The Mormon Faith & Black Folks
Question #28
Q. The Mormon Church says that black men, except for
Elijah Abel and his descendants, couldn’t have the Priesthood until 1978. Yet
the New Testament identifies a black man, Simeon called “Niger”, as a Prophet.
How can you explain this?
A. We did in previous questions.
God sometimes makes exceptions to His own rules (decrees); based upon
exceeding faith. We saw that with Ruth (a Moabitess), and with Elijah Abel in
this Dispensation. The book of Acts says:
“Now there were in the Church that was at Antioch
certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called
Niger,....” (Acts 13:1)
The name Niger (pronounced “Nie-jeer”) is
Latin, and means “Black”. Simeon is a Jewish name. Simeon called Niger could
have been a black man from African who converted to Judaism (or his parents
did, and named him Simeon), or he would have been a dark-skinned Canaanite
(Samaritan). In any case, he could have been the “Elijah Abel” of his day. The
LORD always makes exceptions to
His own rules on account of exceeding faith of the individual.
Some believe that the Apostle Simon the Canaanite was
black because he was called “the Canaanite”, but in fact the Greek doesn’t call
him a “Canaanite” but a “Cananean”; a Zealot who belonged to a party of Zealots
from the city of Cana, in Galilee.
But we should remind the Seeker that not all
prophets have the Priesthood! Joseph Smith was a Prophet when he had his First
Vision in 1820. He didn’t receive the Priesthood (from the hands of Angels)
until 1829.
In the New Testament we read of “Anna the Prophetess”
(Luke 2:36). She was a female prophet. She didn’t have the Priesthood, but she
recognized baby Jesus as the Messiah.
Some of the early Mormon Apostles believed that
Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was a true Prophet of God. But he did not have
the Priesthood.
G.A. Smith (Apostle) declared in 1855:
“About six hundred years after Christ a Prophet
arose in Arabia, by the name of Muhammad.
Now this man descended from Abraham and was no doubt
raised up by God to scourge the world for their idolatry.” (Journal of
Discourses 3:30,32 )
*The Prophet Simon Kimbangu
There was a black man in Africa, in the first part of
the 20th century, name Simon
Kimbangu (1889-1951). He claimed to be
a Prophet. He did not claim to have the Priesthood. He was persecuted, and died
in prison. He told his followers to
remain clean and worthy, and one day messengers would bring them the
Holy Priesthood. His church today has 8 million members in Africa. It is called
The Church of Jesus Christ Through the Prophet Simon Kimbangu. They have no
Priesthood.
*The Jaredites: Where They Black?
There is a growing number of Members of the Church,
both scholars and lay people, who believe that the Jaredites, a people whose
account is in The Book of Ether; one of the books in The Book
of Mormon, were in fact a black-skinned Hamitic people.
The Book of Mormon contains 15 smaller “books”. One of these books is called The Book of
Ether. It was written by a man named Ether; a prisoner and a Jaredite. The
Jaredites were the descendants of Jared; a man who lived during the time of the
Tower of Babel. The Book of Ether is an account or history of the Jaredites;
from the time of Jared until they were destroyed in battle about 1000 years
later.
According to The Book of Ether, Nimrod (a
Cushite, and thus a Hamite) had settled in the Valley of Nimrod, and began to
build a tower to heaven. The LORD saw this, and decided to confound (confuse)
the language of the builders. Some believe that this confusion of languages
happened in one day, in one moment. Others believe that this confusion of
languages was a result of many generations. The LORD scattered the people at
Babel because they were wicked. Yet,
there was a righteous remnant of people in the Valley of Nimrod that he did not
confound. These were Jared, The Brother of Jared (whose name is not mentioned
in The Book of Ether, but revealed later by Joseph Smith as Mahonri
Moriancumer), their families, and friends. God chose them to be His Chosen
People; long before Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob (Israel) were born.
The LORD promised that He would lead the Jaredites
across vast lands, and across vast oceans, into a Promised Land. The Brother
of Jared was a Prophet. He was so good and righteous that He saw the finger
of the LORD, and was commanded to built barges for the journey across the ocean. They did so, and the
Jaredites became a great nation on the American continent.
Some people believe that the Jaredites were the
ancient Olmecs of Mesoamerica. The giant Olmec heads and other ancient remains
have led some to conclude that the Olmecs were Negroes. Some speculate that the
Olmecs were the descendants of ancient shipwrecked African sailors. The Olmec
civilization died out about the very same time that The Book of Ether
says the Jaredite civilization became extinct.
Parley P. Pratt, an early Apostle and close friend of
the Prophet Joseph Smith, believed that the Jaredites were in fact Hamites;
that the Kinderhood Plates, some brass plates supposedly found in a mound near
Kinderhook, Illinois, contained, according to Pratt, “a genealogy of one of the
Jaredites back to Ham.” (Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, p.104n.47)
It says in The Book of Ether that the Jaredites had
secret combinations and oaths which were “handed down” from Cain:
“And Akish did administer unto them the oaths which
were given by them of old who also sought power, which had been handed down
even from Cain.” (Ether 8:13-15)
This “handing down” suggests a lineal descent from
Cain; from one person to the other.
The Jaredite language was not confounded, and
they came from the Valley of Nimrod; a Cushite (black man). All historians and
scholars agree that the Tower of Babel was located near the site of the city of
Babylon, which was in the land of Sumer or Chaldea ( now Southern Iraq). Many
believe that the ancient Sumerians were in fact black-skinned people.
Historian George Rawlinson writes:
”Suffice it to observe that, though possessed of not
many natural advantages [in Chaldea], the Chaldean people exhibited a fertility
of invention, a genius, and the energy which place them high in the scale of
nations, and more especially in the list of those descended from the Hamitic
stock. For the last three thousand years the world has been mainly indebted for
its advancement to the Semitic and Indo-European races; but it was otherwise in
the first ages. Egypt and Babylon–Mizraim and Nimrod–both descendants of
Ham–led the way, and acted as the pioneers of mankind in the various untrodden
fields of art, literature, and science. Alphabetic writing, astronomy, history,
chronology, architecture, art, sculpture, navigation, agriculture, textile
industry, seem, all of them, to have had their origin in one or other of these
two [Hamitic] countries.” (Seven Great Monarchies 1:40-41)
Christian scholar and archaeologist William F.
Albright wrote:
“The Sumerians created the oldest urban society with
an advanced higher culture during the fourth millennium B.C.” (Science, Aug. 16,
1963, p.623)
All or most of the Jaredite names in The Book of
Ether are Hamitic. No Priesthood ordinances are mentioned in The Book
of Ether; unlike the rest of The Book of Mormon.
The name Ether means “prisoner” in Egyptian; a Hamitic language. The Jaredite name Moron
(pronounced “More-rone”--rhymes with ‘more stone’ and not ‘more-on’) is
from ancient Hamitic. (The World of the Jaredites, p.244)
All of this is called The Black-Jaredite Theory.
It is not a doctrine of the LDS Church. It is just a theory. But if it
is true, it would mean that God’s First Chosen People, chosen 1000 years before
He chose the Israelites, were a black-skinned Hamitic people called the
Jaredites. Because of their exceeding faith and righteousness, the LORD
promised to make them a great nation in the New World, and said to the Prophet,
the Brother of Jared:
“And there will I bless thee and thy seed, and raise
up unto me of thy seed, and of the seed of thy brother, and they who shall go
with thee, a great nation. And there shall be none greater than the nation
which I will raise up unto me of thy seed, upon all the face of the earth.”
(Ether 1:43)
The State of Utah was first called the State of Deseret;
a Jaredite name meaning “Honeybee”. Indeed, the Church’s official newspaper is
called Deseret News, and the Church’s first university was called “The
University of Deseret”. The Church’s ranch in Florida is called Deseret Ranch.
And the Church’s thrift stores and canneries are called Desert Industries; all Jaredite
names. The official symbol of the State of Utah is an Eagle and the Deseret
(beehive). The symbol of Brigham Young University and the University of Utah is
also a beehive; representing Deseret.
The very name Mormon comes from the prophet
Mormon in The Book of Mormon. He was
a Jew, but the Nephites often used Egyptian (Hamitic) names. They wrote
in Reformed Egyptian. Scholars speculate that Lehi was a merchant in Egypt at
one time. Mormon scholar Hugh Nibley wrote that the name Mormon comes from the
ancient Egyptian MRMN (“Mer-i-Amon” or “Mor-i-Amon”) and means “Beloved
of God”. The very name “Mormon” is Hamitic!
Please feel free to e-mail Darrick Evenson
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