Mormons: DNA Shows that Native North Americans were Never Jewish. What is your Response to This?

[Jose Fly]

By using Joseph Smith's opinions as the basis for your interpretation of the intent behind the Book of Mormon, you imply that the BoM is false generally. Then, you use this as part of the basis for your argument that the BoM is false on the issue of the "Lamanites". This is begging the question.

You're really reaching there. Fine, change "what Joseph Smith meant" to "what the Book of Mormon means".

You're reading way too much into a comment that was much more casual than you realized.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You're really reaching there. Fine, change "what Joseph Smith meant" to "what the Book of Mormon means".

Then you lose the basis for your conclusion.

You're reading way too much into a comment that was much more casual than you realized.

Maybe. I suppose I did jump on you a bit. I'm just a bit annoyed at the quality of argument going on in this thread; sorry if I took it all out on you.

 

[enchanted_one1975]

With any Abrahamic religion you just discard the evidence that you do not like and retain that which you do like. I will not single out any one religion but I am sure you guys have seen this before. I mean look at how many books of the bible are ignored because they conflict with the beliefs of a particular church. HERESY!

 

[Jose Fly]

Then you lose the basis for your conclusion.

Not at all. It's either "It's quite clear from the text that Joseph Smith meant that American Indians at his time were Lamanites" or "It's quite clear from the text that the Book of Mormon states that the American Indians at the time of Joseph Smith were Lamanites".

Either way, the point remains the same. A plain reading of the Book of Mormon shows that "Lamanites" and "American Indians" are interchangeable terms, which explains why prior to 2006, the LDS leadership had no problem with the introduction saying that the Lamanites were the "principal ancestors to the American Indians".

Maybe. I suppose I did jump on you a bit. I'm just a bit annoyed at the quality of argument going on in this thread; sorry if I took it all out on you.

I guess I don't see what the problem is at all. IMO, this isn't too difficult of an issue. The BoM seems to make it pretty clear that American Indians and Lamanites are one and the same. This plain reading is further substantiated by LDS leaders (many of whom were/are considered prophets by the LDS) making direct claims about Native Americans (and even Polynesians) being Lamanites. It's even further substantiated by the pre-2006 introduction, surely reviewed and approved by the most senior LDS officials, clearly stating that Lamanites are the "principal ancestors of the American Indians".

As a whole, the preponderance of the evidence all points to the exact same conclusion.

The problem is, the genetic, archeological, linguistic, and all other scientific and historical data don't support this in any way, shape, or form, and can easily be seen to be in direct contradiction to Mormon lore.

Sure, LDS faithful are going to construct all sorts of reasons to waive away and excuse the data (or lack of data), and they're going to add all sorts of scenarios that aren't at all in the scriptures. That's no different than the apologetics of any other religion....which is my point.

 

[Autodidact]

Well, who did they have babies with? All the women on the boat were sisters, so all the children of that initial group would have been first cousins.

Lehi, his wife Sariah, and their children leave Jerusalem and travel southward. Lehi’s four oldest sons, Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephite, are sent back to Jerusalem to obtain the Hebrew scriptures and other writings, as well as to bring Ishmael and his family to join Lehi’s group. Lehi’s group travels south through what is now Saudi Arabia and then east to the shore of the Arabian Sea. There they build boats and travel to the western hemisphere.
After arriving in the Americas, Lehi dies and the family group splits into two factions: the Lamanites (those following the eldest son Laman) and the Nephites (those following the righteous, younger son Nephi).

[FAIR]

They had babies with Nephi's brethren.

If you say so, but on this issue, how do you know?

I don't know, that's what the LDS position is arguing. They say the BoM is NOT the history of the American Indians, and today's Indians are not the Lamanites. Smith and every other prophet says different. So either they're wrong, or Smith and the prophets are wrong.

Is it valid to conclude that if no Jewish mitochondrial DNA is found in a living population, then the population necessarily does not contain descendents of a group of a couple dozen Jews more than 2 millenia ago?

First, at a minimum, it certainly is NOT evidence that they are. After that, before we can determine whether the BoM is right or wrong, we would first have to figure out what the heck it says. Unfortunately it is written in such a turgid and flabby style that this is difficult. (which calls it into question as a source of anything helpful.) Once the Mormons figure out what they think it says, then we can figure out whether it's true or not.

What happens is, the LDS leadership (remember, receivers of divine revelation) say it means X. Then science shows that X is false. Then they decided that it meant Y all along, and they're sorry a few misguided souls misinterpreted it, but it's still true, because it actually says Y. Rinse and repeat.

In this way, they preserve the purported validity of the book, but at the cost of their own credibility, and one of their key religious doctrines, the divine inspiration of the leaders who were reading it all wrong, including Joseph Smith.

... are all tangential to the immediate question of whether DNA evidence shows that the Book of Mormon is false.

I think the more important question is whether all the evidence shows that the BoM is false. It does, yet millions of Mormons continue to believe it. I think that's interesting.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Not at all. It's either "It's quite clear from the text that Joseph Smith meant that American Indians at his time were Lamanites" or "It's quite clear from the text that the Book of Mormon states that the American Indians at the time of Joseph Smith were Lamanites"



Either way, the point remains the same. A plain reading of the Book of Mormon shows that "Lamanites" and "American Indians" are interchangeable terms, which explains why prior to 2006, the LDS leadership had no problem with the introduction saying that the Lamanites were the "principal ancestors to the American Indians".

But maybe it's in the wording or the interpretation of the quote that seems to be ambiguous.

"The Lamanites are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."

Wouldn't that just mean ("the main ancestor")....but could be construed to also mean...(not the only ancestors of....).....?

Just asking...not debating. I personally take issue with the BoM claims on an archeological and anthropological level...(or lack there of)....

 

[Jose Fly]

But maybe it's in the wording or the interpretation of the quote that seems to be ambiguous.

"The Lamanites are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."

Wouldn't that just mean ("the main ancestor")....but could be construed to also mean...(not the only ancestors of....).....?

By itself, maybe (although it would be an odd choice of words). But when viewed in light of all the other evidence, IMO it's very clear what that phrase meant.

 

[Autodidact]

The following is from the Salt Lake Tribune Nov. 8, 2007. [reference: Single word change in Book of Mormon speaks volumes - Salt Lake Tribune]
"Many Mormons, including several church presidents, have taught that the Americas were largely inhabited by Book of Mormon peoples. In 1971, Church President Spencer W. Kimball said that Lehi, the family patriarch, was "the ancestor of all of the Indian and Mestizo tribes in North and South and Central America and in the islands of the sea."
After testing the DNA of more than 12,000 Indians, though, most researchers have concluded that the continent's early inhabitants came from Asia across the Bering Strait.
With this change, the LDS Church is "conceding that mainstream scientific theories about the colonization of the Americas have significant elements of truth in them," said Simon Southerton, a former Mormon and author of Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church.
"DNA has revealed very clearly how closely related American Indians are to their Siberian ancestors, " Southerton said in an e-mail from his home in Canberra, Australia. "The Lamanites are invisible, not principal ancestors."



Strike one.
Next, the Lamanites, wherever they were supposed to have been from, never existed, based on the archeological, anthropological, cultural and linguistic evidence.

 

[Katzpur]

Where exactly are you getting this idea of a small population of Lamanites? The Book of Mormon describes an extremely large battle between the Lamanites and Nephites and that the Lamanites existed in North America for centuries.

There were only a couple of dozen or so people who arrived here with Lehi. There would have been a lot of intermarriage right at first, but neither the Nephite nor the Lamanite nations would have grown to be as large as they ultimately became had there not been intermarriage fairly early on.

 

[Katzpur]

How do you know what names I would or wouldn't recognize?

Just a educated guess, I suppose. Do the names M. Russell Ballard, L. Tom Perry and Dallin H. Oaks mean anything to you? (I meant without googling them, Jose.)

What if it was someone the LDS Church considered to be a prophet?

What if it was? You seem to think we consider our prophets to be infallible if not omnipotent. That isn't the case and it never has been, not even in Joseph Smith's day.

I know those topics quite well.

I see. Well then why don't you talk like you do? I haven't seen you discuss them. If they aren't pertinent to our discussion, perhaps you could at least explain why, because I see them as very significant factors.

If they have female descendants who survive today, then their mtDNA would be easily detectable.

Okay, well this tells me you clearly don't understand after all. It's not about the female descendants who survive today at all. If you think it is, we need to go back to square one and start over.

I'll try one more time to explain this. Let's say we have a man of Jewish descent who marries a woman of Asian descent. Not one of that man's descendents, whether we're talking the first generation or the hundredth generation, would have his mtDTA. His children would have their mother's mtDNA. Period. There are no exceptions to this rule. It's not about the female descendents who survive today.

And as the Mormon god said through Joseph Smith and Brigham Young also stated, the Native Americans living just a couple of generations ago were Lamanites. Thus, one would absolutely expect to easily be able to identify their unique genetic markers.

Neither Joseph nor Brigham were alive a couple of generations ago. That aside, why don't you explain to me just how one would be able to so easily identify their unique genetic markers. You tell me this is all a part of your field and yet everything you say contradicts that.

???????? Seriously? So you're saying that if entire races of people, most of whom still exist to this day were of a specific ancestry a handful of generations ago, you wouldn't expect to find any traces of that ancestry in their genetics? Huh?

Seriously, yes! If Lehi's group had been the only people to be living on the American continent, or had even grown to be a fairly large group before intermarrying, we could undoubtedly expect to see some genetic traces of their lineage, but they weren't, and so we don't.

Except we know that the Mormon god stated very clearly through Joseph Smith that the Native Americans in the western US at that time were Lamanites. Was that wrong?

No, it wasn't "wrong," but it may be misleading, at least the way you're interpreting it. If you were to go to Germany today, you would call the people you came into contact with there "Germans." Well, maybe they wouldn't be Germans at all. Maybe they'd be Austrians or Swiss. It's true that even today, we LDS use the term "Lamanite" in a very general sense to mean "Native Americans." Technically, we're wrong in doing so, but we're doing nothing different than you'd be doing by referring to a person whose grandparents were Austrian but whose family had migrated to Germany a couple of generations ago as "German."

There are a handful of nuclear DNA analyses from skeletal remains and extant individuals (EDIT: A little checking turns up more than I was aware of, and none of them indicate anything like a middle eastern ancestry for any Native American group).

I'm not the slightest bit surprised. I'd be surprised, on the other hand, if they did.

It's called statistical sampling. As long as proper procedures are followed, you can be reasonably sure you're getting a representative sample of the population.

You need to do a bit more research before you make a statement you cannot substantiate.

Supporting data? Woo hoo! We were right!!

Why do I feel like I'm debating with an eight year old?

 

[Katzpur]

OK. I'm not asking you to justify yourself. Having read a lot of your posts I doubt that your beliefs are a matter of blind acceptance.

Thank you. I can thank my parents for teaching me not to believe everything I was ever told.

I'm sure you know what you know and what you don't as well, or better, than most.

I'm very painfully aware of what I don't know. I do know one thing, though. I wouldn't pick up an article on a topic I really didn't have any background on and throw out the title as a definitive statement of fact, possibly without even reading the article.

 

[DoctorAnswerMan]

I glanced across the lead post and the rest of the front page. Did someone somewhere post the info or link to the info regarding the DNA findings and research this thread seems to be referring to? (BTW, I am not LDS, but I would love to read the reports. I had not heard this info before.)

 

[Katzpur]

Yes, I agree he is, and he certainly seems to be invoking prophetic authority in doing so.

Katzpur or other Mormons: what's your take on this? It seems to me that there have been two explanations alluded to in this thread, but they seem mutually exclusive to me:

- Most modern-day Native Americans aren't "Lamanites". The surviving Lamanites are a small group... if they survive at all today.

- Modern-day Native Americans are "Lamanites", but through intermarriage with the indigenous peoples, their DNA no longer has the markers that were common in ancient Jewish peoples.

It seems to me that only the second explanation can be reconciled with Joseph Smith's statement that Jose Fly gave us.

As I just explained to Jose, if you were to go to Germany today, you would call the people you came into contact with there "Germans." Well, maybe they wouldn't be Germans at all. Maybe they'd be Austrians or Swiss. It's true that even today, we LDS use the term "Lamanite" in a very general sense to mean "Native Americans." Technically, we're wrong in doing so, but we're doing nothing different than you'd be doing by referring to a person whose grandparents were Austrian but whose family had migrated to Germany a couple of generations ago as "German." Does that make sense? (I'd say your second explanation is reasonably accurate.)

Well, they'd have no need to look for others until they had reason to think that their original interpretation was wrong. While I do have issues with certain aspects of Mormon doctrine, I don't fault them for re-evaluating their prior assumptions when facts come to light that conflict with them, since this is something that I think all of us do.

Thanks. I appreciate that.

 

[Katzpur]

EDIT: I'm rewording this first sentence from "I'm letting you win" to "I'm throwing in the towel". I just realized what it sounded like, and I didn't mean it that way.

...because it's not worth my time anymore.

Well, it's getting to the point where it's not worth my time either, but at least I did respond to your OP and I didn't see you even attempting to defend your position.

If you honestly can ignore the absence of DNA, cement buildings, weapons of war, cities and the altering of interpretation of the texts, I already know that your wall of credulity is unbreakable. I hand victory over to you.

I'm sorry, I obviously missed the part where you asked me to address cement buildings, weapons of war and cities. I thought we were just talking about DNA. I didn't realize this was supposed to be a free-for-all, time-to-bash-the-Mormons-again thread. As far as "altering the interpretation of the texts," you're being silly. We are talking about one phrase in an introductory page to the Book of Mormon. It was never, ever claimed that this introduction was inspired. It was written by a man or men who were expressing what they believed at the time, but what is not believed today. As a church, we really don't stand a chance when we'd be criticized just as harshly for changing something and we would for not changing it. We can't possibly win either way.

As for you handing victory to me, thanks but no thanks. An earnest, "Thank you. You've raised some good points. I disagree with your conclusion, but at least I'll give you credit for presenting some facts I was unaware of," would mean a lot more than a ********** concession of defeat couched in sarcasm. To me, victory means earning people's respect, even though they may disagree with my position, and I realize I'm a long, long way from achieving that goal.

That said, I think I've had about all the fun I'm in the mood for for the time being. I'm sure this topic will come up again, though, and when it does, I'm sure I will have probably forgotten how pleasant it always is to be considered uninformed, ignorant and blissfully naive. I'll probably jump right in to the fray before it all starts coming back to me. Anyway, you all have fun. I'm sure you can keep this thread going very well without me.

 

[Autodidact]

There were only a couple of dozen or so people who arrived here with Lehi. There would have been a lot of intermarriage right at first, but neither the Nephite nor the Lamanite nations would have grown to be as large as they ultimately became had there not been intermarriage fairly early on.

*sigh* Or, again, the simple explanation. There were no Nephite or Lamanite nations. That's the only explanation that accounts for all the data.

 

[DoctorAnswerMan]

Well, it's getting to the point where it's not worth my time either, but at least I did respond to your OP and I didn't see you even attempting to defend your position.

I'm sorry, I obviously missed the part where you asked me to address cement buildings, weapons of war and cities. I thought we were just talking about DNA. I didn't realize this was supposed to be a free-for-all, time-to-bash-the-Mormons-again thread. As far as "altering the interpretation of the texts," you're being silly. We are talking about one phrase in an introductory page to the Book of Mormon. It was never, ever claimed that this introduction was inspired. It was written by a man or men who were expressing what they believed at the time, but what is not believed today. As a church, we really don't stand a chance when we'd be criticized just as harshly for changing something and we would for not changing it. We can't possibly win either way.

As for you handing victory to me, thanks but no thanks. An earnest, "Thank you. You've raised some good points. I disagree with your conclusion, but at least I'll give you credit for presenting some facts I was unaware of," would mean a lot more than a ********** concession of defeat couched in sarcasm. To me, victory means earning people's respect, even though they may disagree with my position, and I realize I'm a long, long way from achieving that goal.

Well spoken. The most important and often the most overlooked facet of conversation is communication. For this to occur, respect must be held by all parties and for all parties at the conclusion of the matter.

Our words may often be wielded like swords, especially if we zealously seek to make a point (yes, I know - sorry). But if used thus we are better served when we view the sword as a surgeon's scalpel. Careful selection, thoughtful execution - with the goal of bettering the recipient - must be the overarching directives. The goal of real conversation - on the surface - is to convey an idea and/or overcome or change the idea of another. An idea is a mental contrivance. But the true goal of meaningful conversation is to reach past the mind and touch the heart. Sarcasm, while useful in its place, destroys the path of communication from the brain to the heart if its application is not very sparingly and carefully applied. Sarcasm, improperly applied, transforms communication to insult, the surgeon's scalpel into the blunt sword of a marauder.

While I may not agree with any of the comments or beliefs of the participants of this thread, I tip my hat to Katzpur for form and demeanor. We dignify our message best, no matter how controversial, by how we respond to opposition. So, once again, well spoken.

(BTW, I am very new here, so I apologize if I seem a bit silly. But I do enjoy - thus far - the general attitude here. Good show! This was fun. Thanks for letting me 'hang out.')

 

[Autodidact]

Well spoken. The most important and often the most overlooked facet of conversation is communication. For this to occur, respect must be held by all parties and for all parties at the conclusion of the matter.

Our words may often be wielded like swords, especially if we zealously seek to make a point (yes, I know - sorry). But if used thus we are better served when we view the sword as a surgeon's scalpel. Careful selection, thoughtful execution - with the goal of bettering the recipient - must be the overarching directives. The goal of real conversation - on the surface - is to convey an idea and/or overcome or change the idea of another. An idea is a mental contrivance. But the true goal of meaningful conversation is to reach past the mind and touch the heart. Sarcasm, while useful in its place, destroys the path of communication from the brain to the heart if its application is not very sparingly and carefully applied. Sarcasm, improperly applied, transforms communication to insult, the surgeon's scalpel into the blunt sword of a marauder.

While I may not agree with any of the comments or beliefs of the participants of this thread, I tip my hat to Katzpur for form and demeanor. We dignify our message best, no matter how controversial, by how we respond to opposition. So, once again, well spoken.

(BTW, I am very new here, so I apologize if I seem a bit silly. But I do enjoy - thus far - the general attitude here. Good show! This was fun. Thanks for letting me 'hang out.')

Unless you respond to it by putting it on ignore.

 

[DoctorAnswerMan]

*sigh* Or, again, the simple explanation. There were no Nephite or Lamanite nations. That's the only explanation that accounts for all the data.

What a great name. Auto Didact. Wonderful!

 

[Autodidact]

Thanks.
p.s. and then swearing at the person you're ignoring, merely for listing the facts.. That is rather revealing as well.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

They had babies with Nephi's brethren.

I was talking about after that. Nephi and his brothers married Ishmael's daughters and (presumably) had a bunch of kids. Who did these kids, who were all first cousins, marry?

I don't know, that's what the LDS position is arguing. They say the BoM is NOT the history of the American Indians, and today's Indians are not the Lamanites. Smith and every other prophet says different. So either they're wrong, or Smith and the prophets are wrong.

I'm not sure who's said this, but I don't think it's relevant to the OP. Is there positive genetic evidence that demonstrates that Native Americans weren't descended from Jews?

I put long odds on this actually happening myself, but so far, I haven't actually seen anything like this presented in this thread.

First, at a minimum, it certainly is NOT evidence that they are.

Of course not. But it's not positive evidence they aren't either, and this thread is about positive evidence against the idea, not a lack of evidence for it.

After that, before we can determine whether the BoM is right or wrong, we would first have to figure out what the heck it says. Unfortunately it is written in such a turgid and flabby style that this is difficult. (which calls it into question as a source of anything helpful.) Once the Mormons figure out what they think it says, then we can figure out whether it's true or not.

Let's set that aside for the moment; how about the claim in the title of the thread?

DNA Shows that Native North Americans were Never Jewish

This seems to me to be quite clearly worded, so we should be able to have an intelligent discussion about whether or not it's true. Once we've decided one way or the other, then we can deal with the implications for Mormon theology. Doing things in the opposite order is kinda putting the cart before the horse.

What happens is, the LDS leadership (remember, receivers of divine revelation) say it means X. Then science shows that X is false.

Does it? Exactly how does science show it's false?