Hebrew DNA found in South America? [OPEN]

Was Hebrew DNA recently found in American Indian populations in South America? According to Scott R. Woodward, executive director of Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, a DNA marker, called the "Cohen modal haplotype," sometimes associated with Hebrew people, has been found in Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia.

But it probably has nothing to do with the Book of Mormon -- at least not directly.

For years several critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of the Book of Mormon have claimed that the lack of Hebrew DNA markers in living Native American populations is evidence the book can't be true. They say the book's description of ancient immigrations of Israelites is fictional.

"But," said Woodward, "as Hugh Nibley used to say, 'Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.' "

Critic Thomas Murphy, for example, wrote in one article about how the Cohen modal haplotype had been found in the Lemba clan in Africa. The Lemba clan's oral tradition claims it has Jewish ancestors.

Murphy then complained, "If the (Book of Mormon) documented actual Israelite migrations to the New World, then one would expect to find similar evidence to that found in a Lemba clan in one or more Native American populations. Such evidence, however, has not been forthcoming."

So will Murphy and other critics use this new evidence of Hebrew DNA markers to prove the Book of Mormon is correct? Probably not. But neither should anyone else.

According to Woodward, the way critics have used DNA studies to attack the Book of Mormon is "clearly wrong." And it would be equally wrong to use similar DNA evidence to try to prove it.

According to Woodward, while forensic DNA (popularized in TV shows like "CSI") looks for the sections of DNA that vary greatly from individual to individual, the sections of DNA used for studying large groups are much smaller and do not change from individual to individual.

Studies using this second type of DNA yield differing levels of reliability or, as Woodward calls it, "resolution."

At a lower resolution the confidence in the results goes down. At higher resolution confidence goes up in the results.

The critics' problem now is what they do with the low-resolution discovery of Hebrew DNA in American Indian populations.

For people who believe that the Book of Mormon is a true account, the problem is to resist the temptation to misuse this new discovery.

Woodward says that most likely, when higher-resolution tests are used, we will learn that the Hebrew DNA in native populations can be traced to conquistadors whose ancestors intermarried with Jewish people in Spain or even more modern migrations.

Ironically, it is the misuse of evidence that gave critics fuel to make their DNA arguments in the first place. According to Woodward, the critics are attacking the straw man that all American Indians are only descendants of the migrations described in the Book of Mormon and from no other source.

Although some Latter-day Saints have assumed this was the case, this is not a claim the Book of Mormon itself actually makes. Scholars have argued for more than 50 years that the book allows for the migrations meeting an existing population.

This completely undermines the critics' conclusions. They argue with evangelic zeal that the Book of Mormon demands that no other DNA came to America but from Book of Mormon groups.

Woodward also sees that it is essential to read the Book of Mormon story closely to understand what type of DNA the Book of Mormon people would have had. The Book of Mormon describes different migrations to the New World. The most prominent account is the 600-B.C. departure from Jerusalem of a small group led by a prophet named Lehi. But determining Lehi's DNA is difficult because the book claims he is not even Jewish, but a descendant of the biblical Joseph.

According to Woodward, even if you assume we knew what DNA to look for, finding DNA evidence of Book of Mormon people may be very difficult. When a small group of people intermarry into a large population, the DNA markers that might identify their descendants could entirely disappear -- even though their genealogical descendants could number in the millions.

This means it is possible that almost every American Indian alive today could be genealogically related to Lehi's family but still retain no identifiable DNA marker to prove it. In other words, you could be related genealogically to and perhaps even feel a spiritual kinship with an ancestor but still not have any vestige of his DNA.

"I don't dismiss the possibility," said Woodward, "but the probability is pretty low."

Woodward speculated about it, imagining he were able to identify pieces of DNA that would be part of Lehi's gene pool. Then, imagine if a match was found in the Native American population.

But even then, Woodward would be cautious. "It could have been other people who share the same (DNA) markers," said Woodward about the imaginary scenario.

"It's an amazingly complex picture. To think that you can prove (group relationships) like you can use DNA to identify a (criminal) is not on the same scale of scientific inquiry."

Like the Book of Mormon itself, from records buried for centuries in the Hill Cumorah, genetic "proof" may remain hid up unto the Lord.

The following has been adapted from

http://www.irr.org/mit/lamanites-dna-bom.html

They go into far greater details than I in the following abridgement.

Introduction

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) teaches that the literary work dictated by Joseph Smith – known as the Book of Mormon – is an ancient historical record that recounts the origins of Native American peoples. Groups of migrating Hebrews left Israel, traveled to the Americas and:

“After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians” (Introduction to the Book of Mormon – every English edition since 1981).

According to noted Mormon sociologist and historian Armand L. Mauss, -
“Since the very founding of the church in 1830, Mormons had believed that North American Indians were Lamanites, described by the Book of Mormon as literal Israelites, the seed of Abraham, who would flock to the church as lost sheep responding to the voice of the true Shepherd of Israel and would actually take the initiative in building a New Jerusalem on the American continent.”1

Mormon leaders over the years have also taught that these supposed Book of Mormon people called Lamanites are the ancestors of Native American peoples from Alaska to Argentina as well as the native inhabitants of the Polynesian islands.2 Thus, Mormon leaders have taught that millions of modern-day Native Americans and Polynesians are direct descendants of Hebrews who migrated to the New World and as such they are also Lamanites, since they descended from the last surviving people mentioned in the Book of Mormon by the same name.3

However, the Book of Mormon story is challenged on multiple scientific fronts. There is no credible evidence that a small band of migrating Israelites populated the Americas with millions of people, generated an iron-age culture, built many buildings, and fought massive wars with thousands of casualties. To the contrary, for nearly 100 years archaeologists, biologists and linguists have presented evidence that: “physical similarities, cultural and linguistic ties and archeological and molecular data all indicate a Siberian/Asiatic origin for Native Americans, not a Hebrew one.”4 In addition, DNA studies used to trace the ancestry of Native American peoples support the conclusions of scientists in other fields and together the evidence raises serious questions about the veracity of the Book of Mormon and the historical and theological authenticity of the Mormon faith in general.

Starting with the Common Ground

Mormon apologists and scholars agree with their non-Mormon counterparts on the basic facts and scientific evidence. For example, there is general agreement that:

1. DNA studies done to determine the genetic background of American Indians do not support the traditional Mormon teaching that Amerindians are of primarily Hebrew descent.

2. Many Mormon leaders, including Mormon Prophets and Apostles, have held and taught views regarding both the geography and people of the Book of Mormon that scientific evidences show to be false.

3. Many Mormon people today continue to hold the erroneous and scientifically unsustainable views taught by their leaders.

There is then, significant common ground when it comes to the scientific data. The facts are not the issue, but rather how one relates the scientific evidence to what past and present Mormon leaders have taught.

A Question of Revelation

. . . DNA evidence has simply showed that past prophetic teachings on the subject of the Lamanites is in error and such teachings are no longer relevant for today. A new understanding of the Book of Mormon and new teaching from the Brethren will soon emerge that take into account the latest scientific findings.5

However, if the Mormon Church is the only true church on the face of the earth and the only source for God-given modern-day revelation, and if indeed it is the only religion with authority and ability to bring man into a right relationship with God, then the teachings of these divinely inspired prophets and apostles are both absolutely true and absolutely essential for all people. Since the claimed source for such teaching is God Himself, any error in the teaching of Mormon leaders undermines the credibility of their claim to speak in His name.

What must be understood at the outset is that no faith community can have it both ways. Either there is God-to-man revelation with objective content coming through divinely appointed and inspired leaders or there is not. The Mormon Church has canonized the assertion that the Lord will never allow the Prophet to lead others astray (D&C Declaration I). The question is: Has he? Can official teachings and Scriptural interpretations be set aside or deemed erroneous without invalidating the authority of those making them? This is crucial to the discussion of scientific evidence and the Book of Mormon.

Context and backdrop

For the past 175 years the Mormon Church has taught that Native Americans from Alaska to Argentina were direct descendants of the Book of Mormon Lamanites. This has been done in both official and unofficial contexts. Since the early 1850s Mormons speculated that Polynesians were also descendants of Lehi. This received prophetic approval with Brigham Young’s 1858 declaration that “Those islanders, and the natives of this country are of the House of Israel, of the seed of Abraham” (Addison Pratt, cited by Simon Southerton, Losing a Lost Tribe, p. 49). This belief in an ancestral link of Native American peoples and Polynesians to the Israelite protagonists of the Book of Mormon story persists among the vast majority of Mormons to this day. While some Mormon leaders and scholars have taught otherwise, their positions have not gained wide acceptance.6

FOOTNOTES:

1 Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage, University of Illinois Press, 1993, p. 115.

2 For example, Spencer W. Kimball, 12th Mormon president, stated, “Now the Lamanites number about sixty million; they are in all of the states of America from Tierra del Fuego [Southern Argentina] all the way up to Point Barrows [Alaska], and they are in nearly all the islands of the sea from Hawaii south to southern New Zealand (“Of Royal Blood,” Ensign, July 1971, p. 7).

3 Sandra Tanner has written a good summary of the Book of Mormon story in the Salt Lake City Messenger, Issue 103, November 2004. The whole issue is dedicated to the subject of the Lamanites and includes information on the 19th century historical context as well as some of Joseph Smith’s revelations concerning Native American peoples. It also traces Mormon teaching on this subject from Smith’s day up through the present.

4 Leavitt, Marshall and Crandall, “The Search for the Seed of Lehi: How Defining Alternative Models Helps in the Interpretation of Genetic Data,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 36:4, Winter 2003, p. 134.

5 There is growing evidence this is indeed the case but this will be dealt with toward the end of this study.

6 In past years some Mormon scholars and leaders have recognized that the popular Mormon teaching is untenable. Among those are John L. Sorenson who advocated a limited geography view in his book, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, (Deseret Book, 1985), and Mormon Apostle Dallin Oaks who claims to have been introduced to this theory in a BYU class in the early 1950s. Oaks explains:

“For me, this obvious insight goes back over forty years to the first class I took in the Book of Mormon at BYU. … Here I was introduced to the idea that the Book of Mormon is not a history of all of the people who have lived on the continents of North and South America in all ages of the earth. Up to that time, I had assumed that it was. If that were the claim of the Book of Mormon, any piece of historical, archaeological, or linguistic evidence to the contrary would weigh in against the Book of Mormon, and those who rely exclusively on scholarship would have a promising position to argue.”

In contrast, if the Book of Mormon only purports to be an account of a few peoples who inhabited a portion of the Americas during a few millennia in the past, the burden of argument changes drastically. It is no longer a question of all versus none; it is a question of some versus none. (“The Historicity of the Book of Mormon,” given at FARMS annual dinner 10/29/93, online at: http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=transcripts&id=30). To my knowledge no one has tried to reconcile Elder Oaks views with the teachings of Mormon Prophets and Presidents to the contrary.

The following has been adapted from

http://www.irr.org/mit/lamanites-dna-bom.html

They go into far greater details than I in the following abridgement.

Term “Lamanite” Defined

President Spencer W. Kimball:

“The term Lamanite includes all Indians and Indian mixtures, such as the Polynesians, the Guatemalans, the Peruvians, as well as the Sioux, the Apache, the Mohawk, the Navajo, and others. It is a large group of great people. “(“Of Royal Blood,” Ensign, July 1971, p. 7)

Ethnic origins of the Lamanites – or – Were the Lamanites really direct blood descendants of the Hebrews?

From the Book of Mormon

“And then shall the remnant of our seed know concerning us, how that we came out from Jerusalem, and that they are descendants of the Jews.” (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 30:4)

Joseph Smith
According to Joseph Smith, an angel sent from God told him that Native Americans were “literal descendants of Abraham.”

When I was about 17 years old I saw another vision of angels in the night season after I had retired to bed I had not been asleep, … all at once the room was illuminated above the brightness of the sun an angel appeared before me … he said unto me I am a messenger sent from God, be faithful and keep his commandments in all things, he told me of a sacred record which was written on plates of gold, I saw in the vision the place where they were deposited, he said the Indians were the literal descendants of Abraham (The Papers of Joseph Smith, Vol. 2, Journal, 1832-1842, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, copyright 1992 Corporation of the President, pp. 69-70).

At the grove President [Joseph] Smith addressed the Indians at some length, upon what the Lord had revealed to him concerning their forefathers, and recited to them the promises contained in the Book of Mormon respecting themselves. … How their hearts must have glowed as they listened to the prophet relate the story of their forefathers—their rise and fall; and the promises held out to them of redemption from their fallen state! (B.H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2:88-89, 1957)

President Gordon B. Hinckley

The Cochabamba Bolivia Temple was dedicated by President Gordon B. Hinckley in four sessions on 30 April 2000. In his dedicatory prayer, President Hinckley said: “This nation is named for Simón Bolívar, the great liberator of much of South America, who died the year Thy restored Church was organized. May the incomparable principle of democracy be preserved forever in this republic. We remember before Thee the sons and daughters of Father Lehi. Wilt Thou keep Thine ancient promises in their behalf. Lift from their shoulders the burdens of poverty and cause the shackles of darkness to fall from their eyes. May they rise to the glories of the past. May they recognize their Redeemer and be faithful and true Saints of the Most High.” (Remarks at the dedication of the Cochabamba, Bolivia temple, reported in “News of the Church,” Ensign, July, 2000, p. 74)

Lamanite geographic expansion – Were the Lamanites a small grouping of people confined to a limited geographic region?

Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith —
History, 1:34, Joseph Smith relates that “[Moroni] said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from which they sprang.”

Joseph Smith (1834)

In June of 1834 Joseph Smith identified a skeleton found in an Indian burial mound in Illinois as that of a Lamanite warrior named Zelph. The Zelph incident is especially significant in that Smith claimed to have made the identification by divine revelation:

“... the visions of the past being opened to my understanding by the Spirit of the Almighty, I discovered 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 ... who was known from the Hill Cumorah, or eastern sea to the Rocky mountains (History of the Church, 7 vols. (Deseret Book Co., 1946), II:79,80. See also, Times and Seasons, Vol. 6, no. 20 (Jan. 1846), p. 1076, which states that the Illinois burial mounds were “thrown up by the ancient inhabitants of this county, Nephites, Lamanites” and that “He [Zelph] was killed in battle, by the arrow found among his ribs, during the last great struggle of the Lamanites and Nephites.”

Perhaps one of the most extended critiques and outright rejection of the limited geography theory for the Book of Mormon comes from 10th Mormon President and Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith in three volume work, Doctrines of Salvation, (Bookcraft, SLC, 1956). The following quotes are excerpted from over eight pages devoted to this subject. Expanded excerpts are found in the supplemental material at the end of this paper which includes a link to this material online.

Joseph Fielding Smith

- Speculation About Book of Mormon Geography. - Within recent years there has arisen among certain students of the Book of Mormon a theory to the effect that within the period covered by the Book of Mormon, the Nephites and Lamanites were confined almost entirely within the borders of the territory comprising Central America and the southern portion of Mexico—the isthmus of Tehauntepec probably being the “narrow neck” of land spoken of in the Book of Mormon rather than the isthmus of Panama (p. 233).

- Locale Of Cumorah, Ramah, And Ripliancum. - This modernistic theory of necessity, in order to be consistent, must place the waters of Ripliancum and the Hill Cumorah some place within the restricted territory of Central America, notwithstanding the teachings of the Church to the contrary for upwards of 100 years. (p. 233)

- Early Brethren Locate Cumorah In Western New York - … the Prophet Joseph Smith himself is on record, definitely declaring the present hill called Cumorah to be the exact hill spoken of in the Book of Mormon. …. In the face of this evidence coming from the Prophet Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, we cannot say that the Nephites and Lamanites did not possess the territory of the United States and that the Hill Cumorah is in Central America. Neither can we say that the great struggle which resulted in the destruction of the Nephites took place in Central America. (pp. 234, 239-240.)

“The Savior prophesies of the temporal gathering of the house of Israel. Have a class member read 3 Nephi 16:16 and 3 Nephi 20:14 aloud. According to these verses, what specific promise did the Lord extend to the Nephites? (They would be given the lands of the Americas as an inheritance. See also 2 Nephi 1:5–7.)”

Letter from First Presidency regarding Hill Cumorah location, October 16, 1990 —

“Brother S — inquired about the location of the Hill Cumorah mentioned in the Book of Mormon, where the last battle between the Nephites and Lamanites took place.

The Church has long maintained, as attested to by references in the writings of General Authorities, that the Hill Cumorah in western New York state is the same as referenced in the Book of Mormon.”

Note: This is significant in that it expands the Book of Mormon lands at least to upstate New York where the final battle took place, making it impossible to limit Book of Mormon geography to a small region of Central America. (Copy of letter on file at Institute for Religious Research)

The Lamanites (Introduction)”, Ensign, July 1971, p. 5 — “Most members of the Church know that the Lamanites, who consist of the Indians of all the Americas as well as the islanders of the Pacific, are a people with a special heritage.”

Modern Day Lamanites Embrace Their ‘Identity’

The September 1920 Improvement Era carried the conversion story of a prominent Mexican Mormon named Margarito Bautista. The heading of the article identified him as, “M. Bautista, a Descendant of Father Lehi.” It is clear from his testimony that the Mormon teaching of Israelite heritage in Native American people resonated with him, as Margarito wrote,

“As a literal descendant of our Father Lehi, I feel in my soul that the gospel which was once known among my people but [was] taken away on account of transgression has been restored again to mankind. I feel that the Book of Mormon is one of the most glorious books on earth” (“A Faith Promoting Experience, Improvement Era 23 [September 1920]: 978-84, cited by Thomas W. Murphy, “Other Mormon Histories: Lamanite Subjectivity in Mexico,” Journal of Mormon History, 26:2 [Fall 2000], pp. 190-191.).

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