DNA and The Book of Mormon
The Origin of Homo sapiens
LDS Church Position
• Adam our great progenitor, "the first man," was, like Christ,
a pre-existent spirit, and like Christ he took upon him an
appropriate body, the body of a man, and so became a
"living soul." The doctrine of the pre-existence, --revealed
so plainly, particularly in latter days, pours a wonderful
flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of
man's origin. It shows that man, as a spirit, was begotten
and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the
eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the
earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in
mortality. It teaches that all men existed in the spirit before
any man existed in the flesh, and that all who have
inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and
become souls in like manner.
Alternative Hypotheses
Alternative scenarios of human evolution
Fagundes N J R et al. PNAS 2007;104:17614-17619
©2007 by National Academy of Sciences
Trellis model with recent expansion
into the Americas
Migration of Homo sapiens
Human Migrations
What does The Book of Mormon imply
for the peopling of the Americas?
• Israelite relationship
• “After thousands of years, all were destroyed
except the Lamanites, and they are the
principal ancestors of the American Indians.”
• “After thousands of years, all were destroyed
except the Lamanites, and they are among the
ancestors of the American Indians.”
What does DNA tell us?
• DNA extracted from
teeth, more than
10,000 years old, found
in a cave on the
northern tip of Prince of
Wales Island, off
southern Alaska
(Nature, 2005)
• Matched tribes
throughout the
Americas
What are the implications for The Book
of Mormon?
• Asian origin of the Native Americans
• Much older origin of the Native Americans
• Is this a problem for The Book of Mormon?
Critics
• Thomas Murphy - "the Book of Mormon is a
piece of 19th century fiction. And that means
that we have to acknowledge sometimes Joseph
Smith lied.”
• Simon Southerton – “The Book of Mormon was
created in the mind of Joseph Smith and is not a
historical account of former inhabitants of the
American continent.''
– Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the
Mormon Church 2004
Hugh Nibley
•
As Hugh Nibley explained in 1952, in an article printed in the official publication of the Church at
the time, the Book of Mormon identified Asia as a source for ancient Native Americans long before
anthropologists did. The essay was "The World of the Jaredites," Improvement Era, Vol. 55, June
1952, from which I quote:
•
That account [the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon] tells us that at the very
dawn of history, many thousands of years ago, a party of nomad hunters and stock
raisers from west central Asia crossed the water--very probably the North Pacific-to the New World, where they preserved the ways of their ancestors, including
certain savage and degenerate practices, and carried on a free and open type of
steppe warfare with true Asiatic cruelty and ferocity; it tells us that these people
moved about much in the wilderness, for all they built imposing cities, and that
they produced a steady trickle of "outcasts" through the centuries. A careful study
of the motions of the Jaredites, Mulekites, Nephites, and Lamanites should correct
the absurd oversimplification by which the Book of Mormon as a history is always
judged. It will show as plain as day that the Book of Mormon itself first suggests
the Asiatic origin of some elements at least of the Indian race and culture long
before the anthropologists got around to it. The scientists no longer hold that one
migration and one route can explain everything about the Indians. The Book of
Mormon never did propound a doctrine so naive.
Rosenberg et al. 2005
PLoS Genetics
The Latest Genetic Data
Li et al. Science 2008
Summary
• The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ is
exactly what it claims to be — a record of God’s dealings
with peoples of ancient America and a second witness of
the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The strongest witness
of the Book of Mormon is to be obtained by living the
Christ-centered principles contained in its pages and by
praying about its truthfulness.
• Recent attacks on the veracity of the Book of Mormon
based on DNA evidence are ill considered. Nothing in the
Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by
peoples of Asiatic origin. The scientific issues relating to
DNA, however, are numerous and complex.