Others in the Book of Mormon & Lamanite Identity in the Book of Mormon
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In Second Nephi 5, we are informed about the colony of the family of Nephi and Laman after their father Lehi passed away. Nephi informs us that he needed to part ways with his brothers when he says:
And it came to pass that the Lord did warn me, that I, Nephi, should depart from them and flee into the wilderness, and all those who would go with me. Wherefore, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and all those who would go with me. And all those who would go with me were those who believed in the warnings and the revelations of God; wherefore, they did hearken unto my words (2 Nephi 5.4-6, emphasis added).
From this small clue, (and several others) readers are informed that Nephi is in a land that is already inhabited. How do we know this? From our reading of 2 Nephi 5.4-6 we can see that Nephi is informing his readers that there were many others in their group besides Laman and Lemuel and their families. Throughout the narrative, close readers of the Book of Mormon can see that the Nephite colony was clearly not alone in the Americas.
Why is this important? For one thing, it helps us see the Book of Mormon in a clearer light. This record is not emphasizing all of the details of the surroundings of the Nephites. Rather the point these scriptural authors wanted to make was that following the Messiah is the only way to life and salvation. Their record was what John L. Sorenson calls a “lineage history,” a document that recorded facts significant for establishing the sociopolitical status of a group whose members claim descent from a common ancestor. 1
The concern of the authors was more limited to the things that they deemed important (the witness of Jesus Christ as redeeming Messiah) to that lineage group and the things that impacted this group the most. Sorenson explains:
All this information boils down to the fact that the Book of Mormon is a partial record of events, emphasizing what happened to one group of people, put in their own ethnocentric terms, in the midst of other peoples each with its own version of events. 2
Lamanite Identity and DNA Studies
Understanding that others existed in the land during Nephi’s time helps modern readers of the Book of Mormon understand that with multiple groups of people already existing in the Americas at that time, the Nephites and the Lamanites were simply injected into these groups historically.
As Michael Ash has stated, “Despite common misconceptions among many LDS, the Book of Mormon does not claim to be a record of all those who inhabited the New World.”3 Ash then goes on to demonstrate that any small group of 30 or so that came to the New World in 600 B.C. would have their genes literally swallowed up by the indigenous population in a short time. He even quotes a source antagonistic towards the Book of Mormon, “In 600 B.C. 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.”
DNA Markers Disappear
Ash cites a DNA study where 131,000 modern Icelanders were studied that found that in just over a century, many DNA markers were lost. He writes, “Lost of the Icelandic people living today who have genealogical records showing that their ancestors lived in Iceland 150 years ago could not detect DNA for those ancestors. Is it really any wonder that we find the same scenario with Book of Mormon people?” 5
Population Bottleneck and Genetic Drift
Experts in the field of population genetics explain that genes can be lost over time. This is due to several factors, one of which is population bottleneck, where a significant event can drastically reduce a given population, thus adding to loss of genetic information. 6 Genetic drift is “the gradual loss of genetic markers in small populations due to random events.”7 Genetic drift is one way to explain how a small group (such as Nephi’s colony) could have their genetic markers lost in a very short time as their DNA would intermix with the much larger indigenous population in the New World.
Further Reading
For more information on this topic, see chapter 15-16 of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening one’s testimony in the face of criticism and doubt by Michael R. Ash.
Gospel Topics Essays, Book of Mormon and DNA Studies
John L. Sorenson and Matthew Roper, “Before DNA,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 12:1, 6–23.
John L. Sorenson, “When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Others There?” (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1992).
Michael Ash, Were the Lehites alone in the Americas?
Notes
- John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, Deseret Book, 1985, p. 51-56.
- Ibid., p. 55.
- Michael Ash, Shaken Faith Syndrome, p. 195
- Ibid., p. 197. Ash is quoting Simon Southerton, a biologist critical of the Book of Mormon truth claims.
- Ibid., p. 201.
- Book of Mormon and DNA Studies, Gospel Topics Essays.
- Ibid. The author of the article explains: A simple illustration is often used to teach this concept: Fill a jar with 20 marbles—10 red, 10 blue. The jar represents a population, and the marbles represent people with different genetic profiles. Draw a marble at random from this population, record its color, and place it back in the jar. Each draw represents the birth of a child. Draw 20 times to simulate a new generation within the population. The second generation could have an equal number of each color, but more likely it will have an uneven number of the two colors. Before you draw a third generation, adjust the proportion of each color in the jar to reflect the new mix of genetic profiles in the gene pool. As you continue drawing, the now-uneven mix will lead to ever more frequent draws of the dominant color. Over several generations, this “drift” toward one color will almost certainly result in the disappearance of the other color. This exercise illustrates the inheritance pattern of genetic material over the course of several generations and shows how drift can result in the loss of genetic profiles. The effect of drift is especially pronounced in small, isolated populations or in cases where a small group carrying a distinct genetic profile intermingles with a much larger population of a different lineage.