The Difference a Word Makes

An article was posted a few weeks ago by the Salt Lake Tribune. This article reports that one single word of the Book of Mormon has been changed. The word 'principal' was changed to 'among,' so the new reading is now: "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians."

A brief historical background for this change would be helpful. The Book of Mormon taught that the ancestors of the Native Americans were a group of Jews named the Lamanites that left from Egypt during the time of the Jewish persecution in Egypt and fled to the Americas.

But due to the advance in DNA testing, it has been shown that the Native Americans are not descendants of the Jews. Thus, the LDS Church needs to respond to this. This change is one way that the LDS Church is dealing with these new findings.