Continuing
with Jared Methrandir’s comments referring us to his website when commenting on
one of our articles back in 2013.
While
discussing this issue in the previous article, while the Jaredites and Nephites
occupied a portion of this Land of Promise, the New Jerusalem (a holy city)
would be built on this land (it doesn’t say the same portion that the Jaredites
and Nephites occupied), and that this overall land (the entire Land of Promise)
would be a land of liberty.
While many Americans, people of
the United States, consider the U.S. superior to any other country in the
Western Hemisphere, and to-date the economy, freedoms, and status certainly
warrant that thought, it does not mean that the Land of Promise is just in the
U.S. any more than the state of Israel now or Israel in the past, is just in
Jerusalem. The Lord preserved this entire Western Hemisphere from foreign
involvement and foreign intrigue by the world’s countries until he was ready to
have it settled.
First he brought the Jaredites,
then the Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites. Who else he might have brought
before the Spanish conquerors and then the Europeans, is not known. But since
there is absolutely no mention of any others in the entire scriptural record,
it just might be that none others came. On the other hand, we certainly have
evidence that others were here. While it is true that this land would have been
heavily settled by antediluvians, those before the Flood, and their record to
some extent survived in the ground, we really have no idea who else and when
might have been here.
Blog Comment: “In fact one Mormon blog
I've looked at called the NephiCode makes a point of distinguishing between the
House of Lehi and their promises/destiny, and the Diaspora of either Kingdom.”
Response:
Evidently you feel the Lord would not act independently from the Kingdom of
Judah and/or the Kingdom of Israel. Limiting the Lord’s involvement in Earthly
matters is an interesting concept—I wonder where it came from. The fact of the
matter is that “it is impossible to know in how many different directions the
people went—the number of dispersions and migrations undoubtedly were many.” In
fact, they were scattered through the countries (Ezekiel 6:8), they were
scattered among nations they had not known (Zechariah 7:14), led away into all
nations (Luke 21:24), and all countries (Ezekiel 36:24), scattered to the east
and the west, to the north and the south (Isaiah 43:1, 5-6). “Wherefore, the
Jews shall be scattered among all nations…and the Jews shall be scattered by
other nations. For behold, the Lord God has led away from time to time from the house of Israel, according to his will and
pleasure” (2 Nephi 10:15-16).
Blog Comment: ”So the genetic affinity Native Americans have to East Asia,
in both their Y-Chormosone and Mithocondrial DNA Haplogroups is a problem for
the Book of Mormon.”
Response:
As pointed out in the previous post on this subject: “In an article in Science, by Scott Armstrong Elias (2014)
he points out that “Genetic evidence
shows there is no direct ancestral link between the people of ancient East Asia
and modern Native Americans.” And in another article in Nature about the “Dual ancestry of
Native Americans,” by Maanasa Raghavan, et al, it states that “Modern-day western Eurasians are genetically
closely related to modern-day Native Americas, with no close affinity to east
Asians.”
This
is not a problem for the Book of Mormon, but for those who think they know
about DNA and write about something that is continually changing as wider and
wider samples are being used with more accurate and truthful results.
While
the theory that the Americas were populated by humans crossing from Siberia to
Alaska across a land bridge was first proposed as far back as 1590, and has
been generally accepted since the 1930s, the idea of DNA and a Land Bridge have
no connection. That is, showing a DNA connection would not confirm they arrived
in America via a Land Bridge.
Nor
is it even proven that people came over a land bridge in the first place.
Whether they did or did not, it is still a highly controversial issue and for
everyone who thinks they did, there are those who think they did not. In fact,
according to Scott Armstrong Elias, he further argues that “Based on
archaeological evidence, humans did not survive the last ice age’s peak in
northeastern Siberia, and yet there is no evidence they had reached Alaska or
the rest of the New World either. While there is evidence to suggest northeast
Siberia was inhabited during a warm period about 30,000 years ago before the
last ice age peaked, after this the archaeological record goes silent, and only
returns 15,000 years ago, after the last ice age ended.” This 15,000-year gap,
not related to East Asians, is a point still being debated.
Maanasa
Raghavan, further states: “The origins of the First Americans remain
contentious.” In checking what is considered the “oldest anatomically modern
human genome reported to date,” the 31-member team found that the MA-1
mitochondrial genome belongs to haplogroup U, which has also been found at high
frequency among Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic European hunter-gatherers,
and the Y chromosome of MA-1 to modern-day Western Eurasians and near the root
of most Native American lineages. Further it was “estimated that 14% to 38% of
Native American ancestry may originate through gene flow from this ancient
population,” explaining that “Gene flow from the MA-1 lineage into Native
American ancestors could explain why several crania from the First Americans
have been reported as bearing morphological characteristics that do not
resemble those of east Asians.” They conclude that “western Eurasian genetic
signatures in modern-day Native Americans derive not only from post-Columbian
admixture, as commonly thought, but also from a mixed ancestry of the First
Americans.”
Blog
Comment: “But [it is not a problem] for
me since…I believe they traveled across Asia, intermingled with East Asian
population, and became ancestral to people groups in East Asia, before some of
them came to the Americas and mingled with people already here. I talk about
my theories on Israelite DNA.”
Response:
Perhaps you should not talk about your theories, but find out what the DNA
experts are saying about this matter. Opinions are counter-productive to
scholarly work since they work to skew the results during the process.
Blog
Comment: “Joseph Smith's intent was
definitely entirely about making special the land he lived in.”
Response:
Clearly, you have no idea of the nature and thinking of Joseph Smith. He placed
the existence of the Nephites from the central area of Chile to the northern
U.S. area, encompassing much of the entire Western Hemisphere, or approximately
one-third of the world. At no time did he try to use the Nephite storyline as
proof of a superiority of the United States. It is neither scholarly nor
beneficial to try and put words in other people’s mouths, especially those of
an earlier age.
It
is always amazing how little people know that try to criticize the Church, the
Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith. It is as though knowledge is unimportant—just
opinions are all that is necessary!
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