All About Mormons

Many who are investigating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have heard claims that DNA evidence proves that the Book of Mormon is false. This claim is not true! I have a master’s degree in physiology and developmental biology, and I’m currently pursuing a combined MD/PhD degree in both medicine and biomedical sciences. I am familiar with the “science” behind the claim that DNA disproves the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. This claim is twice offensive to me, both because it has been used by anti-Mormons to spread their bigotry and also because it is bad “science.”

DNA science has proven very useful and exact when matching a forensic blood sample to a criminal perpetrator. It is also very exact when used to determine paternity. Anti-Mormons would have you believe that the DNA evidence that “disproves” the Book of Mormon is just as certain. The Book of Mormon describes a small group of Hebrews that traveled to the American continent 600 B.C. Because no “Jewish DNA” can be found among modern Native Americans, anti-Mormons claim this proves that the Book of Mormon account is false. In reality, this DNA “evidence” is based on faulty assumptions and excessive confidence in a new branch of DNA science that is by no means conclusive.

What is the faulty assumption upon which this “evidence” is based? It is the assumption that Mormons believe that this small group of Hebrews are the sole ancestors of all Native Americans. In reality, Mormon scholars have been moving away from that idea for decades, long before the DNA “evidence” was presented. Bruce R. McConkie, a now deceased world-wide leader of the Church, said this in 1966: “The American Indians, however, as Columbus found them also had other blood than that of Israel in their veins. It is possible that isolated remnants of the Jaredites may have lived through the period of destruction in which millions of their fellows perished. It is quite apparent that groups of orientals found their way over the Bering Strait and gradually moved southward to mix with the Indian peoples. We have records of a colony of Scandinavians attempting to set up a settlement in America some 500 years before Columbus. There are archaeological indications that an unspecified number of groups of people probably found their way from the old to the new world in pre-Colombian times. Out of all these groups would have come the American Indians as they were discovered in the 15th century.”

A recent change to the introduction of the Book of Mormon goes even further in explaining this decades-long shift in Mormon thought. Mormons do not believe that Hebrews are the sole or even principal ancestors of Native Americans. Because DNA “evidence” against Mormonism is based on a faulty assumption of Mormon belief, the conclusions are likewise faulty.

I and many of my fellow Mormons believe that a small group of Hebrews came to the Americas and mixed with the vast Native American peoples they encountered. This view is in complete harmony with the DNA evidence. Given this view, why do we find no “Jewish DNA” among modern Native Americans?

1. Mormons believe that a SMALL group of Hebrews traveled to the American continent. When a small group founds a new population, its genetic composition often differs considerably from the larger population from which it came. In genetics, this is known as the “founder effect.”
2. Upon arriving in the Americas, this small Hebrew group divided into two factions or subgroups. The Book of Mormon states that one of these two subgroups (the Lamanites) underwent a rapid change in phenotype (physical characteristics) in only a few generations. I believe that this rapid change in phenotype occurred when these Lamanites intermarried with native peoples, suggesting that miscegenation my have begun within only a few generations of the Hebrew group’s arrival. Such miscegenation would have decreased the frequency of Hebrew-specific genes in the population.
3. The Book of Mormon states that centuries later the “Lamanite” subgroup, which had likely already mixed with Native American peoples, rejoined the other Hebrew subgroup (the Nephites), thus introducing Native American genes into the Nephite subgroup as well. This further diluted the frequency of Hebrew-specific genes in the population.
4. Shortly after this demographic unification, the Book of Mormon reports that most of these “Americanized Hebrews” (who I’ll call “Lehites”) were killed in what was probably the first-century Mesoamerican volcanic eruptions for which scientists have found compelling evidence. In genetics, population-reducing catastrophic events such as this are known to have profound effects on population gene frequency. The frequency of Hebrew-specific genes, already effected by the founder effect and diluted by miscegenation with Native American populations, could have been drastically altered with this population-wide destruction. Geneticists call this sort of genetic event the “bottleneck effect.”
5. 400 years after this natural catastrophe, the Book of Mormon reports that the “Lehite” population was once again nearly wiped out due to intense warfare. This second “bottleneck” effect could have further altered population gene frequencies, making the detection of Hebrew-specific genes even more challenging.
6. The Book of Mormon record does not extend beyond these catastrophic wars. It seems likely that the remaining “Lehites” were eventually assimilated into the vast surrounding Native American populations, further “diluting” the already altered frequency of Hebrew-specific genes in the population.
7. As if to add insult to injury, with the coming of the Europeans to the American continent, 90% of the Native American populations were wiped out due to imported diseases. This represents a final “bottleneck effect” that further altered gene frequencies in Native American populations.

It is no surprise, then, that there are not many Hebrew-specific genes among the Native Americans that have been studied. Even Dr. Simon Southerton, the first scientist to make the claim that DNA disproves the Book of Mormon, has stated: “In 600 BC there were probably several million American Indians living in the Americas. If a small group of Israelites, say less than thirty, entered such a massive native population, it would be very hard to detect their genes today.”

Michael F. Whiting, a prominent geneticist, has said the following: “[Book of Mormon critics attempting to use DNA] have not given us anything that would pass the muster of peer review by scientists in this field, because they have ignored the real complexity of the issues involved. Further, they have overlooked the entire concept of hypothesis testing in science and believe that just because they label their results as ‘based on DNA,’ they have somehow proved that the results are accurate or that they have designed the experiment correctly….There are some very good scientific reasons for why the Book of Mormon is neither easily corroborated nor refuted by DNA evidence, and current attempts to do so are based on dubious science.”