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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.