New Essay: Book of Mormon And DNA Studies

[_Bazooka]

This essay is just the latest example of how of how the apologists are now driving the interpretation of doctrine and scripture rather than the prophets, seers, and revelators.

i think it's more to the point to say scientific and social progress are driving the interpretation of doctrine.

the apologists are consultants, not theologians.

When Moroni first spoke to Joseph Smith about the Book of Mormon he explained that it was a record of the literal ancestors of the Native Americans.
As science progressed, the introduction to the Book of Mormon was amended to reflect its findings and it became claimed that the Book of Mormon was a record of the principal ancestors of the Native Americans.
Science moved on further, DNA studies became more comprehensive and reliable and the Book of Mormon was amended to reflect this further light and knowledge and it became claimed that the Book of Mormon was a record of some people that were among the ancestors of the Native Americans.

Can you see the trend forming?

As science, specifically the field of genetics, progressed in its field of understanding, the Church's claim about the historicity of the Book of Mormon has gotten weaker and weaker. The initial robust claims have been shown to be less and less accurate (truthful?). Does that seem like the hallmark we would expect to see as we learn and progress in our knowledge about the Book of Mormon? Shouldn't the reverse be true - that genetics study and other scientific advancement would make the Book of Mormon more and more credible?

[_CameronMO]

How can the LDS Church release this essay? Who needs DNA when we have actual, visual confirmation of "whiteness and delightsomeness"?

The day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos; five were darker but equally delightsome. The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.... At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl-sixteen sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents on the same reservation, in the same Hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather. There was the doctor in a Utah city who for two years had had an Indian boy in his home who stated that he was some shades lighter than the younger brother just coming into the program from the reservation. These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and delightsomeness. One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.

[_Ludd]

Where is the evidence for your last claim Mr somewhat of a student? There is currently no genetic evidence of significant pre-Columbian migrations from anywhere other than sub-arctic regions via eskimo migrations.

All the Raghavan study proved is that living Europeans share DNA markers with a 24,000-year-old Siberian. It is largely irrelevant because it predates the Book of Mormon and Israel (and Adam and Eve, and the Flood) by about 20,000 years. Populations in ALL major geographic regions share common sets and subsets of DNA markers. All living Eskimos share some DNA markers with Australian Aboriginals. Does that prove Eskimos came from Australia?

The "old Bering Strait theory" as you put it, is by far the best explanation for an abundance of facts. It is a well established truth that essentially all of the ancestors of the American Indians descend from Asian ancestors.

When Mormons are faced with uncomfortable scientific facts they are invariably told by their leaders that science is changing all the time so they shouldn’t be concerned. In the essay we are told the DNA data is “tentative”. But it is LDS beliefs about Native American ancestry that have been proven to be tentative. Once LDS apologists boldly aligned the Book of Mormon civilizations with the Olmec and Maya. The Lamanite presence has rapidly been contracting to the point that it has now vanished. In contrast to back-flipping prophets there has been a century long scientific consensus about where the ancestors of Native Americans came from and when they arrived in the New World. DNA is just helping to refine our knowledge.

I incorrectly assumed that you, of all people, might be on the "cutting edge" of the new scholarship emerging from the fields of archaeology and anthropology. You know, the increasing number of peer-reviewed studies by the "rising generation" of scholars who are revisiting the compelling evidence for pre-columbian cultural diffusion long-denied and long-avoided by the dying dinosaurs in the field -- all of them scared shittless that they might offend someone by advancing theories deemed by the "powers that be" to be inherently "racist" and therefore not worthy of serious consideration.

Within 20 or 30 years, people will be looking back on the anti-diffusionists with the same disdain reserved for those who fought a losing battle against plate tectonics in the previous generation.

Of course, the Book of Mormon will not be "proven true" in the process, but it will at least finally be clear in everybody's minds that the old DNA argument never had legs to stand on in the first place.

[_Chap]

Where is the evidence for your last claim Mr somewhat of a student? There is currently no genetic evidence of significant pre-Columbian migrations from anywhere other than sub-arctic regions via eskimo migrations.

All the Raghavan study proved is that living Europeans share DNA markers with a 24,000-year-old Siberian. It is largely irrelevant because it predates the Book of Mormon and Israel (and Adam and Eve, and the Flood) by about 20,000 years. Populations in ALL major geographic regions share common sets and subsets of DNA markers. All living Eskimos share some DNA markers with Australian Aboriginals. Does that prove Eskimos came from Australia?

The "old Bering Strait theory" as you put it, is by far the best explanation for an abundance of facts. It is a well established truth that essentially all of the ancestors of the American Indians descend from Asian ancestors.

When Mormons are faced with uncomfortable scientific facts they are invariably told by their leaders that science is changing all the time so they shouldn’t be concerned. In the essay we are told the DNA data is “tentative”. But it is LDS beliefs about Native American ancestry that have been proven to be tentative. Once LDS apologists boldly aligned the Book of Mormon civilizations with the Olmec and Maya. The Lamanite presence has rapidly been contracting to the point that it has now vanished. In contrast to back-flipping prophets there has been a century long scientific consensus about where the ancestors of Native Americans came from and when they arrived in the New World. DNA is just helping to refine our knowledge.

I incorrectly assumed that you, of all people, might be on the "cutting edge" of the new scholarship emerging from the fields of archaeology and anthropology. You know, the increasing number of peer-reviewed studies by the "rising generation" of scholars who are revisiting the compelling evidence for pre-columbian cultural diffusion long-denied and long-avoided by the dying dinosaurs in the field -- all of them scared shittless that they might offend someone by advancing theories deemed by the "powers that be" to be inherently "racist" and therefore not worthy of serious consideration.

Within 20 or 30 years, people will be looking back on the anti-diffusionists with the same disdain reserved for those who fought a losing battle against plate tectonics in the previous generation.

Of course, the Book of Mormon will not be "proven true" in the process, but it will at least finally be clear in everybody's minds that the old DNA argument never had legs to stand on in the first place.

So, you have a response to this:

...

The picture emerging from the latest studies is one that seems to suggest lots of contact between the "Old World" and the "New World" going clear back to Roman times and earlier.

You keep posting this. What studies support that claim?

Do you? Actual references to publiication in specialist professional journals, please, showing "lots of contact between the "Old World" and the "New World" going clear back to Roman times and earlier".

[_Bazooka]

You know, the increasing number of peer-reviewed studies by the "rising generation" of scholars who are revisiting the compelling evidence for pre-columbian cultural diffusion long-denied and long-avoided by the dying dinosaurs in the field...

Is there a reason you haven't provided a link or a specific reference to any of these 'rising generation of scholars'?

[_bcuzbcuz]

the "cutting edge" of the new scholarship emerging from the fields of archaeology and anthropology. You know, the increasing number of peer-reviewed studies by the "rising generation" of scholars who are revisiting the compelling evidence for pre-columbian cultural diffusion long-denied and long-avoided by the dying dinosaurs in the field

Oh, you mean the Viking village found in New Found Land. That's in Canada, if you didn't know.

"In the 1960s two Norwegian researchers, Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad, discovered and excavated the Viking base camp at L'Anse aux Meadows (map) on the northern tip of Newfoundland—the first confirmed Viking outpost in the Americas. Dated to between 989 and 1020, the camp boasted three Viking halls, as well as an assortment of huts for weaving, ironworking, and ship repair."

Sutherland has found evidence of a second Viking village established on Baffin Island (That's in Canada, if you didn't know) from around 1300 CE.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... utherland/

"Five hundred years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, a Native American woman may have voyaged to Europe with Vikings, according to a provocative new DNA study.

Analyzing a type of DNA passed only from mother to child, scientists found more than 80 living Icelanders with a genetic variation similar to one found mostly in Native Americans. (Get the basics on genetics.) (That's a quote from the article....not a dig from me.)

This signature probably entered Icelandic bloodlines around A.D. 1000, when the first Viking-American Indian child was born, the study authors theorize."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ce-europe/

While National Geographic is, in itself, not a scientific journal, they usually reference which journal and where the reader can turn to find the original research. You'll have to do that for yourself.

In case you haven't noticed it from other posters here, It's time for you to provide some actual references as to which research, and who the researchers were, and in which journals the research has been published, to back up your claims.

[_Chap]

the "cutting edge" of the new scholarship emerging from the fields of archaeology and anthropology. You know, the increasing number of peer-reviewed studies by the "rising generation" of scholars who are revisiting the compelling evidence for pre-columbian cultural diffusion long-denied and long-avoided by the dying dinosaurs in the field

Oh, you mean the Viking village found in New Found Land. That's in Canada, if you didn't know.

...

In case you haven't noticed it from other posters here, It's time for you to provide some actual references as to which research, and who the researchers were, and in which journals the research has been published, to back up your claims.

Do you think that is all he has? Just the Vikings? That is hardly new stuff. Plus there are the signs of Japanese links to South America, again well known. That hardly amounts to 'lots of contact between the "Old World" and the "New World" going clear back to Roman times and earlier', which is what he has claimed.

[_Brackite]

So argue against the Book of Mormon all you want. You have my blessing when it comes to demonstrating the numerous evidences that cast doubt on Joseph Smith's story of where the Book of Mormon came from, but using DNA evidence as a way to "prove" the Book of Mormon is not historical is, in my opinion, a really stupid way to go about things.

DNA Evidence is Not a stupid way to argue against the authenticity and the historicity of the Book of Mormon, because the the Book of Mormon does not mention "others" who were there with the Lehites or the Mulekites within its text.
When the Lehites first arrived within the Promise land, Lehi's son Nephi does not mention any "others" who were already there.
Here is 1st Nephi Chapter 18, verse 25:

1 Nephi 18:25:

[25] And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men. And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper.

Let us now go to 2nd Nephi Chapter one, verses eight and nine.
Here is this passage:

2 Nephi 1:8-9:

[8] And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.
[9] Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever.

The Book of Mormon Prophet Jacob describes the people of Nephi as "being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem" towards the end of his life. If there were "others" in the Promise land when Lehi, Nephi and their families arrived, and some of them joined with the people of Nephi, then it would Not make any sense that the Prophet Jacob would describe the people of Nephi as "being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem" towards the end of his life. The Book of Mormon Prophet Jacob then goes on describing that the people of Nephi, his people, were "hated of our brethren," which means that all of the Lamanites were their fellow Israelite brethren.
Here is Jacob Chapter seven, verse 26:

Jacob 7:26:

[26] And it came to pass that I, Jacob, began to be old; and the record of this people being kept on the other plates of Nephi, wherefore, I conclude this record, declaring that I have written according to the best of my knowledge, by saying that the time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated of our brethren, which caused wars and contentions; wherefore, we did mourn out our days.

[_Themis]

You know, the increasing number of peer-reviewed studies by the "rising generation" of scholars who are revisiting the compelling evidence for pre-columbian cultural diffusion long-denied and long-avoided by the dying dinosaurs in the field...

Is there a reason you haven't provided a link or a specific reference to any of these 'rising generation of scholars'?

I find it funny that Ludd and many others trying to defend the church think simple assertions without citing any evidence to back them up is persuading anyone, including any lurkers.

[_Ludd]

the "cutting edge" of the new scholarship emerging from the fields of archaeology and anthropology. You know, the increasing number of peer-reviewed studies by the "rising generation" of scholars who are revisiting the compelling evidence for pre-columbian cultural diffusion long-denied and long-avoided by the dying dinosaurs in the field

Oh, you mean the Viking village found in New Found Land. That's in Canada, if you didn't know.

"In the 1960s two Norwegian researchers, Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad, discovered and excavated the Viking base camp at L'Anse aux Meadows (map) on the northern tip of Newfoundland—the first confirmed Viking outpost in the Americas. Dated to between 989 and 1020, the camp boasted three Viking halls, as well as an assortment of huts for weaving, ironworking, and ship repair."

Sutherland has found evidence of a second Viking village established on Baffin Island (That's in Canada, if you didn't know) from around 1300 CE.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... utherland/

"Five hundred years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, a Native American woman may have voyaged to Europe with Vikings, according to a provocative new DNA study.

Analyzing a type of DNA passed only from mother to child, scientists found more than 80 living Icelanders with a genetic variation similar to one found mostly in Native Americans. (Get the basics on genetics.) (That's a quote from the article....not a dig from me.)

This signature probably entered Icelandic bloodlines around A.D. 1000, when the first Viking-American Indian child was born, the study authors theorize."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ce-europe/

While National Geographic is, in itself, not a scientific journal, they usually reference which journal and where the reader can turn to find the original research. You'll have to do that for yourself.

In case you haven't noticed it from other posters here, It's time for you to provide some actual references as to which research, and who the researchers were, and in which journals the research has been published, to back up your claims.

First of all, let me restate what I said earlier: I am not active LDS. I haven't ever seen any evidence that supports the Book of Mormon as a historical record. I'm basically agnostic on all questions related to religion in general and Mormonism in particular. My interest in "cultural diffusionism" has absolutely nothing to do with wanting to support Mormonism, and as far as I can tell, very few of the scholars currently involved in diffusionism studies are Mormon, or have any interest in supporting the Book of Mormon as a historical record. In fact, the only scholars I know about that are related to diffusionism studies are John Sorenson from BYU and Martin Raish, who I think is at BYU-Idaho. They published what is widely considered the definitive source for diffusionism evidences: Pre-Columbian Contact With the Americas Across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography. It is a two-volume set (about 1100 pages, If I recall correctly).

I am very aware that the "old guard" in archaeology and anthropology pretty much closes their eyes and puts their hands over their ears whenever what they call "outlier" scholars try to present papers on diffusionism, because it goes against their long-established dogma. This is because diffusionism has been equated with racism, and so they've been shouting down diffusionists with allegations of racism for a long time now.

Anyway, I've read several fairly recent articles that present what I think is very compelling evidence that there was quite a lot of pre-Columbian contact in the Americas by European, East Asian, African, and Polynesian people. Contact that occurred via trans-oceanic travel, rather than via a Bering Straits land bridge. None of the articles I've read suggest that these contacts produced much, if anything, in the way of discernable impacts. Several of them argue that some of the best evidence for contact consists of things the "explorers" brought back with them after contact. Evidence like Egyptian mummies with traces of coca and tobacco in them, or representations of maize in India, or the kinds of sweet potatoes found in both South America and Polynesia. There have also been Roman coins found at or near mound-builder sites in the Mississippi drainage. I've been trying to find online versions of some of these articles, but haven't been able to do so yet. So I suppose if people here want to dismiss what I have claimed as a growing trend towards diffusionism among archaeologists and anthropologists, that's fine. Doesn't bother me at all. Your motivation appears to be to dismiss anything that you think could be twisted to supportthe Book of Mormon, whereas I'm not encumbered by that prerogrative. I've just always been interested in the topic, so I've tried to follow it as best I can. Is there some "crank science" out there that argues for diffusionism? Sure. Way too much, unfortunately. It's the crank science crap that has done as much as the racism charges to discredit diffusionism. But part of the problem, at least as I see it, is that a lot of the diffusionism research has been forced to the fringes by the irrational refusal of so-called "mainstream" archaeology/anthropology to even permit diffusionists to present papers at conferences. It's a lot like the anthropogenic global warming debates, where so-called "deniers" are systematically discredited by what we are told is "the consensus" of all respectable scientists. Anyway, my point is that the existence of bad scholarship in the study of diffusionism shouldn't automatically discredit ALL of the scholarship. The field is still very new, and it has the disadvantage of having to fight against an almost religious dogma of old-school scholars for whom (as I already wrote above) diffusionism is supposedly some kind of veiled racist attempt to deprive native Americans of the credit they deserve for all the things they produced.

At any rate, there are a couple good articles I did find online that discuss the growth of diffusionism as a more accurate description of pre-Columbian American history. One is just an article in The Atlantic magazine and is fairly old (2000), and just talks about some of the controversy. The other is a very entertaining, well-written article by a Sioux Indian scholar who isn't among those who think diffusionism is racist, per se, and instead is obviously persuaded that pre-Columbian contact explains many things that otherwise don't make sense in a scenario where the Americas were supposedly isolated from all contact after the Bering Straits land bridge was flooded.

I also recommend the Sorenson book as a great source for diffusionism scholarship, although I am sure that most of the people here will just automatically assume that anything from a Mormon is nothing but a bunch of lies or apologetic nonsense, etc. Even though the book in question is nothing but a comprehensive bibliography. Sorenson also collaborated with a non-Mormon University of Oregon professor on what I think is a very interesting book concerning biological evidence for pre-columbian contact across the oceans: World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492.

Here are the links to the two articles I mentioned above:

The Diffusionists Have Landed

Indians, Archaeologists, and the Future