EJJS 1.2 (October, 2010)
As I predicted, the recalcitrance of the Old Guard of the LDS apologetic establishment is very well entrenched. In spite of the flood of confirmations pouring in, showing conclusively that my Jaredite findings are indeed true, there are holdouts. What are these findings?
1. The vast majority of the inhabitants of the ancient Americas originated in Asia. Most DNA studies have confirmed my hypothesis. Based on a careful reading of the Book of Mormon as well as deep pondering on the writings of Hugh Nibley, I can only conclude that the Jaredites came from Asia, and that they colonized the Americas thousands of years before the Nephites arrived. Their population was massive by the time the Nephites came.
2. Due to the heavily mythological nature of sacred history, one cannot rely on the Nephite representation of Jaredite history as being “literally true” in all respects. Rather, the Nephites described the Jaredites as originating from the Tower of Babel, which was, according to Hebraic tradition, destroyed in the early second millennium BCE. Instead, the Jaredites migrated to the Americas thousands of years earlier, some crossing the Beringia land bridge and others coming in small boats, over a period of centuries. The Nephite story of the Jaredites was culled from Jaredite myth and ritual, but modified to suit Nephite purposes.
3. When the Nephites experienced schism, those departing often went to live among the Jaredites. The Nephites then identified these groups as “Lamanites,” since there were former Nephites among them, and these were often the Jaredite groups that the Nephites were in conflict with already. The Book of Mormon’s description of relations between Nephites and “Lamanites” is self-serving and theologically motivated myth, concocted to prop up Nephite pride, religious purity, and proto-nationalist fervor. The whole notion that “Lamanites” taught their children to hate Nephites based on an old family grudge and jealousy toward Nephi is a Nephite myth.
4. Certain Jaredite groups (since there was no such thing as Jaredite political or religious unity, there were literally hundreds of them) who sought political alliance and rights of intermarriage with the Nephites for their own advantage or survival would adopt fictive roots based on Nephite myth to effect the union. The Nephites represent this, as in the case of the Mulekites, as a people that had lost knowledge of its language and traditions relying on the Nephites to recover them.
5. A more accurate representation of the truth is that the Nephites relied on the Jaredites for the technology and knowledge to preserve their traditions. Their world and culture was, in fact, largely Jaredite. The Nephite element was mostly the traditions and family ties of the ruling class of a small group of communities comparable to
Beta Israel in Ethiopia. The various records on plates kept by the Nephite dynasty were written in a Jaredite language that the Nephites, by convention, called “Reformed Egyptian.”
To be continued.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist