Does 2 Nephi 5 mean God cursed Lamanites with black skin — so black skin is a sign of sin?
The Bible answers
King James Version
My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.
NRSVUE
My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.
Our explanation
Job’s skin is black upon him. They already have this idiom. They do not dump Job.
King James Version
Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
NRSVUE
Now their visage is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood.
Our explanation
Jerusalem goes blacker than a coal. That is a fallen covenant people, not a new race.
King James Version
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
NRSVUE
Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
Our explanation
Scarlet to white is sin to cleansing. Color talk is already spiritual in their Bible.
They quote our book
2 Nephi 5:20–21
Inasmuch as they will not hearken unto thy words they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And behold, they were cut off from his presence. And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity… wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.
Our explanation
This is the line they quote. Verse 20 names the curse first: cut off from His presence.
How we read it
They start at ‘skin of blackness’ and skip the sentence that defines the cursing. Cut off from the Lord is the sore curse. The mark is how that break is shown in the story — not a revelation that African skin is a sin.
The Book of Mormon answers
Alma 3:4, 6–7, 13–18
The Amlicites… had marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites… And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression… I will set a mark upon him that mingleth his seed with thy brethren, that they may be cursed also.
Our explanation
Amlicites mark themselves. A mark you put on is not a new complexion overnight.
Jacob 3:8–9
I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God. Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness.
Our explanation
Revile no more because of the darkness of their skins. The book forbids the racist reading.
2 Nephi 30:6
Their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure and a delightsome people.
Our explanation
Joseph wrote ‘pure and delightsome.’ Scales fall from their eyes. That is sight, not pigment.
2 Nephi 26:33
He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female… and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.
Our explanation
Same author: all are alike unto God, black and white. Chapter 5 does not get to eat chapter 26.
Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.
Hugh Nibley — Arab idiom of countenance
With the Arabs, to be white of countenance is to be blessed and to be black of countenance is to be cursed.
Nibley is reading 2 Nephi 5 the way a desert text reads. Black/white of face is covenant status, not a 19th-century American race chart. Scripture Central and FAIR both keep this idiom on the table.
Assyrian treaty curse (Esarhaddon, 7th c. BC)
May they make your skin as black as pitch and crude oil.
Ancient Near Eastern curses already paint the skin black as a picture of death and broken oath — the same world Lehi left. That is T. J. Uriona’s point, used by Scripture Central: the language is older than Nauvoo.
FAIR Latter-day Saints
Brant A. Gardner
Gardner’s case: the association of skin with black/white in the Book of Mormon is metaphor for insider/outsider and spiritual state, not a pigmentation miracle. Alma 3’s mark can be taken on. 3 Nephi 2’s ‘skin became white’ tracks conversion and joining the Nephite covenant people, which is how ‘ites’ work in the book. The war narratives never use skin as an ID badge. If the Lord had recolored a nation, spies would not pass by changing their talk. Read 2 Nephi 5:20 first: cut off from the presence of the Lord is the curse. The mark serves that social fence.
The mark/curse can be removed by crossing the covenant boundary. That is a poor description of race. It is a good description of a people.
Interpreter Foundation
Clifford P. Jones
Jones reads ‘skin of blackness’ as a mark people put on their skin — a forbidden incision or tattoo under Leviticus 19:28 — not a new natural complexion. Laman and Lemuel take it in rebellion. Amlicites copy it (Alma 3). Converted Lamanites drop the curse; later children are not born with a race. ‘Black’ and ‘white’ follow Bible usage for afflicted or clean skin and for mourning or joy. That is why spies in Alma 55 pass as Lamanites by speech. A nation-wide pigment miracle would have been the ID. A mark you can take or leave is not.
The term ‘skin of blackness,’ when viewed through the eyes of Nephi’s ancient culture, has nothing to do with the modern social construct of race.
Faithful voices only. Most of these are independent — not official Church productions unless marked as such.
Scripture Central
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