep within the personalities of his supporters. . . . The study analyzed responses from over 9,000 U.S. adults in two large surveys conducted before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants completed questionnaires that assessed their political beliefs, empathy levels, and personality traits. The results consistently showed a pattern: the more favorably someone rated Trump, the more likely they were to display traits like narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—traits grouped under what researchers call a malevolent disposition.” But the reverse was also true. “Participants who scored higher on benevolent traits like humanism, faith in humanity, and respect for others tended to oppose Trump and lean politically liberal.”

Interestingly, these results were consistent across gender and racial groups, as well as income, education, age, and minority status. There were some differences, though. “White men who scored higher on psychopathic traits also showed stronger support for Trump and conservative ideology. Among men of minority status, however, psychopathy did not predict political ideology. This variation, researchers propose, could stem from differing lived experiences with social power, privilege, and marginalization.” This makes sense, and I’ll extrapolate on later on what this may mean for Latter-day Saints.

“The study also looked at empathy, and the findings were disturbing once again. Trump supporters reported significantly lower levels of affective empathy (emotional concern for others) and higher levels of dissonant empathy (enjoyment of others’ pain). Interestingly, their ability to understand how others feel (cognitive empathy) remained intact. In other words, they know what others are feeling, they simply appear to care less, on average. They enjoy others’ pain more as well. This adds a chilling nuance to the political landscape. It’s not that supporters of Trump can’t understand suffering—it’s that they may find it unimportant, or even gratifying.”

Tarita points out that psychologists have long noticed a link between conservative ideology and authoritarianism, but this new study extends that link to more extreme traits like “callousness and lack of empathy.” Trump’s specific approach to politics, however, is not traditional conservatism. There is a cruelty in Trump, seen in such acts as mocking disabled reporters and separating children from their parents, that speaks of a wanton disregard for other people, a clear indication of psychopathic tendencies. “The fact that so many people view these actions positively,” says Tarita, “reflects something deeper than policy preference. It says that many people agree with such dark acts.”

But what about traits on the other end of the spectrum, benevolent traits? The study indicated that “these traits were strongly linked with liberal political beliefs and a rejection of Trump. . . . These individuals exhibited a distinct psychological orientation rooted in affiliation, care, and prosocial behavior. In contrast, Trump supporters showed the opposite pattern: higher scores on malevolent traits and lower on benevolent ones, shaping their political identity.”

Predictably, men were more likely to display malevolent traits and to more strongly support Trump. Women, on the other hand, were more benevolent and “showed weaker links between personality and politics.”

The authors of the study “are careful to stress that their findings reflect group averages, not individual labels. . . . Still, the patterns are meaningful.”

This brings me to my main question. What does this study say about LDS support for Trump? It would be interesting to conduct a similar survey among just Latter-day Saints. Support among Mormons for Trump has been weaker than for other Republican candidates, but, still, they voted overwhelmingly for the convicted felon over the career prosecutor in the 2024 election. I know many Latter-day Saints who support Trump, despite everything they know about him. I know ever more who held their noses and voted for Trump because they somehow imagine that things would be even worse under any Democratic president. (I’d love to see a study on how watching Fox News affects LDS political beliefs.) Most of these Trump-voting or Trump-supporting Latter-day Saints are not psychopaths. They are good Mormons, as far as I can tell. Of course, I don’t know what goes on in the hearts of my fellow Church members, but I know enough to believe that they would not reflect the results of this study.

My own suspicion is that many LDS voters have been brainwashed for so many years (thanks, ETB) into thinking that Democrats are evil, perhaps primarily because of one particular issue—abortion—that they cannot imagine themselves voting for a Democrat. My own parents, habitual Fox News viewers, probably fell into that camp. My mom died in 2013, though, so she never had a chance to vote for or against Trump (but she was very concerned about all of “Obama’s czars,” apparently something she had heard on Fox). Before my dad’s dementia set in (sometime after he broke his hip in 2020), he was a Republican but not a Trump fan (“I wish he’d just keep his mouth shut”). Still, I wonder how my dad voted in 2016. I never asked.

What I find most striking about this study is that Trump’s most ardent support group is Evangelical Christians. This study indicates that, by and large, most of these supporters have personality traits that are completely at odds with the traits Jesus both demonstrated and encouraged his followers to embrace. This is a damning sign that Christianity is failing its adherents at a very fundamental level. And Trump’s behavior in his second rodeo, after the surveys used in this study were all completed, is far more extreme than during his first term in office. So, his supporters are excusing much more egregious behavior and policies (if we can call them that) this time around. But the results of this study indicate that Trump’s supporters are not just gullible. They haven’t just been duped by Fox News and the endless disinformation streaming out of the Trump propaganda machine. Many of them actually embrace and enjoy the malevolence and cruelty that Trump has brought to the Republican Party.

How, I ask yet again, can any Latter-day Saint or any would-be Christian be a Republican in Trump’s America?

Book of Mormon Questions #6 (History, Geography, DNA, etc.)

 To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the introduction, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

Who Were (Are) the Lamanites?

 

This is a very complicated question. It involves a few different topics: Book of Mormon geography, DNA studies, internal Book of Mormon history and prophecies, and statements by Joseph Smith and others. Too much here for one post, but I’ll at least lay out the parameters for now. Later on, I may explore some of the topics hinted at here.

 

Internal Book of Mormon History

It may appear at first glance that the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon are pretty easy to identify: they are the descendants of Laman and Lemuel and all who followed them instead of Nephi. This group was cursed with a dark skin to differentiate them from the white-skinned Nephites. (Yes, I know that some modern readers have tried to explain this curse away, but their efforts are unconvincing at best.) Things start to get messy, though, with the missionary efforts of the sons of Mosiah, who convert King Lamoni and many of his people (and presumably others), who then join the Nephites in the greater land of Zarahemla.

Things get even more messy in 3 Nephi 2, where the Nephites and “all the Lamanites who had become converted unto the Lord” (v. 12) combine to defend themselves against the Gadianton robbers, at which point the curse is taken away from the Lamanites so that “their skin became white like unto the Nephites; and their young men and their daughters became exceedingly fair, and they were numbered among the Nephites, and were called Nephites” (vv. 15–16). Presumably, there were still dark-skinned Lamanites who were not converted, but Mormon’s record is fairly silent about them. We do read in 3 Nephi 1:29 that some of the Lamanites’ children are led away by the lyings of the Zoramites to join the Gadianton robbers. We can only assume that they remain dark-skinned. But the Nephites under Lachoneus defeat the robbers and put to death all who refuse to enter into a covenant to forsake their ways. In 3 Nephi 6:3, some of the robbers who have entered into the covenant desire to remain Lamanites, so they are given lands, and peace begins to prevail.

Before long, however, the people become unequal and the church breaks up, except “among a few of the Lamanites who were converted unto the true faith” (v. 14). It is unclear who these Lamanites are. If they are the Lamanites who had joined the Nephites to defeat the robbers and had become Nephites, why would they now be identified as Lamanites? Or if they are the Lamanites among the Gadianton robbers who entered into the covenant to forsake their ways, do they suddenly become more righteous than the Nephites who defeated them and pressed them into the covenant? A bit problematic either way.

Regardless, in chapter 7 Nephite society falls apart. The people have largely become evil again, and a new group of wicked lawyers, high priests, and judges combine to murder the chief judge (governor), but instead of taking over the government, they are unable to hold things together, and the people divide up into tribes based on family and friend relationships. A large secret combination makes a man named Jacob their king, and they flee to the northernmost part of the land, where they set up a kingdom. No indication if there are any Lamanites among them.

This is the state of affairs when the Savior destroys most of the Book of Mormon peoples. He then appears to those who are left, who are somehow the more righteous part of the people. How the massive destruction spares just the righteous is not explained, but whatever. The resurrected Jesus then teaches these people his gospel, sets up his church, and leaves his twelve disciples to manage affairs after his ascension. We then have about 166 years of peace (from Jesus’s appearance in the thirty-fourth year until the two hundredth year). Sometime toward the end of this peaceful stretch, however, “a small part of the people who had revolted from the church and taken upon them the name of Lamanites” broke away, “and there began to be Lamanites again in the land” (4 Ne. 1:20).

This is a really odd development. After all the intermixing, for nearly 200 years, and after the Lamanites became fair-skinned, all of a sudden we have a group—that would have had to be a mixture of Nephites and Lamanites and Mulekites and whatever else—break away and take the name Lamanites. And it wasn’t just Lamanites. The Lamanites once again included Lemuelites and Ishmaelites as well (4 Ne. 1:38), almost as if the previous centuries of genetic mixing had not happened at all. And the Nephites weren’t just Nephites; they included Jacobites, Josephites, and Zoramites (4 Ne. 1:36). It’s a big stretch to believe that these groups were descended purely from the original Laman, Lemuel, Ishmael, Nephi, Jacob, Joseph, and Zoram (apparently Sam had no posterity). So, which of these could be considered descendants of the original Lamanites? Probably all of them. But these divisions apparently held until Mormon and all his people were destroyed (except for Moroni), and these new Lamanites then inhabited the promised land, wherever that is. But what color was their skin? We read of no new curse.

 

Book of Mormon Geography

So, where did the Book of Mormon account take place? Right. If you think I’m going to wade into that swamp, you’re crazier than I am. So I’ll just stick a toe in without getting too slimy. I’m pretty much a Book of Mormon geography agnostic. I’ve looked at the various options, including my favorite (the Malaysia theory—my favorite only because it’s so preposterous, although the geography does work better than any of the others), and the only conclusion I have reached is that all of them have disqualifying problems.

Internal evidence is pretty clear that the majority of Book of Mormon history took place in a very limited region, and that this region’s dominant feature was that it was a peninsula. I appreciate the efforts of Tyler Griffin and the Book of Mormon Virtual Scriptures Group, who came up with a map based solely on what’s in the book (see https://rsc.byu.edu/fall-2019/visualizing-people-places-plates-book-mormon). Their map shows where various places mentioned in the text are, in relation to each other. Significantly, their map strongly hints of a peninsula, but they conveniently blur the bottom of the map in cloudy mist and cut it off before the peninsula ends. Gotta keep those Mesoamerican theorists happy, I suppose. But it is obvious in the text that the Lamanites are trapped to the south in the land of Nephi. Nobody ever goes south from the land of Nephi. If the Lamanites could have, they would have expanded to the south, but they don’t. They’re always trying to go north. But the Nephites guard that narrow neck of land. So, I pretty much accept that the story takes place largely on this peninsula, with only the Nephites being able to push northward.

Some have assumed that the narrow neck of land was Panama and the land southward was the whole continent of South America, but the internal travels of the two main populations restrict the geography of the Book of Mormon to a fairly small region.

The Baja California theorists accept this limitation, as well as acknowledging that the story occurred on a peninsula, but their theory has other problems, primarily population. The Mesoamerican theorists have to distort the geography in the book as well as the points of the compass to force fit the narrative on their preferred geography. And the Heartland theorists have the same problem as well as the problem of scale to deal with. So, I’ve never seen a geographical model that can’t be disqualified by some pretty significant evidence. This leads to the problem of what modern pronouncements indicate.

 

Moroni and the Lord Weigh In

Of course, all of what follows in this section came through Joseph Smith, so we have to factor that into the equation, but both Moroni and the Lord have something to say about who the Lamanites are now (or at least who they were in the 1820s and 1830s). Let’s start with Moroni. When he first appeared to Joseph Smith, he told Joseph about “a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang” (JS–H 1:34, bold added). Joseph obviously believed that the Nephites and Lamanites in the Book of Mormon record were the ancestors of the peoples he knew as the American Indians. This belief was confirmed in several of the early revelations he received.

In what is now Doctrine and Covenants 3:18, the Lord tells Joseph that the purpose for which the plates have been preserved is so that “this testimony shall come to the knowledge of the Lamanites, and the Lemuelites, and the Ishmaelites, who dwindled in unbelief because of the iniquity of their fathers.” In D&C 10, the Lord tells Joseph that what we know as the small plates of Nephi contained another account of what was on the lost 116 pages of the original manuscript and that the authors of that account had extracted a promise from him that “my gospel which I gave unto them that they might preach in their days, might come unto their brethren the Lamanites, and also all that had become Lamanites because of their dissensions” (v. 48) And who are these latter-day descendants of those early people?

We find the answer to that question a couple of years later, when he called Parley Pratt, Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer Jr., and Ziba Peterson to “go into the wilderness among the Lamanites” (D&C 32:2) to preach the gospel. And where were these Lamanites? As explained in Richard Dilworth Rust’s article “A Mission to the Lamanites” in the Church’s “Revelations in Context” supplement to the Sunday curriculum, “Because of the Indian Removal Act passed in May 1830, the new territory for relocating American Indians was to be in present-day Kansas and Oklahoma. Thus, these missionaries to the Lamanites planned to go west from Independence, Missouri, into Indian Territory.” In Pratt’s autobiography, he describes a visit to the Seneca Indians in New York, while the missionaries were still in the United States. They then continued on to Kirtland, where they found Sidney Rigdon and his fellow Reformed Baptists, who were open to the missionaries’ message. In Kirtland, Frederick G. Williams joined the four missionaries, and eventually they made it to Independence. Leaving Whitmer and Peterson in town to earn money, Cowdery, Pratt, and Williams crossed over into Indian Territory, where they preached the message of the Book of Mormon to the Shawnee and the Delaware tribes. The Delawares were receptive, but a federal agent expelled the Mormon elders from Indian Territory. They sought authorization to return but were unsuccessful. So ended the mission to the Lamanites. They did, however, find Independence, Missouri, which Joseph’s revelations soon identified as the location for the city of New Jerusalem.

The salient point here, though, is that Joseph and his early followers considered all American Indians to be Lamanites. This can be seen also in Joseph’s “Zelph” experience with Zion’s Camp and in the Saints’ encounters over the next several decades with the tribes of the Great Basin, whom they also identified as Lamanites.

The Book of Mormon supports this view, especially in Nephi’s vision of the future of the promised land, in which he sees the coming of the Europeans to the New World and their impact on the native inhabitants of the land. “I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren [Laman and Lemuel]; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten” (1 Ne. 13: 14).

So, it is apparent that the Book of Mormon itself, Moroni, Joseph Smith, and even the Lord considered all native North Americans to be Lamanites. But how does this square with what we know from other sources about the Native Americans?

 

Archaeology, Linguistics, and Genetics

Archaeological evidence indicates that Native Americans began arriving in the Americas 60,000 years ago and continued until about 12,000 years ago. Obviously, this presents challenges for the Book of Mormon account. While some apologists find evidence in the book for other inhabitants of the “land of promise,” the account itself is strangely silent on such an important point, especially if the Nephites and Lamanites absorbed indigenous populations, as apologists argue, in order to make the numbers work out (population growth and such). You would think that the record keepers would have mentioned these indigenous groups, but they didn’t. We learn only of the Mulekites and the Jaredites (who were extinct, except for Coriantumr and, we assume, Ether, when the two groups had a brief encounter). The Book of Mormon speaks of the land of promise, especially in Nephi’s vision, as the entirety of at least North America, which would seem to indicate that all of the Native American tribes here are descended from Lehi. But if the Lehites intermarried over the centuries with not just the Mulekites but also scores of Native Americans, to the point that their genetic footprint has completely disappeared, how can we even consider Native Americans to be Lamanites?

The linguistic evidence is equally problematic. According to Wikipedia, “Over a thousand of these [Native American] languages are still used today, while many more are now extinct. The Indigenous languages of the Americas are not all related to each other; instead, they are classified into a hundred or so language families and isolates, as well as several extinct languages that are unclassified due to the lack of information on them.” There are various theories about the origins of indigenous languages. One theory is that there was a single, one-language migration to the New World, but this theory is rejected by most linguists. The large number of seemingly unrelated language families indicates a long history of linguistic development (and splintering), far longer than the period between the end of the Book of Mormon account and the arrival of Europeans in the New World.

I am fairly ignorant in both archaeology and linguistics and am relying on information summarized online. I am even more ignorant in genetics, but from what I can gather, using DNA to try to find a link (or prove no link) between living Native Americans and potential ancient semitic ancestors is a fool’s errand. According to Wikipedia again, “The Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism has also said that haplogroup testing is not a valid means of determining Native American ancestry, and that the concept of using genetic testing to determine who is or is not Native American threatens tribal sovereignty. Author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science, Kim TallBear (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), agrees, stating that not only is there no DNA test that can indicate a tribe, but ‘there is no DNA-test to prove you’re Native American.’” TallBear writes, “‘Native American markers’ are not found solely among Native Americans. While they occur more frequently among Native Americans, they are also found in people in other parts of the world.”

Identifying genetic markers for ancient Jewish people is also a nightmare because of all the intermarriage and migration over the years. So, identifying any genetic markers for Lehi, a descendant of Joseph, would be impossible. A good summary of the futility of DNA research in this area is David Stewart’s 2006 article, “DNA and the Book of Mormon,” published in the (FARMS) Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 18, no. 1. This is, of course, an apologetic piece, and Stewart attempts to show that the lack of evidence actually supports Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, but his summary of DNA research is quite informative and shows instead, I believe, that DNA evidence is not helpful to either side in this debate.

 

Conclusion (or Not)

I think it is pretty obvious that the indigenous peoples of North and South America were not all descended from Lehi, even though the Book of Mormon and statements from Moroni and the Lord (filtered through Joseph Smith) seem to indicate they were. And claiming that the Nephites and Lamanites intermarried with local, already present tribes in a small geographical area goes beyond what the Book of Mormon account says. A plain reading of the text indicates that there were descendants of Lehi, Ishmael, Zoram, Mulek, and Mulek’s party in the narrative. As far as the record attests, no descendants of the Jaredites survived and passed their genes on to the Nephites or Lamanites.

Skeptics will, of course, insist that the Book of Mormon is just another attempt (among many) to identify the origins of the American Indians, including an explanation for why they have a darker skin than their European invaders. I must admit that this explanation does have its appeal, especially considering all the other questions I have about Mormon’s book, but, as I confessed in the introduction to this intermittent series, the Book of Mormon is a complex and perplexing text. I’m not ready to claim I have it figured out.

So, who are (or were) the Lamanites? Beats me.