COMMENTARY ON THE 2013 LDS SCRIPTURE HEADINGS OF THE DECLARATIONS

On 1 March 2013, the LDS Church released its 2013 edition of the LDS scriptures.  It has new study guides and some rewritten chapter headings.   The editors did their most interesting and comprehensive rewriting to the introductions to The Declarations.   I present them with commentary, and with some rewriting for clarity.  These headings do not lie technically, but they do not tell the full truth.  They do illustrate how leadership can use selective historical facts,word choice, punctuation, sentence structure, and word order to influence how a reader will interpret them.


 Official Declaration 1

    The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage unless He declares otherwise (see 2 Samuel 12:7–8 and Jacob 2:27, 30). Following a revelation to Joseph Smith [the wording implies that the revelation came in the 1840s by playing it front of the next phrase], the practice of plural marriage was instituted among Church members in the early 1840s (see section 132). From the 1860s to the 1880s, the United States government passed laws to make this religious practice illegal. These laws were eventually upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. After receiving revelation [the most noticeable of which in 1880 and 1889 seemed to uphold the practice], President Wilford Woodruff issued the following Manifesto [the wording and word order implies but does not necessarily mean the Manifesto was a revelation], which was accepted by the Church as authoritative and binding on October 6, 1890. This led to the end  [my emphasis] of the practice of plural marriage in the Church. [if you compare the wording here to the wording in the second declaration, this heading implies President Woodruff acted unilaterally.] 




This paragraph explains the situation in active voice and more clarity.  It is, I admit, marginally more candid. 

    The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage unless He declares otherwise (see 2 Samuel 12:7–8 and Jacob 2:27, 30). Following a revelation to Joseph Smith in 1831, the First Presidency instituted the practice of plural marriage among Church members in 1841. From the 1860s to the 1880s, the United States government passed laws to make this religious practice illegal  The U S Supreme Court upheld these laws.    President Wilford Woodruff issued the following Manifesto; a general conference sustained it on 6 October 1890.   President Joseph F Smith later issued a Second Manifesto, which promised to excommunicate people who entered into plural marriage; a general conference sustained it in April 1904.  This ended the practice of plural marriage in the Church, but not in the culture. 





Official Declaration 2

    The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33). Throughout the history of the Church, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church. During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few [2?] [free black members] black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. Early in its history, Church leaders stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent. Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice.  [Comment:  history seems clear enough.  In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent.]  [the next line is a bombshell in the history of LDS Church scripture honesty --] Church leaders believed [my emphasis] that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice and prayerfully sought guidance. [making the verbs compound tends to suggest that the leaders were interested and prayed for a long time, when that was not necessarily the timing case.]   [this is not the same thing as saying that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice.]   The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood.



This rewrite makes the situation more clear.  I admit it also has a selective sense of history, what with its being short.    


The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33). 

The Old Testament has slave imagery and references throughout.  

Throughout Church history, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church.

During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, 2 free black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood.  In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent, regardless of legal status.

Church leaders believed that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice.  They prayerfully sought guidance, particularly in the mid -twentieth century.  The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood.  A general conference sustained it in September 1978.



COMMENTARY

Bible translations show how word choice, grammar and sentence structure can make meanings ambiguously unclear.   

Translators of the Old Testament used euphemisms like "The Groves" and "the Poles" to mask from readers references to alters of a female heathen deity that certain modern Biblical scholars now suspect scriptures once presented as God's wife. 

The King James Bible translators used the word "murmur" when the ancient word used really was closer to the modern Yiddish "Kevetch"  which implies loud complaining. 

 Thus, in the 2013 scripture edition, God yet again get the blame for the black priesthood ban.   
  
The thing to remember about that ban is that it never actually worked.   Leaders, going way back in church history, ordained men of mixed black genetics without knowing it.  Had Brigham Young worded the ban along the lines of “no man with a black parent or grandparent back 4 generations can be ordained to the priesthood,” the ban would have worked better.  It would have also been more clear than the  prohibition worded “one drop of Negro blood.” That wording turned out to be "not measurable" and eventually bogged the ban down under its own ambiguity.