1. Critic: A plain reading of the Book of Mormon indicates that the American Indian and South American indigenous people are descendants of Lehi who traveled to America from Israel. DNA studies have been unable to detect Middle Eastern DNA in any of these people, thus casting some serious doubts on the historicity of the story. Haplogroup X has also failed to bear out any connection to Middle Eastern origins, and recent evidence indicates Asiatic origins of that group. It is concentrated heavily in Alaska, Canada, and Northern North America. Any other European DNA seems to concentrate around areas that had extensive colonial contact with Europeans. A plain reading does not indicate that any people were present when the Jaredites came, and only one person was left around to tell the tale of woe when the Mulekites came. So by the time the Mulekites and Lehites came, there was not anyone there. Anyone who suggests otherwise is engaging in revisionist history because that was the theory that Joseph Smith adhered to, all the prophets since Joseph Smith (temple dedications in South America in the 2000’s included references to those people being the descendants of “Father Lehi”) and that is what every Mormon person is taught growing up. Even Elder Oaks was under the impression that this was the case. “Here I was introduced to the idea that the Book of Mormon is not a history of all of the people who have lived on the continents of North and South America in all ages of the earth. Up to that time I had assumed that it was. If that were the claim of the Book of Mormon, any piece of historical, archaeological, or linguistic evidence to the contrary would weigh in against the Book of Mormon, and those who rely exclusively on scholarship would have a promising position to argue.” – The historicity of the book of Mormon, BYU Religious studies center.
It’s interesting that Elder Oaks has decided not to be perfectly clear on this matter given his long years of potential opportunity to dispel this misguided thought, but whatever.
2. BOM Supporter (Apologist): Number one defense.There were people here when the Jaradites, Mulekites, and Lehi and Co. arrived. These Israelites lived, loved, and died all in a very small part of Mesoamerica which we have not found yet. Their DNA was subsumed by people they interbred with, and we have not been able to detect their DNA because we have not sampled the right populations yet. A careful reading of the Book of Mormon will reveal the instances where other people can be inferred.
The number two defense is dependent on the first and it involves musing on what science can and cannot do. Science cannot prove a negative. It cannot tell us that there is no possibility that a small group of people didn’t come here. That said, there are also lots of problems with the science if you indeed make the mistake of using science to try and prove that the natives do not have Israelite DNA, there are a whole host of problems that await you. Genetic drift, founder effect, Hardy-Weinberg assumption violations, unique DNA signatures, What do the wives DNA look like, gene flow pre-extermination with already existing people, gene flow post-extermination, limited geography, and natural selection.
There are a lot of sub arguments but they mostly relate to either of the above situations, either your science is not precise enough, or you shouldn’t expect to be using science anyway.
Here are some points on the apologist side I found reasonable.
There are a few instances where early church leaders seemed to acknowledge the possibility of there being people present when Lehi showed up. The times and seasons published a weird account of an Indian group which claimed to be led by God to this continent sometime around the time of Moses. Times and Seasons Sept 15 1842. Apologists attribute this to Joseph Smith because he was editor at the time. I can see that. Matthew Roper published that and other instances in his article, Nephi’s neighbors. As I read through them again, I see problems with some of them I didn’t see at first blush. Typical. George Ottinger published a bunch of stuff that supported this view in 1875. He was not a church leader though and his views did not catch on. B.H. Roberts wrote about pre-nephi people as did Anthony Ivins, Sjodahl, Widtstoe, Richard L. Evans, Crowley, Nibley and others. There were a surprising amount of people who taught this even pretty early on, suggesting this view is not entirely revisionist. People sensed the bullcrap early on possibly and felt the need to explain it away. It is true that we don’t know anything about the wives DNA, or Zoram’s DNA. I don’t think it is a stretch to imagine that they had Israelite DNA, but it is a fair point. Everybody including Ishmael could have married an Asian girl…
In the article entitled “Addressing questions surrounding the Book Of Mormon and DNA Research,” John Butler describes a scenario involving Icelanders and their Y-Chromosome and MtDNA. 131,060 people were studied and a minority of ancestors only 150 years earlier contributed a majority of the descendants DNA. This means to apologists that if ancestry gets that muddy after only 150 years, what about 2000 years with a small population to begin with. Seems legit and the study checks out, although the scope of the study was limited to inferences about the evolution rate of haplotypes and coalescent analyses for mtDNA and Y chromosome dating. Not sure if it can be applied in the way Butler wants to? This doesn’t answer anything, it just punts the football into some pretty tall weeds.
Here are some points I found unreasonable on the apologist side of things:
Just about everything else. Seriously. I have viewed the vitriol directed towards Mormon apologists with some sympathy for the apologists. It’s like that awkward kid that gets picked on a lot and you go to defend him only to have him get angry at you and kick sand in your eyes. Turns out that kid was really weird and got picked on for a reason. Yup, turns out the apologists really do offer conflicting statements in the same book and even in the same article. They really do interpret scripture past what sane people would do. Although, to be fair, they do that because our prophets, seers, and revelators won’t do that for us. They follow the pattern of throwing spaghetti at the wall, seeing what sticks, then bearing testimony.
One of the points that is maddening though is Oaks’ statement on proving a negative and science just doesn’t have a place in assessing the Book of Mormons historical claims. Here it is,
The apologists echo this refrain by trumpeting the fact that one cannot use science to prove that something is not possible, is not there, or will not be found. This delves into philosophical territory that is sort of murky, but science can weigh in on a negative. I don’t want to delve too much into this because in my experience it always turns into a sort of fallacy-fest where one person tries to sword fight the other with the powers of identifying fallacies. It seems like pointing out fallacies becomes a phallic endeavor with everyone waving around their best one and they are super proud of it. But I digress.…the case for the Book of Mormon is the stronger case to argue. The case against the historicity of the Book of Mormon has to prove a negative. You do not prove a negative by prevailing on one debater’s point or by establishing some subsidiary arguments.
The evidence of absence is a valuable tool in a scientist’s toolbox. The absence of malignant cells indicates the absence of cancer, even though nothing was found. Yes, you could say that there could be small amounts of cancer that were not detected, but who wants to live that way? Plus, that’s what confidence intervals and significance levels are for.
