If I could ask them one question . . . Come Follow Me, Lesson 43

[annotatedbom]

For Come Follow Me, Lesson 43, Nov 2-8, 2020, Mormon 7-9

If I wanted to encourage thought and try to understand devout believers better, I might ask:
“Is lack of DNA evidence a major challenge to Book of Mormon truth claims?”

See the Things to consider for this lesson.

And, here’s a list of some other observations about this lesson’s reading.

Enjoy!
A-Bom

[Five]

Very good breakdown of the lesson. In the terms of this question regarding DNA evidence, I am less invested or interested in the actual data or studying up on genetics or research. Because the church leaders and the book itself state one thing, and now, the "prophets, seers, and revelators" who talk to God and talk for God, are saying something else, casting the previous statements as falsehoods, mistakes, and lies. It calls into question the legitimacy of their authority and ability to talk for a God who knows all, if they have to change their statements to the point of previous words becoming lies.

My question for a TBM regarding this lesson is "What does it say about the men who speak to and for God, when God allowed them to state falsehoods for years before being corrected?"

[Hagoth]

Excellent point, AnotatedBoM.

Another refutation of the apologetic detour that we don't know anything about Lehi's lineage is the fact that one of the reasons Nephi had to decapitate a drunken man was to get his father's genealogy that was written on the plates.

Some apologists still cling to the presence of haplogroup X in in Native Americans as evidence of middle eastern origins but stick their heads in the sand concerning Kennewick man, who had haplogroup X and died thousands of years before the Jaredites arrived.

Here's a link to my annotated DNA essay. It's long but action-packed: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tz7 ... sp=sharing

[annotatedbom]

Another refutation of the apologetic detour that we don't know anything about Lehi's lineage is the fact that one of the reasons Nephi had to decapitate a drunken man was to get his father's genealogy that was written on the plates.

This is such a great point I felt compelled to edit the post on my site to include it, with credit to you of course. If you're uncomfortable with any of that, please let me know right away, and I'll fix it.

Some apologists still cling to the presence of haplogroup X in in Native Americans as evidence of middle eastern origins but stick their heads in the sand concerning Kennewick man, who had haplogroup X and died thousands of years before the Jaredites arrived.

Ha! The haplogroup X apologetic is the thing my former bishop picked to try to refute, of all the things on my list of issues. Not a smart choice on his part.

Here's a link to my annotated DNA essay. It's long but action-packed: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tz7 ... sp=sharing

Believe it or not, I have a copy of this saved in my Google Drive. I don't remember using it as I drafted my post, but I had read it at some point, so it may have influenced the DNA post on my site. If you have even an inkling that I failed to properly credit some idea of yours, please let me know so I can credit you again.

[annotatedbom]

In the terms of this question regarding DNA evidence, I am less invested or interested in the actual data or studying up on genetics or research. Because the church leaders and the book itself state one thing, and now, the "prophets, seers, and revelators" who talk to God and talk for God, are saying something else, casting the previous statements as falsehoods, mistakes, and lies. It calls into question the legitimacy of their authority and ability to talk for a God who knows all, if they have to change their statements to the point of previous words becoming lies.

My question for a TBM regarding this lesson is "What does it say about the men who speak to and for God, when God allowed them to state falsehoods for years before being corrected?"

I totally agree. In fact I wrote pretty much the same thing in the middle of my post:

So, who’s “teaching the philosophy of men mingled with a few scriptures” (language borrowed from President Ezra Taft Benson, lest you think I mock the temple endowment)? The prophets of days gone by, or the prophets of today? Either way, how can you trust they speak for God, given their story seems to change?

Isn't it amazing how obvious some of these things are once you open your eyes to the reality that the Church is just another organization of men?

[annotatedbom]

Deleted duplicate post

[Hagoth]

Abom,

I'm confused by the " Never mind that the Book of Mormon is filled with 19th century anachronisms" portion of your commentary. What exactly is that quote and where did it come from? The setup would lead me to believe it is Elder Holland speaking, but that's obviously not the case, as it appears to be your rebuttal to the Holland talk but presented as a quote.

[Hagoth]

The ever-shrinking geography and culture of the BoM is a huge problem for anyone reading the actual words of the actual book.

I have read some apologists claiming that the entire story happens as some kind of underground movement that wouldn't be recognizable from outside, and that the book is written from that perspective, giving much more emphasis to things that wouldn't seem significant to outsiders. One apologist (I forget who) said to imagine the history of the United States as written by an LDS missionary and how different from most peoples' expectations that would be. OK, but if that missionary's account said there were herds kangaroos and penguins roaming across America, and that there was another Civil War that left only a sole survivor, followed by a nationwide race war that annihilated all of the white people, you might start to suspect that story isn't to be trusted.

Also, nobody every suspected a limited geography from reading the book. They had to be told to expect something different that what the book describes because the author had problems with scale. Two large bodies of land connected by a neck of land so narrow that you can walk across in a day (Panama), bodies of water up north (Great Lakes, Finger Lakes), a treeless desolate land south of that where people built with cement (Southwest desert/adobe), the whole thing surrounded by oceans, and the sun actually rising in the east and setting in the west without the need to turn everything 90 degrees to shoehorn it into your apologetic requirements. Not to mention your prophet's own words about Nephites in New York, Ohio, Missouri...

[moksha]

What about the apologetic that God turned the entire DNA lineage Asiatic as part of a curse?

[deacon blues]

In the 21st century DNA evidence has arguably (And I believe justifiably) replaced witness testimony as the most compelling type of evidence there is. I think the 'God of Truth' made it that way; that's what progress is.

[annotatedbom]

I'm confused by the " Never mind that the Book of Mormon is filled with 19th century anachronisms" portion ...

Ugh! I appreciate you pointing this out. I wrote that poorly. I meant to say that I was borrowing from Elder Holland's rhetorical style, and that the quote below was from me. I edited it to clarify.

It's amazing. I struggle with that part a little. I could tell that what I had written there was awkward at best, but I didn't make the time needed to really understand why and make it more clear. Hopefully my last edit does a better job.

Thank you for the constructive feedback!
A-BoM

ETA: And, ditto to your observations about the apologetics.

[annotatedbom]

What about the apologetic that God turned the entire DNA lineage Asiatic as part of a curse?

I guess that works for some. Why not? Whenever you can resort to "It's magic," you can rationalize belief in anything you want.

[annotatedbom]

In the 21st century DNA evidence has arguably (And I believe justifiably) replaced witness testimony as the most compelling type of evidence there is. I think the 'God of Truth' made it that way; that's what progress is.

True, but if you offer this to a believer, beware that they may point out the difference in forensic genetic science and population genetics. The former is extremely precise on an individual level compared to population genetics. It's not that population genetics doesn't tell us a lot, but an apologists might try to use the general lack of specificity of population genetics to rationalize belief in Book of Mormon claims.

I think your point stands though. Population genetics has really been a boon to understanding the ancient migrations of humans because it goes to what I consider a layer deeper in terms of objectivity in evidence than some other fields of science studying human migrations. The other sciences did an amazingly good job because of well-vetted work that converged on a lot of the same general conclusions. Population genetics may have changed some things, but the underlying general understanding of human population movements wasn't upended. It was generally confirmed.

[moksha]

What about the apologetic that God turned the entire DNA lineage Asiatic as part of a curse?

I guess that works for some. Why not? Whenever you can resort to "It's magic," you can rationalize belief in anything you want.

I've wondered why this has not been universally adopted as the LDS explanation in light of modern genetic understanding. I think it might be due to Asian-Pacific missionary aspirations. Perhaps Elder Gong would go along with this explanation to promote Church unity, but inwardly he would not be happy with it.

Admirers of Mother Goose Stories are able to avoid these conundrums by sticking to the position of it being inspired fiction.

[Hagoth]

True, but if you offer this to a believer, beware that they may point out the difference in forensic genetic science and population genetics. The former is extremely precise on an individual level compared to population genetics. It's not that population genetics doesn't tell us a lot, but an apologists might try to use the general lack of specificity of population genetics to rationalize belief in Book of Mormon claims.

The essay tries to do this in reverse. They say "we don't know who Lehi's father and mother were so how could we possibly find them in a broad genetic pool (they want shift you to thinking it's a CSI case), so we should disregard what the bigger DNA picture says. That's a misdirection and red herring. Then, when it suits them, they take a 180 and do just the opposite in Ugo Perego's little story about how all his life he thought he was pure Italian but his DNA revealed that he had an Asian/Native American haplotype. In that case, suddenly, population genetics is real deal and Perego has to accept that he was wrong. So the science is reliable when they want it to be but not so much when they don't. That essay makes so many contradictory claims that I wonder if it was meant to intentionally confuse you.

One moment they're telling you that Lehite DNA was lost because it was diluted in a vast sea of the native population and the next they're telling you that it was lost because it was "squeezed out" via bottleneck and founder effect of a very small population. It's especially curious that the bottleneck specifically squeezed out all of the DNA of three separate incursions: Jaredite, Mulekite, and Lehite, but didn't squeeze out the much older specific markers that can be traced to a 40,000-year old individual in Siberia. Or to Neanderthals for that matter.

Smoke and mirrors for a really, really, really serious problem.

[moksha]

Or to Neanderthals for that matter.

It would be interesting if Ancestry.com would tell us the percentage of Church members with Neanderthal DNA. Perhaps it might encourage members to support archeology digs in order to aid in the submission of names for Temple work.