9 replies to this topic

[happy]

I am newer to all this, but a friend of mine who used to be active here told me that Lehi was not Jewish as he came from a different house. Is this accurate or is this an attempt for him to justify the DNA issue?

[Robert F. Smith]

happy, on 19 July 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

I am newer to all this, but a friend of mine who used to be active here told me that Lehi was not Jewish as he came from a different house. Is this accurate or is this an attempt for him to justify the DNA issue?

What he probably means by that is that Lehi was not a member of the tribe of Judah (=Jews), but rather from the tribe of Manasseh (Alma 10:3).  Archeologists have found that such tribal identity was maintained right up to the time when the northern kingdom was destroyed.  Lehi's ancestors (grandparents) were likely refugees from that Assyrian destruction, while he himself became a refugee from the Babylonian threat.

DNA would be very similar among all the tribes of Israel, and would also be very similar to general Canaanite DNA, as we note from the work of Michael F. Hammer, et al., “Jewish and Middle Eastern Non-Jewish Populations Share a Common Pool of Y-Chromosome Biallelic Haplotypes,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, May 9, 2000.  This article eatures an MDS plot of populations based on Y-chromosome haplotype data (fig. 2), showing varied Jewish populations (Ashkenazi, Roman, Kurdish, North African, Iraqi, Iranian, and Yemenite) to be virtually indistinguishable from non-Jewish Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Druze, and Saudi Arabians.  Ethiopian Jews and the Lemba (Bantu/Venda speakers of South Africa) were outside this tight grouping, for whatever reason (perhaps a more discrete sampling needs to be taken -- from the Buba subclan of the Lemba, for example).  Online at  http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/10801975 , or http://www.ncbi.nlm....icles/PMC18733/ ..

[Buzzard]

"Jewish" is from the tribe of Judah. Lehi was from Manesseh, so he was Israelite, but not Jewish. Since the 10 lost tribes are just that-lost-we don't know what their DNA looks like, though they would have had the same father (Jacob/Israel) as the Jews.

[ERayR]

Buzzard, on 19 July 2012 - 09:42 AM, said:

"Jewish" is from the tribe of Judah. Lehi was from Manesseh, so he was Israelite, but not Jewish. Since the 10 lost tribes are just that-lost-we don't know what their DNA looks like, though they would have had the same father (Jacob/Israel) as the Jews.

First we need to agree whether they are physically lost or lost as to identity.  If it is the latter we may very well have their DNA but don't know it.

[Glenn101]

ERayR, on 19 July 2012 - 09:54 AM, said:

First we need to agree whether they are physically lost or lost as to identity.  If it is the latter we may very well have their DNA but don't know it.

Do we even know what the ancient Jewish/Israelite DNA looks like? Wouldn't the DNA of the tribe of Manasseh have some fairly major differences due to the fact that Joseph was married to an Egyptian woman?

Glenn

[ERayR]

Glenn101, on 19 July 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

Do we even know what the ancient Jewish/Israelite DNA looks like? Wouldn't the DNA of the tribe of Manasseh have some fairly major differences due to the fact that Joseph was married to an Egyptian woman?

Glenn

That is kind of alluding to.  We may have lost tribe DNA amongst the people of the world.  We just don't know what it looks like.

[Freedom]

If we knew what their DNA looked like, we would have found them. This is an issue I have with critics of the Book of Mormon. They say we should find the DNA among the Americans, but not finding the DNA of the lost tribes escapes them as a double standard.

[ERayR]

Freedom, on 19 July 2012 - 04:12 PM, said:

If we knew what their DNA looked like, we would have found them. This is an issue I have with critics of the Book of Mormon. They say we should find the DNA among the Americans, but not finding the DNA of the lost tribes escapes them as a double standard.

The DNA of the lost tribes should be found in the north countries and by migrations in The British Isles and from there fairly well diffused throughout the world.

[SamIam]

ERayR, on 19 July 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

That is kind of alluding to.  We may have lost tribe DNA amongst the people of the world.  We just don't know what it looks like.

If you accept the marriage qualification of "not of the Canaanites" for the passage of the rights of the firstborn heir ship to Ephraim then you realize that Joseph did not marry an Egyptian.  Well not a bloodline Egyptian anyway. Had he done so, he would have been excised from Jewish history and his name but a hiss and byword. Jewish Legend provides one option- Dinah's daughter, Josephus a potential other - Hyksos - a nomadic semetic people. I vote for Dinah's daughter.

[Freedom]

ERayR, on 19 July 2012 - 04:45 PM, said:

The DNA of the lost tribes should be found in the north countries and by migrations in The British Isles and from there fairly well diffused throughout the world.

So where are they?