![FairMormon Logo](https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021_fair_logo_primary.png)
FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
DavidSmith (talk | contribs) (part of content conslidation and simplification project) |
m |
||
(4 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{Main Page}} | {{Main Page}} | ||
− | {{Navigation Book of Mormon}} | + | {{Navigation:Book of Mormon}} |
<onlyinclude> | <onlyinclude> | ||
− | {{ | + | {{H2 |
+ | |L=Identity of the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon | ||
+ | |H=Identity of the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon | ||
+ | |S= | ||
+ | |L1=Question: How have views within the Church regarding the origins of the American Indians changed over the years? | ||
+ | |L2=Question: Are all Amerindians the exclusive descendants of the Book of Mormon prophet Lehi? | ||
+ | |L3=Source:Gospel Topics:Book of Mormon and DNA Studies:The evidence assembled to date suggests that the majority of Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA | ||
+ | |L4=Source:JBMS:Sorenson and Roper:Lehi saw from the beginning that Nephites and Lamanites were labels that would include a variety of groups that could have differing biological origins, cultures, and ethnic heritages | ||
+ | |L5=Question: Does the fact that the Doctrine and Covenants refers to North American Indians as "Lamanites" contradict the theory that the Book of Mormon events took place in Mesoamerica? | ||
+ | |L6=Statements by Church leaders related to the identity of the Lamanites | ||
+ | }} | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | {{SeeAlso|Book_of_Mormon/Lamanites/Relationship_to_Amerindians/Descendants_of_Lehi|l1=All Amerindians are descendants of Lehi}} | ||
+ | |||
</onlyinclude> | </onlyinclude> | ||
+ | |||
Who are the Lamanites? When asked about the Church’s official position on this matter by a writer, a Church spokesman said: "As to whether these were the first inhabitants…we don't have a position on that. Our scripture does not try to account for any other people who may have lived in the New World before, during or after the days of the Jaredites and the Nephites, and we don't have any official doctrine about who the descendants of the Nephites and the Jaredites are. Many Mormons believe that American Indians are descendants of the Lamanites [a division of the Nephites], but that's not in the scripture."[1] Note that this reply pre-dates any publication of DNA criticism. | Who are the Lamanites? When asked about the Church’s official position on this matter by a writer, a Church spokesman said: "As to whether these were the first inhabitants…we don't have a position on that. Our scripture does not try to account for any other people who may have lived in the New World before, during or after the days of the Jaredites and the Nephites, and we don't have any official doctrine about who the descendants of the Nephites and the Jaredites are. Many Mormons believe that American Indians are descendants of the Lamanites [a division of the Nephites], but that's not in the scripture."[1] Note that this reply pre-dates any publication of DNA criticism. | ||
Line 12: | Line 27: | ||
{{:Source:JBMS:Sorenson and Roper:Lehi saw from the beginning that Nephites and Lamanites were labels that would include a variety of groups that could have differing biological origins, cultures, and ethnic heritages}} | {{:Source:JBMS:Sorenson and Roper:Lehi saw from the beginning that Nephites and Lamanites were labels that would include a variety of groups that could have differing biological origins, cultures, and ethnic heritages}} | ||
{{:Question: Does the fact that the Doctrine and Covenants refers to North American Indians as "Lamanites" contradict the theory that the Book of Mormon events took place in Mesoamerica?}} | {{:Question: Does the fact that the Doctrine and Covenants refers to North American Indians as "Lamanites" contradict the theory that the Book of Mormon events took place in Mesoamerica?}} | ||
− | {{ | + | {{:Statements by Church leaders related to the identity of the Lamanites}} |
{{endnotes sources}} | {{endnotes sources}} |
Jump to details:
Who are the Lamanites? When asked about the Church’s official position on this matter by a writer, a Church spokesman said: "As to whether these were the first inhabitants…we don't have a position on that. Our scripture does not try to account for any other people who may have lived in the New World before, during or after the days of the Jaredites and the Nephites, and we don't have any official doctrine about who the descendants of the Nephites and the Jaredites are. Many Mormons believe that American Indians are descendants of the Lamanites [a division of the Nephites], but that's not in the scripture."[1] Note that this reply pre-dates any publication of DNA criticism.
"Just as the history of the northern ten tribes of Israel after their exile in Assyria is a matter of speculation rather than knowledge, the history of the Lamanites after the close of the Book of Mormon record is a matter of speculation. The Church asserts that all members are part of the covenant house of Israel either by descent or adoption but does not take a position on the specific geography of the Book of Mormon or claim complete knowledge about the origins of any specific modern group in the Americas or the Pacific."
—"Lamanite Identity," lds.org (accessed 1 February 2019)
It is not surprising that some Church members concluded that all Amerindians were descendants of Lehi/Mulek. In fact, this was the initial conclusion drawn by many contemporaries of Joseph Smith. For example:
Contrary to the claims of those who attempt to use DNA evidence to discredit the Book of Mormon, some readers and leaders reconsidered these ideas. Some are fond of citing Church leaders such as Spencer W. Kimball, who was certainly a powerful advocate for the Amerindians or “Lamanites." President Kimball often made statements which supported the view that Lehi was the exclusive progenitor of all native Americans. However, many apostles and seventies have made many statements which differ from critics' understanding of the matter, taught them in General Conference, and the Church has published such perspectives in their magazines, study guides, and manuals. The Church’s university has passed them on to their students for generations. The Church’s official spokespeople disclaim the interpretation which critics insist we must hold.
When asked about the Church’s official position on this matter by a writer, a Church spokesman said:
It is astonishing that critics do not realize that this puts a fairly “official” stamp of approval on this perspective—at the very least, it is hardly out of the ‘mainstream’ of Church thought to think that others besides Israelites make up modern Amerindians, and this perspective existed long before the DNA issue came to the fore.
We have seen that Southerton and the other critics’ claim that a “Lehi-only” teaching has been the unanimous voice of the prophets is false. To be sure, there clearly have been Church leaders who felt that all Amerindians were descendants of Book of Mormon peoples (and, as we will see below, population genetics demonstrates that this is true). Some leaders and members have also believed that the Book of Mormon peoples are the only, or major, ancestors of Amerindians.
But, there have also been those who believed that Lehi was only one ancestor among many. Later readers were more likely than early readers to hold a “many ancestors” view. Why?
All readers approach scriptures from their own cultural perspective, and with their own biases. What biases did readers of Joseph Smith’s day have about American Indians?
Thus, in Joseph Smith’s day, it was “common knowledge” that the Indians were a single racial group, and so most likely to have a single origin. Since the Book of Mormon seemed to teach that at least some Indians must have come from Israel, it was a natural conclusion to see them all as coming from Israel since the early Saints likely did not even conceive of there being multiple “groups” of Indians at all. To explain some was to explain them all.
Elder Brigham H. Roberts of the Seventy noted the prevailing wisdom of his era:
However, the understanding of "the Indians" as a single, monolithic group began to change, and it is not a recent change brought on by the critics' DNA material!
In 1937, John A. Widtsoe [Apostle] and Franklin S. Harris, Jr., listed as one of the “claims” of the Book of Mormon that
Other members, such as Milton R. Hunter, First Council of Seventy, came to similar conclusions:
A more recent discussion by James R. Christiansen, published by BYU, said:
Thus, Christiansen saw the Jaredite remnants as playing a key, even dominant, role in the composition of the later Amerindians, and described “countless other transoceanic and Bering strait arrivals” as also important.
The text of the Book of Mormon has not altered on these issues, and yet the perspectives of both members and leaders has undergone a definite shift since its publication in 1829. Clearly, the growing appreciation that “the Indians” were not a single, monolithic block allowed readers of the Book of Mormon to see things that previous generations had not appreciated.
It is vital to recognize that leaders of the Church have expressed opinions on both sides of this question. This would seem to suggest that there is no “fixed” or “official” doctrine on the topic, since why would general authorities, Church publications, and BYU classes spend decades contradicting each other if there was a clear consensus about what the ‘doctrine’ was?
Well-known LDS scholar Hugh Nibley also argued forcibly and consistently for this point of view over a long period:
Quite simply, Southerton and other DNA critics are guilty of this “simplistic reading.” And, by his own admission, his theory falls flat if he indulges in it. The cautious reader might suspect that he has more interest in finding an excuse to discard the Book of Mormon, rather than a reason to understand it at a more mature level.
In their more candid moments, those who present this argument concede that their criticisms revolve around a key assumption. One critic of the Church writes of how some Latter-day Saints have argued that
Bottleneck effect, genetic drift, Hardy-Weinberg violations and other technical problems would prevent us from detecting Israelite genes [in Amerindians].[14]
This is a technical way of explaining a relatively simple fact: if a small group is placed in contact with a larger group and allowed to intermarry, it becomes harder to detect the small group’s “genetic signature.”
It is as if one placed a teaspoon of red dye in an Olympic swimming pool, mixed well, and then withdrew a sample. Critics are in the position of someone who complains loudly because the sampled water does not seem to be “red.”
The same critic of the Church then goes on to say:
I agree entirely. [!] In 600 BC there were probably several million American Indians living in the Americas. If a small group of Israelites entered such a massive native population it would be very, very hard to detect their genes 200, 2000 or even 20,000 years later. But does such a scenario fit with what the Book of Mormon plainly states or what the prophets have taught for 175 years? Short answer. No! Long answer. Nooo![14]
This is really quite astonishing. The critic has conceded a key assumption. He admits here that there are many genetic objections to his attack, unless we accept that the American Indians are only descendants of Lehi and Mulek.
Contrary to the critic's assertion, the short answer is that he is ignorant of the facts.
For those who are interested, we turn to the long answer.
Remember, the critic claims that we must accept his version, because
Yet, the same critic goes on to state in July 2008:
[LDS scholars] believe that they have conclusively shown that the Lehites entered a continent inhabited by millions, entered the large pre-existing civilizations, and then their DNA was diluted away so that we can't detect it. They also set up the straw man that I am arguing that according to the Book of Mormon all American Indians are descended from Hebrews. I have never claimed this. The vanishing geography theory is utter desperation.[15]
So, by this critic's own admission, his model is in fatal trouble if a “whole empty hemisphere” model (as opposed to what he mockingly refers to as the "vanishing" geography model) is not taught by both the Book of Mormon and the prophets. That he would make such a claim, and put his theory on such shaky ground, illustrates that he has poorly understood the Book of Mormon and scholarship that has been produced on for decades prior to Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix.
"Book of Mormon and DNA Studies," Gospel Topics on LDS.org:
The evidence assembled to date suggests that the majority of Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA. Scientists theorize that in an era that predated Book of Mormon accounts, a relatively small group of people migrated from northeast Asia to the Americas by way of a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska. These people, scientists say, spread rapidly to fill North and South America and were likely the primary ancestors of modern American Indians.
The Book of Mormon provides little direct information about cultural contact between the peoples it describes and others who may have lived nearby. Consequently, most early Latter-day Saints assumed that Near Easterners or West Asians like Jared, Lehi, Mulek, and their companions were the first or the largest or even the only groups to settle the Americas. Building upon this assumption, critics insist that the Book of Mormon does not allow for the presence of other large populations in the Americas and that, therefore, Near Eastern DNA should be easily identifiable among modern native groups.
The Book of Mormon itself, however, does not claim that the peoples it describes were either the predominant or the exclusive inhabitants of the lands they occupied. In fact, cultural and demographic clues in its text hint at the presence of other groups.6 At the April 1929 general conference, President Anthony W. Ivins of the First Presidency cautioned: “We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon … does not tell us that there was no one here before them [the peoples it describes]. It does not tell us that people did not come after.”[16]
John L. Sorenson and Matthew Roper:
Lehi saw from the beginning that Nephites and Lamanites were labels that would include a variety of groups that could have differing biological origins, cultures, and ethnic heritages. According to the title page of the Book of Mormon, the generic term Lamanite was applied by Moroni to all the amalgamated groups whose descendants would survive right down to Restoration times as "the [American] remnant of the house of Israel." There is no indication anywhere in the Book of Mormon that "the Lamanites" were to be a genetically exclusive line descending only from the two oldest sons in Lehi's family.[17]
The Doctrine and Covenants refers to North American Indians as "Lamanites":
Yea, and this was their faith—that my gospel, which I gave unto them that they might preach in their days, might come unto their brethren the Lamanites, and also all that had become Lamanites because of their dissensions. (D&C 10꞉48)
And thus you shall take your journey into the regions westward, unto the land of Missouri, unto the borders of the Lamanites. (D&C 54꞉8)
Since in the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord refers to American Indians in North America as "Lamanites" (e.g., D&C 28꞉8-9,14, D&C 30꞉6, D&C 32꞉2, D&C 54꞉8), does this cause problems for the Limited Geography Theory (LGT) or issues of Amerindian genetic data?
By the time the Doctrine and Covenants was written, Lehi's descendants had ample time to migrate and intermarry with the large number of "natives" postulated by the LGT. Such descendants are "Lamanites" in at least three senses:
Joseph's use of the term "Lamanite" to describe all native American inhabitants, including those in Missouri, was inspired by the Lord. Joseph, and many Latter-day prophets since, have described the native inhabitants of the North and South American continents as Lamanites. So, how do these statements made by living prophets align with the possibility that the Book of Mormon occurred within a limited geographical region? We examine this in the following sections.
The LGT is not a doctrine of the Church and there is no necessity to accept it as the only interpretation of the Book of Mormon text. Those who accept the LGT view it as the only theory that is consistent with the geographic descriptions and distances found in the Book of Mormon. The truth of the Book of Mormon does not depend, however, on proving or supporting the LGT.
The LGT assumes that a small number of Lehites were introduced into a larger "sea" of native peoples, most of whom were of presumably of Asiatic origin. Critics mistake the use of the term "Lamanite" as requiring descent from Lehi through his son, Laman. But, from very early in the Book of Mormon record, it is clear that the term "Lamanite" does not refer to descent, but to political and religious affiliation:
...I shall call them Lamanites that seek to destroy the people of Nephi, and those who are friendly to Nephi I shall call Nephites, or the people of Nephi, according to the reigns of the kings. (Jacob 1꞉14)
So, any person who wasn't a Nephite was, by exclusion, a Lamanite. Lamanites were not confined in any geographic sense at all.
The LGT holds that the story of the Book of Mormon and the peoples with which it is concerned were confined to a narrow region, since this is all the area with which the authors of the Book of Mormon were directly concerned. Yet the Book of Mormon has several references that suggest a knowledge of and interaction with a much greater geographical area. The story of Hagoth (Alma 63꞉4-9) speaks not only of the shipbuilder and his movements northward (out of the general area referred to in the Book of Mormon) but also others that migrated to the north. In Helaman 3 we find other references to people migrating to the north:
And it came to pass in the forty and sixth [year], yea, there was much contention and many dissensions; in the which there were an exceedingly great many who departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and went forth unto the land northward to inherit the land. And they did travel to an exceedingly great distance, insomuch that they came to large bodies of water and many rivers. Yea, and even they did spread forth into all parts of the land, into whatever parts it had not been rendered desolate and without timber, because of the many inhabitants who had before inherited the land. (Helaman 3꞉3-5)
The migration was out of the general area of the Book of Mormon story and is referred to as "an exceedingly great distance." This gives opportunity for Lamanites and Nephites to be found in all parts of the western hemisphere. There is no reason not to believe that similar migrations could have occurred to the south. Migrations to both the north and to the south were possibly more common than is recorded in the text.
Some people who first hear about the LGT wonder if this theory means that most modern native Americans are not actually descended from Laman. But the LGT does not imply this at all. Even under the LGT it is likely that every single native American in the hemisphere was a descendant of Laman by Joseph Smith's day. This would have been true even if Laman's direct descendants inhabited only a small area somewhere in the Americas in A.D. 400.
This doesn't mean that modern native Americans get the majority of their DNA from Laman or even that some genetic marker from Laman could be detected anywhere in the Americas. The LGT predicts that essentially every native American would be a literal descendant of Laman to some degree and yet all native Americans would have predominantly Asian DNA markers.
Many readers assume that revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants in which Joseph Smith speaks in God's voice to be direct word-for-word quotations from God. The recently published second volume of the Joseph Smith Papers REVELATION BOOK 1 (April 1829-B [D&C 8]), released by the Church's official Church History Press, provides greater insight into the process by which the revelations in the D&C arrived in their present form. The Church notes revisions in the revelations from their earliest form. A good example of this is the revelation concerning Oliver Cowdery's "gift"—this revelation was edited by Oliver Cowdery, William W. Phelps, Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith, John Whitmer, and one other unidentified editor. The Church has identified which specific edits each of these individuals made to the original revelation which eventually became D&C Section 8.
Joseph didn't claim to be hearing a voice or that he was simply taking dictation. Rather, impressions would come to him, which he would put into words. Joseph clearly did not consider them word-for-word quotations from God, since he, and others, felt comfortable revising them prior to publication.
The use of the term "Lamanites" to describe the American Indians was Joseph's word choice based upon inspiration. The few personal statements he made on Book of Mormon geography indicate that he believed it took place on a hemispheric scale, so it would follow that he believed that all Native Americans were pure descendants of Laman, and hence were literal "Lamanites." Even so, as noted in the preceding section, all of the inhabitants of the North and South American continents are considered to be Lamanites, and can likely count Lehi among their ancestry.
Summary: A collection of all known statements made by Church leaders regarding the identity of the Lamanites
Jump to details:
Notes
FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We are a volunteer organization. We invite you to give back.
Donate Now