In Jacob’s discourse on the Atonement in 2 Nephi 9, he speaks of the day of judgment when the righteous will be “clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness” (v. 14). The notion of having a heavenly garment returned to humanity at the moment of exaltation has deep roots in ancient Christianity and other Near Eastern traditions. In this paper, I trace the complex theological meanings associated with this “robe of righteousness.” Early traditions state that Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, lost such a heavenly garment at the time of the Fall and recovered it when they were finally redeemed, setting the divine pattern for each of us. I first discuss the Pauline metaphor of induere Christum (“putting on Christ”) at baptism and how this informs other clothing imagery in scripture, particularly in Jacob’s speech in 2 Nephi 6–10. I broaden the topic by then examining color (black, dark, white) and clothing metaphors in the Book of Mormon, particularly in relationship to the “curse” on the Lamanites and the “mark” mentioned by Mormon. I offer compelling evidence both from the text itself and from Near Eastern cultures and early Christian sources that “dark skin” was strictly a metaphor for those who had not yet been enlightened by the gospel and “white skin” as those who had embraced the teachings of Jesus Christ. I also show that both “dark skin” and “white skin” are symbolically linked to earthly and eschatological “robes.” There are precise correlates to the Book of Mormon metaphorical usage, in which some people are “white” (spiritually pure) and others are “dark” (spiritually impure), to the language used by early Christian Fathers, adding credence and clarity to this proposed symbolism in the Book of Mormon. The curse, as I contend, was unrelated to skin color and instead indexes an idle, uncivilized, and sinful lifestyle that was outside of the covenant. I also propose that the “mark” was a self-administered identity emblem, not a biological change in melanin content of the skin. Finally, I argue that charges of racism in the Book of Mormon are anachronistic and baseless since modern-day notions of “racism” were demonstrably not present in ancient cultures. I suggest that a careful reading of the text of the Book of Mormon through the lens of robe imagery helps to dispel much of the confusion that has resulted from misreading the text through a skin-tone-based, racialized prism. Indeed, Jacob shows himself to be fully aware of the soteriological origins, meaning, and metaphorical extensions of heavenly robes and garments, and his discussion of them significantly illuminates our understanding of race and reconciliation in the Book of Mormon.

Introduction

In 2 Nephi 6–10, Jacob, a priest after the “holy order” among the Nephites (2 Nephi 6:2), gives one of the more theologically significant sermons recorded in the Book of Mormon. Taking place about forty years after the Lehites fled Jerusalem and soon after the completion of the first Nephite temple, Jacob’s discourse focuses on the meaning and purpose of the Atonement. He begins by citing various passages and chapters from Isaiah (for example, chapters 13, 35, 40, 49, 50–52, 60) specifically so that the people would “learn and glorify the name of [their] God” (2 Nephi 6:4) and liken Isaiah’s words spoken about Israel to themselves since, as Jacob reminded them, “[they] are of the house of Israel” (v. 5).

In this intimate setting of likely fewer than one hundred people, Jacob speaks of the Savior’s advent to Jerusalem for the purpose of saving humanity from its fallen state (see 2 Nephi 9:5). Jacob stresses that no other form of sacrifice would do—only an “infinite atonement” would succeed in reversing the effects of the “first judgment” (that is, physical death) whereby “flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more” (v. 7). Jesus, Jacob continues, will come to save mankind from “death of the body” and “death of the spirit” by conquering what he describes through a common Near Eastern motif as “that awful monster” (vv. 10, 19, 26).[1] Because of this grand redemptive act of Jesus, Jacob explains, death will be fully overcome, and “the paradise of God must deliver up the spirits of the righteous, and the grave deliver up the body of the righteous” to be restored with their physical bodies in immortality (v. 13).[2]

Jacob describes the righteous at the moment of resurrection as being fully cognizant of all of their past “guilt,” “uncleanness,” and “nakedness” (2 Nephi 9:14). Jacob links “guilt” and “uncleanness” to the notion of “nakedness” in this passage.[3] In Hebrew, ʿervâ can figuratively refer to “shame,” “uncleanness,” “filthiness,” “dishonor,” or other forms of sinful behavior (compare Deuteronomy 23:10, 14; 24:1). For example, Lamentations 1:8 states that “Jerusalem hath grievously sinned [literally ‘sinning, has sinned’]; therefore she is removed,” and that now “all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness.” In this context in Jacob’s speech, the mention of “nakedness” is a rhetorical strategy of Jacob, inserted in order to contrast with the “robe of righteousness” that all the faithful receive at the moment of eschatological vindication.[4] The Lord uses the same imagery when he says: “Blessed is he that . . . keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame” (Revelation 16:15).

Robes of Righteousness

The notion of specialized robes of glory has roots that run deep throughout Jewish and Christian traditions.[5] Clothing in its various forms was often the preferred soteriological metaphor. The Syrian fathers would commonly “narrate the entire span of salvation history using the imagery of ‘clothing.’”[6] In the Book of Mormon, robes are mentioned five times. In three cases, a robe is said to be “white”: once in reference to the angelic guide for Lehi in his vision (1 Nephi 8:5); once for one of the apostles shown to Nephi in his vision (1 Nephi 14:19); and once to describe the Savior’s vestment when he appeared to the Lamanites and Nephites (3 Nephi 11:8). In addition to Jacob’s mention of the “robe of righteousness,” Nephi uses the same language when he pleads with the Lord: “Encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness!” (2 Nephi 4:33). Here “righteousness” is metaphorically referred to as a “robe” in contradistinction to “nakedness” as a metaphor for sin. When referring to this “robe of righteousness,” the synonym garment appears much more commonly in the Book of Mormon than the term robe does (see Alma 5:24; 34:36; 3 Nephi 27:19; Ether 12:37; Mormon 9:35), and it is also used by Jacob (see Jacob 1:19; 2:2). What is this “robe of righteousness” that the Lord wears and that is also given to the faithful? Can it refer to a priestly robe given in this life,[7] or is the meaning purely eschatological? In the discussion that follows, I hope to illuminate the soteriological implications of this robe, its color symbolism, and its possible relation to questions of “racism” and Nephite/Lamanite distinctions in the Book of Mormon.

The earliest mention of the “robe of righteousness” in scripture is found in Isaiah 61:10:

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD,
my soul shall be joyful in my God;
for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,
he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments,
and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.[8]

Here “robe of righteousness” (mě’îl ṣěḏāqâ) is poetically linked to “garments of salvation” (biḡěḏê-yeša`), possibly suggestive of the priestly robes used in Old Testament times.[9] Additionally, this language is reflected in early Jewish and Christian understandings of a radiant white “robe of glory” that was given to Adam and Even in the garden of Eden. Some early theologians stated that this metaphorical “garment of light” was replaced with their mortal bodies[10] and a coat of skins or fig leaves.[11] Others, like Gregory of Nyssa, viewed the “garment of skin” in part metaphorically as the sinful nature of humanity: “As if Adam were still living in each of us, we see our nature covered with garments of skin and the fallen leaves of this earthly life, garments which we made for ourselves when we had been stripped of our robes of light, and we put on vanities, the honors, the passing satisfactions of the flesh instead of our divine robes.”[12] In Midrash Rabbah on Genesis 3:21, Rabbi Meir (first century AD) is said to have had a manuscript with a variant of Genesis 3:21 stating that Adam and Eve received a “garment of light” rather than a “garment of skin,”[13] a distinction likely brought about by the similarity between the Hebrew ‘ōr for “skin” and ͗ōr for “light.”[14] According to Brock, “The biblical (and Semitic) approach . . . sees the Fall as involving the loss of one garment—the ‘robe of glory’—and covering up of the resultant naked state by another, inferior, garment.”[15] The change in robes/bodies represented Adam’s fall “from a celestial to a terrestrial life.”[16]

In various traditions, Jesus is said to have “put on Adam” when he was “clothed in flesh” in a physical body. Following other Syrian theologians, Saint Ephrem connects Adam and Jesus along soteriological lines: “All these changes did the Merciful One make, stripping off (glory) and putting on (a body); for He had devised a way to reclothe Adam in that glory which Adam had stripped off. He was wrapped with swaddling clothes, corresponding to Adam’s leaves, He put on clothes instead of Adam’s skins; He was baptized for Adam’s sin, he was embalmed for Adam’s death, he rose and raised up Adam in his glory. Blessed is He who descended, put Adam on and ascended.”[17] The incarnation of Jesus was a metaphorical “dressing,” which first required him to “strip off” the glory he had in his pre-existent state.[18]

Robes of the Resurrection

In numerous early Jewish and Christian accounts, the quest for humanity is the recovery of this premortal robe of glory. Saint Ephrem, the fourth century Syrian theologian, states that Christ “put on” a mortal body in order to save mankind, and in so doing he divested himself of his robe of glory and placed it in the River Jordan.[19] The Syrian poet and theologian Jacob of Serugh also wrote that “Christ came to baptism, he went down and placed in the baptismal water the robe of glory, to be there for Adam, who had lost it.”[20] Thereafter, all who enter the waters of baptism symbolically “put on” Adam’s robe of light.[21] In fact, according to this tradition, Christ himself is also clothed with Adam’s glorious priesthood robe[22] when he is baptized—binding “the first man Adam” and “the last Adam” (Christ) ever more closely (compare 1 Corinthians 15:45).[23] The robe acquired at baptism by the faithful does not indicate assured but rather potential salvation.[24] Ultimately, the “robe of righteousness” is conferred at the Resurrection as it was with Christ,[25] which is, as Clement of Alexandria argued, the moment for the “putting off” of one robe (our mortal body) and the “putting on of the consecrated robe,” representing eternal life in a “resurrected body” (compare Doctrine and Covenants 109:75–76).[26] Ephrem similarly speaks of Christ’s Resurrection as a re-investing of this sacred robe: “Just as in baptism Christ picked up the cleansed robe of glory from the River Jordan, so in the Resurrection he ‘found’ his garment in Sheol.”[27] Furthermore, Clement describes the robe Christ receives from the Father as “the best robe,[28] the robe of immortality.”[29] The faithful will find themselves clothed in the same robe of righteousness (representing eternal life) that is worn by Christ.[30] In Hymns on the Church 36.11, Ephrem says the righteous receive a garment of such “splendor” and “brightness” at the Resurrection that they “become their own light, providing it themselves.”[31] For Odeberg, “The putting on ‘the raiment of glory’ is a necessary condition of entering the highest heavens, God’s abode of light. Hence, the garment is also a mark of the holy, celestial nature of its bearer.”[32]

Tertullian’s preferred metaphor of the Resurrection was of a dressing in a new garment:

For although they shall be found naked when their flesh has been laid aside, or to some extent sundered or worn away (and this condition may well be called nakedness), they shall afterwards recover it again, in order that, being reinvested with flesh, they may be able to also have put over that supervestment of immortality; for it will be impossible for the outside garment to fit except over one who is already dressed.[33]

This accords closely with Book of Mormon theology as presented by Jacob. He states that at the Resurrection, “The spirit and the body [shall be] restored to itself again, . . . And the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment, and their righteousness, being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness” (2 Nephi 9:14; emphasis added).[34] Jacob teaches that without an infinite atonement, “corruption could not put on incorruption” (v. 7; emphasis added),[35] a direct reference to the donning of the “robe of righteousness,” which he will soon discuss. Alma₂ overtly states that to “put on immortality” signifies “resurrection” (Alma 40:2). Enos likewise places this investiture as the moment one’s “mortal shall put on immortality,” the moment in which one stands before God and hears, “Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father” (Enos 1:27). This is the moment of exaltation.

Indeed, many early Church Fathers in the Eastern church and Syrian Fathers taught that theosis (that is, divinization) was the purpose of Jesus coming to earth: he was “clothed” in human form so that we could be “clothed” with his divinity.[36] Ephrem repeatedly couched the “clothing” of Jesus in a physical body in terms of theosis (“He clothed Himself in the likeness of humanity in order to bring humanity to a likeness of Himself”)[37] and in the exchange formula (“He descended and became one of us that we might become heavenly”).[38] Ephrem also expressed this idea in the form of an epigram: “He gave us divinity, we gave Him humanity.”[39] Athanasius of Alexandria used reminiscent phraseology: “The Word of God became human that we might become divine.”[40] Cyril of Alexandria noted: “In short, he took what was ours to be his very own so that we might have all that was his.”[41] Irenaeus of Lyons likewise asserted that “the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ . . . [became] what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”[42] Elsewhere, even more directly, Irenaeus declared: “How shall man pass into God, unless God has [first] passed into man?”[43] As Adam had wished to be a god, once Christ returned to heaven with his “garment of light” from the River Jordan, Adam could be reinvested and finally become deified.[44] The Fall is thus overturned as the events of the Fall involving robes are reversed.

Just as the spirit and the body are “restored,” life can be viewed as a journey seeking the restoration of the immortality we had in the pre-existence (although a much more glorious immortality awaits us at resurrection). Adam and Eve are the prototypes for this process since we will put on their robe of glory.[45] This progression to obtain our “robe of righteousness” is aptly described in the early Christian work “The Hymn of the Pearl,” part of the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, attested in its earliest form in Old Syriac. Here a young boy in a premortal state is told by his royal parents that he is to divest himself of his “glorious robe” and make a journey down to Egypt to find a pearl (representing his soul) that is guarded by a poisonous dragon. If he brings back the pearl, he will be rewarded with heirship in the kingdom and have his glorious robe restored to him.[46] After successfully returning to his parent’s kingdom from his perilous trip, he “strip[s] off” the “filthy and unclean garments” he wore while in Egypt and is given his “glorious robe.”[47] The two key ideas that emerge from The Hymn of the Pearl, in Harris’s view, are “that of the pre-existent soul that has to leave heaven for earth” and “the unfallen creation of God, whose environment is changed from a coat of light to a coat of skin.”[48]

Early Christian sources speak in fact of two metaphorical garments. One is received at baptism,[49] and we are commanded to keep it “spotless” so we can stand before God in a clean, white robe, while the other is presented at the Resurrection: the glorious, eternal robe that will replace our earthly robe if we kept it spotless. Both robes, however, are closely related. In Matthew 22:1–14, Christ recounts the parable of the bridegroom, in which those who wear the proper wedding garment are accepted by the Lord, referring to the righteous at the Resurrection. At this “marriage of the Lamb,” only those dressed in a clean, white robe of “fine linen,” which John explicitly states represents “the righteousness of the saints” (Revelation 19:7–8), are allowed in the wedding feast. In the parable, when the king sees a man dressed not in his wedding clothes (that is, in clean baptismal robes) but in what is apparently unworthy clothing, the man is speechless, is cast out, and loses his salvation (Matthew 22:11–14). Aphrahat lists as a precondition to wearing the wedding garment that we “strip off and cast off, from ourselves, all impurity.”[50] Therefore, only those who have kept their baptismal garment spotless come to the wedding and receive their eschatological wedding robe—their robe of righteousness at the Resurrection. To the repentant thief, Jacob of Serugh writes that Jesus declared: “I [will] clothe you with a robe of light in the marriage chamber on high.”[51] This moment of divestiture and investiture is described in the Coptic logion 37 of the Gospel of Thomas text from Nag Hamadi, where the disciples ask Jesus: “When will you become revealed to us and when shall we see you?” Jesus answers, “When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them,[52] then [you will see] the Son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid.” In this scene, the disciples are told to take off their “robe of shame” and “tread upon” it, presumably in preparation for receiving their radiant garment at the Resurrection.[53]

When our deeds become unrighteous, according to Isaiah, they become “like a filthy garment” (Isaiah 64:6).[54] Harris nicely summarizes the garment imagery in Jesus’s parable from Matthew 22:

That person is γυμνός who is garmentless (οὐκ ἐνδεδυμένον ἔνδυμα γάμου, Matt. 22:11), lacking either faith (= “Christless”) or works (= “fruitless”). Before God, the unbeliever will appear in the shameful nakedness (γυμνός = ἀσχημοσύνη) of his wicked works, destitute of the baptismal robe of righteousness or eschatological robe of immortality. Not having “put on Christ,” the “natural” person will be found on the day of judgment simply ἐν Ἀδάμ, in the polluted garments of sin.[55]

According to various early sources, in contrast to those who receive a white, glorious robe at the Resurrection, those who did not fulfill their covenants with God will be clothed in a dark garment, one representing their sinful lives. The Shepherd of Hermas mentions four women “clothed in black robes” who will get to heaven but will not be allowed to enter.[56] Similarly, in Hymns on the Church 36, Ephrem speaks of how at the time of resurrection, “the wicked put on the garment of all their sins, clothing full of stains, whence spring up for them darkness and torment” (v. 12).[57] This imagery likely hearkens back to traditions of Adam and Eve being clothed in “darkness” after the Fall. The Apocryphon of John 24.7 states that when God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden “he clothed them in gloomy darkness.”[58] Irenaeus likewise states that after the Fall, their “shining bodies, like spiritual bodies” (clara et velut spiritualia corpora) “changed into darker . . . ones” (demutasse in obscurius).[59]

Removing and bestowing garments also figures prominently in early Jewish apocalyptic literature. In the Ascension of Isaiah,[60] Isaiah learns that there is a special “garment” set aside for him in the seventh heaven. He also sees that “the saints will come with the Lord with their garments which are stored up in the seventh heaven above; with the Lord will come those whose spirits are clothed” with spiritual bodies (4:16). This garment will allow Isaiah to “be equal to the angels who (are) in the seventh heaven” (8:15). He then describes his vision of Enoch “and all who (were) with him, stripped of (their) robes of the flesh; and I saw them in their robes of above, and they were like the angels who stand there in great glory” (9:9–10). In the Jewish apocryphal work 2 Enoch, Enoch describes his theophany and theosis involving earthly and heavenly garments:

And Michael, the Lord’s greatest archangel, lifted me up and brought me in front of the face of the Lord. . . . The Lord said to Michael, “Take Enoch, and extract (him) from the earthly clothing. And anoint him with the delightful oil, and put (him) into the clothes of glory.” And Michael extracted me from my clothes. He anointed me with the delightful oil;[61] . . . And I gazed at all of myself, and I had become like one of the glorious ones, and there was no observable difference.[62]

Enoch’s garments are taken off and replaced with “clothes of glory,” which elevates him to the same status as those divine beings who surround him.

Individuals can also be “clothed” in divine garments in this life for limited periods of time, namely, during the process of transfiguration (a temporary spiritual and physical change allowing one to abide the presence of heavenly beings). On the Mount of Transfiguration, prophets from the past met apostles of the present, and all of them were witnesses of the transfiguration of Jesus.[63] Matthew, Mark, and Luke all make special mention of the radiance of Jesus’s clothing when Jesus was transfigured. Luke (9:29, ESV) describes the transfiguration of Jesus as “the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white,” while Mark (9:3, KJV) says “his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow.” Matthew records how “his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” (17:2, KJV). It is noteworthy that Tertullian (ca. AD 197) describes the transfiguration of Jesus as a change of raiment into “a robe of light.”[64] Similarly, when the heavens opened and Enoch stood in God’s presence, he too was transfigured as God “talked with [him], even as a man talketh one with another, face to face” (Moses 7:3–4). Enoch describes his transfiguration as being “clothed upon with glory” (v. 3; emphasis added). This is either a metaphorical use of clothing imagery[65] or perhaps an indication that a specific heavenly garment was temporarily bestowed on Enoch. Of particular interest is the Ethiopic version of the Apocalypse of Peter, which states that Peter, James, and John were shown heavenly robes, “the apparel of the last days, of the day of resurrection” by the Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration.[66] When Moses met with God on Mount Sinai, we are told “the glory of God was upon [him]; therefore Moses could endure his presence” (Moses 1:2; emphasis added). Given the distinct similarity between the description of Moses’s theophany (“glory . . . upon”) and the description of Enoch’s (“clothed upon with glory”), it is at least suggestive of a divine (symbolic) clothing playing a role in these and possibly other transfiguration events.[67] It may be significant, therefore, that in some ancient sources, the glory and luminosity of the prefallen Adam is directly compared with the luminosity of Moses on Sinai.[68] In Hymns on the Church 36:6, through the metaphor of clothing, Ephrem equates “the brightness which Moses put on . . . wrapped on him from without” to the glory of Jesus, who “put on Light from within” while in the Jordan River, where he recovered Adam’s garment of light.[69]

Induere Christum

The language of clothing in biblical studies has received increased scholarly attention,[70] and various types of attributes and characteristics are discussed through the metaphor of clothing. In Colossians 3, Paul bids “God’s chosen ones” to “put on” (Greek enduō, literally “clothe themselves with”) “compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience”(v.12,ESV). Likewise, Peter enjoins Christians to “be clothed with humility” (1 Peter 5:5). David asks God that the priests in the tabernacle may “be clothed [Greek lābaš] with righteousness” (Psalm 132:9), a plea echoed by Solomon at the dedication of the newly built temple to the Lord (see 2 Chronicles 6:41). Clothing metaphors abound in scripture to describe the Saints’ state of righteousness. For example, Job states: “I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban” (Job 29:14, NIV). Other clothing-related terms also appear in scripture: “spotted” (Ether 12:38), “filthy” (Isaiah 64:6), “washed” (Revelation 7:14), “clean” (Revelation 19:14), “pure” (Alma 13:12), and “white” (Ecclesiastes 9:8). People can also be described as “naked” (that is, unrighteous; 2 Nephi 9:14) or as having their sins “stripped” away (see Mormon 9:28). Accusers, or those who are unrighteous, can be “clothed with disgrace and wrapped in shame as in a cloak” (Psalm 109:29, NIV; compare Job 8:22).

Paul, applying a clothing metaphor, reminded the faltering churches in Galatia of their covenant when they had “been baptized into Christ [and had] put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). Paul spoke in related terms to the Romans: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Romans 13:14, ESV). The notion of “putting on Christ” (induere Christum) has been interpreted in various ways, from creating a close union with Christ—close as tight-fitting clothing—to “covering” ourselves with Christ’s characteristics,[71] or to “wearing” Christ as an overt symbol of our discipleship.[72] In Pauline language, baptism is the moment one “puts on Christ” as one makes a new covenant with God. The bestowal of clothing was also intimately associated with entering into covenant relationships in the ancient Near East.[73] This is immediately apparent in the wedding feast imagery Jesus uses in Matthew 22:1–14, cementing the legal, covenant-biding context of the robe metaphor. Particularly in Isaiah, the robe is an overt symbol of a righteous covenant member of Israel (see Isaiah 61:10; 64:6). It is not simply indicative of membership in a religious community, but, according to Betz, “suggests an event of divine transformation.”[74]

Prerequisite to donning the new garment at baptism was the act of stripping off the “old” garment, meaning our past, sinful lives.[75] Paul teaches that true coverts must learn to “put off [Greek apothesthe][76] all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of [their] mouth,” since at baptism one “put[s] off” (Greek apekdusamenoi), or fully divests oneself of, “the old man” and his misdeeds (Colossians 3:8–9; compare Mosiah 3:19). Often the accumulation of our sins prior to baptism is expressed through the metaphor of clothing. This can be seen in the Nag Hammadi texts, where Silvanus counsels, “Oh my son, strip off the old garment of fornication, and put on the garment which is clean and shining, that you may be beautiful in it. But when you have this garment, protect it well.”[77] Cyril of Jerusalem similarly encouraged the Saints: “But now that you have put off your old garments and put on spiritually white ones, you must be dressed in white all the time. . . . You need to be clothed in that which is truly white and shining and spiritual so that you can say in the words of the blessed Isaiah: ‘Let my soul rejoice in the Lord, for he has put on me a garment of salvationand clothed me with a robe of gladness’ [Isa. 61:10].”[78] Cyril relates the “garment of salvation” mentioned by Isaiah to keeping one’s garment “truly white,” which whiteness he defines unmistakably as “shining and spiritual” (emphasis added). The luminosity of baptismal and eschatological robes is a consistent theme throughout texts from this era. Theodore of Mopsuestia states that “at the time you come up out of the water you will recover yourself with a shining garment. That is the sign of the radiant and glorious world. . . . When you resurrect you will recover yourself with immortality and incorruptibility; that garment . . . will then be necessary for you.”[79]

In many early Christian communities, initiates were naked, or nearly so,[80] when baptized so as to punctuate the symbolism of “stripping off” their sinful robes before being clothed in new,[81] white “robes of righteousness.” The common mention of the robes being “white” of course indexes one’s newly found purity after baptism.[82] In Epistle to Fabiola 19, Jerome explains the method and symbolism of baptism using white garment imagery: “And when ready for the garment of Christ, we have taken off the tunics of skin, then we shall be clothed with a garment of linen which has nothing of death in it, but is wholly white so that, rising from baptism, we may gird our loins in truth and the entire shame of our past sins may be covered.”[83] John Chrysostom also describes this process of spiritual regeneration through a metaphor of clothing: “Those who, by their faith in Christ, had put off like an old cloak the burden of their sins, those who had been set free from their error and been illumined by the light of justification, had put on this new and shining cloak, this royal robe.”[84] We do not know whether the initiate actually changed garments at the baptism in early Christian times or whether this was only a symbolic investiture. What is clear, however, is that the metaphor of dressing and undressing in association with baptism is attested from the earliest times.[85]

Color and Clothing Metaphors in the Book of Mormon

The rich symbolism of clothing in the ancient Near East provides a clear path forward for understanding similar imagery in the Book of Mormon. In particular, I believe the descriptions and metaphor of having either white, purified robes or dark, sinful garments at the Resurrection may be the key to making sense of the complex metaphor of white/dark skins in the Book of Mormon. As scholars have looked more closely at the text of the Book of Mormon, approaching it as an historical record of ancient societies, more and more have come to the conclusion that any skin color change was partially or fully metaphorical, not literal. Hugh Nibley first championed seeing primarily metaphor when the text speaks of “skins of blackness.” For example, he argued that “the terms Lamanite and Nephite are used . . . to designate not racial but political, military, religious, and cultural divisions”[86] but with some skin color change possible to sun exposure (i.e., cultural lifestyle).[87] John Tvedtnes also accepts some form of skin-color change in the text, but meticulously dismisses any claims of sustained “racism” in the Book of Mormon.[88] Campbell, who does believe white and black skin are metaphors in the Book of Mormon, still sees Nephites in 3 Nephi as having been “raised in a culture preoccupied by racial differences.”[89] Brant Gardner has marshalled an impressive array of internal data points that suggest a metaphorical interpretation of skin color change.[90] Adam Oliver Stokes also argued for a metaphorical interpretation of “dark” and “white” skins in the Book of Mormon.[91] Additionally, Ethan Sproat has made a compelling case that racial readings of the Book of Mormon are incorrect, and he further suggests that both metaphor and, innovatively, actual physical garments related to the temple are involved.[92] Jan Martin has argued for a covenantal reading of the curse. She also distinguishes between the “mark” and the “curse,” concluding that racial readings of skin-color change in the text miss better explanations of the “mark” as self-body manipulations, such as tattooing.[93] Recently, an important study by Gerrit M. Steenblik has been published that approaches the “mark” as body painting, not as literal skin-color change, using archaeological and ethnographic data from Mesoamerica to support this proposal.[94] Many others not cited here have come to similar conclusions, namely that we need not view white and dark skin in the Book of Mormon as any type of melanin content change. I believe mentions of dark and light skins are principally expressions of ethical metaphor, and that no epidermal transformation occurred. As I will show below, there is a clear precedent from the Old World for precisely this type of interpretation in a Christian context.

The charge by critics of the Church (and a few within the Church) has been this: that the Book of Mormon incorporates “racist concepts of nonwhite racial inferiority as contrasted with white racial superiority.”[95] The assumed paradigm within the Book of Mormon can be summarized as follows: white-skinned Nephites are righteous, while dark-skinned Lamanites are unrighteous, and Lamanite skin was turned “dark” or “black” as a curse from God. This view posits that when conversion happens from one group to the other, it is accompanied by a change in skin color. Apart from the startling singularity of such a fluid alternation of skin color based on one’s righteousness, a careful reading of the text suggests a more expansive cultural metaphor is in play. Reading a literal skin-color change into the text obfuscates the beauty of the figurative imagery and invites unwarranted racial tensions into Nephite/Lamanites relations.

Other critics point to the adjectives Nephites use in describing Lamanites, such as “dark,” “filthy,” and “loathsome” (Mormon 5:15), contrasting these with descriptions of Nephites as “white,” “pure,” and “delightsome” (see 2 Nephi 30:6) to support claims of “racism.” However, these terms have nothing whatsoever to do with racial “othering” and were primarily judgments on spiritual or occasionally cultural states, which are often elegantly expressed through the language of clothing (or “skins”). I believe that an understanding of the pervasive underlying social metaphor of clothing in Nephite society helps to explain in large measure the oft-assumed “racist” elements in the Book of Mormon.

Dark and White

Leaving aside the irrationality of value judgments associated with skin color, one of the most pervasive dichotomy metaphors in all languages is between black and white,[96] or better, between darkness[97] and light. I quote at length HaCohen’s insightful remarks:

Black can also be used metaphorically. Politically incorrect as it may sound, this colour has always suffered from bad reputation. Humans are diurnal animals that depend predominantly on their sense of sight in order to survive and thrive. Therefore, the symbolism that assigns positive values to white colour (and light) and negative ones to black colour (and darkness) is not a racist Western bias, but universal. Even in the lower Congo, white signifies “right, good order, reason, truth, health, generosity, good luck,” whereas black signifies “wrong, guilt, envy, intention to kill, grief,” and so on. . . . The fact that white garments (or skin) turn dark with dirt, while the opposite is not true, has also contributed to black’s bad image. Racism has viciously strained this colour symbolism in order to impose a hierarchy on humans by means of their skin colours. Scholars, however, should be careful not to read actual (skin) colour into their sources when mere colour symbolism is meant.[98]

The multiple valences of dark and light across cultures urge caution in assuming connotative meanings. Indeed, many parts of the Bible would be incomprehensible if strained through literalism and without a proper understanding of the color symbolism among the cultures mentioned in its pages, particularly with “dark” and its often-negative entailments.[99] In scriptural terms, metaphorical “darkness” is explicitly the lack of light (that is, the light of the gospel). The Bible standardly uses darkness as a metaphor for sin (see 2 Samuel 22:29; Job 3:3–6; Psalm 82:5; Matthew 6:23; Luke 22:53; John 3:19–20, 12:35; Romans 1:21, 13:12; 2 Corinthians 4:6, 6:14; Ephesians 4:18, 5:8, 11; 1 John 1:5–6, 2:9–11). In Isaiah 29:15, sinful acts are done in “darkness”: “Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark [Hebrew maḥšāḵ], and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?” The Book of Mormon also provides clear insights into the metaphorical semantics of “dark” behavior, or sin. Various prophets speak of “mists of darkness” (1 Nephi 12:4); “secret works of darkness” (2 Nephi 9:9); and “works of darkness and abominations” (Helaman 6:28). The Lord explains, “If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (3 Nephi 13:23). And Joseph, the son of Lehi, was told that in the last days his descendants would help remnant Israel in the New World to be brought “out ofdarkness unto light” (2 Nephi 3:5).

There are only three cases where authors in the Book of Mormon describe Lamanites or Nephites as “dark” (see 1 Nephi 12:23; Alma 3:6; Mormon 5:15). None of these authors are making value judgments based upon the people’s skin hue; instead, they are consistently making judgments based on the people’s evil works (compare 2 Nephi 25:2; 26:10; 27:27; Alma 5:7; 26:15; 45:12; Helaman 6:28–30; 8:4; 13:29; Mormon 8:27). Describing their skins as “dark” is merely meant to show that they had become unclean through sin. Brant Gardner has persuasively argued precisely this point: “The condition of darkness comes with dwindling in unbelief. When that occurs, darkness falls—on their hearts and metaphorically on their skins.”[100]

There is no doubt that the dichotomy of dark = sinful and white = righteous permeates the text of the Book of Mormon, not vis-à-vis skin pigmentation but rather regarding metaphor, acting as a somatic description of the human condition. When God is described as “light,” brightness and inevitably whiteness is likewise viewed as a manifestation of righteousness. Darkness (see, for example, 1 Nephi 12:4) is associated with a lack of light—a lack of righteousness—or the presence of sin (or minimally of Satan’s influence). Alma 26 describes how the Lamanites “were in darkness, yea, even in the darkest abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God” (v. 3). In these and numerous other cases in scripture, the use of the term darkness indicates not having the light of the gospel.

Alma₂ recounts the time when a group of Nephites were taken captive by the Lamanites in the wilderness near the city of Nephi, but God delivered them from bondage (see Alma 5:3–5). More importantly, however, they were also saved spiritually when Alma₁ baptized them in the waters of Mormon and “changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God. Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word” (v. 7; emphasis added). Alma₂ then connects this to the metaphor of keeping one’s garments clean: “I say unto you, ye will know at that day that ye cannot be saved; for there can no man be saved except his garments are washed white; yea, his garments must be purified until they are cleansed from all stain, through the blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem his people from their sins” (v. 21; emphasis added). This verse has important implications for understanding the relationship among purity, whiteness, and clothing. It also provides a new way to look at skin color in the Book of Mormon.

Pure/White

One of the ostensibly overt verses possibly indicating a skin color change is 2 Nephi 30:6. In the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, this verse read: “And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and 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 white and delightsome people.” However, Joseph Smith himself altered this verse to read “pure and delightsome” in the 1840 edition published in Cincinnati, Ohio—certainly not an insignificant change! Future editions through the 1970s, however, used the previous 1830 language (based upon the 1841 edition published in England, which did not contain Joseph’s clarifying emendation). The First Presidency returned the phrasing to “pure” in the 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon. Why did Joseph Smith make a special effort to change “white” to “pure”? We can only speculate, but considering the fact that Joseph never spoke of the Nephite/Lamanite distinction in reference to skin color,[101] it could be that he wanted to ensure the meaning of the verse was correct: what made the Nephites “fair[102] and delightsome” was their “purity.” The use of the word white was correct, since in the ancient world white and pure were almost universally synonymous, but Joseph seems to have felt the need to clarify its meaning, possibly to avoid precisely the misinterpretations that have developed from reading modern-day notions of “race” into the text.[103]

In the scriptures, white and pure commonly appear in apposition as synonyms, such as in Alma 5:24, where Alma₂ states that the prophets’ “garments are cleansed and spotless, pure and white.” In the first couplet, cleansed and spotless are synonymously paired, as are pure and white in the second. Likewise, Revelation 15:6 describes seven angels coming out of the temple “clothed in pure and white linen.” Indeed, there is a near-seamless connection among white, pure, and clean in languages around the world,[104] but the connection is especially well attested in Semitic languages.[105] In Hebrew, white belongs to what Scott Noegel calls a “Macro Category” that “can index notions of purity, refinement, [and] interiority,” while “blackness” and “redness” can refer to “impurity and defilement.”[106] The Hebrew term lābān means “white,” but in the Hithpael verbal form it means “to become white, be purified” ethically [107] For example, Daniel 12:10 poetically states, “Many shall be purified [Hebrew bārar], and made white [lābān],” demonstrating the conceptual biblical link between moral purity and white symbolism.

Leave it to the Book of Mormon itself to give us the clearest definition of what is meant by the word pure in an explicit, unequivocal manner. Jacob states the faithful will be “clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness” (2 Nephi 9:14). Here “purity” is directly equated with “righteousness” through the use of what I term the “clarifying yea particle,” which is found throughout the Book of Mormon. In this construction, two clauses are separated by a “yea,” which functions in similar ways to “i.e.” in English or even as an equivalency (=) marker, allowing a clausal restatement in synonymous terms.[108] Thus, in Jacob’s mind and usage, “purity” is directly equivalent to “righteousness.”

Continuing within a clothing framework, white and pure are also the specific terms used to describe how Christ cleanses us from our sin in both the Book of Mormon and the New Testament. Nephi₁ sees in vision that the “garments” of humanity “are made white in his blood” (1 Nephi 12:10–11), a reference to the power of Christ’s ability to forgive sins. Alma₂ likewise states that our “garments are washed white” (Alma 5:21), are “cleansed and are spotless, pure and white” (v. 24), and are “made white through the blood of Christ” (v. 27).[109] Then in chapter 13, he again rejoices that for those who were sanctified by the Holy Ghost and made high priests, “their garments were washed white through the blood of the Lamb” (v. 11) and were “made white, being pure and spotless before God” (v. 12; emphasis added). Both Amulek and Moroni used analogous language that our “garments” are made “white through the blood” of Christ (Alma 34:36; Ether 13:10). In the New Testament, John likewise says that Jesus “loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Revelation 1:5). Those who qualify for exaltation are “they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white [Greek eleukanan] in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14). Jesus himself teaches that only those “who have washed their garments in [his] blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end” will be saved in the kingdom of God (3 Nephi 27:19). Purity comes from obedience (see 1 Peter 1:22), and only those who actively live the teachings of Christ and repent of their sins will have their “garments . . . made white . . . pure and spotless before God” through repentance (Alma 13:12).[110] Therefore when Jesus prayed that his disciples would be “purified” in him “because of their faith” (3 Nephi 19:29), that purity was manifest in their “white” countenance (see vv. 25, 30). This has nothing to do with skin hue; it is clearly a spiritual reflection of having been “purified,” that is, forgiven of sin. The disciples have become radiant and pure, just as Jesus prayed they would be.

Jacob provides yet another convincing piece of evidence that the “white skin” of the Nephites cannot possibly be referring to skin pigmentation. In Jacob 3, he warns the Nephites that “unless [they] shall repent of [their] sins,” the “skins” of the Lamanites “will be whiter than [theirs], when [they] shall be brought with [the Lamanites] before the throne of God” (v. 8). A moment’s reflection upon this statement utterly dispels any literal interpretation of actual skin color. Note that the Lamanites’ “skins will be whiter” only if the Nephites do not repent of their sins, conclusively demonstrating that “white skin” in these contexts refers metaphorically to one’s purity (that is, one’s lack of sin), reflected in the white, glorious robes of righteousness one may wear. When the scriptures speak of the moment we stand before God at judgment day, what indication is there that the actual skin color of our mortal bodies will play any role in God’s judgment of us? None, of course;[111] the scriptures indicate that our deeds will be the sole basis for judgment. (See, for example, Mormon 3:20: “Ye must stand to be judged of your works, whether they be good or evil.” Dozens more examples could also be cited.) Crucially, Alma makes the connection between “white skins” and “white clothing” even clearer when he pointedly asks the people how they will feel when they “stand before the bar of God” with their “garments stained with blood and all manner of filthiness” (Alma 5:22). He then contrasts their “filthiness” with the states of those who will be saved because their “garments are cleansed and are spotless, pure and white” (v. 24; emphasis added). The most likely interpretation of Jacob’s and Alma’s statements is that whiter in Jacob 3:8 means purer, especially since, as I have shown above, these two terms are consistently used synonymously throughout scripture and in Near Eastern languages. Thus whiter refers to one’s spiritual qualities, to how well one has repented, and, in the language of Jacob himself, to whether one’s “garments” (a symbolic representation of all of one’s works in mortality) will be “spotless at the last day.” This is why Moroni pleads that we “turn unto the Lord” in repentance so that we “may be found spotless, pure, fair, and white, having been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, at that great and last day” (Mormon 9:6; emphasis added). Jacob, Alma, and Moroni have tipped their hand, and have shown decisively that the phrase “white skins” is strictly a moral statement, not a physical description. Thus in the idiom of the Nephites, skin tone refers to one’s inner morality, often metaphorically expressed through the language of clothing, and not to any external variation in melanin content.

An instructive parallel to Nephi’s usage of fair (see 2 Nephi 5:21) in relation to spiritual purity is found in Song of Solomon 1:5 (NIV): “Dark am I, yet lovely,[112] daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon.” Origen, commenting on this passage, states:

Beautiful indeed is the Bride, and I can find out in what manner she is so. But the question is, in what way is she black and how, if she lacks whiteness, is she fair. She has repented of her sins, beauty is the gift conversion has bestowed; that is the reason she is hymned as beautiful. She is called black, however, because she has not yet been purged of every stain of sin, she has not yet been washed unto salvation; nevertheless she does not stay dark-hued, she is becoming white . . . But, if you do not likewise practise penitence, take heed lest your soul be described as black and ugly, and you be hideous with a double foulness—black by reason of your past sins and ugly because you are continuing in the same vices![113]

The female lover in Song of Solomon (which Origen implies is a symbol for the Church) was “fair” and “beautiful” because she had repented of her sins, and so, Origen remarks, “she becomes white.” Those who do not repent, he adds, will have their “soul be called black and disgraceful.” The spiritual metaphor in play in both Nephite culture and in the works of numerous early Christian authors (see further discussion below) helps to clarify how both of these ancient Christian groups engaged the color symbolism of “skin” in making ethical comparisons.

From these various lines of intertextual, linguistic, and historical evidences, a clear picture emerges of a dominant color/clothing metaphor in Nephite society linked to ethical comparisons. Mauss similarly concludes that “a comprehensive view of the Book of Mormon text as a whole shows that it uses white almost always as a figurative synonym for pure, clean, luminous, and similar concepts, not in reference to such ‘racial’ traits as skin color.”[114]

Filthy

Jacob states overtly that the Nephites “hate” the Lamanites “because of their filthiness” (Jacob 3:5). Some scholars believe that when Nephites describe the Lamanites as “filthy,” it suggests racial prejudice against the Lamanites’ skin color.[115] However, the use of the term filthy in the Book of Mormon does not imply racist attitudes toward their skin tone but rather toward their sinful behavior. In every case in the Book of Mormon filthy is used with the meaning of “stained with sin” or “unworthy” (see 1 Nephi 12:23; 15:33, 34; 2 Nephi 9:16; Jacob 3:3, 5, 9, 10; Enos 1:20; Mosiah 7:30–31; Alma 5:22; 7:21; 32:3; Mormon 9:4). That “filthiness” in Jacob’s mind was referring to sin is apparent elsewhere in the text. Jacob says that at the final judgment, “They who are righteous shall be righteous still, and they who are filthy shall be filthy still” (2 Nephi 9:16). Moroni likewise states that at the judgment “he that is filthy shall be filthy still; and he that is righteous shall be righteous still” (Mormon 9:14; compare Alma 7:21). These examples make it abundantly clear that filthy is an antonym of righteous,[116] not a reference to skin tone. Gardner likewise observes that “filthiness is obviously a moral quality.”[117] There is a close connection with losing the light of the gospel and becoming dark and filthy in a spiritual sense. In short, it is the “sinful and polluted state” of the Lamanites that most concerns the Nephites (Mosiah 25:11).

Jacob describes the “filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon [the Lamanites’] skins” (Jacob 3:5).[118] Some have misinterpreted such labels for Lamanites as “filthy” as evidence of overt “racism,” sexism, and even Nephite patriarchy.[119] However, there is absolutely no justification for reading “racism” into the use of the term. A thorough examination of all contexts of its use makes it clear that filthy refers to being stained with sin. Jacob’s use of the term in a poetic construction is most revealing:

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,
and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers. (Jacob 3:9)

Here “darkness of their skins” is poetically coupled with “their filthiness”—a clear moral statement rather than a reference to any physical skin tone. Note also that Jacob expressly states the Nephites themselves are “filthy” because of the sins they are committing in taking more than one wife and having concubines (see Jacob 3:10). Indeed, he says the Lamanites are “not filthy like unto [the Nephites]” since the Lamanites sinned without a knowledge of the gospel, and therefore are not as “filthy” (vv. 3, 5). In this context, a “skin of darkness” is analogous to a garment that has become “filthy,” one that can be worn, removed, and washed.[120] Isaiah similarly speaks of garments as representing our deeds, be they righteous or evil:

For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. (Isaiah 64:6, New American Standard Bible)

Sin is viewed by Isaiah as something “filthy” that stains humanity’s “garment,” language that resonates clearly with the Nephite idiom of “skins” as “garments” and metaphorically refers to one’s deeds. When Joshua’s “filthy garments” were taken off by command of an angel, there too the removal “caused [his] iniquity to pass from [him]” (Zechariah 3:3–4). This relationship between “skin” and “garment” also appears in the writings of Augustine, who taught that when we die, we “strip off” both the “garment” of our physical body as well as “the inner ones we have put on, which resemble ‘those of skin.’”[121]

Idleness and Laziness

While many readers associate the “skin of blackness” with the “curse” placed upon the Lamanites, the text itself ascribes very different outcomes to the “curse.” The triplet construction of “dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people” was discussed earlier; however, immediately after this poetic combination Nephi adds this crucial detail: the Lamanites are “full of idleness” (1 Nephi 12:23). I see a stronger connection between the notion of becoming spiritually “dark” and “idle,” which leads to uncultured behavior—something the Nephites particularly detested. Idleness, and its accompanying tendency to a less cultured and more sinful lifestyle, is one of the primary manifestations of the curse, not any type of mark on the skin per se. Mormon seems to directly link Lamanite idleness to the curse when he criticizes them for being “a very indolent people, many of whom did worship idols, and the curse of God had fallen upon them because of the traditions of their fathers” (Alma 17:15). The curse here is related to the idleness, which leads to sins like idolatry. Nephi makes this same connection unambiguous when he says, “And because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety” (2 Nephi 5:24; emphasis added). The curse resulted in idleness, which then lead to “mischief and subtlety.” Not only did they become idle, they became vagabonds, averse to working for daily needs. According to Mormon, this unwillingness to work and the concomitant turn to theft and other sins is characteristic of the Lamanites: “For [Alma and the sons of Mosiah] had undertaken to preach the word of God to a wild and a hardened and a ferocious people; a people who delighted in murdering the Nephites, and robbing and plundering them; and their hearts were set upon riches, or upon gold and silver, and precious stones; yet they sought to obtain these things by murdering and plundering, that they might not labor for them with their own hands” (Alma 17:14). Zeniff likewise says the Lamanites “were a lazy and an idolatrous people” who wanted his people in bondage so they could “glut themselves with the labors of [his people’s] hands” rather than work themselves (Mosiah 9:12). From these examples, it becomes clear that idleness, at least idealistically, was anathema to the Nephites.

Jewish and early Christian attitudes toward laziness and indolence closely mirrored those of the Nephites. Jeremiah declared, “Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord with slackness” (Jeremiah 48:10, ESV). Slothful behavior is the secularization of spiritual devotion and is antithetical to proper Christian behavior. For example, the Didache states that “no man shall live among you in idleness because he is a Christian.”[122] Idleness was seen as a precursor to wicked, often to specifically immoral, behavior. For Tertullian, it was “through idleness [that] they seduce one from strictness.”[123] Symeon the New Theologian (AD 949–1002), similarly remarked, “Those who yield themselves to idleness and apathy, even though they may be spiritual and holy, hurl themselves into unnatural subjection to passions.”[124]

Among the Nephites, we have direct confirmation that the curse involved idleness, laziness, and uncultured behavior because of the record of Lamanites who converted to the gospel—not a Nephite-to-Lamanite scenario, but the reverse. When a group of Lamanites decided to join the Nephites, they abandoned the label “Lamanite” and called themselves “Anti-Nephi-Lehies” (Alma 23:17). Note what the text states was the immediate effect: “And they began to be a very industrious people; yea, and they were friendly with the Nephites; therefore, they did open a correspondence with them, and the curse of God did no more follow them” (v. 18; emphasis added). Becoming “a very industrious people” is stated in the same breath as the fact that the curse no longer followed them.

Enos 1:20 gives a long list of things Nephites found objectionable about Lamanite culture. Tellingly, when contrasted with the characteristics of Nephite culture in the next verse, we see an emphasis on how cultured and civilizedNephites were: “And it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land, and raise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses” (v. 21). Enos’s son, Jarom, likewise emphasized the culture and civility of the Nephites, speaking of their expertise in the “fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war” (Jarom 1:8). From these comparisons, it seems to be the lack of culture and civilized behavior that idealized Nephite culture distained, not the color of the Lamanites’ skin.

The profound antagonism felt by Nephites against Lamanites was also in large part informed by their perceptions of Lamanites as nomadic. Nephites viewed them as being a people “led by their evil nature” (Enos 1:20); “a wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people” (Mosiah 10:12); and “a wild and a hardened[125] and a ferocious people” (Alma 17:14). In this context, it is important to note that in the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary, “wild” meant “roving; wandering; inhabiting the forest or open field; hence, not tamed or domesticated,” and “growing without culture.”[126] The Nephites saw the Lamanites as an uncivilized people “dwelling in tents, and wandering about in the wilderness” (Enos 1:20), who ate “nothing save it was raw meat,” “feeding upon beasts of prey” (v. 20) and existing in a “state of ignorance” (Alma 9:16). Nephites emphasized the urban-civilized versus rural-uncivilized trope, and the resulting uncivilized behavior (such as “wandering about in the wilderness”) that they associated with such a lifestyle. In ancient Mesopotamia, various literary sources similarly reference an open hostility by urban societies toward nonurban groups, stereotypes that often debased others to their most primal human attributes.[127] In the Babylonian literary text The Marriage of Martu, Amorites are described in disparaging terms as being uncivilized vagabonds:[128]

(The Amorite,) he is dressed in sheep’s skins;
He lives in tents in wind and rain;
He doesn’t offer sacrifices.
Armed [vagabond] in the steppe,
he digs up truffles and is restless.
He eats raw meat,
lives his life without a home,
and, when he dies, he is not buried according to proper rituals.

Note the text focuses on clothing (sheep’s skins),[129] housing (in tents), diet (raw meat),[130] and nomadism (wandering “without a home”), each of which closely mirrors Nephite descriptions of uncivilized Lamanites. That the Nephites connected rurality with idleness is also clear when Alma states that “the more idle part of the Lamanites lived in the wilderness” (Alma 22:28; emphasis added). It was not Lamanite skin color that repulsed Nephites, but rather the idle, uncultured, vagabond lifestyle the Lamanites often lived and the sinful behavior that so often went with it.[131] So when Helaman describes Nephites who had “fallen into transgression” as having become “wicked, and wild, and ferocious, yea, even becoming Lamanites” (Helaman 3:16), he does not mention a skin color change, focusing instead on what most fully represented “Lamanite” in his mind: the fact that they have become “wicked, and wild, and ferocious.”

I propose therefore that the “cursing” that first fell on the Lamanites was principally one of idleness, vagabond lifestyle, uncivilized behavior, and wickedness—behaviors associated with non–covenant keepers. Nephites also closely associated Lamanite idolatry with laziness (see Mosiah 9:12; 11:6), both traits that they despised. They decried the Lamanite culture of “laziness” that led to stealing, killing, and other sins because “their hearts were set upon riches, or upon gold and silver” (Alma 17:14). When the “cursing” was lifted by conversion and entering the covenant, the text states that the former Lamanites would become industrious, civilized, cultured, and righteous.

So far we have seen that in the Book of Mormon, Nephite reasoning for the “curse” against the Lamanites focused far more on their behavior than on any mention of skin color. The literal comparison to the Amlicite self-marking still needs to be addressed, but the language and manner of administration of certain types of curses in the Old World may also help to explain this “cursing” as a clothing metaphor in the Book of Mormon.

Self-Imposed Curses as Clothing

In one of the most revealing and informative pericopes regarding the “curse” and “mark” of the Lamanites, we are given a firsthand look at how such a curse was symbolically represented. Empirically, the “curse” was viewed as something administered by God, but the separate act of marking the skin was done by the individual. In Alma 3, we are told, the Amlicites “also had a mark set upon them; yea, they set the mark upon themselves, yea, even a mark of red upon their foreheads” (Alma 3:13; emphasis added). Here the mark is said to be conceptually set upon the Amlicites by God, but the physical change is self-imposed by the painting of their skin—they choose to do it.[132] Crucial to our discussion here is the fact that Mormon immediately links this self-painting episode to the situation of the Lamanites and their “curse”: “Thus the word of God is fulfilled, for these are the words which he said to Nephi: Behold, the Lamanites have I cursed, and I will set a mark on them that they and their seed may be separated from thee and thy seed, from this time henceforth and forever, except they repent of their wickedness and turn to me that I may have mercy upon them” (v. 14; emphasis added). Mormon elaborates further: “Now the Amlicites knew not that they were fulfilling the words of God when they began to mark themselves in their foreheads; nevertheless they had come out in open rebellion against God; therefore it was expedient that the curse should fall upon them. Now I would that ye should see that they brought upon themselves the curse; and even so doth every man that is cursed bring upon himself his own condemnation” (vv. 18–19; emphasis added). Thus the Amlicites are said to be fulfilling the word of the Lord to Nephi about the curse of the Lamanites when they “[came] out in open rebellion against God,” and thereafter marked themselves[133] in an act of new-identity formation.[134]

It is certainly noteworthy that the only mention of the “mark” is by Mormon in Alma 3, which begs the question whether by Mormon’s day there had been some reinterpretation of the original notion of the “curse” and the “mark” that was different from Nephi’s day. In almost every case in Alma 3, the mark is “set upon” someone, usually by God, but there are two mentions of the mark being self-administered. Somewhat confusingly, Mormon uses both the passive voice (with God as the assumed passive agent) and the active voice, stating that the Amlicites marked themselves through the act of painting their foreheads red (see v. 13). How can God be said to “set” the curse upon them when the Amlicites themselves physically “set” their own mark upon their bodies? How are these two diametrically opposed scenarios compatible? Furthermore, assuming for the moment that the “mark” is a biological change to darker skin, if God caused the mark to appear how could the act of self-painting the forehead (which is obviously temporary) be conceived of as equivalent in Mormon’s mind? For Mormon, writing a full thousand years after the original declaration of the curse, this self-administered marking of the skin was an outward symbol of the curse. The mark is not the curse itself but a physical, self-imposed identifier for those “out of the covenant,” those on whom the curse had previously fallen. Why, one might ask, did the Amlicites, who were apostate adversaries of the Nephites, need to mark themselves with paint in order to “distinguish [themselves] from the Nephites” (v. 4) if they would have changed skin color as soon as they were working in opposition to them? As Steve Olsen correctly points out, this marking would have been completely unnecessary “if ethnic identity were determined by racial (genetic) more than cultural (behavioral and value-based) criteria.”[135] The curse separated the Amlicites spiritually from God’s covenant; the self-imposed mark served to separate them from covenant-keepers.

I propose that Mormon closely connecting the curse with the “mark” is best explained if viewed through the prevailing metaphor of clothing to represent covenantal and noncovenantal behavior. The curse was a reversion to an idle, uncultured, and sinful lifestyle, and the self-imposed “mark” was a distinctive emblem of identity. The “mark,” be it skin painting, tattooing,[136] or some other form of self-imposed skin alteration, came to represent the curse as something “worn” on the body. While the notion of self-cursing is quite foreign to Western cultures, it was commonplace in the ancient Near East. What is particularly remarkable is how often such self-administered curses were linked to clothing and skin. As an example, Jacob indicated that Nephites hated Lamanites “because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins” (Jacob 3:5). The printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon has “cursings” in the plural in this verse, possibly suggesting their self-imposed “curse” on their “skins” was repeated more than once.[137] Hittite curses involving rubbing oils on one’s skin were done on a regular basis. Of these curse oaths, Anne Marie Kitz says, “As one puts on a garment every day, so are these curses worn every day.”[138] The following Hittite curse was also expressly related to clothing:

[Just as] you rub yourself down with oil, [thus also] let these oath-curses be rubbed down onto [you]. Just as you put on a garment, so also put on these oath curses.[139]

In this context, the curse is something one metaphorically “puts on” and wears like a “garment.” Kitz remarks, “The fact that the anointing is self-administered most likely reflects the conditional self-imprecation assumed by the one who takes the oath.”[140] Similar language appears in the Bible in Psalm 109, which is known as “the curse psalm”:

As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment,[141] so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. (vv. 18–19)

The psalmist engages in self-cursing in the form of a simile curse, one involving covering of the skin with oil “continually.”[142] The use of the clothing metaphor allows the psalmist to “illustrate the physical character of the curse’s presence on the body.”[143] This analogy of skin to tight-fitting clothing forms the basis for this type of expression, which David Wright calls “proximity similes.”[144]

In the Book of Mormon, the self-administered curse was applied to the skin as a “mark,” one figuratively “worn,” which for the Nephites was a literal “darkening” but also concurrently symbolized that their “robes of righteousness” were spiritually “filthy.” We see precisely this type of dual semantic extension relating to both actual and metaphorical skin color throughout the writings of the early Church Fathers with “Ethiopians,” who had literal dark skin but whose spiritual “dark skin” (that is, their lack of conversion to the faith) was the theme that occupied these authors, as I will discuss next.

The “Dark Skin” Metaphor in Early Christian Traditions

Unbeknownst to Book of Mormon authors, Jews and early Christians in the Old World had also developed a theologically complex spiritual metaphor around skin color. Moving away from the geographically conditioned interpretations of skin-tone variation that had become common in the Classical world, this new perspective allegorically interpreted the dark skin of those of “Ethiopia,” considered to be the most distant region, with those who are “distant” from the gospel. The use of the term “Ethiopia” among early Christian writers was used to represent the “as yet unevangelized, and spiritually unregenerated world of sin” of those who had not been converted.[145] According to Ambrose of Milan, “The colour of the Ethiopian signifies darkness of the soul and the squalor which is opposed to light.”[146]

Origen certainly embraced and developed this spiritual interpretation of black skin: “Ethiopia signifies all nations that are black in sin.”[147] In other words, “Those who have dark and unenlightened minds are not yet illuminated and do not have divine light.”[148] Drawing upon the language of the Song of Songs, Origen also described the Gentile Church as “dark but comely,”[149] but explained that through Jesus they would become “whitened” (that is, purged of sin). Augustine echoes Origen’s view of Ethiopians as those “not yet whitened by the shining grace of Christ.”[150] Augustine developed this theme further when he described “Ethiopians” as those who “are called to the faith who were before black, just they, so that it may be said to them ‘Ye were sometimes darkness but now are ye light in the Lord’ [Ephesians 5:8]. They are indeed called black but let them not remain black, for out of these is made the Church to whom it is said: ‘Who is she that cometh up having been made white’ [Song of Songs 8:5]?”[151] Whitaker emphasizes the preeminence of the metaphorical meaning of dark skin over the literal in Augustine’s description of this passage:

Though Augustine recognizes the importance of physical reality when he writes that “Ethiopians indeed are black,” he focuses on metaphor when he uses the case of the black bride in Song of Songs 8:5, who is “made white,” or in some translations “washed white,” to assert that belief in Christ purifies the soul. It is clear that the black bride’s whitewashing is purely metaphorical when she says “I am black” in the present tense, although she has already gained her “beautiful” whitewashed status. The bride, inasmuch as she remains black, is a metaphor for the sinner. Inasmuch as she is washed white, she is a metaphor for the sinner who has been saved.[152]

Saint Jerome viewed Ethiopians symbolically as “black and cloaked in the filth of sin.” Writing in the exact idiom of Nephite authors, Jerome continues the metaphor, applying it to anyone who at one time was living in sin: “At one time we were Ethiopians in our vices and sins. How so? Because our sins had blackened us. But afterwards we heard the words: ‘Wash yourselves clean’ [Isaiah 1:16]! And we said: ‘Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow’ [Psalm 51:7]. We are Ethiopians, therefore, who have been transformed from blackness into whiteness.”[153] Note that dark skin in these examples is a metaphor for spiritual darkness, and that “whitening” of the spiritual “skin” only comes through the washing of the light of the gospel. No skin color ever changes literally, nor is it expected to—it is all metaphor.

The parallels in the use of the dark/white skin metaphor in the early Christian church to those in the Book of Mormon are too close to ignore. In both cases, “dark skin” represents those without the light of the gospel. Repentance and baptism allow for one’s “skin” to become “white” (that is, for one’s sins to be washed away). However, the ancient Christians often applied this metaphor of the skin for those who actually had dark skin, yet, as Goldenberg contends, without any hint of racial animus against them because of their actual skin color.[154] I would argue that this closely parallels Nephite–Lamanite relations in that we find no discernible trace of “racial” hostility by Nephites against Lamanites because of any physical “mark” on their skins. Any hostility is instead due to the Lamanites’ spiritual “darkness.”

The Anachronistic Charge of “Racism” in the Book of Mormon

The most immediate problem with looking for racism in the Book of Mormon is that it is a modern concept. That ancient societies recognized differences in skin tone is clear, but the evidence that this led to “racism,” particularly against those with dark skin, is sparce.[155] Ethnocentric biases, discrimination, and prejudicial stereotypes were certainly part of ancient cultures, as they are today. However, particularly in the ancient Near East, while groups certainly were aware of difference of skin color, “there is no literary evidence that they made color the marker of identity” [156] and the basis of those prejudices. For example, no word nor category even existed in ancient Mesopotamia for the concept of race, which of course problematizes any effort to find racism in that society.[157] When we let the Greeks and Romans speak for themselves, rather than “read[ing] back modern racist concepts into classical documents” and seeing “color prejudice where none existed,” it becomes clear that they “unambiguously” contain no racist attitudes toward Black people.[158] There is an abundance of research showing that ancient classical societies did not share our modern, pernicious penchant toward what Rodney Sadler terms “racial othering,” which focuses not only on phenotypical features but also on those that are “ontologically prescriptive,” thereby forming negative perceptions of one’s being based on race.[159] Two authors who have done extensive foundational studies on this topic are Frank Snowden and David Goldenberg, both of whom state unequivocally that “racism” as we define it today was nonexistent in the ancient past. According to Snowden, “nothing comparable to the virulent color prejudice of modern times existed in the ancient world,”[160] and “[the ancients] thought the blackness of the Ethiopian was only skin-deep.”[161] Goldenberg fully concurs: “No negative evaluations of real Blacks (as opposed to imaginary literary constructs) were found either in biblical or postbiblical sources. Race did not matter.”[162] Goldenberg stresses that in recent centuries we have inherited anti-Black sentiments, which have unfortunately conditioned our views on skin color, but that “in those earlier times color did not define a person and was not a criterion for categorizing humanity.”[163]

The beginnings of modern-day racism, at least in embryonic form, can arguably be seen among the Chinese and among the Arabs in the late Middle Ages.[164] Additionally, as early as the sixteenth century in England, somatic differences began to be appropriated to bolster racial ideologies.[165] As Gier has pointed out, “Until the seventeenth century people consistently refused to do what modem racists do: identify the color of sin and color of skin and systematically discriminate on that basis.”[166] Accordingly, since “racism” as we understand it today did not exist in the Western world prior to the 1600s, there is absolutely no historical justification for assuming a racial paradigm for the Book of Mormon.

Since, as I have argued, the polemic black/white trope focusing on racial differences played no role in distinguishing Book of Mormon peoples, how can we speak of modes of distinction among them? Anthropologists and archaeologists today commonly use the words ethnicity or identity[167] to mark “boundaries” such as language in an effort to distinguish groups,[168] even though cultural boundaries are particularly difficult to identify in the archaeological record.[169] Even more complicating, ethnicity is often something ascribed rather than biological; it is a collection of physical traits.[170] While Barth argues that ethnic groups are “categories of ascription and identification by the actors themselves,”[171] these internal ascriptions can be considerably different from those given by outsiders.

Taking into account the terms Nephites consistently used to describe the “uncivilized” behavior of the Lamanites (as discussed above), “ethnocentrism,” while still perhaps deficient, would be more accurate than anachronistic charges of “racism.” For Bahrani, alterity is defined based on behavior, and the “common binary formulation of barbarian and civilized is clear in the ancient record.”[172] This type of “ethnic essentialism”[173] expresses favoritism of one’s culture over another and a preference toward one’s own “dominant aesthetic values,”[174] but that does not assume racist motives lurk beneath these attitudes. Byron’s “ethno-political rhetorics” can also be useful lenses to view Book of Mormon terminology applied to competing Nephite/Lamanite ethnocentric ideologies.[175]

Conclusion

The Book of Mormon is filled with metaphorical language relating to color and clothing. Jacob’s use of the metaphor “robes of righteousness” provides a helpful framework for viewing ancient conceptions of righteousness and unrighteousness through garment imagery. Throughout the Book of Mormon, skin color metaphors emerge as the preferred imagery to index one’s commitment to God’s covenants.[176] As I have argued here, “dark skin” in the Book of Mormon symbolically represents one having their “garments” stained with sin, and references to skin as “white” or “pure” refer metaphorically to those whose “garments were washed white through the blood of the Lamb” (Alma 13:11)—both descriptive metaphors also used by numerous early Church Fathers. Apart from the connotative meanings of black and white, Nephite society embraced the spiritual metaphor of dark skin “as a typology for sin,” in Rhamie’s words,[177] with no conception of an actual skin-hue change. The discursive strategy of Book of Mormon authors employing a dark/white dichotomy was strictly tied to scriptural symbolism of darkness representing sin (that is, noncovenantal behavior) and whiteness representing purity (that is, correct covenantal behavior).

A lack of understanding regarding this dark/light metaphor in the Book of Mormon has led to generations of readers who believed literal skin-color change took place throughout the record. On the other hand, some have willfully read racialism in the record’s pages because they believe the text is a product of the nineteenth-century. Stevenson has succinctly summarized this dangerous motivation to read racism into the text of the Book of Mormon: “For scholars who place Joseph Smith at the center of the Book of Mormon’s creative process, contextualization against an antebellum context requires engagement with ‘whiteness’ as an American racial construct—a meaningful concession for those who accept the text as ancient.”[178] Readers of the text, however, need to avoid the trappings of a postmodern critique, whereby definitions of race arising since the seventeenth century obscure our understanding of the cultural subtleties in this ancient record. Interpreting skin color symbolism in the Book of Mormon based on modern descriptions is by definition anachronistic and destined to mislead. I fully concur with Byron’s observation that “it is more fruitful to explore the symbolic meanings and the possible implications within the ancient context” when trying to understand notions of “blackness” in antiquity.[179] Issues of race in the Book of Mormon are highly complex, and they deserve to be analyzed in the ancient cultural context in which they occurred.

While ethnocentric and prejudicial views were no doubt held by some actors in the text (as would be expected for some among any culture), the Book of Mormon does not contain the racial tensions often ascribed to it. “Racism” against Lamanites, according to modern definitions, is simply not present in the book. In contrast, the Book of Mormon in fact elevates the status of the Lamanites in God’s eyes as a highly favored people, which goes completely against the prevailing views of the nineteenth century. It is the Lamanites who are expressly promised longevity in the Book of Mormon, not the Nephites (see Alma 9:16–18; Helaman 15:4). It is the Lamanites who are given divine assurance that they will help build Zion, not the Nephites (see 3 Nephi 21:23–25). All of this is utterly counter to the racist views against Native Americans in Joseph Smith’s day. As Bushman keenly observed, the Book of Mormon “overturns conventional American racism. . . . [It] is not just sympathetic to Indians; it grants them dominance.”[180]

What does not square with a racialized reading of the Book of Mormon is its overwhelmingly inclusive history and theology. All are welcome in God’s tent. The Lord, Nephi wrote, “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 he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile” (2 Nephi 26:33; compare Acts 10:34; 1 Corinthians 12:13).[181] As Belnap argues, the Book of Mormon does not promote racial stereotyping; rather, “It advocates and even idealizes the exact opposite.”[182] A close reading of the text proves beyond any doubt that the Book of Mormon emphasizes all races and genders are equal in the eyes of God—and all are eligible to have their robes washed “white” and free of sin through God’s grace.[183] As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has affirmed, “If we will be faithful, there is a perfectly tailored robe of righteousness ready and waiting for everyone.”[184]

Notes

[1] For a full discussion of the Near Eastern resonances of this “monster” imagery relating to death and chaos, see Daniel Belnap, “‘I Will Contend with Them That Contendeth with Thee’: The Divine Warrior in Jacob’s Speech of 2 Nephi 6–10,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 17, no. 1 (2008): 20–39.

[2] This verse contains the very first mention of the spirit world in the Book of Mormon. I thank Brant A. Gardner for this insight (personal communication, November 1, 2022).

[3] The association of nakedness with sin could not have applied to the prefallen world, since Adam and Eve were expressly said to have been “in a state of innocence” (2 Nephi 2:23). For more on this point, see Loren Blake Spendlove and Tina Spendlove, “Turning to the Lord with the Whole Heart: The Doctrine of Repentance in the Bible and the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter 20 (2016): 177–246.

[4] John the Revelator describes not only twenty-four individuals crowned with eternal glory as being seated in God’s presence “clothed in white raiment” (Revelation 4:4) but also “a great multitude, which no man could number,” who were “clothed with white robes” and held “palms in their hands” (Revelation 7:9; compare 6:11).

[5] For a thorough discussion of clothing imagery in Jewish and Christian contexts, see Hugh Nibley, “Sacred Vestments,” in Temple and Cosmos: Beyond This Ignorant Present, ed. Don E. Norton, Collected Works of Hugh Nibley 12 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: FARMS, 1992), 91–138.

[6] Sebastian Brock, “Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition,” in Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den östlichen Vätern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter, ed. Margot Schmidt and Carl-Friedrich Geyer, Eichstätter Beiträge 4 (Regensburg: Pustet, 1982), 13.

[7] John W. Welch suggests that similar “vestments representing these robes of righteousness were worn by the priests at the temple of Nephi.” Welch, “The Temple in the Book of Mormon: The Temples at the Cities of Nephi, Zarahemla, and Bountiful,” in Temples of the Ancient World: Ritual and Symbolism, ed. Donald W. Parry (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: FARMS, 1994), 336.

[8] For a detailed discussion of this and other clothing metaphors in Isaiah, see Scott R. A. Starbuck, “Disrobing an Isaianic Metaphor (mě’îl ṣěḏāqâ ‘Robe of Righteousness’) as Power Transfer in Isaiah 61:10,” in Dress and Clothing in the Hebrew Bible: “For All Her Household Are Clothed in Crimson”, ed. Antonios Finitsis (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 143–60.

[9] A variant of Isaiah 61:1–2 in Qumran (1QIsaa) reads, “He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, / As a bridegroom, as a priest with a garland,” showing an effort to link this passage to a priestly Messiah. See William H. Brownlee, “Messianic Motifs of Qumran and the New Testament,” New Testament Studies 3, no. 1 (1956): 12–30. For other priestly connections to Isaiah 62:1–2, see Starbuck, “Disrobing an Isaianic Metaphor,” 154–55. For an excellent summary of priestly vestments in early Jewish and Christian writings, see John A. Tvedtnes, “Priestly Clothing in Bible Times,” in Temples of the Ancient World, 649–704. For a short but insightful discussion on this topic, see Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “Line Upon Line: The Nakedness and the Clothing of Adam and Eve,” Meridian Magazine, March 4, 2010, https://latterdaysaintmag.com/article-1-407. John S. Thompson has drawn comparisons between Jacob’s “robe of righteousness” and the high priest’s garments worn on the Day of Atonement (compare Leviticus 6:4); see Thompson, “Isaiah 50–51, the Israelite Autumn Festivals, and the Covenant Speech of Jacob in 2 Nephi 6–10,” in Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, ed. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998), 123–50.

[10] In Quaestiones in Genesim 1:53, Philo likewise equates the coat of skins given to Adam and Eve to “the human body,” a position followed in later Rabbinical traditions. See also Herbert R. Broderick, “A Note on the Garments of Paradise,” Byzantion 55, no. 1 (1985): 250–54. Solomon of Basra also mentions the loss of their heavenly robe: “[Adam and Eve] were stripped of the fair glory and glorious light of purity wherewith they were clothed.” Quoted in The Book of the Bee, ed. and trans. Earnest A. Wallis Budge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886), 22.

[11] Lucinda Dirven, “Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained: The Meaning of Adam and Eve in the Baptistery of Dura-Europos,” Eastern Christian Art 5 (2008): 54. A similar motif is found in the Yezidi Myth of Adam, where an angel takes Adam to Paradise and clothes him in a khirqe (a black shirt worn by holy men), which is later taken away from Adam along with his “divine light.” See Eszter Spät, “Late Antique Literary Motifs in Yezidi Oral Tradition: The Yezidi Myth of Adam,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 128, no. 4 (2008): 665. It is possibly significant that in Arabic bashar means “humanity” and bashara signifies “skin,” suggesting a connection between “coats of skin” and the human body. Paul Haupt, “Some Assyrian Etymologies,” American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 26, no. 1 (1909): 1.

[12] Gregory of Nyssa, De Oratione Dominica, Oratio 5, in Patrologia Graeca (hereafter PG), ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, 162 vols. (Paris, 1857–66), 44:1184B–C.

[13] Origen calls the coats of skin Adam and Eve received after the Fall “‘clothes of unhappiness’ (infelicia indumenta)” since they represented a spiritual degradation. Alexandra Pârvan, “Genesis 1–3: Augustine and Origen on the coats of skins,” Vigiliae Christianae 66, no. 1 (2012): 63; see also Origen, Homiliae in Leviticum 6.7.

[14] Genesis Rabbah 20:12 on Genesis 3:21. See Spät, “Late Antique Literary Motifs,” 674; and Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Garments of Shame,” History of Religions 5, no. 2 (1966): 216–17. The Palestinian Targum Onqelos on Genesis 3:21 also contains this description: “And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of honor for the skin of their flesh and He clothed them.” The Targum Onqelos to Genesis, trans. Bernard Grossfeld, Aramaic Bible 6 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1988), 46.

[15] Brock, “The Robe of Glory: A Biblical Image in the Syriac Tradition,” The Way 39 (1999): 247.

[16] J. Rendel Harris, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 69.

[17] St. Ephrem, Hymns on Nativity 23.13, quoted in Brock, Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature and Theology (London: Variorum Reprints, 1992), 100.

[18] This is captured in the language of Philippians 2:7 (ESV), where Paul says that Jesus “emptied [ἐκένωσεν] himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

[19] St. Ephrem, Hymns against Heresies 32.9, quoted in Brock, “The Robe of Glory,” 251.

[20] Jacob of Serugh, quoted in Kilian McDonnell, The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan: The Trinitarian and Cosmic Order of Salvation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 142.

[21] “At baptism the candidate goes down into the waters to take up the robe of glory that Adam had lost, that Christ had recovered and deposited in the Jordan.” McDonnell, “Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan,” Theological Studies 56, no. 2 (1995): 234. See also Eva de Clercq, “The Vulnerability of the Body: A Daring Christian Approach to Nakedness,” Bijdragen 72, no. 2 (2011): 183–200.

[22] Adam’s garment is one of “the high priesthood,” according to a Midrash in Numbers Rabbah: “Know, that the firstborn would offer the sacrifices until the tribe of Levi arose. Look at the beginning of the creation of the world: Adam was the firstborn of the world, and when he offered his sacrifice . . . he put on the garments of the high priesthood, as it states, ‘The Lord God made for Adam and his wife coats of skin and He dressed them.’” Num. R. 4.8 (Mirkin ed. 9.71–72), quoted in Nissan Rubin and Admiel Kosman, “The Clothing of the Primordial Adam as a Symbol of Apocalyptic Time in the Midrashic Sources,” Harvard Theological Review 90, no. 2 (1997): 171–72.

[23] Brock further explains: “The first Adam loses the robe of glory at the fall; the second Adam puts on the body of the first Adam in order to restore the robe of glory to mankind in Baptism; the Christian puts on ‘the new man’ or Christ at baptism, at the same time putting on the ‘robe of glory.’” Brock, “Clothing Metaphors,” 16.

[24] According to McDonnell, “When Christians go down into the waters to pick up the ‘robe of glory’ deposited there by Christ, they are proleptically being clothed with the resurrection ‘robe of glory.’” McDonnell, “Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan,” 235; emphasis added. See also Brock, “Ephrem’s Letter to Publius,” Muséon 89, nos. 3–4 (1976): 284. The white garment associated with baptism in Christian traditions, “besides being a symbol of the paradisiacal robes of Adam and Eve, is connected with the glory of the martyrs and the resurrection of the body.” Stephen D. Ricks, “The Garment of Adam in Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Tradition,” in Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication, and Interaction (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 717.

[25] The Lord affirmed this connection in this dispensation, saying his twelve apostles in Jerusalem will be “clothed with robes of righteousness” just as will “the dead which died in me,” all “to be clothed upon, even as I am” (Doctrine and Covenants 29:12–13).

[26] Quoted in Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski, Clement of Alexandria: A Project of Christian Perfection (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 63. The reception of a sacred garment at the moment of resurrection is common in early Jewish and Christian writings. For example, The Book of Enoch states that the righteous “shall be clothed with garments of glory, and they shall be the garments of life from the Lord of Spirits.” See Philip Schaff, ed., The Forgotten Bible (Woodstock, ON: Devoted Publishing, 2017), 8. And another passage from the Ethiopic Book of Enoch (62:15) states, “The righteous chosen ones who were resurrected, and are not ashamed, will put on a garment of life.” Quoted in John D. Ladd, Commentary on the Book of Enoch (Maitland, FL: Xulon Press, 2008), 200.

[27] St. Ephrem, Hymn 30 on the Virginity, in Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, trans. Kathleen E. McVey (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 397. The garment of the Resurrection is said to be a luminous, glorious one in Hymn on the Church 36 (11): “so too at the resurrection the righteous are light; for their clothing is splendour, their garment brightness: they become their own light, providing it themselves.” Quoted in Brock, “St Ephrem on Christ as Light in Mary and in the Jordan: Hymni De Ecclesia 36,” Eastern Churches Review 7 (1975): 139.

[28] A clear reference to “the best robe” (τὴν στολὴν τὴν πρώτην) in Luke 15:22 in the parable of the prodigal son.

[29] Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 (hereafter ANF), vol. 2: Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2022), 582. Doctrine and Covenants 29:13 echoes the idea that those who are righteous in the last days will “receive a crown of righteousness” and will “be clothed upon, even as [Christ is], to be with [him], that [they] may be one.”

[30] Belnap notes that in this verse “we are told that to be with our Father requires both the same clothing that Christ himself is dressed in and the investiture through which the clothing is put on. Thus two gospel concepts—oneness with God (that is, Zion) and eternal life— are encapsulated in the symbolism of clothing and the significance of investiture.” Daniel Belnap, “Clothed with Salvation: The Garden, the Veil, Tabitha, and Christ,” Studies in the Bible and Antiquity 4 (2012): 64.

[31] Sebastian Brock, Bride of Light: Hymns on Mary from the Syriac Churches (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1994), 30.

[32] Hugo Odeberg, 3 Enoch: Or, The Hebrew Book of Enoch (1928; repr., New York: Ktav Publishing, 1973), 32.

[33] Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh 42:13 (ANF 3:576). See also Carly Daniel-Hughes, The Salvation of the Flesh in Tertullian of Carthage: Dressing for the Resurrection (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). For similar discussion by Tertullian on this topic, see A. Souter, Tertullian Concerning the Resurrection of the Flesh (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1922), 122, 144.

[34] At the Kirtland temple dedication, Joseph Smith prayed in similar language “that our garments may be pure, that we may be clothed upon with robes of righteousness, with palms in our hands, and crowns of glory upon our heads, and reap eternal joy for all our sufferings” at the Resurrection (Doctrine and Covenants 109:76).

[35] Abinadi uses precisely the same type of speech in the court of Noah (Mosiah 16:10).

[36] For an expansive study on divinization, see Keith E. Norman, “Deification: The Content of Athanasian Soteriology” (PhD diss., Duke University, 1980).

[37] Ephrem, Hymns on Paradise 11.6, quoted in Brock, “Robe of Glory,” 258.

[38] Ephrem, Hymns on the Nativity 3.16, quoted in McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, 74, 86–87.

[39] Ephrem, Hymns on Faith 5.17, quoted in Brock, “Robe of Glory,” 257.

[40] St. Athanasius, On Incarnation, 54. Compare Ephrem, Hymns on the Nativity 1.99, in McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, 74.

[41] Cyril, “On the Unity of Christ,” in St. Cyril of Alexandria: On the Unity of Christ, trans. John Anthony McGuckin (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995), 62.

[42] Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5, preface (ANF 1:526).

[43] Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.33 (ANF 1:507).

[44] St. Ephrem made this connection between Adam and Christ: “The Most High knew that Adam wanted to become a god, so He sent His Son, who put him on in order to grant him his desire.” Commentary on Genesis, quoted in Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1994), 129. Adam thus mutually benefits from Christ recovery of Adam’s heavenly garment: “As the Lord put on Adam bodily, so too did Adam put on the Son spiritually. Christ put on Adam’s body in Mary’s womb, and Adam put on that choice robe of glory.” B. L. van Helmond, Mas’ oud du Tour Abdin, un mystique syrien du XVe siècle (Louvain: Bibliothèque du Muséon, 1942), 7.

[45] In his Commentary on Matthew 31, Philoxenus of Mabbog states that at the Resurrection, “the just will put on that glory and light which we said had belonged to Adam before the transgression: Moses had been covered with it (on Sinai), and Moses and Elijah had appeared in it when they came with Jesus (at the Transfiguration).”

[46] The general thematic parallels to the plan of salvation have been noted by various authors, early among them Hugh Nibley. See Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 1975), 267–72. For further discussions of this hymn from a Latter-day Saint perspective, see John W. Welch and James V. Garrison, “The ‘Hymn of the Pearl’: An Ancient Counterpart to ‘O My Father,’” Brigham Young University Studies 36, no. 1 (1996): 127–38.

[47] See Vacher Burch, “A Commentary on the Syriac Hymn of the Soul,” Journal of Theological Studies 19, nos. 74–75 (1918): 145–61. For some alternate interpretations of parts of this hymn, see A. F. J. Klijn, “The So-Called Hymn of the Pearl (Acts of Thomas ch. 108–113),” Vigiliae Christianae 14, no. 3 (1960): 154–64. And for a more thorough analysis see Klijn, The Acts of Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 1962).

[48] J. Rendel Harris, Odes and Psalms, 69.

[49] For example, Joseph Smith seems to be alluding to a baptismal robe of righteousness when referring to a letter he wrote to Oliver Cowdery indicating he should return to the Church to be rebaptized: “Write to Oliver Cowdery, and ask him if he has not eaten husks long enough? If he is not almost ready to return, be clothed with robes of righteousness and go up to Jerusalem? Orson Hyde hath need of him.” History, 1838–1856, volume D-1 [1 August 1842–1 July 1843], 1539, The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-d-1-1-august-1842-1-july-1843/182.

[50] PS I, 240, verses 11–12 (VI,1). See Brock, “Clothing Metaphors,” 4. Similarly, an anonymous ancient Syrian writer succinctly stated, “The wedding garments of the Lord’s feast are the purity of a perfect heart” (PS III, 56820–21 [20,14]).

[51] Homiliae selectae Mar Jacobi Sarugensis, ed. Paul Bedjan, vol. 5, (Paris-Leipzig, 1905), 669,9–10. English translation of verse by Pauly Maniyattu, ed., East Syriac Theology: An Introduction (Satna, India: Ephrem’s Publications, 2007), 221n152.

[52] Quoted in April D. De Conick and Jarl Fossum, “Stripped before God: A New Interpretation of Logion 37 in the Gospel of Thomas,” Vigiliae Christianae 45, no. 2 (1991): 123. De Conick and Fossum explain the significance of the trampled garment: “The garment which was given to man as a consequence of the Fall, or intercourse, must be removed in order to ascend to the heavenly realm and return to the Pre-Fall state of shamelessness.” De Conick and Fossum, “Stripped before God,” 134.

[53] De Conick and Fossum, “Stripped before God,” 123, 127–32.

[54] In Zechariah 3:3–4, removing Joshua’s “filthy garments” is equated to his “iniquity pass[ing] from” him.

[55] Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 386.

[56] Quoted in Gay L. Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature (New York: Routledge, 2002), 68–69.

[57] Quoted in Brock, Bride of Light, 30.

[58] Apocryphon of John 24.7, quoted in Wisse, trans., “The Apocryphon of John (II, 1, III, 1, IV, 1, and BG 8502, 2),” in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James M. Robinson (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 112.

[59] Irenaeus 1.30.9, quoted in Spät, “Late Antique Literary Motifs,” 676n70; translation mine.

[60] All quotations herein are from the translation by Michael A. Knibb, “Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1983–85), 156–76.

[61] This phrase resonates with Ecclesiastes 9:8: “Let your garments be always white all the time. Let not oil be lacking on your head” (ESV).

[62] 2 Enoch 22:6–10, trans. F. Andersen, “2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:139.

[63] In St. Ephrem’s Sermon on the Transfiguration (9:12), he poignantly describes the meeting of Peter, James, and John with Moses and Elijah as follows:

"There was joy for the Prophets and the Apostles by this ascent of the mountain. The Prophets rejoiced when they saw his humanity, which they had not known. The Apostles also rejoiced when they saw the glory of his divinity, which they had not known, and heard the voice of the Father bearing witness to his Son; and through this they recognised his incarnation, which was concealed from them. And the witness of the three was sealed by the Father’s voice and by Moses and Elias, who stood by him like servants, and they looked to one another: the Prophets to the Apostles and the Apostles to the Prophets. There the authors of the old covenant saw the authors of the new. Holy Moses saw Simon the sanctified; the steward of the Father saw the administrator of the Son."

To reference the Greek translation, see K.G. Phrantzolas, Ὁσίου Ἐφραίμ τοῦ Σύρου ἔργα, 7 vols. (Thessalonica: Perivoli tis Panagias, 1988–98). For an English translation of the text by Father Archimandrite Ephrem see https://web.archive.org/web/20160306044358/http://anastasis.org.uk/on_the_transfiguration.htm.

[64] Tertullian describes the transfiguration of Jesus in this way: “The Lord too on retiring to ‘the mountain’ had changed even ‘his garments’ to brightness, but He had kept features that Peter could recognise; where also ‘Moses and Elijah,’ . . . taught that, nevertheless, the same appearance of body continues even in a state of glory.” Quoted in Souter, Tertullian Concerning the Resurrection of the Flesh, 143.

[65] David Calabro suggests this refers to the baptismal garment; see Calabro, “An Early Christian Context for the Book of Moses,” Interpreter 47 (2021): 181–262.

[66] See Montague Rhodes James, trans., “The Apocalypse of Peter,” in The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 520.

[67] As Robert H. Stein points out, “The glorification of clothes in apocalyptic literature is a distinctive characteristic of the exalted state of a heavenly being.” Stein cites as examples 1 Enoch 62:15–16; 2 Enoch 22:8; and Revelation 4:4; 7:9. Stein, “Is the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2–8) a Misplaced Resurrection-Account?,” Journal of Biblical Literature 95, no. 1 (1976): 82.

[68] Andrei Orlov adds: “It is noteworthy that in the later Jewish and Samaritan sources, the story about Adam’s luminous garments is often mentioned in conjunction with Moses’ story. In these materials, Moses is often depicted as a luminous counterpart of Adam. . . . The Samaritan texts insist that when Moses ascended to Mount Sinai, he received the image of God which Adam cast off in the Garden of Eden.” Orlov, “Vested with Adam’s Glory: Moses as the Luminous Counterpart of Adam in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Macarian Homilies,” Christian Orient 4, no. 10 (2006): 501.

[69] Quoted in Brock, Bride of Light, 29.

[70] See, for example, Alban Cras, La symbolique du vêtement dans la Bible: pour une théologie du vêtement (Paris: Éd. du Cerf, 2011); and Rubin and Kosman, “ Clothing of the Primordial Adam,” 155–74. On clothing metaphors related to baptism, see J. Albert Hamill, “Coming of Age and Putting on Christ: The Toga Virilis Ceremony, Its Paraenesis, and Paul’s Interpretation of Baptism in Galatians,” Novum Testamentum 44, no. 3 (2002): 252–77. See also Marilyn E. Burton, “Robed in Majesty: Clothing as a Metaphor for the Classical Hebrew Semantic Domain of כבוד,” in Clothing and Nudity in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Cristoph Berner, Manuel Schäfer, Martin Schott, Sarah Schulz, and Martina Weingärtner (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 289–300.

[71] For example, Jack Cottrell and Terry A. Chaney write, “To clothe ourselves with Christ in this sense means to gird ourselves outwardly and inwardly with the same holy character exhibited by the sinless Christ during his earthly sojourn.” Cottrell and Chaney, Romans (Joplin, MO: College Press, 2005), 493. According to Hans Dieter Betz, “This concept, which has a powerful and long tradition in ancient religions, describes the Christian’s incorporation into the ‘body of Christ’ as an act of ‘clothing,’ whereby Christ is understood as the garment.” Betz, Galatians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 187.

[72] At baptism, says the third-century Syrian writer Aphrahat, “[Jesus] is the garment and the robe of glory which all the victorious ones put on.” Aphrahat, Demonstrations 14:39, in Aphrahat: Demonstrations, trans. Kuriakose Valavanolickal, vol. 2 (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 2005), 95. Similarly, Gregory Nazianzen equated the robe with putting on Christ himself when he encouraged the priests: “Clothe yourselves with righteousness, and with the garment of glory, instead of the spirit of sloth, and with that great and spotless vesture, namely, Christ, our proper decoration!” Nazianzen, “Oration 5: Second Invective Against Julian,” in Julian the Emperor, trans. C. W. King (London: 1888), 111. For a further discussion of interpretive lenses of Galatians 3:7, see Leo Joseph Ohleyer, The Pauline Formula “Induere Christum”: With Special Reference to the Works of St. John Chrysostom, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1921), 3–8.

[73] Christine Palmer notes, “Agreements considered legally binding are enacted through symbolic actions performed on clothes.” Palmer, “Clothes,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology: Exploring the Unity and Diversity of Scripture, ed. T. Desmond Alexander, Brian S. Rosner, D. A. Carson, and Graeme Goldsworthy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 417.

[74] Betz, Galatians, 187. For Robin Scroggs and Kent I. Groff, the garment “symbolizes the new existence of the believer, in effect, his resurrection.” Scroggs and Groff, “Baptism in Mark: Dying and Rising with Christ,” Journal of Biblical Literature 92, no. 4 (1973), 543.

[75] Some early traditions emphasized one aspect of the changing clothes motif. Dirven clarifies that “whereas Greek and Latin writers are interested in the purification of the soul and emphasize what is taken off during baptism, Syriac writers are far more concerned with what garment is put on during baptism: the paradisiacal robe of glory i.e. man’s original divine nature.” Dirven, “Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained,” 55.

[76] This verb, written “ἀποτίθημι” in Greek, is also used to represent stripping off clothing (see Acts 7:58). Paul uses similar phraseology in Ephesians 4:22: “That ye put off [ἀποθέσθαι] concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” He contrasts the “putting off” of one’s former self with the “put[ting] on [ἐνδύσασθαι, literally ‘clothing oneself with’] the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (v. 24).

[77] The Teachings of Silvanus NHC VII, 4, 105:13–19, cited in “The Teachings of Silvanus (VII, 4),” trans. Malcolm L. Peel and Jan Zandee, in Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, 355.

[78] Cyril of Jerusalem, On the Mysteries 4, in Documents in Early Christian Thought, ed. Maurice Wiles and Mark Santer, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 189.

[79] Quoted in A. Hamman, L’Initiation Chrétienne (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1963), 125.

[80] The Greek and Latin terms for “naked” could also refer to “the wearing of minimal undergarments.” Robin M. Jensen, Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity: Ritual, Visual, and Theological Dimensions (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 167n102.

[81] R. Alan Culpepper observes, “Discipleship mandates that one’s former way of life can neither be patched up nor retrieved at will,” so only a new garment at baptism will do. Culpepper, “Mark 10:50: Why Mention the Garment?,” Journal of Biblical Literature 101, no. 1 (1982): 132.

[82] Ambrose of Milano states that “white garments” are given at “the bath of regeneration”—that is, baptism—“as evidence that you have been clothed again of the chaste veil of innocence.” Quoted in Hamman, L’Initiation Chrétienne, 74.

[83] Quoted in Jonathan Z. Smith, “Garments of Shame,” 232–33.

[84] Baptismal Instructions 4.12, 16, in Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation (hereafter ACW; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1946–), 31:71–72. Jean Daniélou similarly notes that “baptism by immersion obviously involved stripping off the tunic and dressing again afterwards. It seems, however, that in the Jewish Christian period this simple action was given a ritual significance, in particular through the symbolism of re-clothing with a white tunic after Baptism.” Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, trans. and ed. John A. Baker (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1964), 326.

[85] See Scroggs and Groff, “Baptism in Mark,” 538.

[86] Hugh W. Nibley, Since Cumorah: The Book of Mormon in the Modern World (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1967), 246. Jacob defines Nephites as those “who are friendly to Nephi” and Lamanites as those who “seek to destroy the people of Nephi” (Jacob 1:14). Alma₂ tells us how he distinguishes between a Nephite and a Lamanite, and it is not by observing skin color: “Whosoever suffered himself to be led away by the Lamanites was called under that head, and . . . whosoever would not believe in the tradition of the Lamanites, but believed those records which were brought out of the land of Jerusalem, and also in the tradition of their fathers, which were correct, who believed in the commandments of God and kept them, were called the Nephites” (Alma 3:10–11). In other words, a “Lamanite” is simply anyone who does not believe and live the gospel. However, by 29 BC in the book of Helaman, the Lamanites have become significantly more righteous than the Nephites, yet they retain the label “Lamanite.” Therefore, any discussion of “Lamanites” from this point on until the coming of Jesus in the New World must recognize that “Lamanite” no longer can mean “someone living outside of the covenant.” Similarly, “Nephite” no longer means “covenant keeper.” Those who believe skin color changes with righteousness would have to assume Lamanites are “white” and Nephites are “dark” at this point in the book of Helaman.

[87] See Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 1: Transcripts of Lectures Presented to an Honors Book of Mormon Class at Brigham Young University, 1988–1990 (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2004), 146–47.

[88] See Tvedtnes, “The Charge of ‘Racism’ in the Book of Mormon,” FARMS Review 15, no. 2 (2003): 183–97.

[89] Campbell, “‘White’ or ‘Pure’: Five Vignettes,” Dialogue 29, no. 4 (1996):134. Campbell rightly argued: “White-skinned Nephites and black-skinned Lamanites are metaphors for cultures, not for skin color. The church teaches that the descendants of the Lamanites inhabited the Americas when Columbus arrived. But Lamanites are not black-skinned; they are not even red-skinned.” Campbell, “‘White’ or ‘Pure,’” 134.

[90] See Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Volume 2: Second Nephi–Jacob (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 116–124. See also Gardner, Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015), 159–64.

[91] See Adam Oliver Stokes, “‘Skin’ or ‘Scales’ of Blackness? Semitic Context as Interpretive Aid for 2 Nephi 4:35 (LDS 5:21),” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 27, no. 1 (2018): 278–89.

[92] Ethan Sproat, “Skins as Garments in the Book of Mormon: A Textual Exegesis,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 24, no. 1 (2015): 138–165.

[93] Jan J. Martin, “The Prophet Nephi and the Covenantal Nature of Cut Off, Cursed, Skin of Blackness, and Loathsome,” in They Shall Grow Together: The Bible in the Book of Mormon, ed. Charles Swift and Nicholas J. Frederick (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2022), 107–42.

[94] Gerrit M. Steenblik, “Demythicizing the Lamanites’ ‘Skin of Blackness,’” Interpreter 49 (2021): 167–258.

[95] Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1981), 4.

[96] See Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (1969; paperback ed., Stanford: CSLI Publications, 1999), 12.

[97] By analogy, in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts, the opposite of “white (light)” is not “black” (km), but rather “darkness” (kk.w). See Wolfgang Schenkel, “Color Terms in Ancient Egyptian and Coptic,” in Anthropology of Color: Interdisciplinary Multilevel Modeling, ed. Robert E. MacLaury, Galina V. Paramei, and Don Dedrick (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2007), 211–28.

[98] Ran HaCohen, “The ‘Jewish Blackness’ Thesis Revisited,” Religions 9, no. 7 (2018): 2; emphasis added.

[99] See Maria Bulakh, “Basic Color Terms of Biblical Hebrew in Diachronic Aspect,” Babel und Bibel 3 (2006): 181–216. See also Mony Almalech, “Colors as a Semiotic Tool for Bible Analysis‎,” in Sign, Method and the Sacred: New Directions in Semiotic Methodologies for the Study of Religion, ed. Jason Cronbach Van Boom and Thomas-Andreas Põder (Boston: De Gruyter, 2021), 243–66; W. J. Colville, “Bible Symbolism, the Moral Influence of Beauty, and the Significance of Color,” in Colville, Ancient Mysteries and Modern Revelations (Chicago: Progressive Thinker, 1916), 292–303; and Athalya Brenner-Idan, Colour Terms in the Old Testament (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1982).

[100] Gardner, Second Witness, 117.

[101] This is not to say that some early Saints and leaders did not read skin color into the text—they certainly did. Some church leaders also interpreted the Book of Mormon this way, such as Joseph Fielding Smith. See Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, vol. 3 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1960), 122–23.

[102] Note also that in 1828, the first meaning given in Webster’s Dictionary for fair is “clear; free from spots,” which immediately ties the usage of this term to mentions of garments being “spotless”—that is, free from the stains of sin (compare Alma 5:24, “whose garments are cleansed and are spotless, pure and white”; Alma 7:25, “keep your garments spotless”; Alma 13:12, “having their garments made white, being pure and spotless before God”; and Mormon 9:6, “that perhaps ye may be found spotless, pure, fair, and white, having been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, at that great and last day”). Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), s. v. “fair,” https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/fair. See also Sproat, “Skins as Garments,” 146n17. The pairing of fair/white is an antithetical parallel to dark/black, just as the opposite of “delightsome” is “loathsome.” Accordingly, “white and . . . delightsome” (2 Nephi 30:6, 1830 version of the Book of Mormon) is the formulaic opposite of “dark, and loathsome” (1 Nephi 12:23). “Fair” and “white” are not referencing skin color; rather, they indicate an ethical judgment. According to Matthew L. Bowen, the description of Nephites as “fair” may correspond to the Egyptian term nfr, which encompasses meanings such as “open; frank; honest; hence, equal; just; equitable,” which may have “direct reference to their righteousness and conformity to God’s law.” Bowen, “‘For Their Good Have I Written Them’: The Onomastic Allusivity and Literary Function of 2 Nephi 25:8,” Interpreter 53 (2022): 80.

[103] For a recent volume that engages in a heavily racialized reading of the text of the Book of Mormon, see Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman, eds., Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). In particular, for an essentialist reading of the text’s use of dark/white dichotomy, see Jared Hickman, “The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse,” American Literature 86, no. 3 (2014): 429–61.

[104] For a recent discussion of cognitive and conceptional universality of clean-as-moral and dirty-as-immoral, see Omar Lizardo, “The Conceptual Bases of Metaphors of Dirt and Cleanliness in Moral and Non-Moral Reasoning,” Cognitive Linguistics 23, no. 2 (2012): 367–93.

[105] For example, in Akkadian ebbu(m) is the term for both “bright” and “pure,” and in Babylonian DADAG(.GA) has a range of meanings, including “bright,” “clean,” and “pure.” Also, the term ellu(m) similarly means “pure, clear”; see Jeremy Black, Andrew George, and Nicholas Postgate, eds., A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, 2nd (corrected) printing (Germany: Harrassowitz, 2000), 64, 70. Karel van der Toorn also notes that ellu (“cleanliness”) in Akkadian “is conceived, not only negatively as an absence of dirt, but also positively as brilliance and luminosity.” Van der Toorn, Sin and Sanction in Israel and Mesopotamia: A Comparative Study (Assen, NL: Van Gorcum, 1985), 27. The South Ethiopic term ṣdʿ means “be clean, pure,” which is cognate to the Tigrinya ṣaʿda “white.” See Bulakh, “Basic Color Terms in Gəʿəz: Synchronic and Diachronic Aspects,” in Proceedings of the XVth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Hamburg 2003 (Germany: Harrassowitz, 2006), 738.

[106] Scott B. Noegel, “Scarlet and Harlots: Seeing Red in the Hebrew Bible,” Hebrew Union College Annual 87 (2016): 45.

[107] Compare this to the Arabic term for “white.” According to Albert Barnes, “In Arabic the word [“white”] means to become sharp, or sour as milk; and hence the idea of becoming corrupt in a moral sense.” Barnes, Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical, on the Book of Psalms, vol. 1 (New York: Harper, 1869), 115.

[108] By way of another example of the clarifying yea particle, when Alma₂ asks his brethren, “Can ye be puffed up in the pride of your hearts; yea, will ye still persist in the wearing of costly apparel?” (Alma 5:53), the use of the clarifying particle yea indicates that being “puffed up in the pride of your hearts” is being first and foremost equated by Alma₂ with “the wearing of costly apparel.” This yea particle appears between clauses, not in initial position (where it functions differently).

[109] Compare to Genesis 49:11, where Jacob prophesies: “He [will wash] his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes.” This is resonant with Jehovah’s messianic prophesy in Isaiah 63: “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment” (v. 3). The symbolism here is evocative since “wine” is called “the blood of grapes” in Genesis 49:11 (compare Ugaritic dm ʿṣm, “the blood of vine”). On the symbolic meaning of scarlet, red, and blood in the Bible, see Noegel, “Scarlet and Harlots.” Similar language in the Book of Mormon, which speaks of humanity’s robes being “spotted with . . . blood” (Ether 12:38), is suggestive of powerful blood imagery. In this interpretation, blood represents impurity, that is, sin, a connection confirmed in Doctrine and Covenants 112:33: “Cleanse your hearts and your garments, lest the blood of this generation be required at your hands” (emphasis added; compare Ezekiel 3:17–18). A second layer of imagery is that Jesus’s own sacrificial blood shed for humanity is what washes clean his garments, which were stained when he took upon him all the sins and suffering of the world (compare Luke 22:40–44). Referencing Genesis 49:11, Narsai made this point: “With his holy blood did [Jesus] cleanse the robe of his corporality.” Narsai, Homiliae et carmina, vols. 1–2, ed. Alphonse Mingana (Mosul, 1905), 161. English translation from Stephen Plathottathil, Themes of Incarnation in the Sedre for the Period of Suboro-Yaldo according to the Mosul Fenqitho (Baker Hill, Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 2009), 372.

Hugh Nibley further explained the dual blood imagery: “Note that there are two kinds of blood-stained garments here—the one showing the blood and sins of this world, the other attesting (for Alma expressly states that ‘these things testify’) that Aaron and his sons have completed the sacrifice of the Lamb and thus cleansed the people of their defilements, and their garments are white. The blood that washes garments clean is not the blood that defiles them, just as the serpent that healed the people in the wilderness was not the serpent that killed.” Nibley, “The Atonement of Jesus Christ, Part 3,” Ensign, September 1990, 24.

[110] Jacob also taught that those with responsibility to “magnify [their] office unto the Lord” need to labor diligently so that the Saints’ “blood might not come upon [their] garments,” because if it did, they “would not be found spotless at the last day” (Jacob 1:19; compare Mosiah 2:28). Jacob states that the reason he taught at the temple on one occasion was so that he could “magnify [his] office with soberness” in order to “rid [his] garments of [their] sins” (Jacob 2:2). Sins of omission also soil humanity’s “garments.”

[111] Revelation 7:9 states that in the last day there will be a “great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands” (ESV; emphasis added). All peoples, languages, and cultures, regardless of skin color in mortality, can be part of the righteous who will stand before God “clothed in white robes.” Nephi makes this complete inclusivity clear, declaring that God “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 he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God” (2 Nephi 26:33).

[112] “I am black, but comely” is the translation in the KJV, based on the Vulgate, but the Septuagint translates this as “I am black and comely.”

[113] Origen, Homiliae in Cantum Canticorum 1, cited in Origen: The Song of Songs, Commentary and Homilies, trans. R. P. Lawson (New York: Newman Press, 1957), 276.

[114] Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham's Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 118; emphasis in original.

[115] For example, see Kimberly M. Berkey and Joseph M. Spencer, “‘Great Cause to Mourn’: The Complexity of The Book of Mormon’s Presentation of Gender and Race,” in Fenton and Hickman, Americanist Approaches, 298–320.

[116] The Zoramites did not allow the poor to enter their synagogues because they were “esteemed as filthiness; . . . yea, they were esteemed by their brethren as dross” (Alma 32:3). In 1828, “dross” referred literally to “the recrement or despumation of metals” and figuratively to “waste matter” or “impure matter” (Webster, American Dictionary, s. v. “dross,” https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/dross), showing through its poetic structuring here that “filthiness” is generally synonymous with “impurity.”

[117] Gardner, Second Witness, 2:116.

[118] Jacob’s language could be seen as making a distinction between the “darkness” or “cursing” of Lamanite “skins” and their “filthiness,” presenting them as two separate reasons for Nephite antagonism: “Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins” (Jacob 3:5; emphasis added). However, a far more likely interpretation is simply that this is poetic apposition of two words or concepts with an intervening and—a pattern common throughout the Book of Mormon (see 1 Nephi 1:15; 12:4; 15:14; 17:47; 2 Nephi 4:7; 9:49; 25:2; 28:5, 30; Jacob 2:10, 27; Mosiah 2:9; 6:6; Helaman 15:5; 3 Nephi 10:18) and the Bible (Genesis 29:34; 1 Samuel 2:5, 8; Psalm 2:1; 19:4; 57:7; Ezekiel 43:18; Zechariah 13:7)—thus equating their darkness/curse with “filthiness.”

[119] Berkey and Spencer, “Great Cause to Mourn,” 309–10. Where would Jacob and the other Nephites have learned their “racist” feelings against dark skin? Certainly there is no evidence of this type of racism in the 6th century BC in Jerusalem. Jacob, Laman, and Lemuel were all the same race, even if their melanin content somehow increased, so accusations of “racism” on the part of Jacob and his group are unfounded.

[120] The Apocalypse of Peter similarly speaks of “girls clad in darkness for a garment.” See M. R. James, trans., The Apocalypse of Peter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 5/12.

[121] Jean Pépin, “Saint Augustin et le symbolisme néoplatonicien de la vêture,” Augustinus Magister, Congrès international augustinien 1 (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1954), 293–306; English translation in Plathottathil, Themes of Incarnation, 377.

[122]Didache, XII.4, in The Apostolic Fathers, trans. Kirsopp Lake, vol. 1 (London: Heinemann, 1912), 329.

[123] Tertullian, To His Wife 1.8, in Ante-Nicene Christian Library, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, vol. 11 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1869), 290.

[124] Symeon, Discourses 10.3, quoted in C. J. de Catanzaro, Symeon the New Theologian: The Discourses (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 164.

[125] How does a group become “hardened” in the view of Book of Mormon authors? Alma₂ says those who “have fallen away into sin and transgression . . . become more hardened” (Alma 24:30). Similarly, Amulek laments that “all are hardened; yea, all are fallen and lost” (Alma 34:9), indicating through poetic structuring that “hardened” is synonymous with being “fallen and lost.” In describing the uncivilized nature of Lamanites as “wild” and “ferocious,” Nephites link this ferocity to the Lamanites’ sinful behavior and their having fallen from the faith. Mormon also directly associates being “hardened” to apostasy, be it Nephite, Lamanite, or other. When Amalickiah’s followers unsuccessfully try to install Amalickiah as king of the Nephites, they dissent and join the Lamanites. Mormon expresses surprise that “not long after their dissensions they became more hardened and impenitent, and more wild, wicked and ferocious than the Lamanites—drinking in with the traditions of the Lamanites; giving way to indolence, and all manner of lasciviousness; yea, entirely forgetting the Lord their God” (Alma 47:36). Note that dissention causes one to become hardened, unrepentant, and, indolent—characteristics the Nephites most detest of the Lamanites.

[126] Webster, American Dictionary, s.v. “wild,” https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/wild.

[127] See Jordi Vidal, “‘Kill them all!’ Some Remarks on the Annihilation of the Ya’ilanum Tribe (1781 B.C.E.),” Journal of American Oriental Society 133, no. 4 (2013): 686.

[128] The Marriage of Martu, quoted in Marc Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 BC, 3rd ed. (Maiden, MA: Wiley & Sons, 2016), 94. See also Išme-Dagan A+V, ETCSL 2.5.4.01, ll. 266–67. Demeaning caricatures of “wild” peoples can also be seen in the Akkadian story “The Curse of Agade,” dating to the Ur III Period of Mesopotamia (2047–1750 BC), where Enlil brings from the mountains a people known as Gutians, who were said to be “people who know no inhibitions . . . with human instinct but canine intelligence and monkeys’ features.” Quoted in Glenn M. Schwartz, “Pastoral Nomadism in Western Asia,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, ed. Jack M. Sasson, John Baines, Gary Beckman, and Karen Robinson, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995), 250.

[129] The Gadiantons also dressed in lambskins and lived in the “hills, and . . . the mountains, and the wilderness” (3 Nephi 4:1, 7).

[130] The Chinese elite during the Middle Kingdom similarly called all foreigners “raw barbarians (shengfan)” because they ate raw meat and were thus savages. Robert E. Hood, Begrimed and Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 2.

[131] Among the Assyrians we find a parallel to Nephite indifference to skin color but deep concern over uncivilized behavior different from their (idealistic) own. When the Assyrians war against dark-skinned Nubians, they never mention the skin color of their enemies, but texts do state that the Nubians are cowardly and uncivilized, and they focus on their “behaviour that is described as ungodly or barbaric, deviating from the normative behaviour of the Assyrians.” Zainab Bahrani, “Race and Ethnicity in Mesopotamian Antiquity,” World Archaeology 38, no. 1 (2006): 57.

[132] Hugh Nibley notes the volition involved in the application of the mark: “It is a reversible process. It’s their choice; they control it.” Nibley, “Lecture 44: Alma 2–3,” in Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 2: Transcripts of Lectures Presented to an Honors Book of Mormon Class at Brigham Young University, 1988–1990, (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1993), 199; emphasis added.

[133] For a valuable study looking at self-marking in an ancient Mesoamerican context, see Steenblik, “Lamanites’ ‘Skin of Blackness,’” 167–258.

[134] Jan J. Martin has recently argued this very point: “From this perspective, the mark wasn’t a malicious curse inflicted by Jehovah. Rather, the mark was the logical means for the Lamanites to obtain a completely distinct identity from their relatives whom they resembled both genetically and culturally.” Martin, “Covenantal Nature of Cut Off,” 120.

[135] Steven L. Olsen, “The Covenant of the Chosen People: The Spiritual Foundations of Ethnic Identity in the Book of Mormon,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 21, no. 2 (2012): 26.

[136] Jan Martin views tattooing as a viable explanation for the “skin of blackness” spoken of in 2 Nephi 5:21. See Martin, “Covenantal Nature of Cut Off,” 122–25. This attractive option meets the condition that this mark be self-imposed (see Alma 3:18). If tattooing were an aspect of the “mark” described in the Book of Mormon in order to distinguish one group from another, there is certainly precedent for such tattooing to indicate tribal affiliation. For example, in Maori traditions, tattooing (moko) could be used to “signal one’s affiliation vis-à-vis tribal alliances or rivalries” or to proclaim “the bearer’s allegiance to an outlawed way of life.” Juniper Ellis, Tattooing the World: Pacific Designs in Print & Skin (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 16. A. T. Sinclair also notes that numerous indigenous tribes west of the Mississippi tattooed their bodies, often to represent “tribal identification.” Sinclair, “Tattooing of the North American Indians,” American Anthropologist 11, no. 3 (1909): 364. For similar rationale for tattooing among indigenous groups of California and Tierra del Fuego, see E. M. Loeb, “The Religious Organizations of North Central California and Tierra Del Fuego,” American Anthropologist 33, no. 4 (1931): 517–56, esp. 529. The language of “mark” in the Book of Mormon could then relate to the word tattoo (proto-Polynesian *tatou), which usually also means “to paint,” “to write,” and “to mark.” For a discussion of this linguistic and cultural overlap, see Cecil H. Brown, “Hieroglyphic Literacy in Ancient Mayaland: Inferences from Linguistic Data,” Current Anthropology 32, no. 4 (1991): 489–96.

[137] “Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, circa August 1829–circa January 1830,” 99, The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/printers-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-august-1829-circa-january-1830/103

[138] Anne Marie Kitz, “Effective Simile and Effective Act: Psalm 109, Numbers 5, and KUB 26,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 69, no. 3 (July 2007): 448.

[139] Hittite text KUB 26.25. See discussion in Judith Fletcher, “The Curse as a Garment in Greek Tragedy,” in Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom: The Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature, ed. G. Fanfani, M. Harlow, and M.-L. Nosch (Oxford, PA: Oxbow Books, 2016), 101–113, esp. 103.

[140] Kitz, “An Oath, Its Curse and Anointing Ritual,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 124, no. 2 (2004): 316.

[141] Note that the thematic opposite of Psalm 109:18–19 is Psalm 104:2: “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain.”

[142] In the Hittite curse, the iterative forms of the three principal verbs “probably [illustrate] the repetitive nature of the acts they describe. This should be linked in turn to the plurality of the ‘curses.’” Kitz, “Effective Simile,” 448.

[143] Kitz, Effective Simile,” 446.

[144] David P. Wright, “Ritual Analogy in Psalm 109,” Journal of Biblical Literature 113, no. 3 (1994): 398.

[145] Lloyd A. Thompson, Romans and Blacks (New York: Routledge, 1989), 112. Frank M. Snowden further remarks: “All men were regarded as black who had not been illumined by God’s light, and all men, regardless of skin color, were considered potential Christians.” Snowden, “Misconceptions about African Blacks in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Specialists and Afrocentrists,” Arion 4, no. 3 (1997): 36.

[146] Quoted in David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 50. Kwesi Tsri similarly notes: “The early Christian theorists used ‘Ethiopian’ mostly as a metaphor for evil and sin.” Tsri, Africans Are Not Black: The Case for Conceptual Liberation (New York: Routledge, 2016), 55.

[147] Origen, Explanatio in Psalmos, PG 69:1159–60.

[148] Origen, 1187–88.

[149] See Origen, Commentarium in Cantum Canticorum 2.1, cited in Lawson, Song of Songs, 92–93.

[150] Fulgentius, Epistulae 11–12, quoted in Snowden, “Europe’s Oldest Chapter in the History of Black-White Relations,” in Racism and Anti-Racism in World Perspective, ed. Benjamin P. Bowser, Sage Series on Race and Ethnic Relations 13 (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995), 23.

[151] Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 73.16 [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 39.1014]; translation by Snowden, in Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 204.

[152] Cord J. Whitaker, “Black Metaphors in the King of Tars,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 112, no. 2 (2013): 176.

[153] St. Jerome, Homily 18 on Psalm 86, in The Homilies of Saint Jerome, Volume 1 (1–59 on the Psalms), trans. Marie Liguori Ewald, Fathers of the Church 48 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2010), 140.

[154] While Goldenberg recognizes the “negative effects of Black-as-sinner-or-devil exegesis,” he also states that this does not “necessarily implicate those who initiated the exegesis as racists.” Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 51.

[155] See Audrey Smedley, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999).

[156] Benjamin Braude, “How Racism Arose in Europe and Why It Did Not in the Near East,” in Racism in the Modern World: Historical Perspectives on Cultural Transfer and Adaptation, ed. Manfred Berg and Simon Wendt (New York, Oxford: Bergahn, 2011), 47.

[157] Bahrani explains: “Race, as has been used in classificatory biology or in the way that it was formulated by modern scientific theories of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Europe and North America, was not a part of the way in which the people of Mesopotamia categorized the people in their local environment or the surrounding world.” Bahrani, “Race and Ethnicity,” 51.

[158] Snowden, “Europe’s Oldest Chapter,” 23.

[159] Rodney S. Sadler Jr., “Can A Cushite Change His Skin? Cushites, ‘Racial Othering,’ and the Hebrew Bible,” Interpretation 60, no. 4 (October 2006): 387.

[160] Snowden, Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 63.

[161] Snowden, Before Color Prejudice, 103.

[162] Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 196.

[163] Goldenberg, 200. As W. Robert Connor also astutely notes, “The signs of bigotry which we find in studying the history of classical antiquity are almost always among the modern scholars, not among their ancient subjects.” Connor, Review of Books Recommended by the Princeton Faculty 21 (1970), 4.

[164] See Dinesh D’Souza, “Is Racism a Western Idea?,” American Scholar 64, no. 4 (1995): 517–39, esp. 518.

[165] See Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 199.

[166] Nicholas F. Gier, “The Color of Sin / The Color of Skin: Ancient Color Blindness and the Philosophical Origins of Modern Racism,” Journal of Religious Thought 46, no. 1 (Summer–Fall 1989): 45.

[167] However, due to the subjective challenges involved in defining ethnicity, there is movement toward speaking of “identity” instead when discussing groups in antiquity. For a discussion on this debate, see Caroline Hubschmann, “Searching for the ‘Archaeologically Invisible’: Libyans in Dakhleh Oasis in the Third Intermediate Period,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 46 (2010): 173–87.

[168] Barth, “Introduction,” in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), 9–38. However, for a strong critique of many of Barth’s proposals and assumptions, see Marek Jakoubek, “A breakthrough of Ethnic Groups and Boundaries–Reality or a Myth? (On Amnesia in Ethnicity Studies),” Ethnicities 22, no. 2 (2022): 177–95.

[169] See Siân Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present (London: Routledge, 1997), 100.

[170] For a useful discussion on how ethnicities are constructed and viewed externally, see Geoff Emberling, “Ethnicity in Complex Societies: Archaeological Perspectives,” Journal of Archaeological Research 5, no. 4 (December 1997): 295–344.

[171] Barth, “Introduction,” 10.

[172] Bahrani, “Race and Ethnicity,” 51.

[173] See S. Rebecca Martin, “Ethnicity and Greek Art History in Theory and Practice,” in Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Ancient Greece: Manipulating Material Culture, ed. Lisa C. Nevett (University of Michigan Press, 2017), 143–63, esp. 145.

[174] Lloyd A. Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 19. While Thompson disavowed charges of “racism” in the Roman world, he accepted “expressions of conformism to the dominant aesthetic values” and “ethnocentric reactions to black otherness.” Thompson, 19.

[175] Byron, Symbolic Blackness, 23.

[176] Sproat has similarly concluded that “references to various-colored peoples in the Book of Mormon refer to varying levels of spiritually symbolic darkness (wickedness) or lightness (righteousness) rather than to flesh pigmentation.” Sproat, “Skins as Garments,” 145.

[177] Gifford Charles Alphaeus Rhamie, “Whiteness, Conviviality and Agency: The Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26–40) and Conceptuality in the Imperial Imagination of Biblical Studies” (PhD diss., Canterbury Christ Church University, 2019), 139.

[178] Russell W. Stevenson, “Reckoning with Race in the Book of Mormon: A Review of Literature,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 27, no. 1 (2018): 218.

[179] Byron, Symbolic Blackness, 23; emphasis added.

[180] Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Vintage, 2007), 98–99. Bushman further states, “The fact that [the Lamanites] are Israel, the chosen of God, adds a level of complexity to the Book of Mormon that simple racism does not explain. . . . The book champions the Indians’ place in world history, assigning them a more glorious future than modern American whites. . . . According to the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites are destined to be restored to favor with God and given this land, just as Jews are to be restored to the Holy Land.” Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 98.

[181] See Tvedtnes, “Charge of ‘Racism,’” 190–91.

[182] David M. Belnap, “The Inclusive, Anti-Discrimination Message of the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter 42 (2021): 204.

[183] For two excellent studies that show the remarkable degree to which the text emphasizes and exemplifies inclusiveness, see Belnap, “Inclusive, Anti-Discrimination Message”; and Stevenson, “Reckoning with Race,” 210–25.

[184] Holland, “The Other Prodigal,” Ensign, May 2002, 64; emphasis in original.