In the booklet titled Children of the Covenant (the front cover shown below), in the very first three pages it show images of the Viking god Odin and then references my ancestors the Viking Norseman of Scandinavia. You then read in the booklet that it's basically arguing that a large portion of the first Mormons were Germans, British, and Scandinavians. It doesn't argue that Odin was a literal God but was a god-concept based on a real historical person of Scandinavian descent. So it is basically venerating and honoring my Scandinavian (Viking) ancestry and how it contributed to the growth of the Mormon People. Here are some photos I took of the cover of the booklet and the first few pages:
Click images to enlarge
I am not aware of any other Christian sect that has spoken this positively of my Scandinavian ancestors. I mean just compare these images that are a clear form of what's often called Muscular Christianity with the Evangelical Christian YouTuber named Ruslan admitting that most churches have feminizing idea that masculine men find off putting. See: "Has the Church Become TOO Feminized? (that Premiered Aug 26, 2022). I quote excerpts from Ruslan's video and discuss it more detail here. In brief, Ruslan admits their is a problem with the feminization of men in many Christian churches. From this perspective, I see early Mormonism as a theo-philosophy seeking to re-masculinize Christian men.
Note: I do not believe in, support, or endorse, every teaching in this booklet mentioned above as the booklet unfortunately includes some of the now outdated interpretations regarding the Lamanites' "skin" which the LDS Church today disavows: see the LDS Church's 2013 essay Race and the Priesthood available online. Also see my post: Disclaimer Regarding The Utah Genealogical Society & "Mormon Israelism". Despite my rejection of some of the content in this booklet, my opinion is that just because the booklet got some things wrong does not mean that it got nothing right or that everything else in the booklet is wrong. What I think the booklet gets right is that those of British, German, and Scandinavian descent, should be proud of their Proto-Indo-European ethnolinguistic culture and ancestry; and no this does not mean feeling racially superior based on the silly idea that one's skin color makes someone better or purer. I am not advocating any so-called skin color as superior or purer to any other which is racist and wrong. Again, see my Disclaimer Regarding The Utah Genealogical Society & "Mormon Israelism".
Having said that, let's return to the pro-European imagery in this booklet and the photos I provided above. Note that the images above of "The Hardy Vikings" shows them with what looks like horned helmets (or winged helmets) from the booklet, which is actually historically inaccurate: as it is based on a common tradition among artist of the 1800s depicting Vikings in such a way. Note that this "horned helmet" idea is an nonhistorical artistic tradition that was carried over into Mormon art: for example in the painting Mormon Bids Farewell to a Once Great Nation by Arnold Friberg below:
(Source)
Here is the image from the booklet again below to compare to Friberg's use of a Viking horned helmet (click on image to enlarge):
Given this early tradition of revering the Vikings, it is not surprising that the group The Joseph Smith Foundation is presenting the speculative view that the Nephites escaped extinction at the end of The Book of Mormon and sailed to Scandinavia to mix their Israelite Nephite genes with the genes of the Vikings (or Scandinavians). See their documentary Nephites in Europe. Also see their YouTube video You Were Likely a Nephite. I discuss their documentary here.
Scandinavians like myself, who received an LDS patriarchal blessing are most often said to be of the Tribe of Ephraim, one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Yet my DNA does not show any Israelite lineage. I am 100% European, mostly Scandinavian with a mix of British and German DNA. But it does not matter to me if it is not scientifically (i.e. genetically) true or not, for all religion to me is a form of poetry or parable and midrash as a form of "tribal identity formation" and a binding Ethos. As I see it, the Apostle Paul saw Germanic Scandinavians like me as absent from the story of Israel. For, as we see recorded in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) the ethnic Tribe of the Israelites and the Israelite deity had nothing to do with my people over in the Northern countries. The apostle Paul believed that all peoples (ethnicities or nations) would be grafted into Israel at the End of Days, so his whole theology is about grafting into Israel those like me through supernatural Gene Swapping.
Joseph Smith, on the other hand, who is of British and Irish descent (a fellow European like me), presents a different version of Christianity than Pauline Christianity through his Irish American eyes: wherein, through his scriptural revelations, Joseph Smith basically presents himself as being of the Israelite Tribe of Joseph, and thus he made it so he was not "inferior" to other Israelites as an Irish American. Thus, Joseph Smith was no longer in need of gene swapping out his European genes and being grafted in genetically into Israel. Instead, through an appeal to revelation and scripture formation, Joseph Smith declared that he was already from one of the Israelite Tribes and already a member of the "Chosen People." This is a core idea in "Restored Christianity" (or Mormonism).
Joseph Smith explained that only those who are not of the blood of the Lost Tribes of Israel and thus are more fully Gentile, would be in need of gene swapping, that is being grafted into the Israelite ethnic tribe by spiritual adoption through literal gene replacement therapy (the actual turning their blood and ethnic code from a Gentile into an Israelite by blood). In my post on Paul's idea of gene swapping, I explain how Joseph Smith understood what Paul actually meant in the New Testament, and so Smith also describes the transformation of a Gentile into an Israelite "in Christ," as a literal purging out of their Gentile lineage through the Holy Ghost. This was the case with most Christians not born Jewish or Israelite. But Joseph Smith elevated Mormons to a higher status by making it so anyone not born Jewish who converted to Mormonism were deemed one of the Lost Tribes of Israel and thus were Israelites even if they didn't know it. Since most of those who converted to Mormonism were given patriarchal blessings that said they were of the Tribe of Ephraim or Manasseh, they did not need to undergo this purging out of their "old Gentile blood" but were seen as already sufficiently Israelite by blood as LDS members. For their Mormon conversion automatically revealed that they were all along one of the Lost Tribes of Israel (usually from the Tribes of Ephraim or Manasseh).
So in Mormon-Christianity, Joseph Smith began the doctrine that most who are baptized Mormon are one of the Lost Tribes of Israel (regardless of what their DNA actually says scientifically). As I see it, this is a form of midrashic religion-making, designed by Smith to restore a sense of self-esteem to Americans of Indo-European descent. For in LDS Christianity, they were not to see themselves as inferior or second class citizens to the Tribes of Judah (and others) in Jerusalem, by needing to be grafted in and their genes swapped out and replaced; but instead, in Mormonism they already had a mix of Israelite DNA as Europeans in America.
As the Prophet of the Restoration, Joseph Smith was establishing a new role and identity for European Americans by placing them as a central focal point in God's dealings in the world. Instead of only the Tribe of Judah (and others) being considered the "Chosen People" (as found in the Bible), Joseph Smith had expanded that elevated identity as God's chosen, to include European Americans and Native Americans and anyone else declared a member of the Lost Tribes of Israel in their patriarchal blessing; and instead of Jerusalem being seen as the central focal point of God's central locale and a place of holy sites, Joseph Smith had presented North America as a place with equally important holy sites, with for example Adam-ondi-Ahman and the Temple Lot (both in Missouri). So rather the Bible deity focused only on a specific place (Jerusalem and surrounding areas) and a specific ethnicity (Jews like those of the Tribe Judah), and Jesus going only to his fellow Jews while alive. In Joseph Smith's revelations, after his resurrection Jesus visits North America and people on the American continent become Jesus' disciples, and thus Christ becomes essentially an American God as much as a Middle Eastern God. So that Native Americans and Europeans in North America were to be part of God's chosen people as well as those in Jerusalem. As the 10th Article of Faith declares as a central doctrine of Mormonism: "We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; ..." (emphasis added). In other words, what some see as nonhistorical legends about the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, Joseph Smith had elevated to "scripture truth" through his revelations. So that a core idea in Mormonism is that 19th century European American Mormons were included in the biblical drama as noble and powerful members of the Chosen People who will gather all the Israelite Lost Tribes in North America.
