I’m so sad you didn’t:)

ED,
It is well proven in scholarly studies that race is essentially social. Why it is often marked by some visible feature which can be passed on genetically to a following generation, the calculus that determines which features are significant tend to be chosen by the group making the racial distinction. For that matter, it is often the case that visible features that are not genetic make up racial difference (difference in clothing, language, or ritual have been cited as racial markers). To take the Book of Mormon example, we don’t know what actually happened when the skin of the Lamanites was darkened, we only know that some feature was identified as significant and the Nephites and Lamanites went with it (as they both had reasons to remain separate).

Regarding Joseph Smith’s statements on race (in the Book of Abraham and elsewhere), they don’t always flow well into the priesthood ban. We don’t know original intent or extent. They were used as a justification for the ban, but ascribing that as their original intent is not necessary.

Even with that in mind, what is obvious is that the 19th century discourse on race was different than the modern discourse. Race was a blanket term for all ethnic differences. The Irish were considered a different race by the British, for example. While Joseph Smith obviously understood race as significant, we have no way of discerning what lineages (aside from his own) he would have considered worthy or unworthy nor can we say with confidence that race meant the same thing to him that it does to us.

Brad,
The genetic denial of distinct races is nice and all, but so long as societies find race significant, it seems irrelevant. I think that this is fundamentally ED’s point and it isn’t a bad one.

You do attempt to sanitize Smith’s role when you selectively present evidence forwarding a particular view, which are in sharp contrast to the view that you are actively attacking. It seems pretty clear you were deliberately drawing a sharp contrast between BRM and JS in your original post and using your genetic argument to support and forward your personal version of Smith’s view. You also repeatedly ignore requests to respond to relevant textual passages that were hostile to your position. Now, that is genuine ignore-ance. Ignoring what contradicts you.

Sour grapes? Brad, in my original comment (#67) I directly address the central thesis, and then explicitly state the last paragraph as the thing that is of greatest interest to me. There is nothing of an ambush here. I make my opening position explicitly clear. How does that make it OK for you to run off topic and resort to personal attacks? Sorry, it doesnt.

I did not attempt to sanitize Smith’s role in the ban. I simply stated (though obviously not clearly enough) that among all the pieces of evidence for or against his responsibility for it, the teachings about the effect of the HG on gentile blood constitute a piece of evidence against the ban being continuous with Smith’s thinking.

When you foreground parenthetical, tangential arguments as a tactic for ambushing and dismissing the totality of the post and all the actual arguments therein (none of which, btw, you actually engaged directly), then taking umbrage at my unwillingness to stay on topic or steer clear of personal attacks seems a bit like sour grapes.

If you could stay on topic and not resort to personal attacks, perhaps you would find it easier to communicate with others.

I am not a BRM apologist. Never have been, never will be. So, you are once again barking up the wrong tree. I have no interest in him. I do however have a strong interest in the Blacks and the Priesthood issue.

The point I have been clearly making, is that your attempt to sanitize Smith’s role in the Priesthood Ban via your modern genetics argument is based on either a deliberately selective representation or clear ignorance on your part. Either way, your appeal to modern genetics does little, or nothing, to promote your position. And, you are invoking BRM in order to create controversy. Your position is weak, as is your argumentation style.

Inclined as I am to unceremoniously thrash your argument here, it occurs to me that I have no ungodly idea what it is you’re arguing. That I’m a jerk for lumping Elder McConkie in with the blacks? That I have a less fundamentalist approach to scriptural or prophetic infallibility than anti-Mormons do?

One thing seems comparatively clear: you appear to be arguing that my assertion — that JSJ’s teaching that the effect of the reception of the Holy Ghost literally alters a person’s lineage by producing changes in the blood is inconsistent with a subsequent policy that states that people believed to come from certain lineages are irredeemably disqualified, notwithstanding their having received the HG, from access to the temple ordinances — is invalidated by Abr 1:26-27 and HC 4:446, 502.

And that this assertion, along with my interest in exploring the relevance of scientific discovery for traditionally held paradigms and beliefs, constitute post-modernist emending, misrepresenting Joseph Smith, promoting personal theology, and offending your sensibilities.

Mea Culpa. I promise that, notwithstanding my own errant ways, if you feel compelled to cling to more scripturally defensible ideas about the significance of race and lineage, in the tradition of Elder McConkie, no one here will pull that from your cold dead hands.

Note to BCC readers: I hereby retract all arguments made here relevant to race and lineage, and as a representative of the head-in-the-sand vanguard of BCC popularity, encourage you all to heed the teachings and wisdom of Brother Dorito. Because, in case reading his comments here hasn’t made it obvious, he clearly understands these questions better than I or anyone else here.

So could a white supremacist. That doesn’t mean that I would need to take said tearing to shreds even remotely seriously, though, rooted as they would be in all manner of false doctrine.

How about straw men? Being ignorant of the full body of Smith’s statements on, or perhaps deliberately misrepresenting him on, race and lineage and related matters in order to promote your personal theology is what makes your position weak. That is the point here, not whether anti-mormons or white supremacists teach false doctrine.

The inclusion of the original story was due to the fact of its actually having happened. The second is inflammatory only insofar as one takes the assigning of Cainite lineage to be an insult.

I take it then from your reply that I was wrong, and your intention was to be inflammatory.

Well golly, now I feel just plain sheepish for having waisted my time writing this silly thing to begin with. I guess what you’re saying is that “genetic finds and Grandiose statements” notwithstanding, not only do discrete categories like the seed of Cain from the seed of Seth actually exist, but treating them differently is a Godly behavior.

The Scriptures speak very, very clearly to matters of lineage, in both the ancient canon and modern. You want to pretend they dont? You want to take The Magic Eraser of Human Genome to them and apply some post-modernist emending to make it more palatable to the modern reader? Good luck with that.

I think I can speak for all present when I say, thank you for the enlightenment.

When sticking your head in the sand and using the latest genetic discoveries is the way you develop theology, then hats off to one so enlightened and so much at the vanguard of BCC popularity.

For your next post here on BCC, Brad, why dont you collect all relevant statements by Smith on lineage, race and all that related stuff, and compile them and try to explain away all the bits that dont support your “just one more piece of evidence, incidentally, that the Priesthood Ban and ideas of irredeemably cursed lineages and races constituted departures from rather than continuities with Joseph’s thought.” Start with Abr. 1:26-27 and please do address HofC Vol 4 pages 446 and 502. If you need some additional help pulling together the relevant bits, do let me know, I’ll be happy to oblige.