DNA of pre-contact Americans

Once DNA analysis became available to scientists, tracking historical migrations became much easier and reliable. This was going to be it! Finally we were going to show the world that Lehi really did come to America 600 years before Christ and that his descendents really do exist!

Unfortunately the results have always come back negative. No Hebrew DNA in the pre-contact family trees of the American continents. Instead of getting major breaks these past few years, the Church has found itself taking some major blows.

I know this is a bit of a repeat doubt, so I apologize. It's also an issue that Mormons keep hoping to resolve either by negating its significance or by hoping and praying the DNA will eventually show up (preferably in Mesoamerica). Believers would really like a solid on this one. It would take such a load off their doubts.

Mormon vs. secular - human origins

When it comes to the big questions, Latter-day Saints think they're particularly blessed with satisfactory answers, especially because (and we all agree on this) science doesn't have the answers to big the questions. So let's compare and answers a bit. Once again the questions are:

1. Who am I and where do I come from?
2. Why am I here?
3. Where am I going?

To the first question Mormons answer that you are a child of Heavenly Father - he begot your spirit the same way your parents here on earth begot you (sexual intercourse) - and as a child of a god, you have the potential to become a god. Actually, Mormons dig back even farther than that. They believe that before we were spiritually begotten of the Father we existed as intelligences. Intelligences are understood to be eternal and (obviously) capable of being organized into spirits and spirits into people and people into gods. In fact, God the Father, according to Mormon understanding, was once a mortal man, who was previously a mere spirit child (one of billions or trillions?) of another God, who had begotten him at some point through a very mysterious manipulation of intelligences (sex). What this all means is that we are all "gods in embryo", as we say in the Church. THAT'S WHO YOU ARE!

But saying you're a god is little more than a statement of fact with no sustaining evidence. It's equally logical to say we're all potential vampires waiting for our big bite. I have no evidence for vampires other than the numerous testimonies offered by others and I consequently have no material understanding of what vampires are either. A more sustainable claim made by scripture is that we are dust waiting to happen. This is a material fact. We make dust constantly by shedding skin cells and when we die our bodies will dry and crumble and be spread in part as dust. The knowledge that you are a future pile of dust is much more meaningful than imagining you might one day be a god because you actually have references for what death and dust are. We have little to no reference for understanding what a god is or where one comes from, only a few arcane verses from a very questionable book of scripture.

It's also important to note that most of what the LDS Church focuses on is not so much who you are as what you are. You are a child of God. Whatever that means exactly is essentially left up to you to decide. Science on the other hand is much more concrete. We are members of the only remaining hominid species on the planet, we're very closely related to great apes, but we likely share a common ancestor with all life on earth. Science connects us all with billions of years of genealogy, not a trite affirmation that God's your Daddy. It gives us something concrete to hold onto (DNA). But it still doesn't tell us who we are.

When it comes to discussing the question of who we might be, the Church prefers to state (without much by way of explanation) that we are all unique consciousnesses (a spirit) that will exist forever and ever. The secular world, instead of blowing off the question with a simple dogmatic sentence, has considered various possibilities for millennia and ask for more time to careful explore this complicated subject.

Which answers do we prefer? Which ones feel more genuine? Which ones most deserve serious contemplation? Religious conjectures? Or ideas based on material fact?

"My face? I was born like this. Or maybe Satan did it..."

The literal gathering

One of the most miraculous aspects of the literal gathering of Israel in these latter-days is that it's all done via adoption. I have no idea how adoption into the tribe of Ephraim can be called a literal gathering of people descended from the Northern Kingdom. I mean, if you're not a literal, blood descendent with Hewbrew DNA and you don't even know anyone who is literally descended from the Israelite tribe in question, how can you literally be gathering that tribe by self-appointing yourself a member of that tribe? It's literally got me all mixed up.

Sylvia Porter Sessions Lyon (Smith) Clark - wife #8

Sylvia Sessions (31 July, 1818 - 12 April, 1882) and her parents converted to Mormonism and left Maine for Missouri in 1837. Sylvia married Windsor Lyon, with whom she would have three children, all of which would die in infancy or childhood. Joseph Smith officiated the marriage. The young couple moved to Nauvoo in 1839 and by the beginning of 1842 Sylvia had joined the secret ranks of Joseph's plural wives.

Sylvia remained with Windsor, who likely did not known of his wife's polygamy.

Within about a month of burying her last surviving child with Windsor, she had a fourth child, Josephine Rosetta Lyon, whom she later claimed was the daughter of Joseph. The results of DNA testing are not available to confirm or discredit Sylvia's claim.

   

Josephine could be Joseph's. Her nose resemble's Sylvia's 
but her eyes and especially her mouth look more like Joseph's.
Her jaw looks appears to be a nice genetic compromise between the two.

Six years later Sylvia married Ezekiel Clark. They eventually moved to Utah.

With Sylvia's marriage to Joseph we encounter the same problem as seen with other marriages: Sylvia was not an eligible virgin and Emma had probably not given her consent to the marriage. However, this might be the rare marriages that might have actually produced "seed" unto dear Joseph.

Tribal hunting

Mormons believe in the "literal gathering of Israel ... and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes," according to the tenth Article of Faith.

The gathering and restoration project has to happen because in the 8th century BCE Assyria invaded Israel and carried off most of the Israelites. Amazingly enough, the Assyrians pretty much managed to capture every member of all of the tribes living in the Northern Kingdom: Asher, Dan, Ephraim, Gad, Issachar, Manasseh, Naphtali, Reuben, Simeon, and Zebulun. Members of Levi who were residing in the Northern Kingdom were also carried away, but other Levites were hanging out with the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the Kingdom of Judah. Their separation is obviously a very bad thing and needs to be fixed.

This makes for a very exciting game of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, but with Israelite tribes instead of Carmen. 

Back when Joseph Smith wrote the Articles of Faith, much of the world was still an unknown. The tribes could have been hiding anywhere. Many settlers of the American continents believed the tribes would be there, but there was no need to completely exclude the nooks and crannies of Africa, the far reaches of Asia, the Down Under, and the many isles of the sea. The search was on.

Mormons have sent missionaries to every region of the world and have found converts among all peoples, and all we've found are a bunch of Josephites (Ephraim and Manasseh). In fact, the vast majority of Mormons have been assigned to the tribe of Ephraim. It's a little discouraging. Especially when we can't even keep track of the other Josephites. 

What's even more discouraging is that, even though many people claim to be the lost tribes, researchers who have sought out the Lost Tribes have found no trace of them anywhere. Where haven't we looked? How in the world can Israel hide from today's DNA analyses? It's like the whole Lost Tribe thing was just made up by some ignoramus in the 7th or 8th century CE. But don't lose hope. They'll show up some day soon!

Mormons the Israelites

Here's an early doubt for you. According to the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith was a direct descendant of Joseph, the youngest son of Jacob who was sold into Egypt, and Brigham Young confirmed that our latter-day Joseph was "pure Ephraimite." This might lead one to believe that the British Isles were populated by the tribe of Ephraim, right? The Brits must be Hebrew at heart.

But they're not. Neither was the Smith family. The Book of Mormon prophesy was bullshit. DNA evidence proves that.

"Gryffindor! No, WAIT... Ephraim!!"

And yet Mormons continue to claim lineage to the tribe of Ephraim. Isn't that a bit arrogant? How do Mormons expect anyone to take them seriously when they start spouting off about being Ephraimite? Just don't get your hopes up for an Israeli duel citizenship.

Book of Mormon - absence of archeological evidence

People, there is zero physical evidence for The Book of Mormon. Not a chariot, no temple fashioned after Solomon's, no weapons as described in the text, no DNA. Nothing whatsoever. We're going off a dream here and that fact had better make you doubt more than a little.

Bad news, folks, this is not Lehi's dream.

I doubted the absence of evidence proving the historicity of The Book of Mormon my whole life. It just had to be out there. We totally have Lehi's dream about the Tree of Life, for crying out loud! And I remember seeing a video of a BYU professor down in South American standing in a baptismal font! And let's not forget that tour package that will take you to the Waters of Mormon in Guatemala... The Book of Mormon just has to be true. It has to be!

The Lehites' neighbors

You know what would really help us in our search for Book of Mormon lands? The names a few neighboring peoples. We all know that the America's have been populated by human beings for at least the past 15000 years, so why don't we have any mention of these first inhabitants in the records of the Jaredites, or the Lehites, or the Mulekites. We get all manner of "-ites" deriving from these three sets of settlers, but no manner of neighbor.

The LDS Church has currently decided to take the stance that the Book of Mormon peoples integrated extensively with the populations already in the Americas to the extent that virtually all Near Eastern DNA markers have disappeared somehow.

All it would have taken to clear up this whole mess would have been a mere name of a tribe or two, even a verifiable name or two of individuals of an origin other than Jaredite, Lehite, or Mulekite. Just one. Anything to match up with what scholars know about pre-Contact peoples.

It's just hard to take The Book of Mormon seriously when there are holes this big running throughout its supposed history of 2200 BCE - 400 CE.