We’re continuing our conversation from last week. Why isn’t Middle Eastern DNA found in the Americas if Indians are descendants of Lamanites? Is it possible that Lehite DNA simply vanished from the Americas? Simon says no, but I’ll ask him about some other possible cases. Last year Dr. Ugo Perego made the case that we can’t find Viking DNA in the Americas.
GT: Well his point is we know the Vikings were here. We can see their settlements. We can’t find any DNA from them. So, he sees the parallel with the Lehites. We can’t find their DNA. So, you don’t agree with that parallel?
Simon: Well I can see the point he is trying to make. He is just trying to create, “Yes, we can’t find them.” But it just bears no resemblance to the Book of Mormon account. What we need to hear, we don’t need to hear the DNA excuses for why we can’t find their DNA.
What people need to hear from the church is an explanation, a new narrative, an explanation for the Book of Mormon narrative. How do we fit this vanishing story with the text, the scripture? If you read the scripture it is really quite clear that they were very significant populations of people. So, the Nephites and Lamanites were fighting each other for a thousand years but they still referred to each other as their brethren. How does that go on for a thousand years when you’re just a tiny little people?
I’ll also ask Simon about Rodney Meldrum’s claims to have found Middle Eastern DNA here in North America. What does Simon think of Meldrum’s claims?
Simon: I’ve been less critical of Meldrum than the FARMS[1] guys. They called him a snake-oil salesman, which he is. But he’s a salesman, he is not a scientist. He’s a joke. He doesn’t understand the science. He thinks that the scientists foolishly overlooked the connection of the X-lineage to the Middle East, and his whole business is built on his X-lineage claim, and he’s wrong. It’s completely wrong.
We heavily reference our conversation with Dr. Perego. If you haven’t seen it, or have forgotten, I encourage you to check out our interview with Perego!
As we concluded our conversation with Simon, I was reminded that searching for answers about Noah’s flood led him to study more about DNA & the Book of Mormon. Is there evidence for Noah’s flood?
Simon: There was a very large deluge because the flood myth is not common to just Christianity. There are other belief systems throughout the Middle East and Mesopotamia that all contain this flood myth. There was—I think it was the Black Sea. There was a major deluge when rising sea levels after the Ice Age broke the entrance into the Black Sea through the Strait of Bosporus. There is plenty of scientific evidence for major deluge that flooded the area surrounding the Black Sea. So, there would have been devastating consequences for all of the farming communities around there at the time. I don’t know the date of that, but it might have been 8000 years ago. So yes, it was an event. It just didn’t happen.
GT: What didn’t happen?
Simon: A global flood.
GT: Oh, ok.
Simon: The only way it could have possibly happened would be if God had hidden all of the evidence of it, deliberately, and manipulatively hidden all of the evidence of the flood to trick everyone.
(Don’t forget to check out what Dr. Perego thinks about the flood.)
It’s important to remember that some people think Noah’s flood is a complete myth. John Hamer told me
There was no significant flood, or rather, there is no reason to believe that is the spark of the myth. Some people justify the Flood story as historical based on a wild hypothesis that has no historical basis — there is no reason to connect a hypothetical deluge in the Black Sea with ancient Sumer. The Noah story is entirely mythical. Israelites who created the Noah story knew that Mesopotamians believed that there had been a great flood and so created their own version.
Note that John Hamer has a lecture on the ancient story of Gilgamesh, on which some scholars think many stories in Genesis are based. There are certainly some striking parallels. See https://www.facebook.com/TorontoCongregation/videos/849774285199995/
Does Simon still believe in the Bible? What are his religious beliefs? Could he accept a non-literal interpretation of the Book of Mormon? We’ll answer these questions in videos above…..
Some questions for you:
- What are your thoughts about Noah’s Flood?
- What are your thoughts on vanishing Lamanite DNA in the Americas?
—-
[1] FARMS stands for Foundation of Ancient Research and Mormon Studies. This is an informal collaboration of academics devoted to Latter-day Saint historical scholarship. In 2006, the group became a formal part of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, formerly known as the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, BYU. FARMS has since been absorbed into the Maxwell Institute’s Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies. For more info, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Ancient_Research_and_Mormon_Studies
Wheat & Tares 
When I was in college they were still debating whether the Norse really made it to Vinland.
Though the archeological sites that surfaced then pretty much answered that.
That got rolling over a thousand years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Erikson
Their DNA vanished.
Though the Book of Mormon is clear that regardless of the factions real names the text has made the decision to use two labels.
I tend to believe Noah’s ark was a retelling of a more a localized flood story, however, what I find interesting is that every continent has indigenous people with a flood story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths
The Black Sea also appears to be the original home of the speakers of the Indo European root tongue.
Lots of interesting things there.
The last glacial period ended about 10k years ago.
https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/earth/ask-a-scientist-about-our-environment/how-did-the-ice-age-end/
Which fits into a large number of things from the birth of agriculture to human language.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/jul/03/research.highereducation1
So. 60k years and only two thousand humans.
Then an expansion, the last glaciers and then the post Black Sea expansion.
Interesting stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis
Which fits the second Noah narrative (the Bible combined two) —the one where his grandson reaches treaties with other people’s based on language groups.
They are already encountering non family members who speak different languages long before the Tower of Babel.
(More than one url and the spam filter grabs my comments)
Anyway. The language diffusion issue is an interesting one, especially the way it cycles back to the Black Sea.
That creates an interesting picture.
Localized floods are common. See them on the news all the time. Even had a vehicle drown.
However at the end of the ice age, there were some doozies, including the Black Sea.
In the US, the is the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail dealing with the Missoula Floods. There is the Bonneville flood from Lake Bonneville.
The draining of Lake Agassiz raised global sea levels several feet. In Europe, this may have contributed to the submergence of Doggerland before it was hit by a megatsunami from the last Storegga Slide.
Whether any of these contributed to flood myths, I do not know. But the disappearance of Doggerland had a major impact on Mesolithic populations.
As to the people around the Black Sea back then, there is some interesting research –Mapping Post-Glacial expansions: The Peopling of Southwest Asia.
I want to thank everyone for this discussion. I have some questions along these lines and they are being answered. The article in the Guardian (or some version of that information) should be added to the next updated version of the temple ceremony. There is a reason creation stories speak to our souls and that summary is celestial gold.
One thing I would like to mention is a local flood that preceded the concoction of a complete myth by a few thousand years is possible. Just because you make something up, it still might be true. I vote 2 and 3 on the survey, but the computer forced me into making a choice, the local flood option.
I really don’t buy the comparison between BoM DNA and the Viking DNA.
The BoM included 3 groups with 2000+ year and then 1000 year histories and populations in both groups peaking in the millions. 2 Nephi chapter 1 clearly contradicts the diluting/vanishing DNA ideas requiring large native populations.
How many Vikings were there how long, a small band for one summer ? Is there any evidence that they took Indian wives or the Viking women were even brought along or were mating with the natives ? It is speculative that even one cross mating happened. Even then we have DNA evidence of one Indian woman going back to Iceland now with at least 80 living descendants.
To complicate the Viking settlement in Newfoundland is the recent discovery hundreds of miles away of iron smelting. This is thought to indicate more extensive Viking settlement since we all know the Indians could NOT make iron. Except, the BoM mentions iron tools. So if true, that would not indicate more extensive Viking settlements. You can’t have it both ways. Do we cling to more extensive Viking settlements to bolster a flimsy vanishing DNA theory while denying Iron smelting among the Nephites? Or do we stick with Nephite iron smelting which indicates no evidence of more extensive Viking settlement? The reason I bring this is is because it is a recurring theme, when offered answers raise more/worse questions than they answer,
I think the most devastating question that has not been addressed by either one of these pair of “big dogs” (I mean that in a good way) is how do we reconcile Missouri as the site of the Garden of Eden and the antediluvian history of the Bible without a worldwide flood? And don’t forget all of the accompanying ramifications; of the New Jerusalem to be built there, and Christ to return there, and the little matter of the Missouri-Mormon war when these ideas were thought worthy for which to both kill and die, and the future plans for the place which seem to have vanished much like the Nephite DNA.
It seems we are saddled with a world wide flood or else we are forced to abandon a huge chunk of the more crucial teachings of Joseph Smith.
Here’s what Ugo said,
Rick, have you done any Gospel Tangent interviews with experts discussing the 1500 languages spoken by Native Americans when Columbus landed? I remember reading that was a problem that BH Roberts struggled with. A smart guy in my ward explained to me that in the sealed portion of the BOM there is probably a Tower of Babel type event that happened in the Americas after Moroni died and before the Europeans came. I find that nearly impossible to believe, but it might be the only apologist viewpoint that holds any water. I get lost fast in the DNA conversation, but the linguistic arguments are hard to reconcile. I am not trying to hijack this thread so if you delete this it won’t hurt my feelings.
Zach, I appreciate the comment. No I haven’t talked to any language experts and don’t even know who that would be. (If you know someone, let me know.) The only thing that is slightly related is my interview with David Rosenvall last year (Baja Theory.) He mentioned that Uto-Aztecan language had some similarities to Egyptian, but he’s certainly not a language expert, so I don’t know how strong that claim is. It would be nice Ute or Aztec tribes had Middle Eastern DNA…
I can vaguely remember something like the language problem when I was young back in the 1960’s, The idea was for example we know that the Spanish and Portuguese languages diverged from each other about 1000? years ago and Italian diverged from them several hundred years before that. Many Indo-European languages had a common origin about 20,000 years ago and there are only a handful of branches of them. I am just shooting from the hip on these dates, I can’t remember exactly and have read nothing about this in decades,
Native American languages have far more variety than European languages.and they are far more unrelated. This argues that ancestors of Native Americans came here a very long time ago in multiple small groups spread over long spans of time from places with divergent languages. It also argues that there were never large civilizations in North America that tend to homogenize languages. The Roman Empire foisted Latin and Greek on the Mediterranean world because of its power, large size and centuries long history. Also literacy and preservation of records tends to cause languages not to diverge as quickly (and the BoM teaches this idea, when it explains the reasons for buglarizing the Plates of Brass and murdering a defenseless drunken Laban). The diverse languages in North America are inconsistent with this ever happening here. Mostly illiterate peoples, been here far too long, never organized into very many large civilizations (except late in Mexico/Peru) but not in North America. Exactly opposite to BoM history.
All of this was considered soft enough to not exclude any orthodox teachings, only call it into question. I think this might be one of the reasons why many BYU experts abandoned a Heartland geography for a Meso-American geography even though the cost is 2 hill Cumorahs and ignoring all of Rod Meldrum’s favorite quotes directly from Joseph Smith that indicate geography.