S U N S T O N E
MAY 2005 PAGE 63
it. Moreover, I am hardly the first one to note
that the Book of Mormon itself speaks of
others already present when Lehi arrived.1
IN 1977, long before the advent of DNA
population studies and their purported
challenges to the historicity of the Book
of Mormon, and also before I became aware
of the work of LDS and RLDS scholars who’d
begun to propose a “limited geography”
model for Book of Mormon lands, I got into
an argument with my missionary companion
regarding whether the Book of Mormon describes
the history of the North and South
American continents and the origin of all
American Indians, or whether it deals only
with a small sub-group who lived somewhere
in or around the American continents.
We had just finished teaching some investigators
a lesson in which my companion had
told them that all American Indians descended
from Laman and Lemuel. From my
own previous study and mapping of Book of
Mormon events, including the distances it
took to travel between cities, it had become
clear to me that the entire story reported in
the Book of Mormon had taken place within
an area about the size of Palestine. I had determined
then that, at most, the setting of the
events described in the book consisted of an
hour-glass shaped land mass that had dimensions
of about two hundred miles by four
hundred miles. The Book of Mormon’s internal
mapping is remarkably consistent, and
I believe that any attentive reader of the Book
of Mormon who takes the time to review its
geography based solely upon the statements
made within the book itself will arrive at the
same conclusion about the size of the lands
described therein.
The same thing holds true about the populations
described in the Book of Mormon.
Most of those who argue that the DNA
studies which reveal Asiatic origins for today’s
Amerindians deal a significant blow to any
claim of Book of Mormon historicity base
their claims on the assumption that the Book
of Mormon teaches that there were no other
aboriginal cultures already present (somewhere)
in the Americas prior to the Jaredites
or Lehites. They claim that the view that there
were other populations already in the
Americas is contrary to the Book of Mormon.
Brent Lee Metcalfe claims succinctly that the
Book of Mormon “narrative says nothing of
indigenous ‘others’ and in fact prophetically
precludes them.”2
However, it seems evident
to me that the Book of Mormon actually provides
facts to the contrary.
THE “GREAT SEPARATION” AND
INTERMARRIAGE WITH OTHERS.
WE must keep in mind that Nephi
expressly states that the chronicle
of the profane “history” of
his people is written on different plates from
those that Joseph Smith claims to have translated.
The plates translated as 1 and 2 Nephi
are meant to be a record of spiritual issues
and discourses—and that is what they are.
Notwithstanding this focus on spiritual experiences,
the narrative does give occasional
hints of mundane matters. In 2 Nephi 5, the
text describes an important event, one that I
refer to as “the great separation,” which I believe
reveals quite clearly the presence of
“others” alongside those who descended
from the family of Lehi and their traveling
companions.
By the time the events described in 2
Nephi 5 occur, Lehi has recently died.
Because of the threat posed by his elder
brothers, Laman and Lemuel, Nephi writes
that he took his family and fled into the
“wilderness [along with] all those who would
go with me” (2 Nephi 5:5). The “Nephites”
are separated as a group from their own nuclear
family members whose descendants
will later come to be known as Lamanites.
Nephi leaves with Zoram and his family, his
brothers Jacob, Joseph, and Sam, and their
families and perhaps his sisters (though that
is not recorded). There are essentially six to
eight families who “flee into the wilderness”
with Nephi (2 Nephi 5: 6–7). They live in
tents. This “great separation” occurs about
twenty-five years after Lehi departs from
Jerusalem. We don’t know how many were in
Nephi’s party, but it seems fairly safe to say
that if we count only Israelite family members,
there were likely no fewer than twenty
nor more than sixty souls.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second installment
of a two-part essay in which LDS philosopher
and theologian Blake T. Ostler employs the
tools of logic and formal argumentation to assess
recent claims against Book of Mormon his-
toricity.
IN PART I of this essay (SUNSTONE,
March 2004, 70–72), I argued that the
arguments from DNA against Book of
Mormon historicity are logically invalid and
unsound. I also suggested that we are not in
an epistemic position to know whether we
should expect to find DNA evidence of
Semitic ancestors for modern Amerindians.
Toward the end of that essay, I also suggested
that one reason for the confusion many
Latter-day Saints feel when faced with the recent
DNA challenges to Book of Mormon
historicity is the link in their minds between
the issue of Amerindian origins and what
they have been taught the Book of Mormon
says about ancient American peoples. That
is, when confronted with DNA evidence that
doesn’t track with what they’ve been taught
about the inhabitants of Ancient America,
many people confuse the issue of “that’s not
what I’ve been taught” with the matter of
“what the Book of Mormon actually says
about its peoples.”
In this second half of the essay, I deal directly
with this confusion, arguing for the importance
of weighing DNA and other studies
against what the Book of Mormon actually
says about itself instead of against what
others say that it says—even if those expressing
such views have been or are currently
Church leaders. I suggest that if we are
serious about assessing whether what the
Book of Mormon teaches is consistent with
DNA evidence, we must assess it based on
what it says and not on what others say about
YEA, YEA NAY, NAY
DNA STRANDS IN THE
BOOK OF MORMON
By Blake T. Ostler
BLAKE T. OSTLER is a Salt Lake City attorney with Mackey, Price, Thompson, and
Ostler. He is the author of many articles on Mormon theology and philosophy, including
the seminal, “The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an Ancient Source”
(Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Spring 1987).
S U N S T O N E
PAGE 64 MAY 2005
Within a few years after the “great separation”
(or at least within the lifetime of Nephi’s
brother Jacob), Nephi notes that the skin of
the “Lamanites” had become dark—and
Nephi interprets this change of skin color as
a curse (2 Nephi 5:21; cf., 1:17; Alma 3:6–7).
The most obvious explanation for such a
change in skin color is intermarriage with indigenous
populations who had darker skin.
Nephi is clear that the darkness of the
Lamanites’ skin is genetic in the sense that it
is passed from one generation to another:
“For the Lord did cause a skin of blackness to
come upon them. . . . And cursed shall be the
seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for
they shall be cursed even with the same
cursing” (2 Nephi 5:21, 23).
Since this issue of black skin as a sign of
cursing causes modern readers so much concern
in that it appears to sanction a form of
racism, it is important to note that ancient
Israelites would have had very different sensibilities.
If the Book of Mormon narrative is
to be believed, Nephi is an Israelite, someone
whose acceptance of the Lord’s commands
under the Law of Moses naturally would lead
him to view intermarriage with any noncovenant
peoples as requiring the curses of
God. A primary concern throughout the entire
history of the Old Testament is that the
Israelites will breach their covenant with God
by breeding with non-Israelites. Indeed, according
to scholars of the Hebrew Bible, a
breach of the covenant by intermarriage or
interbreeding with indigenous peoples already
present in the land constitutes a particular
category of crime: an “abomination.”
And the penalty for breach is “to be cut off
from the Lord’s presence.”3
This is exactly
how Nephi treats the same crime when committed
by Laman and Lemuel. “Mixing seed”
is a Hebrew idiom for marriage with foreigners
outside of the covenant, and it constitutes
a breach of covenant. The phrase
“mixing seed” ( - zera’ ba’mi) appears
in the Old Testament, and it is treated as a
clear breach of covenant.4
It appears from the Book of Mormon text
that this sense of a curse and an abomination
is what Nephi believes about the change in
skin color, for he speaks of it as the result of
“their iniquity. . . and hardened hearts against
[the Lord], that they had become like unto
flint” (2 Nephi 5:21). Nephi is clear that the
cause of the curse that was manifested by a
“skin of blackness” (v. 21) is the “mixing of
seed,” which is a clear idiom for intermarriage
with non-Israelite, non-covenant peoples
(v. 23). It is extremely important to note
that the “curse” in the Book of Mormon resulted
from “mixing seed,” and that it merited
the penalty for breach of
covenant: being cut off (ter.k karath)
from the presence of the
Lord: “Wherefore, the word of
the Lord was fulfilled which he
spake unto me, saying that: Inasmuch
as they will not hearken
unto my words they shall be cut
off from the presence of the Lord.
And behold, they were cut off
from the presence of the Lord” (2
Nephi 5:20).5
In addition to this evidence of
the presence of indigenous
others in Book of Mormon lands,
a later discourse also evidences
intermarriage with pre-existing
populations. In Jacob 2 and 3,
Jacob addresses a convocation of
“brethren” in his capacity as high priest
(Jacob 1:18–19; 2:2). One of his concerns is
that the “people of Nephi” had taken “concubines”
and “many wives” (Jacob 2:23–24).
Given how close in time this convocation is
to the great separation, where did all of these
wives come from? We have at most two generations
removed from the initial group of
about eight families, so it is likely that every
available woman is still either a sister, or a
niece, or a grandniece not yet old enough to
be espoused. It seems to me that the text
once again presupposes an influx of others
from an already existing population.6
Indeed,
Jacob says that the taking of other wives is
“abominable to me, saith the Lord” adopting
terminology consistent with the Hebrew
crime of breach of covenant by intermarrying
with populations outside the covenant—an
abomination ( - to’ebah). Thus, it seems
reasonable to conclude that within one or
two generations, both the Lamanites and the
Nephites had begun to intermarry with
others from a preexisting population of “indigenous
others.”
OTHERS ON ISLES OF THE SEA
THERE are other strong evidences of
preexisting indigenous populations
in the Book of Mormon. As discussed
earlier, the eight families who went with
Nephi at the time of the great separation
likely numbered somewhere between twenty
and sixty Israelites. Jacob gave a discourse as
high priest to an assembled group of
“brethren” who had gathered at the newly
constructed Nephite temple.7
Like Nephi,
Jacob was concerned with the issue of the
covenant status of the new group, continually
referring to their group as the “house of
Israel” and others as “Gentiles,” quoting
lengthy passages from Isaiah,
and prophesying of Christ as
the “Holy One of Israel” (2
Nephi 6–10). The assembly
appears to have been a formal
“covenant renewal” convocation
and was evidently quite
large—larger than we could
reasonably expect given the
number of “brethren” among
about eight families who left
with Nephi when he fled from
Laman and Lemuel into the
“wilderness.” Where did all of
the “brethren” for this convocation
come from? Again, I
believe we must conclude that
the text presupposes there had
been an influx of people into
the Nephite population. And the only possible
source for such an influx is indigenous
others.
Jacob reads a text from Isaiah at the convocation
that he later uses to reassure the
Nephites that they remain a remnant of the
covenant people even though they had been
separated from Israel. The passage of Isaiah
begins with the question Jacob addressed:
“Yea, for thus saith the Lord: Have I put thee
away, or have I cast thee off forever?” (2
Nephi 7:1; Isaiah 50:1) It appears that Jacob
chooses to read from Isaiah 51–52:2 at this
convocation because Isaiah affirms that those
who have been cast off are still recognized as
God’s chosen covenant people and “the isles
[of the sea] (~yiYia - ’yiim) shall wait upon me”
(Isaiah 51:5).8
Jacob observes that his people
have “been led to a better land, for the Lord
has made the sea our path, and we are upon an
isle of the sea” (2 Nephi 10:20). He adds: “But
great are the promises of the Lord unto them
who are upon the isles of the sea; wherefore
as it says isles; there must needs be more than
this, and they are inhabited also by our brethren”
(2 Nephi 10:21, emphasis added). It seems
clear that Nephi and Jacob both place special
emphasis on the “isles of the sea” because
they see references to those who are on the
isles as references to themselves and also to
others who are already there on the isles of
the sea (1 Nephi 19:16; 21:1 [Isaiah 49:1],
22:2–4; 2 Nephi 8:5 [Isaiah 52:5]). As Nephi
states: “[T]hen will he remember the
covenants which he made to their fathers.
Yea, then will he remember the isles of the
sea; yea, and all the people who are of the
house of Israel. . .” (1 Nephi 19:15–16).
Indeed, the notion that the isles are specifically
those found in the midst of the sea is so
important that Jacob added the words “of the
sea” to the Isaiah text when he read from it.9
LATTER-DAY
SAINTS ARE
ENTITLED TO
READ THE BOOK
OF MORMON
IN LIGHT OF
THE BEST
SCIENTIFIC
EVIDENCE
WE HAVE
AVAILABLE.
S U N S T O N E
MAY 2005 PAGE 65
Such statements suggest that Jacob places
the followers of Nephi not on the mainland
or a continent, but upon an island—and he
believes that there are others living on islands
of the sea who can be counted as belonging
to the “brethren” he is addressing in his two
convocations. Such statements are difficult to
square with the continental model of Book of
Mormon geography which critics of the limited
geography model argue the Book of
Mormon requires. For these reasons, it has
always seemed reasonable to me to look for
the Nephites in an islands setting rather than
on the continental mainland. Most importantly,
Jacob’s statements indicate that there
are others already present on other islands,
just like the people of Nephi.10
OUTSIDERS NOTED IN THE TEXT
ANOTHER incident bolsters the claim
that the Nephites described in the
Book of Mormon interacted with
“others.” Somewhere between twenty and
forty years after Lehi left Jerusalem, a man
named Sherem “comes among the people of
Nephi” (Jacob 7:1). It is fairly clear from this
description that Sherem is an outsider, for if
he were a Nephite, he would have already
been among the Nephites. The text goes on
to say that Sherem is educated in the language
of the people of Nephi, indicating that
he had learned the language by study (Jacob
7:4). Moreover, he does not accept the
Nephite religion, which is devoted to faith in
Christ (Jacob 7:2). However, he does accept
the Law of Moses (Jacob 7:7). Most importantly,
Sherem does not know Jacob when he
first comes among the Nephites—he seeks
him out to meet him (Jacob 7:6). Since the
event takes place within Jacob’s lifetime, it is
unlikely that Jacob doesn’t still know all of
the Nephites, since the population at the
time would have consisted solely of brothers,
sisters, sons, daughters, nieces, and
nephews, unless, as I argue, other people had
been assimilated into the Nephite popula-
tion.
So the question is—where did Sherem
come from?11
Unless the Nephites are interacting
with “others,” how does a nonNephite
come among them so easily? Why
doesn’t Sherem already know Jacob? The answer
is fairly clear: the Book of Mormon assumes
that readers will know that others are
already there.12
Sherem is an outsider from
another population. Because at this time,
Jacob also would have known all of the
Lamanite families as well, Sherem is not
Lamanite. Certainly Sherem would have introduced
himself as so-and-so’s son had he
been a relation—but he is a stranger. As
Metcalfe admits, the Book of Mormon is
punctilious in noting whether a person is
Nephite or Lamanite, yet Sherem is not designated
as either Nephite or Lamanite, and it
is evident that he is not one of the people
who followed Nephi.13
There is another strong indication that
there were indigenous others present in the
Book of Mormon area, though it requires a
careful reading to detect them. In Helaman 5,
Mormon notes that “the more part of the
Lamanites were convinced of [the truth] because
of the greatness of the evidences which
they had received.” (Helaman 5:50) As a result,
“the Lamanites had become the more
righteous part of them, a righteous people,
insomuch that their righteousness did exceed
that of the Nephites, because of their firmness
and their steadfastness in faith”
(Helaman 6:1). The Lamanites began to
move freely among the Nephites, traveling to
the Nephite city of Zarahemla so that “the
Lamanites did also go withersoever they
would, whether it were among the Lamanites
or among the Nephites, and thus they did
have free intercourse one with another”
(Helaman 6:8).
In the midst of this openness among the
Lamanites and Nephites, Nephi, the son of
Helaman, goes northward among an unnamed
people to preach to them. Indeed, not
only Nephi but also the Lamanites go to the
“people in the land northward” to preach:
“And it came to pass that many of the
Lamanites did go into the land northward;
and also Nephi and Lehi went into the land
northward, to preach to the people” (Helaman
6:6). However, these “people in the land
northward” are so wicked that Nephi cannot
remain among them.
There are two crucial points about
Nephi’s missionary activities: (1) the text
does not name the people to whom he
preached but was rejected; and (2) these
people are neither Nephites nor Lamanites
because the Lamanites had become righteous
and willingly accepted the gospel and went
to preach to these people also. While the
Nephites and Lamanites move freely through
each other’s lands in a climate of peace, the
people to whom Nephi goes are so antagonistic
that he cannot remain among them:
Now it came to pass in the sixty
and ninth year of the reign of the
judges over the people of the
Nephites, that Nephi, the son of
Helaman, returned to the land of
Zarahemla from the land northward.
For he had been forth among
the people who were in the land northward,
and did preach the word of
God unto them, and did prophecy
many things unto them; And they
did reject all his words, insomuch
that he could not stay among them,
but returned again unto the land of
his nativity. (Helaman 7:1–3, emphasis
added)
The text twice refers to those to whom
Nephi and the Lamanites preached not as
Lamanites but as “the people in the land
northward.” Why doesn’t the text just say
that Nephi went to the Lamanites and that
the Lamanites rejected him as it does virtually
every other time that a Nephite goes to
preach to Lamanites? It is fairly clear that in
this instance, “the people who were in the
land northward” are not Lamanites. We
know this because the text states that the
Lamanites had become righteous and many
had accepted the gospel, and the Nephites
had great missionary success among them.
So who are these “other” people in the land
northward who had rejected Nephi and the
Lamanites? The text doesn’t say—but because
those who rejected Nephi are neither
Nephites nor Lamanites, it has to be a third
group of people that remains unnamed in the
text.
Further evidence that the Book of
Mormon teaches there are other people already
in the same land (somewhere) when
Lehi arrives is that there are still Jaredites
alive when the people of Zarahemla met
Coriantumr, a Jaredite, some four hundred
years after Lehi’s party touches the shore in
the new land (Omni 21–22). It is also possible
that the Mulekites were already present
in the Americas when Lehi arrived (Omni
14–15). In fact, the Jaredites and Mulekites
both co-existed with the Nephites for more
than 350 years without the Nephites
knowing about them. The Mulekites in
Zarahemla actually met Coriantumr—and
until that time, they too did not know of the
Jaredites. So it is clear that there were large
populations of Jaredites and Mulekites in
nearby regions contemporaneous with the
Nephites, but the Nephites didn’t know anything
about them for more than three hundred
years.
Hence the text is quite clear that large
populations of peoples can co-exist for hundreds
of years with the Nephites (who keep
the record), without the Nephites knowing
anything about them. Just as their knowledge
of the extent of the land they inhabit is limited,
clearly the Nephites are not aware of
“others” whom the Book of Mormon states
were in fact present. Thus, any citation from
the Book of Mormon that is interpreted to
S U N S T O N E
PAGE 66 MAY 2005
mean that all inhabitants of the
Americas (or wherever Book of
Mormon events took place)
must be Israelite is contrary to
the text itself because, at the
very least, the Jaredites co-existed
with them, and the
Jaredites are not Israelites, and
we don’t know anything about
their genetic markers. (As I argued
in Part I of this essay, we
know nothing about the genetic
makeup of Lehi either.) Moreover,
as Hugh Nibley argues in
The World of the Jaredites, Book
of Mormon textual evidence
suggests that the Jaredites probably
originated largely in Asia
because the journey recounted
in Ether appears to have traversed
the steppes of Asia.14
Thus the Jaredites may well
have been largely Asiatic.
Moreover, the Book of Mormon
does not identify the origins of
the others who “mixed seed”
with the Lamanites or whom
the Nephites took as plural wives—although
we now know any indigenous others had to
be of largely Asiatic origins. So, based on the
text of the Book of Mormon, we should expect
to find Asiatic DNA in American Indians.
The inclusion of the Jaredite account
within the text, along with the claim of at
least some contemporarity of Jaredites and
Nephites, further complicates an easy dismissal
of the Book of Mormon on the basis of
DNA tests showing Asiatic origins for present-day
Amerindians. It is just not credible
to believe that a population the size of the
Jaredites existed without many of them separating
themselves from the larger culture and
creating new settlements. Given limited communication
and technology, those who wrote
the epic contained in the Book of Ether could
not have known about those who left their
immediate vicinity. In other words, like many
ancient texts, the Book of Ether appears to be
dynastic in nature. Even though it presents
itself as a totalizing account of all Jaredites, it
is far more likely only a dynastic report of a
minority. No human writer could possibly
know that every last one of the Jaredites was
included within the population whose
slaughter is recounted in the epic tale of the
various Jaredite dynasties.
As a genre, dynastic histories claim to tell
the total story when in fact they treat only the
story of particular, dynastic families. We
must remember that those who wrote anciently
did not follow (or even know)
modern canons of historical
scholarship, and their accounts
of events were often intended
to function as propaganda to
support a particular monarch
or ruler. Thus, ancient records
often make claims that purport
to be the story of virtually
everyone, when in reality, they
are reports of the doings of a
small subgroup. Viewed as an
ancient text in the genre of dynastic
history, the Book of
Mormon does not preclude the
presence of many “others” besides
those in whom it is particularly
interested. (For a separate
argument that follows a similar
line of reasoning, see the sidebar
by D. Michael Quinn, page 67.)
For these reasons and
others, the DNA argument
cannot disprove the possibility
that the Book of Mormon is a
historical document. It seems
to me that the DNA argument is
based upon overly simplistic
assumptions about the text which are not
consistent with what the text itself says.
What about Statements by Church Leaders
Claiming Native Americans Are Lamanites?
IN teaching our investigator that the
Book of Mormon is a history of all
Amerindians and that its descriptions of
lands northward and southward correspond
to the North and South American continents,
my companion had presented a view that he
and many Latter-day Saint have been taught
about Book of Mormon peoples and lands. It
was his good-faith belief, just as it is of most
who teach it today. But a good-faith belief,
even when taught by someone we revere as
an inspired spiritual leader, is not necessarily
true. “Straw man” versions of the Book of
Mormon are much easier to disembowel than
is the book as it actually reads. The Book of
Mormon must be assessed based on what it
says and not on what others say about it.
It is a fact that many Church leaders, including
Joseph Smith, have at times assumed
and taught that all Amerindians are descended
solely from Israelites. However, it
seems to me that such statements should be
seen as having the status of “doctrinal overbeliefs”
or presuppositions that are subject to
revision. As Kenneth Godfrey observes:
[I]n 1834, when Zelph was found,
Joseph believed that the portion of
America over which they had just
traveled was “the plains of the
Nephite,” and that their bones were
“proof” of the Book of Mormon’s
authenticity. By 1842, he evidently
believed that the events in most of
Nephite history took place in
Central America. While it is possible
to reconcile these two
views—for example by believing
that the bulk of Nephite history occurred
in Central America while
only certain battles or excursions
took place in Illinois—it is likely
that the thinking of the early
church leaders regarding Book of
Mormon geography was subject to
modification, indicating that they
themselves did not see the issue as
settled.15
Most of those who attack the Book of
Mormon insist that we must read the book in
light of the assumption that it teaches a twocontinent
view. It seems to me that critics insist
on this view for two reasons: First, it is a
much easier interpretation to discredit, since
it is demonstrably false. Second, it plays into
an assumption that many Latter-day Saints
bring to their reading of the book—an assumption
that is contrary to LDS theology
but which many Latter-day Saints accept
anyway. The assumption works something
like this: Catholic doctrine teaches that the
Pope is infallible when he speaks ex cathedra,
but most Catholics don’t seem to believe it
anyway. LDS doctrine teaches that prophets
can make mistakes and that they speak as
prophets only when speaking in the name of
the Lord, but Latter-day Saint believe that
their prophets are always infallible anyway.
The critics count on Latter-day Saints
bringing to the text this “cultural overbelief”—a
belief that is not warranted by LDS
scripture or revelation but which is accepted
as a part of the Saints’ general cultural presuppositions.
The morally reprehensible belief
that blacks could not receive the
priesthood because LDS scriptures teach they
were “fence-sitters” in the pre-existence is another
example of such cultural overbeliefs,
one that thankfully has been transcended.
The fact that no such view is taught in LDS
scripture becomes irrelevant in such arguments;
rather, if such a view is believed by
some of its members, that is enough to establish
it as a cultural overbelief.
Thus, one of the implicit arguments that
critics rely upon to stir the pot among Latterday
Saints who believe in Book of Mormon
historicity goes something like this:
(1) Many LDS prophets taught
that all Amerindians are
IT IS ENTIRELY
APPROPRIATE
FOR LATTER-DAY
SAINTS TO REREAD
THE BOOK
OF MORMON
IN LIGHT OF
THE FACT THAT
DNA STUDIES
ESTABLISH THAT
THERE IS CLEAR
EVIDENCE OF
ASIATIC
PROGENITORS
AMONG
AMERINDIANS.
S U N S T O N E
MAY 2005 PAGE 67
With the addition of some clarifying phrases, the following is an excerpt
from a letter sent by D. Michael Quinn to his friend, Benjamin Clark, on
23 December 2004. Used by permission.
THE DNA EVIDENCE IS SIGNIFICANT, BUT QUITE
frankly I’m irritated by intelligent people (including some
good friends) who have rushed to assert that the current
DNA comparison allegedly “disproves” the Book of Mormon’s claim
to have been written by ancient inhabitants of the Western
Hemisphere.
So far as I am aware, the DNA evidence clearly proves one genetic
fact: more than 90 percent of the indigenous peoples currently
living in North and South America descended exclusively from ancient
peoples residing in Northeast Asia. These are among tribes and
groups in the Western Hemisphere which (by their own traditions)
have not intermarried (or been raped by) the conquering Europeans.
By implication, current DNA evidence clearly disproves the
common assumption of modern LDS leaders and typical Mormons
that the 1830 translation (titled the Book of Mormon) describes the
experiences of all peoples who lived anciently in the Western
Hemisphere at the time the record was written and compiled. By extension,
the DNA evidence definitely proves as clearly false any
statement (such as the well-intended pronouncements of LDS president
Spencer W. Kimball) that all “Indians”/”Native Americans” (indigenous
peoples) from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego “are Lamanites”
(the generic name for descendants of the Book of Mormon peoples).
But disproving assumptions about the Book of Mormon (even by
living prophets—who are as subject to error as any other human
being) is very different from disproving the Book of Mormon as an
ancient history.
In the October 2003 issue of The American Journal of Human
Genetics (vol. 73, pages 1178–90), a scholarly article examines the
evidence that about 7 percent of collected DNA from indigenous
peoples of the Western Hemisphere matches DNA collected from
North Africa and the Middle East. This was a follow-up to a 2002
American Journal of Physical Anthropology study (vol. 119, page 84)
which began, “Haplogroup X represents approximately 3% of all
modern Native North American mitochondrial lineages. . . .” This
small minority of DNA samples from American indigenous people is
different from a similar DNA from Northeast Asia (also different
from 90 percent of the collected Asian DNA).
Therefore, according to current DNA evidence, there is a very
small percentage of American indigenous DNA which does not
match the overwhelmingly common DNA in Asia, nor does it exactly
match a rarer DNA strain in part of Northeast Asia. By implication,
the current DNA evidence still allows for the possibility of an
ancient North-African/Middle-Eastern ancestry for the writers (as
claimed) of the Book of Mormon. I certainly have no expertise in genetics
or in science, but the scientific investigation and analysis still
seem to be ongoing about these matters.
And by implication, this very small minority of DNA evidence
supports the view of the Book of Mormon I developed before I became
a missionary at age nineteen. From about age twelve to nineteen,
I had repeatedly read the Book of Mormon and the Hebrew
Bible and concluded that both were tribal narratives. By my limited
understanding as a decade-long history buff and English major, my
teenage mind conceived of both records as interested only in the experiences
of the tribes which produced them. In essence, no one else
existed in the narratives unless it was necessary to mention them
with regard to the tribe’s experiences. Thus Egyptians are mentioned
only when necessary to explain certain aspects of Hebrew history
and experience—otherwise, they are invisible in the Hebrew Bible.
As a teenager, my several readings of the Book of Mormon indicated
to me that it described increasingly small groups of people,
who couldn’t have cared less about anyone else roaming the Western
Hemisphere. The narrative of the original families of brothers
Laman, Lemuel, Nephi, and Sam becomes a narrative of only the
families of Nephi, Sam, and their descendants. Half the original
population of interest essentially ceases to exist after a few pages in
the Book of Mormon narrative, except when this invisible population
thrusts itself into the Nephite tribal history through warfare.
Wars end, and (again) Lamanites cease to exist. The same invisibility
holds true for the mass of Nephites, when the record-keepers find
themselves to be a minority of believers who must escape from persecution.
So as a nineteen-year-old new missionary, I did not regard
the Book of Mormon as a history of all ancient inhabitants of the
Americas—just of one increasingly small tribe of religious believers
(or fanatics, as viewed by their neighbors) that landed there generations
after numerous other peoples were living very different lives,
with different origins, religions, and customs. Just as many ancient
civilizations of the Middle East (some discovered in recent times,
such as Ebla) were unimportant and essentially invisible in the tribal
history that is the Hebrew Bible, the centuries-older, millennia-older
“original” inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere were unimportant
and invisible in the tribal history that is the Book of Mormon.
In my late teens, I realized that this was not the “official” view of
the LDS church, nor of any Mormons I knew, nor of anything I had
read by an LDS author. So I kept silent about my “tribal view” of the
Book of Mormon and Bible. Yet I felt embarrassed when I dutifully
followed the missionary program of claiming that that the Book of
Mormon is the “ancient history of the American Indians”—because
I didn’t believe that was the case. I saw it as a sacred history by a
small minority that became increasingly smaller. I didn’t even offer
my own view when people asked how the LDS missionary claim related
to the Asian appearance of Eskimos and other “Indians” or to
the evidence for pre-historic Asian island-hopping across the
Aleutians, or an even older migration across the Aleutian “land
bridge” before melting glaciers created the islands. I just said, “I
don’t deny scientific evidence for older populations in the Western
Hemisphere, but examine the book for yourself.” I left it at that.
When I read President Kimball’s sermons about all Mexicans and
South Americans being “Lamanites” and the Book of Mormon being
“your” history, I used to cringe but say to myself, “Well, Mike, you
must be wrong to think otherwise.” Well, now the DNA evidence
does not support more than one living prophet’s Mormon version of
egalitarianism, but it also does not disprove the venerable “Mormon
Bible.” Although now excommunicated from the LDS church, I
maintain my youthful faith in the reality of God, the truth of His revelations
(both ancient and modern), the existence of living prophets,
and the fallibility of all prophets in word and deed (what the Book of
Mormon itself refers to as “the weaknesses of men” among its
prophet-writers, transcribers, translators).
THE ANCIENT BOOK OF MORMON AS TRIBAL NARRATIVE
By D. Michael Quinn
S U N S T O N E
PAGE 68 MAY 2005
descendants of Israelites.
(2) Whatever a prophet teaches
either must be true or the
prophet is a false prophet.
(3) Therefore, either all
Amerindians are descendants
of Israelites or the LDS
prophets are false prophets.
Premise (1) is unquestionably true. Yet it
is clear that the argument derives its force
from premise (2)—which is false, according
to LDS views of prophetic fallibility. Thus,
the argument is unsound because premise
(2) is false. Premise (2) is a statement of a
“cultural overbelief” that Latter-day Saints
have inherited from the evangelical view of
scripture. Latter-day Saints do not accept
scriptural or prophetic infallibility, and for
very good reasons.16
One of the primary purposes of my 1987
article, “The Book of Mormon as a Modern
Expansion of an Ancient Source” was to expose
how the complex of beliefs implicit in
premise (2) are used to create “straw man”
arguments against the Book of Mormon. It
seems to me that the Latter-day Saint
prophets who believed that all Amerindians
are Lamanites reached that conclusion based
upon a less-than-thorough reading of the
Book of Mormon. If they reached a false conclusion
based upon a facile reading of scripture,
then we ought to recognize that they
can err just like the rest of us. If the Book of
Mormon doesn’t claim that all Amerindians
are of Israelite descent, then what others,
even prophets, say is irrelevant.
The sound argument on this subject is actually
as follows:
(1) Many LDS prophets taught
that all Amerindians are
descendants of Israelites.
(2*) If a Prophet teaches
something that is false, then
either that prophet is: (a) not
a true prophet; or (b), not
speaking prophetically.
(3*) Therefore, either all
Amerindians are descendants
of Israelites or: (a) these are
not true prophets; or (b), the
LDS prophets were not
speaking prophetically when
they taught that all
Amerindians are descendants
of Israelites.
I suggest that premise (2*) more accurately
captures the LDS view of prophets and
prophecy. Given (2*), the conclusion (3*) is
rather innocuous but quite instructive.
Critics are banking on readers concluding
(3*a), yet faithful Latter-day Saints who are
not under the influence of the
cultural overbelief will conclude
(3*b). Moreover, the Expansion
Theory suggests a third alternative.
All scripture reflects the linguistic
and cultural horizons of
the prophets through whom
they come. Even when a prophet
is speaking prophetically, the
revelation reflects the prophet’s
assumptions, language, and cultural
horizons.
Consider how Brent Metcalfe’s
March 2004 SUNSTONE article,
“Reinventing Lamanite Identity,”
relies on the assumptions contained
in premise (2). Metcalfe
doesn’t actually make the argument
given above. Yet without
the assumptions embodied in
premise (2), his conclusions in
the article have no force. He argues
that apologists have recently
invented the view of a limited geography
to save the Book of
Mormon from recent anthropological
arguments. Metcalfe’s
claim about the birth of the limited
geography model and the
driving force behind its current
momentum is patently false. As
Matthew Roper demonstrates, convincingly
in my view, the limited geography model
emerged before the turn of the century and
was derived from a careful reading of the
Book of Mormon text itself, not a desire to escape
challenges from science or anthro-
pology.17
It has been rather widely taught
and accepted by those who have carefully
considered the text.
Metcalfe quotes Joseph Smith at length attempting
to establish that he believed that all
Amerindians were of Israelite origin. Why
does he go to such lengths to point out what
Joseph Smith believed, when we can just
read the book to see what it claims for itself?
Unless we employ something like the implicit
argument given above, the obvious response
is to point out that “all Amerindians
are of Israelite origin” isn’t what the Book of
Mormon teaches, and so Joseph Smith was in
error. Without premise (2) and the implicit
conclusion (3), an argument about what
Joseph Smith believed about the book is a
yawner. To see what the Book of Mormon
teaches, we shouldn’t rely on what Joseph
Smith said about it. We should read what the
Book of Mormon says about itself.
Critics such as Metcalfe know that the notion
that Joseph Smith held erroneous views
about the Amerindians and what the Book of
Mormon says will bother
many Latter-day Saints because
the critics know that
these Saints harbor the cultural
overbeliefs entailed in the
implicit argument. However, if
we adopt the view of those
who accept the limited geography
model, that Joseph
Smith may have been uninformed
in his beliefs about the
Book of Mormon geography,
then arguments about what
Joseph Smith believed are beside
the point. A clear-eyed
view of whether what the Book
of Mormon says is true or scientifically
defensible recognizes
that what is relevant is
what the Book of Mormon
says and not what others say it
says.
But didn’t Joseph Smith
claim to be intimately acquainted
with Nephite prophets
and culture? After all, his
mother, Lucy Mack Smith,
tells us that Joseph told about
Nephite dress and customs.18
However, seeing a vision of
Nephite dress and customs is a
far cry from knowing where the Nephites
lived or being able to draw a map of Book of
Mormon events.19
Does the Book of Mormon “Prophetically
Preclude” a Limited Geography?
METCALFE argues that the Book of
Mormon itself won’t allow for a
limited geography because its
prophecies and theological worldview require
a continental perspective. I disagree.
Metcalfe’s exegesis is simplistic because he
assesses the Book of Mormon as if it were
modern writing that makes claims with a
clear meaning ready at hand. By treating the
text as he does, he rather begs the question
against those who accept an ancient background
for the text.
Furthermore, we must consider a prior
question: Are the theological claims made in
the Book of Mormon intended as statements
about population and genetic origin? I doubt
it. It is a common practice in ancient texts to
hyperbolically overstate population and
areas of land seized to demonstrate the enormity
of the feat accomplished. For example,
as Old Testament scholar David M. Fouts argues,
theological and population claims
served numerous purposes in ancient texts,
WE NEED TO
BE FORTHRIGHT
IN CONFRONTING
FALSE
ASSUMPTIONS
THAT LATTER-DAY
SAINTS MAY
MAKE ABOUT
THE BOOK OF
MORMON.
IT IS LIKELY
THAT NOT ALL
AMERINDIANS
ARE DESCENDANTS
OF
LAMANITES.
IT SERVES US
TO BE UP FRONT
ABOUT THAT.
S U N S T O N E
MAY 2005 PAGE 69
and they tend to be hyperbolic figures of
speech for rhetorical and literary purposes
rather than historically verifiable claims as in
modern histories.20
Population figures or
military numbers in ancient works, both religious
and secular, have little resemblance to
historiographic reality. For example, according
to Herodotus, Xerxes’ Persian army
numbered 1.7 million when it invaded
Greece.21
Yet, given the transportation and
food-handling technology of that day, the
Persians could not possibly have supplied
such an army. Thus more generous historians
today cut the figure for Xerxes’ army to a
tenth, or about 180,000 troops. More skeptical
historians think that even this figure is
too high and cut it to 100,000 or so.
Similarly, Samuel 24:9 says that Judah and
Israel had a total of 1,300,000 soldiers in
battle (1 Chronicles 21:5 says 1,570,000).
This, of course, is a ridiculously high number
for a battle between two tribal armies in 1000
BCE. (In 2001, the United States had only
about 1,370,000 active-duty soldiers.)
Similarly, 1 Chronicles 21:5 states that
David’s army consisted of 1,100,000 men
from Israel and 470,000 men from Judah.
Again, this number is impossibly large.22
The point is that when we read the Book
of Mormon in light of ancient practices,
rather than as modern history based on reliable
and verifiable sources, most of the kinds
of arguments made against it lose their force.
Even if the Book of Mormon claims that God
gave the entire North and South American
continents to the Nephites as a matter of
God’s covenant grace (though it certainly
doesn’t say with that kind of precision), such
a claim would have to be read in light of the
practice of hyperbolic overstatement.
Moreover, as we read the text, we must keep
in mind the extent of the geographic knowledge
it would have been possible for the
Nephites to possess. They were not in a position
to know how large the entire land mass
was—especially since the text reveals that
the area in which the events recounted in the
Book of Mormon occur is no larger than an
area about the size of Palestine. It seems to
me that claims made in the Book of Mormon
must be in read in light of ancient practices,
and critics must allow for such practices
when they engage the text.
Let’s look closely at Metcalfe’s two
strongest scriptural arguments suggesting
that the Book of Mormon text does not allow
for indigenous others “theologically.” He cites
2 Nephi 1:8–9 and concludes that it means
that only Israelites could possess the
“promised land,” which he claims refers to all
of North and South America:
And behold, it is wisdom that this
land should be kept as yet from the
knowledge of other nations; for behold,
many nations would overrun
the land, that there would be no
place for an inheritance.
Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a
promise, that inasmuch as those
whom the Lord God shall bring out
of the land of Jerusalem shall keep
his commandments, they shall
prosper upon the face of this land;
and they shall be kept from all
other nations, that they may possess
this land unto themselves . . .
and there shall be none to molest
them, nor to take away the land of
their inheritance; and they shall
dwell safely forever.
Is Metcalfe’s interpretation sound? The
first thing to notice is that the scope of the
phrase, “this land,” is vague.23
Does it mean
this immediate area, this island, this valley,
this country, this continent, this hemisphere
or this-land-I’m-standing-on? I suggest that
we don’t know—except we know that it
cannot be a very large area, because if it is interpreted
as larger than the distance that can
be traversed by walking several days, then
the statement was already false at the time it
was made because, as discussed earlier, according
to the Book of Mormon itself, there
were others, non-Israelites, already present.
At the time Lehi landed (wherever he landed),
there were already Jaredites within a distance
of several days travel by foot. If the land
spoken of means an area much larger than
Palestine, then by their presence, this statement
is textually falsified at the time it is
made. Thus it seems fairly clear to me that
Lehi’s statement cannot mean what Metcalfe
claims it does.
The second thing to notice is that those
who were brought “out of the land of
Jerusalem” refers to the immediate people of
Nephi, not to everyone already present on
the face of the land. The third thing to notice
about the promise that if they keep the commandments,
they shall have the land to
themselves and “dwell in safety forever,” is
that the promise was nullified within one
generation, because the Nephites didn’t live
in safety for even one generation, let alone
forever. Isn’t this scripture better seen as no
more than a promise that God has granted
the descendants of Nephi a choice parcel of
land in a very limited area, and that if they
are faithful, they will get to keep it in peace
forever?
Metcalfe argues that his interpretation is
buttressed by statements that the Lamanites
who are “seed of [Nephi’s] brethren. . . were
scattered before the Gentiles and were
smitten” (1 Nephi 13:14). Metcalfe claims
that this statement compels the conclusion
that “the Amerisraelite promised land is expansive,
encompassing North American
venues for the arrival of the British and
European settlers, the coming forth of the
Book of Mormon, and the construction of the
New Jerusalem.”24
How does he know that
the descendants of Laman and Lemuel had to
be smitten in North America? The text certainly
doesn’t say so, and historically, this
prophecy could have been fulfilled anywhere
in the New World, given the genocide of indigenous
populations by Europeans
throughout South, Central, and North
America, not to mention the surrounding islands.
Thus, this prophecy hardly entails that
all Amerindians must be Israelites.
Conclusion
WE Latter-day Saints are entitled to
read the text in light of the best
scientific evidence we have available.
I did not come to the view of a limited
geography for Book of Mormon events because
of DNA or anthropological and
archeaological evidence (rather, I came to
that view by reading the text itself). However
it is entirely appropriate for Latter-day Saints
to re-read the Book of Mormon in light of the
fact that DNA studies establish that there is
clear evidence of Asiatic progenitors among
Amerindians. However, this evidence does
not establish that there were not others from
elsewhere also present, just as there is no
concrete evidence to establish that there
were, either.
The Book of Mormon itself does not require
the view that all Amerindians are of
Israelite origin. Even in the absence of DNA
evidence, the book is best read as a testimony
(not a history) of an ancient people who occupied
a very limited area but had unfulfilled
hopes of occupying much more. Indeed, it is
best read as assuming the existence of others
already in the land with whom the Nephites
and Lamanites interacted, intermarried, and
became assimilated. Since many have read
the book that way long before the advent of
DNA evidence, it is no leap of faith nor expression
of bad faith to continue to do so.
However, we need to be forthright in confronting
false assumptions that Latter-day
Saints may make about the Book of Mormon.
It is likely that not all Amerindians are descendants
of Lamanites. It serves us to be up
front about that. We don’t know where the
events in the Book of Mormon took place. To
S U N S T O N E
PAGE 70 MAY 2005
be honest about that fact, we ought to cease
“Book of Mormon tours.” Moreover, there is
no such thing as Book of Mormon archaeology
unless and until we find something
that can be directly linked to the text somewhere.
While I believe that there is compelling
evidence for the antiquity of the Book
of Mormon, my belief about this doesn’t
come from New World archaeology. And I
suggest that we don’t know enough to know
whether we should expect such evidence.
NOTES
1. I don’t claim any particular originality to my
arguments—though I did come up with them
without consulting what others had said about them.
After submitting this paper, I learned that similar arguments
for “others” already present when Lehi arrived
have been made since the turn of the century.
Matthew Roper gives a history of such arguments and
of the “limited geography” model of the Book of
Mormon in “Limited Geography and the Book of
Mormon: Historical Antecedents and Early
Interpretations,” FARMS Review 16, no 2 (2004):
226–75. He also reviews the history of Later-day Saint
acceptance that non-Israelites were already present
when Lehi arrived. See, “Nephi’s Neighbors: Book of
Mormon Peoples and Pre-Colombian Populations,”
FARMS Review 15, no. 2 (2003): 91–128.
2. Brent Metcalfe, “Reinventing Lamanite
Identity,” SUNSTONE, March 2004, 21.
3. See Stefan Shcreiner, “Mischen-EhebrachEhescheidung:
Betrachtungen zu Mal. 2:10–16,” ZAW 91
(1979), 207–28; and Clemens Locher, “Altes und
Neues zu Malachi 2:10–16,” in Melanes Dominique
Barthelemy, ed., P. Cassette et al. (Gottingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), 241–71.
4. Ezra accused the Israelites of violating the
covenant by “mixing seed” ( ) with those who
already possessed the land: “doing according to their
abominations (~,hyet{b][w{t), even of the Canaanites, the
Hittites, the Perizzites, [and] the Jebusites . . . for they
have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for
their sons; so that the holy seed have mingled themselves
(yeM;[.B v,d{Q;h [;r,z - zera’ haqodish ba’mi) with the
people of those lands” (Ezra 9:1–2). Malachi also addressed
the breach of the covenant by intermarriage
with those already in the land: “Why do we deal
treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning
the covenant of our fathers? Judah hath dealt
treacherously; and an abomination (h’be[w{t) is committed
in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned
the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and
hath married the daughter of a strange god. The Lord
will cut off (ter.k;y) the man that doeth this” (Malachi
2:10–12). Hence, if the followers of Laman and
Lemuel conceived children outside of the covenant
by marrying others already in the land, Nephi would
have naturally viewed them to be like Israelites who
denied the covenant by intermarrying with Moabites
or Babylonians.
After I wrote several drafts of this paper, I became
aware that Roper makes a similar argument about intermarriage
with others in “Nephi’s Neighbors,”
121–23.
5. Moreover, just as in Malachi, the breach of
the covenant is occasioned by “dealing treacherously
every man against his brother” (Malachi 2:10), for the
great separation and curse occurred when Laman and
Lemuel dealt treacherously with their brother Nephi
by attempting to take his life.
6. John Sorenson analyzes the numbers as fol-
lows:
Within a few years Nephi reports that his
people “began to prosper exceedingly, and
to multiply in the land” (2 Nephi 5:13).
When about fifteen years had passed, he
says that Jacob and Joseph had been made
priests and teachers “over the land of my
people” (2 Nephi 5:26, 28). After another
ten years, they “had already had wars and
contentions” with the Lamanites (2 Nephi
5:34). After the Nephites had existed as
an entity for about forty years (see Jacob
1:1), their men began “desiring many
wives and concubines” (Jacob 1:15). How
many descendants of the original party
would there have been by that time? We
can safely suppose that adaptation to
foods, climate, disease, and natural hazards
would have posed some problems,
although we cannot quantify those effects.
Let us at least start to bracket the possible
growth in numbers by setting an upper
limit that is at the edge of absurdity.
Assume a birth rate twice as high as in today’s
“less developed countries,” a rate
perhaps not even attainable by any population.
Let us also suppose no deaths at
all! Under those conditions, if the initial
Nephite group was comprised of twentyfour
persons, as I calculate generously, by
the time of Jacob 2, they would have
reached a population of 330, of whom
perhaps seventy would be adult males
and the same number adult females. Of
course the unreality of that number
means we must work downward. Using a
more reasonable figure for the birth rate
and factoring in deaths, we see that the actual
number of adults would be unlikely
to exceed half of what we first calculated—say,
thirty-five males and thirtyfive
females. Even that is far too large to
satisfy experts on the history of population
growth. With such limited numbers
as these, the group’s cultural preference
for “many wives and concubines” would
be puzzling. The fact that the plural marriage
preference for the early Nephites is
reported as a cultural fact seems to call for
a larger population of females. If so, it
could only have come about by incorporating
“other” people.
John L. Sorenson, “When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the
Land, Did They Find Others There?” Journal of Book of
Mormon Studies 1, no. 1 (1992): 1–34.
7. References for Jacob’s use of “brethren” are 2
Nephi 6:2; 9:1, 4, 50, 54; 10:1.
8. The words in brackets were added to the
Isaiah passage by Jacob.
9. The words “of the sea” are absent from the
KJV translation, though the word ~yiYia (’yiim) translated
as “isles” could be taken as a plural reference to
islands in the waters. Jacob took this reading for
granted when he referred back to it later in his address
(2 Ne. 10: 21–23).
10. It is possible that from Jacob’s limited access
to geographic information, he thought the Nephites
were on an island because it appeared to be surrounded
by water from where he was while, in fact, it
was not an island. It is also possible that Jacob means
that the Nephites inhabited a coastland area. The
Hebrew ~yiYia means “coast, island, shore, region.” In
the KJV, it is translated “isles” thirty times, “islands”
five, and “country” once. In the NASV, it is translated
“coastland” four times, “coastlands” twenty-six times,
and “islands” six times, including “islands” in the critical
reference to Isaiah 49 cited by Jacob, because that
is what the context demands. Jacob’s point is precisely
that there must be others around them because Isaiah
says “isles”—and he says that “we are on an island of
the sea”—singular. Jacob also states, “wherefore as it
says isles, there must needs be more than this, and
they are inhabited also by our brethren.” In this context,
translating ~yiYia as “coastland” makes no sense. It
appears to me that Jacob means “islands.” Now, I
think that Jacob couldn’t possibly have a complete geographic
knowledge of the Americas. But it seems
quite probable he would know if they were on an island—he
could know that by circumnavigating the
island.
11. A similar argument is made by Sorenson in
his “When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the Land, Did They
Find Others There?”, 3–4.
12. As Sorenson observes (Ibid.,4):
The account of Sherem’s encounter with
Jacob reiterates the question [of others
who are outsiders]. ‘Some [ten more?]
years had passed away,’ and Jacob was
now verging on ‘old’ (cf. Jacob 7:1,
20–26). At that time ‘there came a man
among the people of Nephi whose name
was Sherem’ (Jacob 7:1). Upon first
meeting Jacob, he said, ‘Brother Jacob, I
have sought much opportunity that I
might speak unto you; for I have heard. . .
that thou goest about much, preaching’
(Jacob 7:6). Now, the population of adult
males descended from the original group
could not have exceeded fifty at that time.
This would have been only enough to
populate one modest-sized village. Thus
Sherem’s is a strange statement. Jacob, as
head priest and religious teacher, would
routinely have been around the Nephite
temple in the cultural center at least on all
holy days (see Jacob 2:2). How then could
Sherem never have seen him, and why
would he have had to seek ‘much opportunity’
to speak to him in such a tiny settlement?
And where would Jacob have
had to go on the preaching travels Sherem
refers to, if only such a tiny group were involved?
Moreover, from where was it that
Sherem ‘came. . . among the people of
Nephi’ (Jacob 7:1)? The text and context
of this incident would make little sense if
the Nephite population had resulted only
from natural demographic increase.”
See also, Kevin Christensen, “The Deuteronomist DeChristianizing
of the Old Testament,” in Farms Review
16, no. 2 (2004): 86–88.
13. Metcalfe, 21.
14. Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert and the World
of the Jaredites (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1952),
175–200.
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15. Kenneth Godfrey, “What is the Significance of
Zelph?”, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8, no. 2
(1999): 72.
16. For a list of several reasons Latter-day Saints
reject this view, see my “Bridging the Gap,” in FARMS
Review 11, no. 2 (Provo: FARMS, 1999), 103–77.
17. Roper, “Limited Geography and the Book of
Mormon: Historical Antecedents and Early
Interpretations.”
Indeed, the evidence regarding the size of the area
reflected in the Book of Mormon is so clear and convincing
and has been argued so thoroughly (virtually
every person has attempted to map the area based
upon the distances reported in the book itself), that I
have been surprised at the position taken by Earl M.
Wunderli who maintains that believers in the Book of
Mormon must accept some form of the entire NorthSouth
American continents view for Book of Mormon
geography. In his “Critique of a Limited Geography
for Book of Mormon Events,” Dialogue: A Journal of
Mormon Thought 35, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 161–99,
Wunderli places particular weight upon the phrase “a
choice land above all others” repeatedly used to describe
the land to which Lehi was brought by the
Lord. Wunderli maintains that this description requires
a continental view of the “land” (p. 172–79). I
think that Wunderli overstates his conclusion in a
grand way, for there is nothing indicating the size of
the land referred to, nor is there any claim that the
Nephites inhabited the entire land. In fact, the Book
of Mormon makes it clear that the Nephites and
Lamanites did not inhabit the entire land because
they so easily became lost in the vast wilderness. In
my view, the text simply will not support his reading
of it given the very limited traveling distances expressly
reported in the text. Brant A. Gardner provides
a creditable response that substantially
undermines Wunderli’s arguments in my view. Brant
A. Gardner, “An Exploration in Critical Methodology:
Critiquing a Critique,” FARMS Review 16, no. 2
(2004): 173–223. For serious attempts to provide a
map of the Book of Mormon that meets the internal
criteria of the Book of Mormon itself, see John L.
Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of
Mormon (Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book and
FARMS, 1985, 1996); John L. Sorenson, Mormon’s
Map (Provo: FARMS, 2000); John L. Sorenson,
Geography of Book of Mormon Events: A Sourcebook
(Provo: FARMS, 1992); Ross T. Christensen,
“Geography in Book of Mormon Archaeology,” in
Progress in Archaeology: An Anthology, ed. Ross T.
Peterson (Provo: BYU Press, 1963), 81–88; Joseph L.
Allen, Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon
(Orem: S.A. Publishers, 1989); and Allen, Sacred
Sites: Searching for Book of Mormon Lands (American
Fork, Utah: Covenant, 2003); David A Palmer, In
Search of Cumorah: New Evidences for the Book of
Mormon from Ancient Mexico (Bountiful, Utah:
Horizon, 1981. Indeed, Wunderli himself admits that
the Book of Mormon’s own internal statements support
a limited geography: “A limited geography
model could solve other problems . . . including . . .
clues in the book about distances, climate, terrain, directions,
and other geographical factors.” (p. 197).
18. Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen
Proctor, eds., The Revised and Enhanced History of
Joseph Smith by His Mother (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft,
1996), 111–12.
19. Metcalfe attempts to buttress his conclusion
that Joseph Smith claimed to know through revelation
that all Lamanites were of Israelite origin by referring
to the Zelph story. However, the events surrounding
this story are sufficiently in dispute that I don’t believe
any sound conclusions about its being revelatory can
be drawn. In a letter written to his wife Emma on 3
June 1834, a day after the event, Joseph Smith wrote:
The whole of our journey, in the midst of
so large a company of social honest and
sincere men, wandering over the plains of
the Nephites, recounting occasionally the
history of the Book of Mormon, roving
over the mounds of that once beloved
people of the Lord, picking up their skulls
& their bones, as a proof of its divine authenticity,
and gazing upon a country the
fertility, the splendour and the goodness
so indescribable, all serves to pass away
time unnoticed.
The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, comp. and ed.,
Dean C. Jessee (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1984),
324.
This historically verifiable account by Joseph
Smith refers only to the “plains of the Nephites” in
western Ohio—and he neither claims to know it
through revelation, nor does he make any reference to
“Zelph.” The record establishes only what we already
knew: i.e., that Joseph Smith assumed at that time
that all American Indians were Lamanites.
The journals of other Latter-day Saints who heard
Joseph establish that some present talked about a
Zelph who was a white Lamanite— but I believe that
the reliability of these accounts and the timing of their
having been set in writing are sufficiently suspect that
we are best advised to be careful about their claims.
Further, the relationship between “Zelph” and the
events recounted in the Book of Mormon is extremely
unclear, but even if we accept the story just as
Metcalfe tells it, it establishes nothing more than that
at some time a person who could claim to be a
Lamanite or of Lamanite descent was present in
western Ohio. Such information is not incompatible
with a limited geography because even if there was a
Zelph (which remains in doubt) he could have been a
descendant of Lamanites who had wandered far from
where the events in the Book of Mormon occurred.
We just don’t know enough about this incident to
claim anything reliable. See, Kenneth W. Godfrey,
“The Zelph Story,” BYU Studies 29:2 (1989), 31–56;
Kenneth W. Godfrey, “What is the Significance of
Zelph in the Study of Book of Mormon Geography?,”
Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8, no. 2 (1999),
70–79; Roper, “Limited Geography and the Book of
Mormon,” 238–41.
20. David M. Fouts, “A Defense of the Hyperbolic
Interpretation of Large Numbers in the Old
Testament,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological
Society 40, no. 3 (September, 1997): 377–87.
21. The Persian Wars, Book VII, Section 60. For
instance, Donald W. Engels calculates that Alexander’s
army of 65,000 needed, at a minimum, 1,500 pack
animals—and as many as 8,400 whenever it had to
cross a dry or desert area—just to carry one day’s supplies.
Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the
Macedonian Army (Berkeley, California: University of
California Press, 1978), 19. That figure increases to
50,400 pack animals for a four-day march in a desert.
In a fertile area, Alexander still needed 40,350 pack
animals at a minimum to carry his supplies for ten
days of marching. Ibid.
22. See George E. Mendenhall, “The Census Lists
in Numbers 1 and 26,” Journal of Biblical Literature 77
(1958), 52; Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and
Institutions (London: Datron, Longman, Todd, 1961),
65ff.; A. Lucas, “The Numbers of Israelites at the
Exodus,” PEQ 76 (1944), 167; J. B. Payne, “The
Validity of the Numbers in Chronicles,” Biblia Sacra
136 (1979), 109–28; 206–20.
Another example: The Qumran covenantors believed
that they constituted the numerous hosts of
Israel who would fight the eschatological battles for
God—a belief that required literally hundreds of
thousands of warriors. One could conclude that their
view required that there must have been hundreds of
thousands at Qumran for such numbers to make
sense. Yet their community consisted of merely hundreds.
Their theological views expressed hope that in
fulfillment their numbers would reflect this dramatic
presentation of their beliefs. See, 1QM 1:9–15; J.J.
Collins, “The Mythology of Holy War in Daniel and
the Qumran War Scroll: A Point of Transition in
Jewish Apocalyptic,” Vetus Tetamentum 25 (1975):
596–612.
23. In his review of Metcalfe’s “Reinventing
Lamanite Identity” (“Reinventing the Book of
Mormon,” FARMS Review 16, no 2 [2004], 91–106),
John A. Tvedtnes argues just as I do that Metcalfe has
misunderstood the scope of the Promised Land in 2
Nephi 1:8–9. Indeed, Tvedtnes points out that both
John Sorenson and Matt Roper have argued that this
same scripture supports the presence of others precisely
because the Nephites violated the covenant and
thus God had warned that others would take their
lands from them.
24. Metcalfe, 21.