Misguiding About DNA and the Book of Mormon

[_Themis]

1. A small group of Jews entering a large continent and their DNA mixing with a larger continent of peoples would not be easily detectable today. The dominate DNA strains of the continent would in fact be the primary strains, the Jewish DNA lost to time

Actually it would if the group was highly successful. Things like Mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome DNA would increase in percentage of the population over time. The Book of Mormon tells a story of three highly successful groups over thousands of years. It also never mentions others and goes out of it's way to say there were no others, and the reason was God keeping an area un-populated for these groups to inherit.

by the way do you believe the earth has been populated for tens of thousands of years by humans, or do you believe Adam and Eve were the first humans or human like people approximately 6000 years ago?

[_tapirrider]

2. That some small evidences of "Jewish DNA" has in fact been found in various instances on the American Continent, which give some indication that the case is not closed.

No, it has not. Absolutely no, zero, zilch "Jewish DNA". There is nothing that has ever been found in the DNA research that can tie to any "Jewish" or any Near Eastern populations from the timeline of the Bible or the Book of Mormon. Show me your source and I will show further why your claim is wrong.

5. That through historical FACT there has been MANY visitations of various cultures from the Islands, to Asia, to Vikings, to Phonecians, and on and on to the Americas over time, and thus Jews not even including Lehi clearly would have mixed with locals.

Wrong again. The only FACT is a small, limited and brief visit by Vikings. Your claim of Phoenicians is flat out wrong. There is absolutely zero reputable evidence of Phoenicians in ancient America. Your claim that it is a fact is without backing from any credible research or sources although such things are widely held in pseudo circles with shady and faulty sources.

[_karl61]

I read this a little while ago and thought it was interesting. It's an article that says that today's Lebanese have 93 percent of the DNA that ancient Canaanites have. And every day the DNA analysis gets more precise.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencen ... story.html

[Guest]

...when in fact even basic reading of the Book of Mormon makes clear that other groups were here already which had nothing to do with Nephites or Lamanites, Mulekites being the most direct example, let alone other wording which gives indication of "others".

Please provide a complete list of all such groups specifically mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Please demonstrate clearly that the use of the word "other" specifically refers to societies and cultures that were apart from the Lehites and not merely other descendents of the Book of Mormon founders. Please explain why Nephi and Jacob give detailed lists of the animals they found (all wrong) along with crops and minerals but entirely failed to mention in that survey the entire nations of people with densely populated cities, militaries, agriculture, etc. Also, please demonstrate how these "others" statements are more convincing than the Book's own declaration that the Americas were kept clean of other humans, or as Jeffrey Holland states it:

“Such a special place needed now to be kept apart from other regions, free from the indiscriminate traveler as well as the soldier of fortune. To guarantee such sanctity the very surface of the earth was rent. In response to God’s decree, the great continents separated and the ocean rushed in to surround them. The promised place was set apart. Without habitation it waited for the fulfillment of God’s special purposes.” (A Promised Land, Ensign, June 1974)

But for now, lets start with the comprehensive list of all of the other nationalities that the book specifies, please.

[Guest]

The only ones denying the full and actual facts are anti-mormons.
What anti's don't tell you...

I would like to suggest that lumping everyone who doesn't agree with you into an intentionally demeaning category doesn't help your case.

I sometimes wonder if the true anti-mormons might really the ones who, while unable to dismiss the Book of Mormon due to their sincere faith in it, also lack the faith to believe the Book of Mormon for what it actually says, so they rewrite it into a squishy alternate universe narrative with receding goalposts to maintain the illusion that they can be faithful and empirical at the same time.

They ultimately convince more people of the weaknesses of the Book of Mormon than any intentional "anti-mormons" do. I know a whole lot of people who have lost their faith in the Book of Mormon because of FARMS, FAIR, Dan Petersen, John Sorenson, and the like, and none who lost it because of Sandra Tanner or Ed Decker.

[_Hagoth]

The apologetic argument that we don't know what Lehi's DNA looks like is as weak as they come.

Yes, and it seems like it's a bit of a smokescreen, either intentional or unintentional. I suppose some apologists either confuse (or believe their readers will confuse) population genetics with genetic fingerprinting, because most of the exposure to DNA we get from the media is of the forensic variety. This is not CSI Zarahemla! When I see this kind of "we don't have Sariah's DNA" talk a red herring flag goes up my mental flagpole.

[_Brackite]

1. A small group of Jews entering a large continent and their DNA mixing with a larger continent of peoples would not be easily detectable today. The dominate DNA strains of the continent would in fact be the primary strains, the Jewish DNA lost to time

Let's refute the LDS Apologists' argument again that there were "others" within the Book of Mormon Promised land.


Here is again Jacob 7:26 within the Book of Mormon:

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.

When Lehi's Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Others There?
http://publications.maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1378&index=2

From That Sorenson Article:

There are statements in the Nephite record that positively inform us that "others" were on the scene and further passages that hint at the same thing. One of these statements occurs during the visit by Alma and his seven companions to the Zoramites. "Now the Zoramites were dissenters from the Nephites" (Alma 31:8). As Alma prayed about this group, he said, "O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are our brethren" (Alma 31:35). We may wonder about those whom they considered not their "brethren." Apparently he was speaking of those who were neither Nephites, Lamanites, nor "Mulekites." People in all those three categories are referred to in the text by Nephites as "brethren" (see, for example, Mosiah 1:5 and 7:2, 13 and Alma 24:7–8).

However, Both the Printer's manuscript and the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon instead reads, “. . . and many of them are our near brethren.” The word "near" from Alma 31:35 doesn't become absent from that passage until 1837. (Did Sorenson not know that?) And the word "near" is still in the RLDS Edition of the Book of Mormon of that Passage.
Here is Alma 31:35 within the RLDS Edition from that passage of the Book of Mormon:

115 Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are our near brethren, therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom, that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee.

http://www.centerplace.org/hs/Book of Mormon/alma.htm

http://www.restoredgospel.com/scripture ... tID=Submit




And Here is the Link to that Passage from the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon:

http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSumma ... 1830?p=319

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/bm.htm#221b




Here is Alma 10:7:

Alma 10:7

[7] As I was journeying to see a very near kindred, behold an angel of the Lord appeared unto me and said: Amulek, return to thine own house, for thou shalt feed a prophet of the Lord; yea, a holy man, who is a chosen man of God; for he has fasted many days because of the sins of this people, and he is an hungered, and thou shalt receive him into thy house and feed him, and he shall bless thee and thy house; and the blessing of the Lord shall rest upon thee and thy house.

[_Hagoth]

From That Sorenson Article:

...

The fact that these others were merely hinted at and not explicitly named, and their numbers, cities, commerce, warfare, technology, and agriculture not described is a monumental oversight. Remember, this apologetic was unnecessary until DNA studies disappointed us by revealing that the people our prophets, seers and revelators referred to as Lamanites turned out to be, apparently, some kind of unexpected "others." In the current apologetic definition, Others are the people who actually filled the American continents and were responsible for all of the societies, artifacts and domesticates that we have evidence for today. You would think they would have made quite an impression.

It is truly unfortunate that the Lord didn't get the memo in time:

-D&C 54:8 And thus you shall take your journey into the regions westward, unto the land of Missouri, unto the borders of the Lamanites.

-D&C 49:24 But before the great day of the Lord shall come, Jacob shall flourish in the wilderness, and the Lamanites shall blossom as the rose.

-D&C 28:14 And thou shalt assist to settle all these things, according to the covenants of the church, before thou shalt take thy journey among the Lamanites.

-D&C 19:27 Which is my word to the Gentile, that soon it may go to the Jew, of whom the Lamanites are a remnant, that they may believe the gospel, and look not for a Messiah to come who has already come.

-D&C 30:6 ...for I have given unto him power to build up my church among the Lamanites.

-D&C 28:9 ...and no man knoweth where the city of Zion shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter. Behold, I say unto you that it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites.

-D&C 32:2 ...he shall go with my servants, Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer, Jun., into the wilderness among the Lamanites.

-D&C 3:18 And this testimony shall come to the knowledge of the Lamanites, and the Lemuelites, and the Ishmaelites, who dwindle in unbelief because of the iniquity of their fathers…

-D&C 28:8 And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them;


The pre-DNA understanding of the church's teaching about the peopling of the Americas is clearly laid out here: https://www.lds.org/ensign/1976/06/a-promised-land?lang=eng