Zelph - The White Lamanite

     Years ago, a Mormon friend of mine said that Native Americans on the reservation would get a lighter skin color when they became good Mormons.  I wondered where she got such an outlandish, crazy idea.  Mormon scripture certainly has a different view of race.  2 Nephi 5:21 says, "And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity.  For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."  Surprisingly, the Book of Mormon calls dark skin a curse!  Jacob 3:5 also mentions the dark skin curse, "Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins,..."  Jacob 3:8 says, "...O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God."  (In the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites were Indians and the Nephites were white people.) 
     Alma 3:6-9 says, "And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren,... and the Lord set a mark upon them, yea, upon Laman and Lemuel, and also the sons of Ishmael, and Ishmaelitish women.  And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preserve his people, that they might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction.  And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed."  3 Nephi 2:14-16 seems to give us the opposite message:  "And it came to pass that those Lamanites who had united with the Nephites were numbered among the Nephites; And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites;  And their young men and their daughters became exceedingly fair, and they were numbered among the Nephites, and were called Nephites...." 
     In the History of the Church 2:79-80, Joseph Smith found a skeleton and said it was Zelph:  "I discovered that the person whose skeleton was before us was a white Lamanite, a large, thick-set man, and a man of God.  His name was Zelph.  He was a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Onandagus, who was known from the Hill Cumorah, or eastern sea to the Rocky mountains.  The curse was taken from Zelph,..." 
     On the contrary, in I Samuel 16:7, we find that the God of the Bible looks at the heart:  "...for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."  James 2:1-9 tells us that it is a sin to show favoritism based on outward appearances.