Prophets and Fallibility: Item 20: Genetics and the Book of Mormon

I am not an expert on history and archeology. I feel much more comfortable weighing in on matters of doctrine. But I certainly do have an opinion on this topic.

Reel is accurate that Lamanite ancestry for the Native Americans was a mainstream teaching/topic in the church for many years. However, we can clearly see there were differences of opinions, even among the apostles. For instance, in 1929 Anthony W. Ivins, of the LDS Church's First Presidency, cautioned church members:

"We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon teaches the history of three distinct peoples ... who came from the old world to this continent. It does not tell us that there was no one here before them. It does not tell us that people did not come after. And so if discoveries are made which suggest differences in race origins, it can very easily be accounted for, and reasonably, for we do believe that other people came to this continent. A thousand years had elapsed from the time the Book of Mormon closed until the discovery of America, and we know that other people came to America during that period."

The belief was mainstream, but it was not unanimous. More conservative apostles and scholars were reluctant to endorse the teaching, even if they were initially few in number.

I believe there is strong evidence in the Book of Mormon that Lehi's family made contact with Native Americans as soon as they landed. In the same chapter they arrive in the Americas, they find domesticated animals (goats vs. wild goats, 1 Ne 18:25). As another user mentioned, Jacob 7 references Sherem "coming among the Nephites" as though they were not his own people. This also helps explain how there were numerous wars between the Nephites and Lamanites in Nephi's lifetime.

So why didn't the authors of the Book of Mormon make more specific references to the Native peoples living near and with them? I think there are a few reasons for this.

1. The Book of Mormon's purpose was to primarily focus on Lehi's descendants. Moroni says on the title page the purpose of the record is "to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers." And in 2 Ne 25 Nephi says, "We speak concerning the law that our children may know the deadness of the law; and they... may look forward unto that life which is in Christ."
2. It is also clear that keeping track of every different group and tribe, even just those descended from Lehi, soon became too much for the authors of these small plates. So the decision was made to refer to practically everyone as either Nephite or Lamanite on these plates (Jacob 1:13-14). Generally speaking, after this point in the Book of Mormon, a Nephite is anyone who was an ally to Nephi and his family, and a Lamanite was the opposite. It makes sense to me that the Native peoples were lumped into this generalization.

For me, a population bottle neck is a valid enough reason for the absence of Middle Eastern DNA in present day Native Americans. Between the catastrophic wars at the end of the BoM, the arrival of Europeans which wiped out 90% of the population, and anything else that might have happened during the 1000 years in-between, it seems logical to me the that there just isn't any evidence to find today.

This issue is not enough for me to conclude the church is untrue. I don't think I can justify abandoning my beliefs because science has yet to prove them accurate. And that really is the situation. I haven't found any experts in the field that say conclusively "the evidence shows the BoM is not true." They all seem to say there just isn't any current DNA evidence that justifies the narrative of the BoM. DNA evidence will never be able to definitively disprove the Book of Mormon because there are so many plausible explanations for where that evidence went.

Time to score this issue.

1. Was the belief reversed or abandoned?
   I say it was updated based on the most current scientific understanding. The church has not totally abandoned the narrative of the Book of Mormon and the idea that ancient Hebrews migrated to the Americas. As other users have said, a reasonable assumption was made by the early leaders of the church. Once science showed that assumption was incomplete, the assumption was changed. Seems very reasonable to me.
2. Does the belief show how nothing is consistent and everything changes?
   No. Would Reel prefer the church leaders double down and call the DNA issue a hoax? It is perfectly reasonable to adjust our beliefs as we learn knew information. Religion is not the only way to obtain true information; It is reasonable for science and faith to work hand in hand.
3. How large is the impact of this belief in pointing us toward an eternal unchanging God?
   As other users have said, miniscule. I primarily believe the Book of Mormon is true as a result of the impact it has had on my life and pointing me towards Jesus Christ. I regard it for its doctrine, not history. I look to science and history to tell me things about the world. I look to religion to inform me about my eternal identity and destiny. A lack of physical evidence to support my beliefs does not change them.
4. Does this belief show that the leaders of the church are “flying by the seat of their pants?”
   Haha you could make an argument for that in this case, I think. They clearly made an assumption about the Book of Mormon and its relation to present day Native Americans, and that assumption turned out to be incomplete. But that assumption was not unreasonable at the time. It was just a bit short sighted, similar to when Joseph Fielding Smith declared in 1961 that we would never land a man on the moon.

Is Reel's claim accurate? I am going to say no due to the inclusion of this line:

This has deep repercussions for Mormon Theology and the stated purpose of the Book of Mormon.

All of us here seem to agree the repercussions are not nearly as deep as Reel implies. I think this issue boils down to one thing: Do you consider a lack of evidence proof that the religion is not true? I do not. And it is clear many people feel the same. This item is clearly much more effective when it is used in a gish gallop. On its own, it seems like a much less significant issue.

This is a list of things that the Church has changed what it has taught. The first two sentences of this item show that we changed, and that is true: In 2007 the Church updated the introduction of the Book of Mormon to say that the Lamanites were "among the ancestors" of the American Indians" from "the principle ancestors".

But then the rest of the item isn't about that the Church changed it, but instead switches to talk about how that being unable to identify Israelite DNA in Native Americans means that we can't pinpoint an individual as being a Lamanite has "has deep repercussions for Mormon Theology and the stated purpose of the Book of Mormon."

He doesn't state what these repercussions are, and so that makes it difficult to respond to since I have to imagine what his claim is. Like, I see the stated purpose of the Book of Mormon as

to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever—And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations

Does not being able to use DNA to scientifically prove your ancestry really give deep repercussions? I don't think so, which makes me think that Bill Reel's point must be something else.

More often, people point at DNA to claim that the Book of Mormon is false. However, it only disproves one particular interpretation of the Book of Mormon, that the continent was empty, and that the groups of people in the Book of Mormon were the only ones here. Although you can find statements from Church leaders who believed this, a careful reading of the text doesn't actually support it. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks that this change is actually significant for the Church's truth-claims. Bill Reel linked the Gospel Topics Essay Book of Mormon and DNA Studies which shows why DNA can't be used to prove or disprove what the Book of Mormon teaches, so I'm not sure that's what he's going for, either.

The change in the introduction recognizes the limited-geography theory, it recognizes that Lehi isn't their only ancestor. But it still says that he is among their ancestors. I think people sometimes take the change as something much bigger than it actually is. Bill Reel speaks of trying to "pinpoint" a Native American and determine if they are really a Lamanite or not. But if Laman is "among" your ancestors, that still means that you are one of his descendants—and if that's what it means to be a Lamanite, then American Indians are Lamanites.

A limited geography theory doesn't mean that they stuck to themselves in one small family group. Family trees and genealogy don't work that way, people move around, and even just a person going to a neighboring village, after generations over thousands of years, that is enough that it is possible for one person to be the ancestor of an entire continent, or the entire world.

It doesn't mean they were the only ancestor, but rather, you go far enough back, there was a time where everyone alive who has living descendants, everyone is their descendant. Like, it is believed that Charlemagne is an ancestor of everyone with European ancestry alive today. So would everyone else living at the same time who has descendants today. It would be impossible to prove by DNA, you have to actually trace your genealogy to prove it, but according to mathematical models, that's what happens. The same would be true for Lehi in the Americas.

For more on that, here's a Slate article about the research paper published in Nature, and here's also a good numberphile video.

Yeah this is one Church leaders got wrong and back tracked from. It was taught that all indigenous Americans were Lamanites. We have several Doctrine and Covenants sections indicating such, and Joseph Smith specifically referencing them as such. We used the term Lamanite in the Church to describe Native Americans for over 100 years. We even had specific “Missionary Lessons for Lamanite People” and they were taught to indigenous people as far north as the Arctic Circle in Alaska. Bruce R. McConkie, I believe it was, specifically wanted the introduction to indicate indigenous people were Lamanites, against the insistence of other Church scholars. So we were wrong.

Does this matter? Practically speaking, no. If native civilizations were present on the land (which they were), it’s possible the Lehites intermingled and diluted their DNA rapidly. It’s also entirely possible (and most plausible) that the Lehites inhabited a small portion of land and had no interactions with the majority of the American continent.

The biggest problem to me, is the revelations specifically referencing Lamanites. Why would Jesus use inaccurate terminology? I’m not sure. Perhaps using it as a filler for indigenous. Perhaps referencing, that while these people were not related to the Lehites, God had some dealings with them elsewhere in history like the Lamanites, and they didn’t have a record to differentiate them.

The claim that we mistakenly perpetuated this idea just shows that we get things wrong, but I don’t see any theological ramifications for furthering this claim while it was genuinely believed, and then correcting it once additional knowledge became available.

It's hard to engage in a discussion with leading questions and loaded language like that.

...nothing is consistent and everything changes

How large is the impact of this belief in pointing us toward an eternal unchanging God?

I think this is all is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what an eternal and unchanging God means.

Essentially this item is correct ( to a point)

It was the position of early leaders that all indigenous peoples on the American continents were descendants of BOM peoples. And the land was empty prior to their arrival. This is a great case for we as a church body “followed the science” and have arrive from a hemispheric model of BOM to a limited geography model.

But honestly I don’t think this is any more of a issue then that of early Israelites using the creation stories to originally believe that above the dome of the firmament was a expanse of waters. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament)

This was the belief of how things were until the science showed it was indeed not the case. However this doesn’t force us to abandon our beliefs and throw out the creation stories. It just means we were wrong and now we know better we can continue accordingly.

For me this means abandoning the literalist/concordance readings for scriptures. Which is the dominant reading of most in the church. Because for me it is impossible to bring into harmony everything we know today with what was written in scripture. There are just inevitable going to be conflicts. So why open ourselfs up to those. When we don’t have to. Nor does our belief/ religion require us to. We can just focus on the messages and teachings which bring us to Christ. But this is a tangent item from the OP.

However the part in this item 20 that we need to look at is his implications of the statement, and if the rest of the items critique and takeaway is what must follow

What this means is we now have zero ability to pinpoint any specific Naticve American and ensure he/she is a Lamanite. This has deep repercussions for Mormon Theology and the stated purpose of the Book of Mormon.

I think it does have deep repercussions for our theology, but not in the faith shattering way the critique seems to suggest is the only option.

One can reasonably fall on either either side with this. Which is how it should be. God doesn’t force faithful positions on anyone. I think it’s part of mortality that he allows for both options to be reasonable thereby allowing us to choose for ourselves.

Now it’s correct that we can’t pin point who are nephites! But actually it doesn’t matter about lamanites. It seems that within the BOM narrative if you weren’t a Nephite then it didn’t matter where you were from you were a Lamanite. You could have been from a indigenous tribe that has roots from crossing the baring strait for the BOMs purpose you are a Lamanite. ( citation needed I will continue to look for a easy online one)

With this frame work all native peoples can fufuill the promise in the BOM that lamanites will “Blossom as a rose” which I think is the major issue that this list item thinks is the deep repercussion that irrevocably harms LDS theology.

I am sure others here will add far more. But this is what I thought about when seeing this list item.

Look forward to reading everything else y’all will write.

I have read articles that state there were definitely other groups here in the Americas at least when the Lehite colony arrived. I remember reading that in Jacob 7 Sherem "comes among the Nephites" the text doesn't say he was a Nephite. It doesn't say he was a Lamanite. It says he was learned that "he had a perfect knowledge of the people". This wouldn't be surprising if the language of the Nephites were his native language. This comment was probably put in there because it was impressive that an outsider had learned their language.

Hugh Nibley's "The World of the Jaredites" and "There Were Jaredites" are also good articles to look at that discuss the possibility that there were other peoples in the Americas when the Nephites arrived. I believe he states that there were probably many Jaredite outcasts or survivors who had abandoned the Jaredite kingdom and therefore were not killed in the final wars of Coriantumr. The Jaredites could have had DNA very similar to Native Americans as they were also of an Asian origin, and at the time the Jaredites left the East (Tower of Babel) there were relatively few cultures outside of that area of the world. The peoples who eventually settled the Far East could have been closely related to the Jaredites and that is why their DNA is so similar. Not because the Native Americans were originally of a Far Eastern origin, but that both Native Americans and Asians are from a closely related group near the Tower of Babel.

John L. Sorenson, “When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Others There?” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1, no. 1 (Fall 1992): 1–34. These arguments were summarized more recently in John L. Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2013). Sorenson suggests that indicators in the book’s text makes it “inescapable that there were substantial populations in the ‘promised land’ throughout the period of the Nephite record, and probably in the Jaredite era also” (“When Lehi’s Party Arrived,” 34). Though there are several plausible hypotheses regarding the geographic locations of Book of Mormon events, the Church takes no official position except that the events occurred in the Americas. See Book of Mormon Seminary Teacher Manual (2012): 196.

This seems pretty simple to me honestly.

The churches initial understanding between native Americans and the people in the Book of Mormon was wrong.

The people in the Book of Mormon were a group. One group. Of people that later became an ancestral line of native Americans. Not every Native American is necessarily from this group.

DNA drift seems like the simplest explanation, but I would be interested to see more data on it as time goes on.

Video 1 - in depth

Video 2 - in depth

Video 3 - overview

That Book of Mormon introduction that included that line was added in 1981 by Bruce R. McConkie at the same time he wrote the chapter headings. It wasn't even a unanimous decision at the time and there was pushback even on the Scripture Committee that authorized it.

So, again, just because some leaders said it didn't mean it was considered a revelation or divine confirmation that it was true. It was never even a unanimous decision to add the line to the introduction, and there were other leaders over the years who taught differently. Even in the Gospel Topics Essay, it says that a member of the First Presidency in 1929 was refuting this idea.

Sometimes leaders get things wrong. We all know that, because we don't believe in infallible leaders. This wasn't official doctrine as it was not unanimous. It was an assumption that turned out to be incorrect. It was corrected once the Church had evidence that it was not true. What more do critics want them to do?