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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.
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.
For a detailed response, see: Statements made by Church leaders regarding the relationship between Amerindians and Lamanites
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 Mormons 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 obliged us by shooting himself in the foot. He admits 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 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 how poorly he understands the Book of Mormon and writing about it that has gone on for decades prior to Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix.
"O Livro de Mórmon e Pesquisas de DNA," Tópicos do evangelho em LDS.org:
As provas reunidas até hoje sugerem que a maioria dos nativos americanos possui muito do DNA asiático.3 Os cientistas supõem que em uma época que antecedeu os relatos do Livro de Mórmon, um grupo relativamente pequeno de pessoas migrou do nordeste asiático para as Américas por meio de uma ponte de Terra que conectava a Sibéria ao Alasca.4 Essas pessoas, dizem os cientistas, espalharam-se rapidamente para preencher as Américas do Norte e do Sul e provavelmente foram os principais antepassados dos índios americanos modernos.5
O Livro de Mórmon fornece pouca informação direta sobre o contato cultural entre os povos que descreve e outros que podem ter vivido nas proximidades. Consequentemente, a maioria dos primeiros santos presume que asiáticos orientais ou ocidentais como Jarede, Leí, Muleque e seus companheiros foram os primeiros ou os maiores ou até mesmo os únicos grupos a se estabelecerem nas Américas. Com base nessa suposição, os críticos insistem que o Livro de Mórmon não permite a presença de outras grandes populações nas Américas e que, portanto, o DNA de orientais deveria ser identificado com facilidade entre grupos nativos modernos.
O Livro de Mórmon em si, no entanto, não professa que os povos que descreve eram os habitantes predominantes ou exclusivos das terras que ocuparam. Na verdade, pistas culturais e demográficas em seu texto aludem a presença de outros grupos.6 Na Conferência Geral de abril de 1929, o Presidente Anthony W. Ivins, da Primeira Presidência advertiu: “Precisamos ser cuidadosos ao tirar conclusões. O Livro de Mórmon (…) não nos diz que não havia ninguém aqui antes deles [os povos que descreve]. Não significa que não vieram povos para cá depois disso”.[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]
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