This was the case last week when a person called the Hugh Hewitt talk show. The caller said that he could not vote for a man who believes in the Book of Mormon in light of modern DNA evidence. There was a book written about ten years ago where a scientist did some DNA testing on American Indians. They found the DNA of these American Indians was not the same or related to DNA found in modern Israel blood lines.
Now, before shedding some light on the complete misunderstanding of these scientist assumptions, as well as some facts of the Book of Mormon. I want to provide this little side note: I find it very interesting, and Bible believing Trinitarian Christian friends love to bring this point up, that anyone today really thinks modern DNA science would prove that all mankind descend from Adam & Eve through Noah and his family! After all, the same thinking and evidence being used to question the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, is the very same line of evidence used by a secularist to question the Bible. Both views cover the same ground using DNA testing. Yet, anyone that has read the Bible would know there are answers to these questions inside. Likewise, anyone that actually read the Book of Mormon would not have the same issue with modern DNA evidence.
Now, for the "DNA cliff notes" version of the Book of Mormon. Lehi and his family left Israel, and were led across the seas to somewhere in Central or South America 600 years before the birth of Christ. Part of Lehi's family in the new world remained loyal to Lehi's beliefs through his righteous son Nephi, and were called Nephites. Another part of his family became wicked, and did not follow God. Instead, they followed Lehi's wicked son Laman, and were called Lamanites.
There were many wars fought between the Lamanites and Nephites. The Lord, not wanting the Nephites to intermingle and marry these wicked Lamanites, changed the Lamanites’ appearance much as he did in the Bible with Cain. This made them unappealing to the Nephites and, along with the unrighteousness of the Lamanites, the Nephites remained separated from the Lamanites for the entire 1000 year history of the Book of Mormon.
Now, understanding the process that must take place for the Lord to completely change people, including their skin color and appearance, the complex templates of DNA would also have to be changed, especially when such changes were to last among an entire people for over a thousand years. We believe in an ALL POWERFUL God who, having created the DNA of people, could easily change that DNA to alter and change a people. That is, an all powerful God could construct and reconstruct DNA the way my son constructs and reconstructs with his Lego's.
The Book of Mormon recording ends a thousand years of detailed and chronological history. Whatever changes the Lord brought about in the Lamanites’ DNA to alter their skin color and appearance remained throughout that recorded history. Some twenty-five hundred years before man learned about DNA, the two people, though commonly related in the beginning, were completely different during this time, fought a final, devastating war which resulted in the complete annihilation of the Nephites who, themselves, had become completely wicked. From about 400 A.D., only the Lamanites remained—not a single Nephite survived. Thus, the Nephite blood line, that of ancient Isreal, was gone from the Book of Mormon lands forever. Only the Lamanites, with their altered skin color and appearance, remained. Many of our detractors say Mormons changed their history to be more in-line with new DNA science. In answer, The Book of Mormon was translated and written down by Joseph Smith and put in print for the whole world to see in 1830. Obviously DNA was not a known word, or science in the 1830's. With our current understanding though, one has to believe to alter a whole peoples skin color and appearance at exactly the same time, and keep it thus altered for a thousand years and more, God changed that people’s DNA.
Second, there is another issue in the DNA science. Who and what people were tested in the DNA study. What evidence is there beyond assumption that DNA remains constant over thousands of years? What changes since creation has taken place in the DNA of a people? On the other hand, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) has NO OFFICIAL position on where Lehi landed in Central or South America. If in fact the Lehi colony landed along the western coast of South America, as some believe, the American Indians, though descendants of Lehi, would not be as directly related as South American tribes would be. With the Israel bloodline wiped out completely with the complete and total annihilation of the Nephites, the following is just a side note.
Even if you tested the correct tribes of people, Lehi’s directly DNA bloodline died with Moroni, the last living son of the last Nephite prophet, Mormon, as illustrated in the Book of Mormon history of the people who first settled the American continent. The DNA study only tested the American Indian along with current inhabitants of Central America (Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, ect), who would be for the most part, distant relatives of Lehi's family.Then, too, far to many Mormon's wrongfully believe the Book of Mormon takes place in, and Lehi landed in, Central America. Actually, the book of Mormon takes place in western South America, from central Chili to Ecuador. LDS Author, Del DowDell wrote a very detailed and accurate book about this very subject, titled: The Nephi Code: Lehi Never Saw MesoAmerica.
Devo
