Utilisateur:GregSmith

"Somebody could walk into this room
And say your life is on fire.
It's all over the evening news,
All about the fire in your life on the evening news."

- Paul Simon, "Crazy Love, Vol. II," Graceland album (1986).

DNA draft:

Criticism

DNA samples taken from modern Native Americans do not match the DNA of modern inhabitants of the Middle East. Critics argue that this means the Book of Mormon's claim that Native Americans are descended from Lehi must be false, and therefore the Book of Mormon is not an ancient record as Joseph Smith claimed.

Sources of the Criticism

  • Thomas W. Murphy, "Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics," in Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe, eds., American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002).
  • Simon G. Southerton, Losing a Lost Tribe : Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004).

Response

Few criticisms of the Church have received as much media attention as this criticism, with so little thought and science being applied to the question. DNA attacks against the Book of Mormon account fail on numerous grounds.

Initial considerations

  • no tests designed to test the hypothesis

Articles which provide an over-view of basic genetic principles:

  • John M. Butler, "Addressing Questions surrounding the Book of Mormon and DNA Research," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 101–108. off-site PDF link wiki
  • David A. McClellan, "Detecting Lehi's Genetic Signature: Possible, Probable, or Not?," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 35–90. off-site PDF link

A Question of Geographies

It is important, as when setting out to answer any scientific question, to define the question which DNA-based attacks are attempting to answer. This requires that we establish a Book of Mormon model for potential testing. Any Book of Mormon model based in real history must address the issue of geographic scope.

The Book of Mormon account has been understood by the LDS in at least two broad geographical contexts:

  1. a hemispheric model (Click here to read more about such models.)
  2. a limited geographic model (Click here to read more about such models.)

Details on these models are available in the links above; it is assumed that the reader of this article is familiar with these concepts, and they will not be elaborated on here.

However, DNA attacks on the Book of Mormon are arguably futile, regardless of which geographical model one adopts. Some geographic models pose problems for the DNA attacks which other models do not. This article will therefore examine the DNA issue from a variety of angles, and provide links for further reading which address the various models.

Limited geography models

Many Book of Mormon readers, especially during the last sixty years, have read the Book of Mormon text as requiring a relatively small geographic area within the Americas. Such readings predate issues of DNA and genetics by decades, and are not (as the critics sometimes claim) desperate "rear-guard" actions to defend the Book of Mormon against the awesome onslaught of DNA science! Such claims are ridiculous, as a review of the history of such ideas shows.[1]

LDS readers who accept a limited geography model would find it unsurprising (and even expected) that the majority of Amerindian DNA does not match purported "Lehite" DNA. Under the limited geography model, a relatively small number of Lehites landed in the Americas. This small initial population eventually intermarried with other populations in the hemisphere. Over a period of 2600 years, any initial Lehite "signature" would be hopelessly 'swamped' by other peoples' genetic markers. Just as a drop of red dye will not turn a whole swimming pool red (though the red is still "in" the swimming pool), a few Lehites added to a limited geography model's hemisphere of inhabitants will have little or no detectable genetic influence today, except by the greatest coincidence.

Critics such as Murphy and Southerton ignored this option completely, demonstrating their complete ignorance of much LDS thought on the matter in the past sixty years. Many articles have discussed the DNA issue from this perspective, including the following:

  • David A. McClellan, "Detecting Lehi's Genetic Signature: Possible, Probable, or Not?," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 35–90. off-site PDF link
  • Matthew Roper, "Nephi's Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 91–128. off-site PDF link
  • Matthew Roper, "Swimming the Gene Pool: Israelite Kinship Relations, Genes, and Genealogy," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 129–164. off-site PDF link
  • John A. Tvedtnes, "Reinventing the Book of Mormon (Review of: “Reinventing Lamanite Identity,” Sunstone, March 2004, 20–25)," FARMS Review 16/2 (2004): 91–106. off-site PDF link

Hemispheric geography model, type 1

Other Latter-day Saints have understood the Book of Mormon on a more "hemispheric" scale, with the "narrow neck of land" being in Panama, and the final battle site being located in New York, in the hill in which Joseph Smith recovered the plates.

Thus, this model anticipates that Book of Mormon history played out over much of the continent. However, it is here labeled as a "type 1" model, because it does not require that Lehi be the sole "source" of population for the Americas. Jaredite remnants may have intermarried with Lehite/Mulekite peoples, contributing foreign DNA markers. Other peoples unmentioned in the Book of Mormon may have immigrated to the hemisphere before, during, and/or after the Book of Mormon time frame, and provided DNA foreign to Lehi's group. These additions could have played a major, even dominant role in the genetic history of the continent (in which case the DNA attacks can be answered in a fashion similar to the 'limited geography model' as above) or they may have provided a more modest contribution which is nevertheless sufficient to "muddy the waters" when the other uncertainties of assigning DNA origins to mixed populations come into play.

Articles which discuss LDS views on "other Americans" being added to the mix of Book of Mormon peoples (which do not require a limited geography model to maintain their force) include:

  • John M. Butler, "Addressing Questions surrounding the Book of Mormon and DNA Research," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 101–108. off-site PDF link wiki
  • Matthew Roper, "Nephi's Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 91–128. off-site PDF link <
  • Matthew Roper, "Swimming the Gene Pool: Israelite Kinship Relations, Genes, and Genealogy," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 129–164. off-site PDF link

Articles which do not invoke any type of "limited geography" in their discussion include:

Hemispheric geography model, type 2

This model might be best described as an "empty continent, Lehite-only" model. Under this model, the American continent was completely empty of any human inhabitants prior to the Jaredites (though previous to the Jaredites, other peoples could have been present who were subsequently eradicated, leaving no genetic contribution to subsequent populations.) The Jaredites were then utterly and completely destroyed (except Coriantumr—see Omni 1:21, whose contribution was either negligible or non-existent to the Mulekite gene pool) and replaced by Lehite/Mulekite immigrants, who were likewise the only source of humans in the Americas, giving rise to all (or nearly all) of the present Amerindian population.

Of all the models discussed thus far, this is the only variant to which the DNA data poses any significant challenge at all, though many of the issues discussed below also apply to DNA testing the Book of Mormon's claims with this model.

Articles which do not invoke any type of "limited geography" in their discussion include:

Hemispheric geography model, type 3

Under this model, the Americas has had no inhabitants except those mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Thus, Jaredites, Mulekites, and Lehites are the only inhabitants the New World has seen before Columbus.

A larger problem for this model than DNA evidence is archaeological evidence of human habitation thousands of years prior to the Nephites (which would have to be explained by either appealing to dating errors, or ascribing all such remains to Jaredites). This model is arguably the most challenged by current DNA science—and science in general—but it is also the least likely model supported by the Book of Mormon text itself.

General genetics issues

Regardless of the geographical model used, efforts to date at "testing" the Book of Mormon through the use of genetic data encounter a number of problems and issues that should be considered.

Are all Amerindians descendants of Lehi?

Newspaper accounts have sometimes dramatically recounted how Church members from various Amerindian groups (e.g. Navajo, Pacific Islanders) have expressed dismay at the idea that DNA has "proved" that they are not "really" descendants of Lehi as the Church has taught them. Critics have also insisted that LDS prophets who have mentioned such ideas are "wrong."

Regardless of the population model which one uses, or the geographical model, this claim is demonstrably false.

The popularity of Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code, led many Christians to consider the question of whether (as the novel postulates) Jesus Christ could have sired children and have living descendants today.

Non LDS-writer Steve Olson (an expert in population genetics[2]) wrote:

If anyone living today is descended from Jesus, so are most of us on the planet. That absurd-sounding statement is an inevitable consequence of the strange and marvelous workings of human ancestry...Say you go back 120 generations, to about the year 1000 B.C. According to the results presented in our Nature paper, your ancestors then included everyone in the world who has descendants living today... If Jesus had children (a big if, of course) and if those children had children so that Jesus' lineage survived, then Jesus is today the ancestor of almost everyone living on Earth. True, Jesus lived two rather than three millenniums ago, but a person's descendants spread quickly from well-connected parts of the world like the Middle East...In addition to Jesus...we're also all descended from Julius Caesar, from Nefertiti, from Confucius...and from any other historical figure who left behind lines of descendants and lived earlier than a few thousand years ago. Genetic tests can't prove this, partly because current tests look at just a small fraction of our DNA. But if we're descended from someone, we have at least a chance—even if it's a very small chance—of having their DNA in our cells...People may like to think that they're descended from some ancient group while other people are not. But human ancestry doesn't work that way, since we all share the same ancestors just a few millenniums ago.[3]

If Lehi existed, and if he left any descendants who survive to the modern day, then it is overwhelmingly likely—via the laws of population genetics—that virtually all modern Amerindians count Lehi among their direct ancestors. (If someone in the Middle East at the time of Christ would be the ancestor of everyone currently alive, then Lehi's entry to the Americas 600 years prior to that time almost assures that he would be the direct ancestor of all Amerindians.) In a similar fashion, it is even more certain that all Amerindians are descendants of "the Lamanites," regardless of whether one considers Lehi's group to have been "the whole show" genetically or a mere drop in a genetic sea.

And, by the same token, the chance of actually having "Lehi's DNA" or a DNA marker from Lehi is vanishingly small under most population models, unless (as in hemisphere model, type 3) Lehi is literally the only source of DNA for the continent, and even then not all descendants will have a given marker.

Another non-LDS author discussed the difficulties associated with using genetic tests to determine ancestory even a few generations back:

Many amateur genealogists are interested in whether they might have a Cherokee ancestor, for example. And for some people, admixture tests can give a relatively accurate answer about Native-American ancestry. But other people, including Greeks and Ashkenazi Jews, may have "Native American affinity," according to the tests, even if they and their ancestors have never been to America. As far as anthropologists know, there were no lost tribes connecting Greeks, Jews, and ancient Americans. [LDS readers might pause here and wonder!] So, maybe this "Native American affinity" reflects the scattering of alleles by prehistoric Asian nomads to the ancestors of Greeks and Jews as well as to American Indians.[4]

Articles which address the phenomenon of how large groups (or the entire human population) can have fairly recent common ancestors include:

  • John M. Butler, "Addressing Questions surrounding the Book of Mormon and DNA Research," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 101–108. off-site PDF link wiki
  • Matthew Roper, "Swimming the Gene Pool: Israelite Kinship Relations, Genes, and Genealogy," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 129–164. off-site PDF link
  • Brian D. Stubbs, "Elusive Israel and the Numerical Dynamics of Population Mixing," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 165–182. off-site PDF link

What are we looking for?

Genetic attacks on the Book of Mormon focus on the fact that Amerindian DNA seems closest to Asian DNA, and not DNA from "the Middle East" or "Jewish" DNA. However, this attack ignores several key points.

Lehi and his family are clearly not Jews. They belong to the tribe of Manasseh (Alma 10:3, 1  Néphi 5:14), and married into Ishmael's family, the tribe of Ephraim.[5] These tribes were carried away captive by the Assyrians, and did not contribute greatly to the current genetic mix of the Middle East.

Furthermore, the Middle East is located at the crossroads of three continents, and has seen a great deal of immigration, mixing, and intermarriage. To use modern Middle Eastern DNA as the "standard" against which to measure what Manasseh and Ephraim DNA must have been like 2600 years ago is extraordinarily sloppy science.

Articles which consider that "Asian" DNA and Lehite DNA may actually correspond due to an earlier common source:

What Jewish DNA?

Identifying DNA criteria for Manasseh and Ephraim may always be beyond our reach. But, even identifying markers for Jews—a group that has remained relatively cohesive and refrained from intermarriage with others more than most groups—is an extraordinarily difficult undertaking.

One author cautioned:

Studies of human genetic diversity have barely begun. Yet the fashion for genetic ancestry testing is booming. . . . Other groups, such as Jews, are now being targeted. This despite the fact that Jewish communities have little in common on their mitochondrial side—the maternal line down which Judaism is traditionally inherited. It's the male side that shows common ancestry between different Jewish communities—so, of course, that's what the geneticists focus on. . . . Geneticists—like preachers and philosophers before them—need to avoid promising more than they can deliver.[6]

Articles which discuss the various criteria (and the difficulties involved) for identifying "Jewishness" via DNA include:

  • John M. Butler, "Addressing Questions surrounding the Book of Mormon and DNA Research," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 101–108. off-site PDF link wiki
  • Ryan Parr, "Missing the Boat to Ancient America . . . Just Plain Missing the Boat (Review of: Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church)," FARMS Review 17/1 (2005): 83–106. off-site PDF link
  • Daniel C. Peterson, "Editor's Introduction," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): ix–lxii. off-site PDF link
  • David G. Stewart, Jr., "DNA and the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 109–138. off-site PDF link wiki FAIR link  (Source importante)
  • Brian D. Stubbs, "Elusive Israel and the Numerical Dynamics of Population Mixing," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 165–182. off-site PDF link

Mitochondrial DNA (mDNA)

Mitochondrial DNA is passed only from mothers to their children. It has been used in attacks on the Book of Mormon, and yet even known Jewish populations do not share mtDNA.

A new study now shows that the women in nine Jewish communities from Georgia . . . to Morocco have vastly different genetic histories from the men. . . . The women's identities, however, are a mystery, because . . . their genetic signatures are not related to one another or to those of present-day Middle Eastern populations.[7]

So, known Jewish groups cannot be linked at all by mtDNA studies, and yet the critics would have us believe that two of the lost tribes (Ephraim and Manasseh—from whom we have no 'control' or 'reference' samples to compare to) can be ruled out as ancestors of the Amerindians via mtDNA testing?

  • David A. McClellan, "Detecting Lehi's Genetic Signature: Possible, Probable, or Not?," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 35–90. off-site PDF link
  • David G. Stewart, Jr., "DNA and the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 109–138. off-site PDF link wiki FAIR link

Y-Chromosome DNA

Y-chromosomes are only spread from father to son; the female line does not carry them at all. These markers have also been used by critics to "prove" that the Amerindians cannot be descended from Lehi.

Despite claims that Y-chromosome data do not support Book of Mormon claims, there are some markers which should be considered in another light:

Douglas Forbes points out that Y-chromosome SNP biallelic marker Q-P36 (also known by the mutation marker M-242), postulated by geneticist Doron Behar and colleagues to be a founding lineage among Ashkenazi Jewish populations, is also found in Iranian and Iraqi Jews and is a founding lineage group16 present in 31 percent of self-identified Native Americans in the U.S.[8]

Y-chromosome issues are discussed:

  • David A. McClellan, "Detecting Lehi's Genetic Signature: Possible, Probable, or Not?," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 35–90. off-site PDF link
  • David G. Stewart, Jr., "DNA and the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 109–138. off-site PDF link wiki FAIR link

Lemba and Cohen modal haplotype

Murphy uses the "Lemba" as an example of a group proven to be Jewish via DNA testing. But, this example is misleading. The Lemba were identified as Jewish because of a marker called the "Cohen modal haplotype." This marker is carried by about half of those who claim descent from Aaron, Moses' brother, and only 2-3% of other Jews.

But, the Book of Mormon does not suggest—and in fact seems to exclude—the idea that Levites (the priestly family of Aaron) were among the Lehi party. Without priestly families, one would not expect to find the Cohen modal haplotype! Yet, only 2-3% of non-priestly family modern Jews (to say nothing of Ephraim and Manasseh) can be identified by this test.[9] Are these 97-98% of modern Jews then not Jews because of the genetic test? Excluding the Nephites on the basis of such a poor test that we would not even expect them to pass shows how far the critics will twist the evidence to find fault.

Cohen modal haplotype issues are discussed:

  • Matthew Roper, "Swimming the Gene Pool: Israelite Kinship Relations, Genes, and Genealogy," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 129–164. off-site PDF link
  • David G. Stewart, Jr., "DNA and the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 109–138. off-site PDF link wiki FAIR link  (Source importante)

90% death rate with European contact

Approximatley ninety perecent of the Amerindian population died out following contact with the Europeans; most of this was due to infectious disease against which they had no defense.

Since different genes likely provide different resistances to infectious disease, it may be that eliminating 90% of the pre-contact gene pool has significantly distorted the true genetic picture of Lehi's descendants.

What about the Jaredites?

Critics often over-look the Jaredites, and assume (as in the hemispheric models type 2 and type 3) that the Jaredites can have contributed nothing of consequence to the Lehite DNA picture.

But, it is not clear that this must be the case. Some LDS have believed in a total eradication of the Jaredites, others have argued that Jaredite remnants survived and mixed with the Lehites. Bruce R. McConkie, while believing that the majority of Amerindian descent was from Israel (i.e. Lehi, Ishmael, and Mulek) nevertheless wrote:

The American Indians, however, as Columbus found them also had other blood than that of Israel in their veins. It is possible that isolated remnants of the Jaredites may have lived through the period of destruction in which millions of their fellows perished. It is quite apparent that groups of orientals found their way over the Bering Strait and gradually moved southward to mix with the Indian peoples. We have records of a colony of Scandinavians attempting to set up a settlement in America some 500 years before Columbus. There are archeological indications that an unspecified number of groups of people probably found their way from the old to the new world in pre-Columbian times. Out of all these groups would have come the American Indians as they were discovered in the 15th century.[10]

The Jaredites are complete genetic unknowns. They cannot be Israelites, since they pre-date Israel. Some authors, such as Hugh Nibley, long ago argued that they were of Asian origin.[11]

Fundamentalist "suicide bombing"

It should be remembered too that many sectarian critics use DNA science in a sort of "suicide bombing" attack on the Church.[12] The fundamentalist Christian critics are happy to use DNA as a stick to beat the Book of Mormon, but do not tell their readers that there is much stronger DNA evidence for concepts which fundamentalist Christian readers might not accept, such as:

  • the earth being older than 6,000 years
  • evolutionary change in species
  • human descent from other primates
  • lack of DNA evidence for a Biblical Adam and Eve 4,000 years before Christ

The critics are often hypocritical—they claim the Saints should abandon the Book of Mormon on flimsy, dubious science, and yet do not tell their audience that they should (by the same logic) abandon religious beliefs of their own that have much more DNA evidence against them.

Discussions of this ironic twist are found in:

Conclusion

DNA attacks against the Book of Mormon are ill-advised. Various geographic models introduce issues unique to each model, but the DNA data is no where as conclusive as the critics claim, regardless of the geographical model chosen.

Critics tend to opt for the most naive, ill-informed reading possible of the Book of Mormon text, and then cry foul when the Saints point out that they have given much thought to these issues and come to more nuanced conclusions that are more faithful to the Book of Mormon text than the critics' poorly-considered caricatures.

Critics do not provide the "whole story" of the DNA data, and seem to want to use the certainty which DNA provides in modern crime-solving as a springboard to trick the Saints, the media, and investigators into thinking that their historical DNA conclusions are as solid.

In fact, DNA data tells us nothing which we did not already know from archaelogy data—at present, the human settlement of the Americas is thought to date thousands of years before the advent of Lehi. Many of these settlers have links to east Asia. None of this is news, and none of it threatens the Book of Mormon's status as authentic history.

But, the critics hope that their listeners will be awed by the banner of DNA science, and conclude that something more impressive is going on. Informed members of the Church have not been persuaded by their tactics.

Endnotes

  1. [retour] For the history of the LGT, see Matthew Roper, "Limited Geography and the Book of Mormon: Historical Antecedents and Early Interpretations," FARMS Review 16/2 (2004): 225–276. off-site PDF link
  2. [retour]  Olson is co-author of a letter to Nature, in which he discusses these ideas in a more technical format. See Douglas L. T. Rohde, Steve Olson, and Joseph T. Chang, "Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans," 431 Nature (30 September 2004): 562–566. off-site Olson provides a "semi-technical" description of his findings here.
  3. [retour]  Steve Olson, "Why We're All Jesus' Children," slate.com (15 March 2006). Last accessed 12 October 2006 (emphasis added). off-site

[retour]  John Hawks, "How African Are You? What genealogical testing can't tell you," slate.com (15 March 2006), accessed 12 October 2006. off-site

  1. [retour]  "The Prophet Joseph informed us that the record of Lehi, was contained on the 116 pages that were first translated and subsequently stolen, and of which an abridgement is given us in the first Book of Nephi, which is the record of Nephi individually, he himself being of the lineage of Manasseh; but that Ishmael was of the lineage of Ephraim, and that his sons married into Lehi's family, and Lehi's sons married Ishmael's daughters, thus fulfilling the words of Jacob upon Ephraim and Manasseh in the 48th chapter of Genesis..." - Erastus Snow, "Ephraim And Manassah, etc.," Journal of Discourses, reported by Geo. F. Gibbs, John Irvine, and others, (6 May 1882), Vol. 23 (London: Latter-day Saint's Book Depot, 1883), 184. off-site
  2. [retour]  Martin Richards, "Beware the Gene Genies," Guardian (21 February 2003), accessed 7 July 2006. [www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,899835,00.html off-site]; cited by Stewart, "DNA and the Book of Mormon."
  3. [retour]  Nicholas Wade, "In DNA, New Clues to Jewish Roots," New York Times, 14 May 2002, F1 (col. 1); cited by Stewart, "DNA and the Book of Mormon."
  4. [retour]  See "Cohen Modal Haplotype," in David G. Stewart, Jr., "DNA and the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 109–138. off-site PDF link wiki FAIR link
  5. [retour]  See "Y-Chromosome Data," in David G. Stewart, Jr., "DNA and the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 109–138. off-site PDF link wiki FAIR link (Citations omitted)
  6. [retour]  Modèle:Md1(subscript. required) GL direct link
  7. [retour]  See, for example, Hugh W. Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, the World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites, edited by John W. Welch with Darrell L. Matthew and Stephen R. Callister, (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988), 153–following. ISBN 0875791328. off-site (subscript. required) GospeLink (subscript. required) GL direct link
  8. [retour]  The expression "suicide bombing" in this context comes from Stewart, "DNA and the Book of Mormon."
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