DNA and the Book of Mormon

by Terry Silva

with reply by Randall Shortridge, Ph.D.

and correlated, independent comment by Mark Thomase

April 29, 2003

From: "Silva, Terry" <SILVAT@byui.edu>
To: <sterlingda@greaterthings.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 8:26 AM
Subject: Manasseh DNA

Mitochondrial DNA comes from the cell body and no the nucleus and as such is only past from mother to child. Male children do not pass MDNA on to their offspring. In fact, MDNA only contributes 1/200,000th of our total genetic make-up. Theories that the Book of Mormon can be proven true or false by using mitochondrial DNA evidence will fail because they are based on a false premise that the Book of Mormon says that all Native Americans are descendants from the Jewish colonists about whom the book is written. There is ample evidence, both external and internal to the Book of Mormon, that the Book of Mormon peoples were simply a few colonies among many others that migrated to the Americas from Asia and other parts of the world.

Following a maternal ancestral line you would go from your mother to her mother to her mother and so forth. This ancestral line would exclude the bulk of your ancestors who have contributed to your Autosomal DNA, which comes from your chromosomes. Using MDNA only a few Americans could trace their maternal ancestry back to the original Mayflower colony and only a few Native Americans could trace their maternal ancestry to the Book of Mormon colonists.

The major colonists mentioned in the Book of Mormon came around 600 B.C. After their arrival in the Promised Land, they divided into two groups: Nephites and Lamanites. The Nephites had an agrarian society with many cities and towns. The Lamanites were said to be of the "hunter-gatherer" type with some mentioning of towns and ownership of flocks. History has shown that agrarian societies have lower mortality rates and can sustain larger populations than those that depend on hunting for survival. Yet, in the Book of Mormon frequent mention is made of Lamanite armies being much larger than the Nephites. In addition, the Lamanites acquired a darker skin than the Nephites. These two facts may not coincidence but could be interrelated. A possible scenario in which the hunter-gatherer Lamanites could become more populous and darker skinned would be if they had conquered and assimilated darker skinned indigenous peoples. The Book of Mormon mentions other peoples found by the Nephites such as the Mulekites and the Jaredites. It is also possible that the Lamanites could have encountered other peoples but since the Book of Mormon only relates the history of the Lamanites as they interacted with the Nephites we can only speculate as to the rest of the Lamanites history. It is highly probable, considering the accounts in the Book of Mormon, that many of the conquered indigenous men would have been killed either as a result of battle or human sacrifice. Unions between the male Lamanite conquerors and indigenous women would have resulted in offspring with no Israelite MDNA.

The Book of Mormon history concludes with a great war between the Lamanites and Nephites where the Nephites were eventually all killed except for a handful of stragglers, including the last author in the book, Moroni. This event alone would severely restrict the propagation of the colonist's MDNA because the Nephites, who remained relatively pure genetically were displaced by Lamanites who had intermarried with non-Israelite peoples. This would make it difficult to find any Israelite DNA markers, but to find those passed from a person's maternal line only by sampling only 700 of the over 10,000 Native American populations (as Murphy's report did), would be as difficult as finding someone in Idaho who is directly related solely through maternal ancestry to a member of the Mayflower colony.

If a population of Lamanites were to be found, the next problem would be finding a comparable population among modern Jewry. In the brass plates, which contained many Jewish scriptures as well as family histories, Lehi discovered that he is from the tribe of Manasseh. The majority of the tribe of Manasseh lived as part of the ten tribes that comprised the Northern Kingdom of Israel. These ten tribes were later carried off in captivity and disappeared, becoming known as the Lost Ten Tribes. So finding a population from the tribe of Manasseh would be impossible, unless one could first find the lost ten tribes. Manasseh was the oldest son of Joseph and Asenath, the daughter of the Egyptian Poti-pherah. (Genesis 46:20). Thus, any MDNA from Joseph's descendants would not be Israelite, but Egyptian. And so we see that it would be impossible to prove or disprove that any of Lehi's descendants are of Jewish descent using MDNA evidence.

There have been many attempts to use science to discredit the Book of Mormon. First it was the mention of horses, elephants, and camels in the Book of Mormon since the prevailing wisdom of the time said these animals did not exist in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans. But recent archeological and anthropological finds have proven that these animals did exist in the Americas before Columbus and that horses were in use by Native Americans many years before the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors. In the end it was the "prevailing wisdom of the time" that was proven false, not the Book of Mormon. Indeed, these recent discoveries not only vindicate the Book of Mormon as a valid historical document, but add great credence to the fact that Joseph Smith did not make the whole thing up for Joseph Smith had no way of knowing that evidences of pre-Columbian horses, camels, and elephants would be found in North America.

In the song "The Boxer" Simon and Garfunkle sing, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." In a free society everyone should be free to express their own opinions. However, opinions can be highly suspect if they are not base on reason, logic, and fact. Those who try to use science to either prove or disprove religious views usually do so with a preconceived notion of the final outcome and so their research and conclusions are influenced by their own bias. There are many ways to validate the claims made in the Book of Mormon. Early reports by people traveling with the Spanish Conquistadors of Native American priests speaking Hebrew, a depiction of a Hebrew Menorah along with "Pascha"(Passover) written in Aramaic on a stone, and a stone tablet found in Peru with three of the ten commandments written on it all point to a pre-Columbian Hebrew presence in the Americas. (See www.moshiach.com/features/tribes/ecuador.php

But, in the end those who wish to prove the Book of Mormon to be false would not be convinced of its veracity even if an angel appeared to them, just as most of the ruling Jewish elite did not accept the miracles that Jesus performed as proof that Jesus was the messiah. There is only one way to prove divine authorship of the Book of Mormon and that is by submitting the question not to "junk science" nor to prevailing wisdom, but to divinity. I was once on an airplane seated next to a man who was reading the Book of Mormon. Somehow I knew he was not a member of the LDS church and so I asked him how he obtained the book. After he told me story, I then asked him how he felt as he was reading it. He contemplated my question for a while and then said that he felt warm and happy inside. I explained to him that "warm feeling" was the Holy Ghost telling him the Book of Mormon was true. It was by the same power of the Holy Ghost that Peter knew Jesus was the Christ, and no other litmus test is valid or will convince men other than a witness from the Holy Ghost.

Terry Silva

Note: I am a computer programmer, not an expert on genetics. Nor am I a professional religionist. However, science and religion have both been my passions and I have learned a great deal about both in my studies through the years.


Terry Silva
Communications Programmer
BYU-Idaho
Phone: 208 496-1065
Email: Silvat@BYUI.edu
God Bless America!

Reply by Randall Shortridge, Ph.D.

From: "Randall Shortridge" <rds@buffalo.edu>
To: "Sterling D. Allan" <sterlingda@greaterthings.com>
Cc: <SILVAT@byui.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Manasseh DNA

1. Claiming that mDNA is only a small part of the human genome is misleading because all DNA fingerprinting methods used in courts today are just as small in regard to the total genome, yet that has nothing to do with the science of it. Criminals are convicted (or proved innocent) every day based on analysis of very small segments of the genome and what is used is always less than the size of mitochondrial DNA. Incidentally, I also saw Dr. Scott Woodward use this claim about mDNA being relatively small (implying insignificance). This is the same Scott Woodward who embarrassingly published a paper in Science magazine falsely claiming that he had cloned dinosaur DNA (proven wrong by other scientists). At my own institution, that incident would have been grounds for dismissal, or at the minimum, a denial of tenure. However, BYU surprisingly promoted Woodward with tenure and he is now considered a great geneticist among the LDS camp. However, the reality is quite different among (non-BYU) peers and the claims of Woodward and BYU company are at odds with what is accepted by mainstream science. In regard to the cell, one can also accurately claim that mDNA is 50% of the genome, since all of our DNA is contained within either the mitochondria or the nucleus. While this could be argued as being technically correct, this would also be misleading (inaccurate) for obvious reasons.

2. Given, for sake of argument, that the BoM does not explicitly state that the American Indian represents a genetic descendent of Israel, numerous statements in regard to belief and doctrine over the past 170 years by Mormon leaders are clear in stating a position that Indians are Israelites. These statements are proven by science to be in error. Irregardless of the BoM and its statements, the doctrine taught by LDS leaders are proven to be totally in error.

3. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that Indians originated from Israel.

4. DNA is not the only evidence claiming that Indians are Asian in origin. DNA has corroborated evidence for same from other scientific disciplines and is in full agreement with them, though DNA evidence is considered to be the most reliable and irrefutable in regard to interpretation of results.

5. Arguments about admixture are irrelevant for reasons statements in #2. Claims by LDS that "God changed the Indian DNA to Asian DNA" or that "DNA of the Indians degraded (changed) to Asian DNA" are not supported by any science whatsoever. DNA is known by science to change at a predictable rate (mutations) according to environmental conditions and to be accurately passed to offspring. Saying otherwise is to totally throw science out as meaningless.

6. Difficulty of using mDNA for other proofs of ancestry (eg. Mayflower, etc) do not mean that mDNA cannot be used to prove the origins of the American Indian.

7. The DNA fingerprinting work in question was not done by anti-LDS. The work was done by mainstream scientists at major research institutions around the world. Moreover, the results are widely accepted in the scientific world, that is, except for a small minority of scientists who are LDS. Labeling what has been done by mainstream science as "junk science" is inaccurate. "Junk science" is what comes from the BYU geneticists. They are the odd-men-out and a very small minority who are at odds with the results because it is at odds with their religious beliefs.

8. The author of the arguments below makes the claim that knowledge of the truth comes from God. The author should at least acknowledge many claims of other religionists to personal and spiritual knowledge from the same source that the BoM is false. Thus, the claim that God says the BoM is an accurate history is not a universal claim among religionists as implied in the premise used to generate the argument.

There's more, but I am tired of writing.

Randall Shortridge, Ph.D.

Mark Thomase -- Correlated, Independent Comment

Follow-up by Scott Anderson

Q. How does that effect the Israelite lineage possibility?

BlueOtter
www.prophecykeepers.com

BlueOtter

See also