January 20, 2003
Does DNA evidence debunk history taught in the Book of Mormon?
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___Modern advances in DNA research discredit the Book of Mormon and show that Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, engaged in deception, according to a cultural anthropologist who is a lifelong Mormon.
___The recently published research of Thomas Murphy, chairman of the anthropology department at Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood, Wash., drew sharp rebuke from officials with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often called the Mormons or LDS church for short. Murphy was threatened with excommunication from the church, a matter left pending after a Dec. 8 hearing was postponed.
___Murphy, 35, traces his personal lineage through the firstMormon pioneers who settled in the West. But contrary to Mormon doctrine, he contends it is highly unlikely that
Thomas Murphy
___Mormons can trace the lineage of American Indians through a Jewish remnant the Book of Mormon calls Lamanites.
___According to the Book of Mormon, a "lost tribe of Israel" migrated to the Americas in 600 B.C. The introduction to the Book of Mormon describes these Lamanites as "the principal ancestors of the American Indians."
___The Lamanites allegedly lapsed into apostacy, but Joseph Smith claimed to have been shown golden tablets bearing their story by an angel named Moroni. Smith said he translated these tablets in 1823 from an unknown language called Reformed Egyptian, thus creating the Book of Mormon.
___Many Christian scholars historically have insisted Mormonism is a cult or sect, not a legitimate branch of Christianity. Although no historical support for Joseph Smith's claims has been found, Mormons have accepted the church's teachings on faith, including subsequent revelations said to have been given to the church's prophet or president.
___Mormons contend they are the true remnant of the Christian church, the one true church.
___Because Mormonism and the Book of Mormon have faced stiff criticism from traditional Christian churches, leaders of the Mormon church initially expressed hope that genetic research might validate their beliefs.
___"The hope is that DNA research would link Native Americans to ancient Israelites, buttressing LDS beliefs in a way that has not been forthcoming from archaeological, linguistic, historical or morphological research," Murphy wrote in his academic paper titled "Lamanite Genesis, Geology and Genetics."
___The paper was published last fall in "American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon." Murphy also is a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington, where his dissertation work focuses on Mormon representations of Native Americans.
___Any hopes the LDS church had of gaining credence through science have been dashed, Murphy wrote in the essay. "So far, DNA research lends no support to traditional Mormon beliefs about the origins of Native Americans. ... Latter-day Saints should not expect to find validation for the Book of Mormon in genetics."
___Instead, Murphy reported, genetic research conclusively demonstrates the ancestors of Native Americans arrived in North America through migrations from Asia 7,000 to 50,000 years ago. "No support for Mormon beliefs linking American Indians to ancient Israelites is evident in the data."
___Murphy also quotes Native American researcher Michael Crawford, a biological anthropologist from the University of Kansas, who wrote: "I don't think there is one iota of evidence that suggests a lost tribe from Israel made it all the way to the New World. It is a great story, slain by an ugly fact."
___In his essay, Murphy also casts doubt on Joseph Smith's claim to have translated the Book of Mormon from golden tablets preserved the angel Moroni.
___"The Book of Mormon emerged from Joseph Smith's own struggles with his God," Murphy wrote. "Mormons need to look inward for spiritual validation and cease efforts to remake Native Americans in their own image."
___LDS officials and organizations committed to defending LDS doctrine have launched a national counter-assault to Murphy's public campaign against his own faith.
___"Mr. Murphy is working closely with those who want to damage or destroy the Church of Jesus Christ," contends Allen Wyatt of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, an LDS advocacy group known by its acronym, FAIR.
___He cites as evidence the fact that Murphy's paper and a related video interview are distributed on the website of Mormon Challenge, an organization skeptical of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
___Murphy explains on the website's video: "We need to acknowledge a 19th century origin of the Book of Mormon. That is, we can, I think, admit that Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon in the 19th century, ... . We have to confront not just the possibility but the almost inevitability that Joseph Smith was attempting to deceive people--at least at certain periods of time. When he pretended to have actual plates, for example. It is pretty clear he was being deceptive at that time."
___Such statements are not intended to build up the LDS church but rather to tear it down, Wyatt contends.
___"He is not an innocent scholar being sacrificed at the hands of the oppressive Mormon church for his intellectual integrity," Wyatt added. "That is a media persona carefully fostered by his supporters and activist friends. He is not a neutral academic observer whose professional views place him, a la Galileo, on the religious sacrificial altar."
___FAIR distributed a national news release Jan. 8 further denouncing Murphy's writings and drawing attention to another perspective on the genetics question.
___FAIR cites the work of one of the most frequently quoted LDS scholars involved in genetics, Scott Woodward, professor of microbiology at Brigham Young University in Utah. Woodward, who describes himself as a faithful Mormon, is credited with discovering a genetic marker used to identify the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis.
___In video presentations and at least one radio interview, Woodward does not dispute the basic research done by Murphy. He concurs, for example, that current genetic research indicates that today's Native American people descended from Asia, not from European or Jewish stock.
___The difficulty, Woodward contends, is taking that research to a distant conclusion. "It's probably quite premature to make some of the conclusions that Tom has made concerning the genetic evidence and the Book of Mormon," Woodward said on a radio interview aired on KUER in Salt Lake City Dec. 19, 2002.
___The fact that no Hebrew DNA has been found in Native Americans does not logically preclude the Book of Mormon from being a true account, Woodward insisted on the radio interview. Likewise, finding evidence of Hebrew DNA in Native Americans would not prove the Book of Mormon's truthfulness, he added.
___As a geneticist, Woodward said, his mission is not to prove the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The truthfulness of the Mormon Scripture is not something that can be proved by scientific evidence, he said. "I am a believer. I think that the Book of Mormon is what it purports to be."
___In an August 2001 speech to the annual conference of FAIR, Woodward compared attempts to use DNA testing to validate the Book of Mormon to predicting what picture a jigsaw puzzle will create after looking at only a handful of puzzle pieces.
___Further, Woodward added, it should not be surprising if Native Americans today show no genetic remnant of Lehi. The Book of Mormon teaches that Lehi was a Hebrew prophet who led his people to the promised land of North America in 600 B.C.
___The DNA of Lehi and his followers would have been obscured over time by the more dominant genetic force of the Native Americans with whom they intermixed upon arrival in North America, he suggested.
___This argument doesn't wash with Murphy, however.
___"They're going way far away from what the Book of Mormon says, including the introduction that says Lamanites are the 'principal ancestors of the American Indians.'"
___LDS apologists cannot escape the genetic evidence by claiming the genetic record of the Lamanites became obscured by intermarriage with an existing population, Murphy said, because that line of reasoning contradicts the Book of Mormon.
___He cites Ether 2:5 in the Book of Mormon as an example: "And it came to pass that the Lord commanded them that they should go forth into the wilderness, yea, into that quarter where there never had man been."
___Murphy concurs with Woodward's assessment that if there had been a tiny group of people who intermarried with a larger population, they might not have left a genetic trace. However, "there's nothing in the Book of Mormon to support that supposition. ... The Book of Mormon says there was nobody here."
___LDS officials and supporters have criticized Murphy for identifying himself as a Mormon while not attending LDS church services for a decade.
___In an interview Jan. 14, Murphy acknowledged he's not an active member of the church. "I'm a cultural Mormon," he explained. "I prefer to be called a latter-day skeptic."
___However, he continues to identify with the LDS tradition, he said, because he believes his people must "deal forthrightly with the problems the genetic evidence presents. We need to find ways to get beyond the racism."
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