Simon Southerton

[Pyreaux]

2 hours ago, Craig Speechly said:

To create a thread to attack Simon does not speak well of this board  If you have scientific evidence that challenges Simon’s science ok present it, but resorting to ad hominem should be beneath us and undermine your arguments

Simon put himself out there to be criticized, there are variant calibers of people here both capable and incapable of responding without resorting to fallacies, and ad hominem. If and when a line is crossed, address or report the offending post instead of shaming and dismissing the entire thread and board.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Pyreaux

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

Red flag. No evidence? There is evidence. How strong the evidence is up to you, but to ignore it completely is not intellectually honest.

Agree. Religion is even seen as justifiable by contemporary atheist philosophers, just as morality is.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_orthodoxy

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/

Edited February 27, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Islander]

On 2/23/2023 at 10:23 AM, Pyreaux said:

That is what Southerton is trying to say, "Cohan" Y chromosomes of kohanim were found in only half of the kohanim tested whose status of a kohen is contingent upon being the male biological descendants of Aaron. Implying that only half of kohanim share some common male ancestry, maybe Aaron. How could it be sufficient evidence required to identify all Israelites from before the Babylonian exile, or the lost tribe of Manasseh without that DNA?

We are not concerned with post-exilic Israel. The family of Lehi did not mix with any other group. Nathaniel Jeanson in "Traced" was able to demonstrate and identify from the Y chromosome where the Amerindians come from and to what hap group they are connected with, even today. Even Quechua and Aymara natives in Peru can be traced to Central Asia people. There is no trace of Semitic DNA anywhere in the American continent. 

Abraham shared genetics with ALL the people the inhabited that region. Today, we know that, excluding the European Ashkenazi Jews that later migrated to Israel, there are clear, y very well defined genetic markers for people that live in Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen and Norther Arabia which they shared with Jews that remained in the region after AD 70. Even the Ethiopian Jews that were repatriated back to Israel are genetically connected to them. 

 

In sum, the subject has been explored in the forum before extensively.

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, Islander said:

We are not concerned with post-exilic Israel. The family of Lehi did not mix with any other group. Nathaniel Jeanson in "Traced" was able to demonstrate and identify from the Y chromosome where the Amerindians come from and to what hap group they are connected with, even today. Even Quechua and Aymara natives in Peru can be traced to Central Asia people. There is no trace of Semitic DNA anywhere in the American continent. 

Abraham shared genetics with ALL the people the inhabited that region. Today, we know that, excluding the European Ashkenazi Jews that later migrated to Israel, there are clear, y very well defined genetic markers for people that live in Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen and Norther Arabia which they shared with Jews that remained in the region after AD 70. Even the Ethiopian Jews that were repatriated back to Israel are genetically connected to them. 

 

In sum, the subject has been explored in the forum before extensively.

Lehi was not a Post-exilic Jew, rather an estranged member of the tribe of Manasseh, and the lost tribes did not get to contribute greatly to the current genetic mix of the Middle East. You can't just look at modern Middle Eastern DNA and tell us what 2600-year Manasseh DNA should be. "Cohen" markers are only carried by half of the Kohanim and only 2-3% of other Jews. Then Simon must be saying 97-98% of modern Jews are not descendants of Abraham?

[Benjamin McGuire]

3 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

Lehi was not a Post-exilic Jew, rather an estranged member of the tribe of Manasseh, and the lost tribes did not get to contribute greatly to the current genetic mix of the Middle East. You can't just look at modern Middle Eastern DNA and tell us what 2600-year Manasseh DNA should be. "Cohen" markers are only carried by half of the Kohanim and only 2-3% of other Jews. Then Simon must be saying 97-98% of modern Jews are not descendants of Abraham?

This is such a confused mess.

Let me focus on the really problematic part of this comment: 'the lost tribes did not get to contribute greatly to the current genetic mix of the Middle East'. A couple of points -

It is silly to think that Lehi and Ishmael (and their families) were somehow the only members of the lost tribes to have continued to exist within the Middle East after the disappearance of the lost tribes. The two tribes that weren't lost were Judah and Benjamin. Benjamin had issues though, and when the tribe was nearly wiped out (Judges 20), the 400 remaining men took wives from Shiloh (in Ephraim). I have 10 brothers (not quite as many as Jacob's sons had). Some of my brothers have had no children. Others have had lots of children. It is accurate to say that my brothers with no children will not contribute to the future genetic mix. It is also true that in terms of genetic markers, this is an irrelevancy. Those of us with children more than make up for those without. The point of all of this? You seem to be suggesting that despite the close connection between the tribes of Israel, that the lost tribes were distinctive enough in their DNA to not have the other historical markers found in ancient middle east genome, that when the tribes were lost that their DNA was lost with them (completely removed from the environment if not annihilated), and because of this, the handful of survivors in Jerusalem who all got together and left for the New World (taking with them all evidence of their unique DNA) cannot be compared with modern DNA to assess where they went.

I don't buy it.

We can look at modern Middle Eastern DNA and have some sense of what 2600 year old Manasseh (and Ephraim since you don't mention it) DNA should look like on a population wide basis. We can use current methods to look at the genomic history of a region like the middle east and draw some reasonable conclusions from those studies about what the genome looked like 2600 years ago (and older).

Just as importantly, we know a lot more about what it wouldn't look like.

One of the things that we have seen with widespread DNA testing is that, for the most part, DNA demonstrates the connectedness of groups that claim to be connected. The Cohen marker isn't used (at least the way that Southerton discusses it) to define Jewish ancestry. But it is an apparent Middle Eastern genetic marker - and so when a group that claims to be connected to the Jews displays a marker of this sort, it suggests that there was a historic connection. This is not a claim that you have to have this marker to have that ancestry. And these sex-linked genetic markers have their own special difficulties when we use them to map genomic history. But Southerton isn't making the argument that only those with this gene are descendants of Abraham. That's an argument you seem to be making for him.

Southerton's primary argument is about the genome as a whole (and not just these sex-linked genes) - and what we should find if we had a successful migration from the ancient Middle East to the Americas that lasted for a millennia, build cities, fought wars, and so on. While it might be easy for a specific marker - especially a specific marker on a sex-linked gene - to vanish, it isn't at all likely for the entire genome of a population to vanish short of an extinction level event.

Southerton is also very clear that he recognizes that there is a certain amount of literary interpretation going on in his claims. He simply argues that the numbers and the groups described in the Book of Mormon are large enough that you wouldn't expect their genetic contributions to simply vanish - within the current set of interpretations presented about the text. There are interpretations of the text that could allow for such disappearance. But they would all require a radical departure from these traditional interpretations. For those who want to insist that the Book of Mormon is a historical text, they might include shifts like the assumption toward early interactions with native populations on a large scale, or that the events and populations described in the Book of Mormon were both isolated to a relatively small space and involved relatively small populations - such that we shouldn't think of the modern Native American populations as having any significant ancestry in the Book of Mormon peoples.

But, in any case, it isn't going to help anyone who is trying to maintain faith in the Book of Mormon to deal with these kinds of challenges in this sort of dismissive way.

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

This is such a confused mess.

Let me focus on the really problematic part of this comment: 'the lost tribes did not get to contribute greatly to the current genetic mix of the Middle East'. A couple of points -

It is silly to think that Lehi and Ishmael (and their families) were somehow the only members of the lost tribes to have continued to exist within the Middle East after the disappearance of the lost tribes. The two tribes that weren't lost were Judah and Benjamin. Benjamin had issues though, and when the tribe was nearly wiped out (Judges 20), the 400 remaining men took wives from Shiloh (in Ephraim). I have 10 brothers (not quite as many as Jacob's sons had). Some of my brothers have had no children. Others have had lots of children. It is accurate to say that my brothers with no children will not contribute to the future genetic mix. It is also true that in terms of genetic markers, this is an irrelevancy. Those of us with children more than make up for those without. The point of all of this? You seem to be suggesting that despite the close connection between the tribes of Israel, that the lost tribes were distinctive enough in their DNA to not have the other historical markers found in ancient middle east genome, that when the tribes were lost that their DNA was lost with them (completely removed from the environment if not annihilated), and because of this, the handful of survivors in Jerusalem who all got together and left for the New World (taking with them all evidence of their unique DNA) cannot be compared with modern DNA to assess where they went.

I don't buy it.

We can look at modern Middle Eastern DNA and have some sense of what 2600 year old Manasseh (and Ephraim since you don't mention it) DNA should look like on a population wide basis. We can use current methods to look at the genomic history of a region like the middle east and draw some reasonable conclusions from those studies about what the genome looked like 2600 years ago (and older).

Just as importantly, we know a lot more about what it wouldn't look like.

One of the things that we have seen with widespread DNA testing is that, for the most part, DNA demonstrates the connectedness of groups that claim to be connected. The Cohen marker isn't used (at least the way that Southerton discusses it) to define Jewish ancestry. But it is an apparent Middle Eastern genetic marker - and so when a group that claims to be connected to the Jews displays a marker of this sort, it suggests that there was a historic connection. This is not a claim that you have to have this marker to have that ancestry. And these sex-linked genetic markers have their own special difficulties when we use them to map genomic history. But Southerton isn't making the argument that only those with this gene are descendants of Abraham. That's an argument you seem to be making for him.

Southerton's primary argument is about the genome as a whole (and not just these sex-linked genes) - and what we should find if we had a successful migration from the ancient Middle East to the Americas that lasted for a millennia, build cities, fought wars, and so on. While it might be easy for a specific marker - especially a specific marker on a sex-linked gene - to vanish, it isn't at all likely for the entire genome of a population to vanish short of an extinction level event.

Southerton is also very clear that he recognizes that there is a certain amount of literary interpretation going on in his claims. He simply argues that the numbers and the groups described in the Book of Mormon are large enough that you wouldn't expect their genetic contributions to simply vanish - within the current set of interpretations presented about the text. There are interpretations of the text that could allow for such disappearance. But they would all require a radical departure from these traditional interpretations. For those who want to insist that the Book of Mormon is a historical text, they might include shifts like the assumption toward early interactions with native populations on a large scale, or that the events and populations described in the Book of Mormon were both isolated to a relatively small space and involved relatively small populations - such that we shouldn't think of the modern Native American populations as having any significant ancestry in the Book of Mormon peoples.

But, in any case, it isn't going to help anyone who is trying to maintain faith in the Book of Mormon to deal with these kinds of challenges in this sort of dismissive way.

I'm no expert, and I'm not going to swim against the tide on both sides.  To sum up, I was radically suggesting without Manasseh's DNA, Lehi could oddly have had Siberian DNA markers (A B C D) to begin with. While Fair says similar arguments, they simply argue there aren't necessarily no Manasseh markers to find in Natives. Is that still so, or is that a shrinking possibility?

[Benjamin McGuire]

25 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

While Fair says similar arguments, they simply argue there aren't necessarily no Manasseh markers to find in Natives. Is that still so, or is that a shrinking possibility?

I found the specific FAIR argument you seem to be using. I consider it to be inaccurate. Here it is:

Quote

Genetic attacks on the Book of Mormon focus on the fact that Amerindian DNA seems closest to Asian DNA, and not DNA from "the Middle East" or "Jewish" DNA. However, this attack ignores several key points.

Lehi and his family are clearly not Jews. They belong to the tribe of Manasseh (Alma 10:3, 1 Nephi 5:14), and married into Ishmael's family, the tribe of Ephraim. [2] These tribes were carried away captive by the Assyrians, and did not contribute greatly to the current genetic mix of the Middle East.

Furthermore, the Middle East is located at the crossroads of three continents, and has seen a great deal of immigration, mixing, and intermarriage. To use modern Middle Eastern DNA as the "standard" against which to measure what Manasseh and Ephraim DNA must have been like 2600 years ago is not a scientifically sound approach.

I have already addressed (at least generally) the problem of separating Manasseh from Judah in terms of DNA. I need to add one hugely important point. Ancient Assyria is considered to be a part of the Middle East. That is, even if the ten tribes are hauled away to Assyria, their DNA does not leave the pool that would be used to produce the modern Middle East genetic mix.

Having said that, studies dealing with the genetic mix of the Middle East can find shared markers that exist across all of these groups (this would include both the Assyrians and the Israelites). These markers occur and become widespread prior to the separation of Israel into the twelve tribes. They occur prior to the fall of the north and the lost tribes being taken away. So these markers should in theory, exist within the Nephite population regardless of the specific of their ancestry. And we don't find any of these indicators in the Native American populations. What we do find there is recognizable as something else.

For a reference which is a bit technical, you might look here. It has some nice charts which helps illustrate the different genetic signatures and their relationships to each other - in terms of these Middle Eastern groups.

I am not saying that these results are conclusive. They are only conclusive in light of certain literary interpretations of the Book of Mormon. Southerton probably believes they are more conclusive than I am suggesting here - because of his views of the Book of Mormon lead him in that direction. From the perspective of an LDS believer, there are several ways to reconcile these issues - painting ourselves into a proverbial corner isn't going to be the best route in the long run.

[mfbukowski]

On 2/18/2023 at 3:58 AM, Hamilton Porter said:

Sorry, he's either full of it or he doesn't know what he's talking about.

He claims that during population crashes, such as the one with the Conquistadors, everybody in the population is equally likely to die. 

Perhaps there are no population bottlenecks in plant genetics?

The following is from the Michael Crawford book:

 

I find this so very frustrating.   Yet again:

Logical positivism is dead and this guy is a logical positivist.  Google "positivism is dead" if you want a few thousand references.

Positivism holds that a proposition cannot be "true" or some say "meaningful" unless the statement can be empirically verified.

The Book of Mormon cannot be empirically / historically verified therefore it cannot be "true" or "meaningful"

Unfortunately the proposition that: {a proposition cannot be true or meaningful unless the statement can be empirically verified} cannot itself be empirically verified

Therefore by its own terms, logical positivism cannot be "true or meaningful.

In matters of faith or morals, propositions are counted as "true" for their effectiveness AS TOOLS which are useful beliefs for a specific purpose.

The commandment "thou shalt not kill" is useful in keeping society free from murder and the strife it causes.

Religious statements can be seen as "true" because they give purpose to our lives- on that count, devoting one's life can be made meaningful by many non-religious ideals as well- so practically (pragmatically) speaking devoting one's life to saving the whales or a political party or cause of any kind can be seen as a kind of "religion".

So it is "true" in that sense that "all men are created equal".   It is true that "men and women ought to receive equal salaries for equal work".  It is true that "there are inalienable rights which should be applied to all humanity", and so on, as it goes.  All of these propositions are "verified" by "testimony", a feeling inside that they ARE or even MUST be true AND meaningful in order to have meaningful and productive lives.  

"Justice is Fairness" is a famous book with relevance here and with implications for laws and civil beliefs we hold in our civil religions.

The Church of Jesus Christ LDS gives its members a useful paradigm to guide their lives, which their members FEEL to be the IDEAL lifestyle for all humanity.  The feeling is AT LEAST just as undeniable as the FEELING that all humanity should be treated equally under the law.

These considerations lead me to believe that Southerton's views are not intellectually justifiable.

SEE?

I CAN be nice after all!

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by mfbukowski

[OGHoosier]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

From the perspective of an LDS believer, there are several ways to reconcile these issues - painting ourselves into a proverbial corner isn't going to be the best route in the long run.

Which ways seem optimal?

[Benjamin McGuire]

1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

Which ways seem optimal?

Optimization problems look for the best solution with regard to some criteria. What exactly is the criteria that you have in mind?

If, for example, you wanted to maintain the historical claims about the text, you might try to reinterpret the text with respect to entanglement with indigenous populations. We might see the polygamy mentioned in Jacob 1-3 in the first generation after arriving to suggest that the Nephites had encountered others. We could argue that the skin of blackness described in 2 Nephi 5:21 is a reference to the Lamanites marrying indigenous peoples. These kinds of interpretations would create a situation in which DNA begins to dilute immediately from a very small group into a very large group - and this could result in a very small genetic footprint left by the immigrants.

Did you have a criteria in mind by which you wanted to optimize the problem?

[OGHoosier]

54 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

If, for example, you wanted to maintain the historical claims about the text, you might try to reinterpret the text with respect to entanglement with indigenous populations. We might see the polygamy mentioned in Jacob 1-3 in the first generation after arriving to suggest that the Nephites had encountered others. We could argue that the skin of blackness described in 2 Nephi 5:21 is a reference to the Lamanites marrying indigenous peoples. These kinds of interpretations would create a situation in which DNA begins to dilute immediately from a very small group into a very large group - and this could result in a very small genetic footprint left by the immigrants.

Did you have a criteria in mind by which you wanted to optimize the problem?

Actually, you pretty much nailed what I was looking for. 

If polygamy was particularly widespread (as Jacob suggests), then that would probably do a number on the persistence of maternal Lehite DNA from the start.  

[Islander]

On 2/27/2023 at 1:23 AM, Pyreaux said:

Lehi was not a Post-exilic Jew, rather an estranged member of the tribe of Manasseh, and the lost tribes did not get to contribute greatly to the current genetic mix of the Middle East. You can't just look at modern Middle Eastern DNA and tell us what 2600-year Manasseh DNA should be. "Cohen" markers are only carried by half of the Kohanim and only 2-3% of other Jews. Then Simon must be saying 97-98% of modern Jews are not descendants of Abraham?

I never said that Lehi was a post-exilic Jew. There is a significant library of aDNA available from the ME. We know exactly what genetic markers Semites share, ancient and modern. The Ashkenazi Jews are "diluted" in a sense after nearly 2000 years in Easter Europe. But those that remained in the ME share significant markers even today.

The church already acknowledged that there is no DNA that can be traced to ANY of the groups identified through the Y chromosome as belonging to Hap group J. The explanation in the essay paints a hypothetical that  is within the realm of what is "possible" but statistically improbable given that such scenario does not exist anywhere else. But I digress. Again, there are many threads in the forum dealing with the subject. No need to rehash it.

[rodheadlee]

Are you able to follow the DNA of the lost 10 tribes over the Caucasus Mountains and into Europe?

[morgan.deane]

 

On 2/21/2023 at 7:52 PM, sunstoned said:

Well, according to the BoM the land was empty.  They were the only ones.  Moroni and Mormon write on million men armies.  You can extrapolate how much support a army of that size would need.  It is in the neighborhood of the total allied effort in WW2.  That is a huge genetic footprint that would leave a huge impact.  Any yet we had nada.

I'm like two weeks behind on this thread but I just have to see your work.

A few major questions from a military historian that has actually studied both George Marshall and logistics: Is there actually a description of million man armies in the Book of Mormon? And where is the comparison of the supply of this army to the allied effort in World War 2? I definitely want to see those numbers. There is evidence of large numbers of people dying, but if everyone is dead there is no genetic markers to study thousands of years later? 

 Assuming the numbers are correct could be a bit like assuming Herodotus really meant two million as well,(see the first link) but lets leave that aside for a second. The Jaredite numbers list the dead after at least 8 battles. Assuming the sides were roughly equal, and the causalities spread across 8 battles, that would mean the army deaths of both sides in each battle are about 65,000. That's high, especially 8 times in a row, but not much higher than the Battle of Cannae, Lake Trebia, and Trasmine and less than a tenth of the deaths at the single Battle of Fei River. Not to mention this was a nation ending war for the Jaredites and there were so few men left that they couldn't spare any grave diggers (Either 4:21-22), so the number of deaths should be shocking. Both the Nephite army size and deaths were similar to other ancient Mesoamerican campaigns as well. (See the second link or Ross Hassig for more.)

The few details we do have about Book of Mormon logistics suggest the armies were a strain on resources and many starved. (Again, thats the second link with the horrible format, sorry.) Moroni 9 talks about competition for supplies and starving widows. Alma 3 or 4 talks about famine from soldiers marching on crops. And the war chapters describe Moroni "delivering the people from famine" several times, as well as his (not) complaining over a lack of supplies to his army.

So critics assume the Nephites had a Tapir King in every advanced base or a Coke for every soldier like 20th century America,  when even the best supplied ancient armies were ad hoc and often inadequate. (See Engels on Alexander the Great's army for example.) This was especially true when the nations were about to perish as both the Jaredites and Nephites were. Its no surprise that war is often compared to a plague of locusts that devour crops.  When Herodotus talked about the size of the Persian army he said things like rivers were drank dry and there was nothing left anywhere. (See the third link.) This difficulty also matches those trials experienced in long campaigns like the Chinese War of the Princes. I compared this war to the Jaredite wars in my first book. So you see again that limited supply, starvation, and the end of nations often coincide in ancient history. Or in other words, the lack of Nephite logistical capability adds credibility to the text and doesn't undermine it. 

All of the above makes me assume the Nephites or Jaredites in their final days produced far smaller amount of supplies than the "allied effort of World War 2," which again, sounds so ridiculous to someone who has studied logistics in a professional capacity. I'll really have to see your numbers. How many tons do you think the Nephites supplied compared to allied tonnage, and how did you arrive at those numbers respectively and comparatively?

I haven't read enough about Southerton to know exactly how the above engage his scholarship except to say that if so many starved and died that seems like a pretty good genetic bottleneck that would make the survivors and even the remaining victors hard to detect in the genetic record.  Like I said, I mostly jumped in because of my unique background as a military historian since I've studied George Marshall (the organizer of victory in World War II), logistics, and the Book of Mormon. And if I don't see your work I'll assume your comparison to World War II was a bunch of hot air. 

I once heard that southerton is really good at knocking down strawmen and if his arguments are anything like sunstoned's understanding of the BoM compared to what's in the text, amplified by an actual study of logistics, I think that assessment of him is extremely accurate. 

I'm off to dinner, and then a conference (the LDS National Security Conference at BYU if anyone wants to come check out my piece on section 98). So I won't be able to respond back, if I care to at all, until next week.



https://mormonwar.blogspot.com/2017/11/decisive-battles-in-chinese-history.html

https://mormonwar.blogspot.com/2013/07/eat-this-logistics-in-book-of-mormon.html

https://mormonwar.blogspot.com/2018/07/its-all-greek-to-me-herodotus-in-book.html

Edited March 2, 2023 by morgan.deane

[Calm]

51 minutes ago, morgan.deane said:

the LDS National Security Conference

Had never heard of it….looks interesting…

https://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleMattoxLDSNATSECCFP.html

This year’s…

https://kennedy.byu.edu/national-security-in-an-era-of-global-upheaval-2023-03-03

Edited March 2, 2023 by Calm

[Benjamin McGuire]

10 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

Are you able to follow the DNA of the lost 10 tribes over the Caucasus Mountains and into Europe?

There isn't any evidence of a significant migration from the Middle East into Europe (not just DNA - although there is no evidence in DNA of such a migration either).

[rodheadlee]

5 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

There isn't any evidence of a significant migration from the Middle East into Europe (not just DNA - although there is no evidence in DNA of such a migration either).

Thank you 

[Kevin Christensen]

Sunstoned cites Spencer Kimball and J. Reuben Clark as authorities to defend his interpretations.  In doing so, he does not cite the formal statement on "mine authority and the authority of my servants," (D&C 1:6) because it would have the effect of undermining his argument rather than bolstering it:

Quote

these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.

25 And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known;

26 And inasmuch as they sought wisdom they might be instructed;

27 And inasmuch as they sinned they might be chastened, that they might repent;

28 And inasmuch as they were humble they might be made strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time. (D&C 1:24-28).

Notice that this formal statement of "the authority of my servants" does not say, "Inasmuch as they are my authorities they can never err, and they they need not seek wisdom because from henceforth they are not fallible humans but divine sock puppets, and are beyond repentance and chastisement, and need no humility, because they have all power and all knowledge. And therefore, logically, if they fail to live up to this expectation, you've made an irrefutable case that they are not my servants, because everyone who thinks in absolutes will recognize that when perfection is expected, imperfection and only that, is decisive, and don't even consider for a moment that your judgement could be anything less than perfect, because, well... just because. Don't waste time on checking your own eye for beams.  Just assume without question that you see clearly, that no further inquiry or self examination could alter that, and judge away." 

Discussions of the Book of Mormon populations should center on the Book of Mormon text, and have in mind the fact that the text does not speak for itself, but must be interpreted.  Nephi specifically warns that cultural background assumptions can often make a difference in understanding: "there is none other people that understand the things which were spoken unto the Jews like unto them, save it be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews." Notice that this warning about cultural background assumptions only makes sense if there are people around who would have to be taught after the manner of the things of the Jews. 

"Isaiah spake many things which were hard for many of my people to understand; for they know not concerning the manner of prophesying among the Jews.

For I, Nephi, have not taught them many things concerning the manner of the Jews..."

 If Jewish culture were the only culture to be had among the Nephites, there would be nothing to misunderstand.  But as Nephi says, as a first generation immigrant, many of his people are culturally disconnected.  With this in mind, I start noticing more in phrases like, "people of the Nephites" as well as the importance that Nibley started pointing out in Since Cumorah, that there was a lot of population interchange and mixing between the rival polities, as well as linguistic indications of Jaredite and Mulekite mixing.

Several commenters have noted the importance of Matt Roper's essay, "Nephi's Neighbors".  The virtue of that essay is that it takes the text both seriously and comprehensively.   It stands as impressive corrective to the abrupt "proof-text" mindset of "Aha game Over! Check and Mate!  Nothing to see here folks!"

Does "land" equal "North and South America?"  Or can land be limited?

Quote

My son, I would that ye should make a proclamation throughout all this land among all this people, or the people of Zarahemla, and the people of Mosiah who dwell in the land, that thereby they may be gathered together; for on the morrow I shall proclaim unto this my people out of mine own mouth that thou art a king and a ruler over this people, whom the Lord our God hath given us. (Mosiah 1:10)

 If the "proclamation throughout all this land" is going to gather the people "on the morrow", just how large an area is concerned at this point? After Nephi's group departs, he can refer that new location, different from the land of first inheritance as "the land of my people." (2 Nephi 5:26).  So it pays to not to think in absolutes, as though context and reality do not matter.

Think about the fact that Nephite and Lamanite, in the first generation, become political designations rather than lineage designations.  (Jacob 1:14). Notice that when Nephi's group leaves, after mentioning almost everyone we know about by name, he includes the phrase "and all those who would go with me" (2 Nephi 5:6).  Who were they?

Lehi says "that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord. Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring."  (2 Nephi 1:6-7).  The promise is not exclusive to Lehi's group, and the blessings are conditioned upon obedience.  Notice that Nephi leaves that land, but the promise travels with him to the next land they settle in, brings both the promised blessings, and the covenant curses. Notice the "other nations" component of the covenant curse, as well as the relatively short timeline.

Quote

11 Yea, he will bring other nations unto them, and he will give unto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten.

12 Yea, as one generation passeth to another there shall be bloodsheds, and great visitations among them; (2 Nephi 1:11-12).

Notice the timeline for the appearance of other nations to inflict the covenant curses is not the 2100 years till Columbus (how serious a corrective deterrent would that be?), but rather, "as one generation passeth to another."  Notice what happens in the Book of Mormon story as Lehi dies, that is, "as one generation passeth to another."  And notice that small villages and hamlets are not necessarily the same thing as an aggressive nation, any more than the destruction of the Jaredite nation requires the extermination of every living soul.  In The World of the Jaredites, Nibley pointed out that "destroy" means to break down into component parts, not totally annihilate. Notice that Brant Gardner made a case for the identity of the Gaddiantons as Teotihuicanos from the North.  As non-Nephites, by Jacob's definition, they can be called Lamanites because the scribal definition is political rather than geneological.

https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/gadianton-robbers-mormons-theological-history-their-structural-role-and-plausible

Personally, I see evidence of population mixing from the very start.  Archeology says that millions of people were here. (Sorenson emphasized this, as does Gardner and others.)  Jaredites were there, and the people of Mulek.  I see language in the text that suggests other people besides and no good reason to exclude them.  So the problem of identifying Lehi's progeny via DNA is very different if you recognize the problem of identifying a boat load of migrants entering and mixing with an existing population 2600 years ago, on the other side of a great deal of devastating war and pandemics.  I remain impressed by John Butler's observation about Iceland, noted here by Mike Ash:

Quote

There was a very interesting study done of over 130,000 modern Icelanders. It was discovered that in just over a century many DNA markers had disappeared. Over 86% of modern Icelandic males, for instance, showed genetic descent from just over 26% of the potential male ancestors in the mid to late nineteenth century. Similarly, nearly 92% of modern Icelandic females showed genetic descent from only 22% of the potential female ancestors of the same time frame. In other words, nearly 75% of those people who lived in Iceland in the late nineteenth century (and were part of the family tree for the population’s descendants) did not contribute to the identifiable DNA markers of modern Icelanders.

https://latterdaysaintmag.com/the-dna-challenge-to-the-book-of-mormon-that-fizzled/

This study is never mentioned by those wanting to dispose of the Book of Mormon with the minimum of effort.

And as far as the famous "skin of blackness" passage in 2 Nephi 5:21 goes, notice that Nephi had warned of the impossibility of understanding the things of the Jews, save it be that one is taught Jewish culture.  Nephi is the only Book of Mormon author to use that phrase (it only occurs once in all the scriptures), and Nephi is the only Book of Mormon who actually lived his developmental years in the Near East and Jerusalem culture, and Nibley long ago pointed out that in Semitic cultures, "skin of blackness" is a cultural designation about lifestyle, not a physical description.  And later Book of Mormon authors use language about garments in exactly same contexts as the skin passages.  Brant points out that there is not a single story in the Book of Mormon in which skin color makes a difference, and several in which, if it were that striking and obvious, should have done.  And of course, Ethan Sproat produced his important essay on "Skins as Garments in the Book of Mormon."

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol24/iss1/7/

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited March 2, 2023 by Kevin Christensen

[pogi]

On 2/27/2023 at 1:18 PM, mfbukowski said:

I find this so very frustrating.   Yet again:

Logical positivism is dead and this guy is a logical positivist.  Google "positivism is dead" if you want a few thousand references.

Positivism holds that a proposition cannot be "true" or some say "meaningful" unless the statement can be empirically verified.

The Book of Mormon cannot be empirically / historically verified therefore it cannot be "true" or "meaningful"

Unfortunately the proposition that: {a proposition cannot be true or meaningful unless the statement can be empirically verified} cannot itself be empirically verified

Therefore by its own terms, logical positivism cannot be "true or meaningful.

In matters of faith or morals, propositions are counted as "true" for their effectiveness AS TOOLS which are useful beliefs for a specific purpose.

The commandment "thou shalt not kill" is useful in keeping society free from murder and the strife it causes.

Religious statements can be seen as "true" because they give purpose to our lives- on that count, devoting one's life can be made meaningful by many non-religious ideals as well- so practically (pragmatically) speaking devoting one's life to saving the whales or a political party or cause of any kind can be seen as a kind of "religion".

So it is "true" in that sense that "all men are created equal".   It is true that "men and women ought to receive equal salaries for equal work".  It is true that "there are inalienable rights which should be applied to all humanity", and so on, as it goes.  All of these propositions are "verified" by "testimony", a feeling inside that they ARE or even MUST be true AND meaningful in order to have meaningful and productive lives.  

"Justice is Fairness" is a famous book with relevance here and with implications for laws and civil beliefs we hold in our civil religions.

The Church of Jesus Christ LDS gives its members a useful paradigm to guide their lives, which their members FEEL to be the IDEAL lifestyle for all humanity.  The feeling is AT LEAST just as undeniable as the FEELING that all humanity should be treated equally under the law.

These considerations lead me to believe that Southerton's views are not intellectually justifiable.

SEE?

I CAN be nice after all!

Hey Bukowski,

I agree with what you are saying, but for me it depends on how one defines the phrase "empirically verified".   For me, empirical evidence and verification is not necessarily the same as scientific evidence/verification.  At its core, empirical evidence is simply evidence that is derived through our experiential senses and experimentation.   In that regard, the fruits spoken of in Alma 32 after experimentation are empirical evidence on a personal level.   Scientific evidence is the same thing but on a group level.  

In that way, I kind of agree that a proposition cannot be true/meaningful unless it is empirically verified.  Even in pragmatism, what "works" can only be known through experimentation and our personal experiential senses - empirical evidence.   If we cannot verify it through our own personal experience/senses through experimentation, how could it be meaningful to us?   Perhaps it is simply definitions/language that cause these different philosophies to disagree. 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

Hey Bukowski,

I agree with what you are saying, but for me it depends on how one defines the phrase "empirically verified".   For me, empirical evidence and verification is not necessarily the same as scientific evidence/verification.  At its core, empirical evidence is simply evidence that is derived through our experiential senses and experimentation.   In that regard, the fruits spoken of in Alma 32 after experimentation are empirical evidence on a personal level.   Scientific evidence is the same thing but on a group level.  

In that way, I kind of agree that a proposition cannot be true/meaningful unless it is empirically verified.  Even in pragmatism, what "works" can only be known through experimentation and our personal experiential senses - empirical evidence.   If we cannot verify it through our own personal experience/senses through experimentation, how could it be meaningful to us?   Perhaps it is simply definitions/language that cause these different philosophies to disagree. 

Yes, completely agree; my post was for folks uh... less philosophically oriented.. than you are.

You and I think in terms of " radical empiricism" as created by William James

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_empiricism

"Radical empiricism is a philosophical doctrine put forth by William James. It asserts that experience includes both particulars and relations between those particulars, and that therefore both deserve a place in our explanations. In concrete terms: Any philosophical worldview is flawed if it stops at the physical level and fails to explain how meaning, values and intentionality can arise from that.^[1]

Radical empiricism is a postulate, a statement of fact, and a conclusion, says James in The Meaning of Truth. The postulate is that "the only things that shall be debatable among philosophers shall be things definable in terms drawn from experience." The fact is that our experience contains disconnected entities as well as various types of connections; it is full of meaning and values. The conclusion is that our worldview does not need "extraneous trans-empirical connective support, but possesses in its own right a concatenated or continuous structure.

James put forth the doctrine because he thought ordinary empiricism, inspired by the advances in physical science, has or had the tendency to emphasize 'whirling particles' at the expense of the bigger picture: connections, causality, meaning. Both elements, James claims, are equally present in experience and both need to be accounted for.

 

Edited March 2, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Hamilton Porter]

On 2/26/2023 at 3:54 PM, Craig Speechly said:

To create a thread to attack Simon does not speak well of this board  If you have scientific evidence that challenges Simon’s science ok present it, but resorting to ad hominem should be beneath us and undermine your arguments

Please read the OP again. Up to 95% of the gene pool in the Americas was destroyed. It's been established that population crashes are nonrandom. Southerton is saying it's random.

None of the critics are addressing the science, just discussing the Church's past statements.

[Zosimus]

55 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Please read the OP again. Up to 95% of the gene pool in the Americas was destroyed. It's been established that population crashes are nonrandom. Southerton is saying it's random.

None of the critics are addressing the science, just discussing the Church's past statements.

True that critics aren't addressing the most recent research into ancient DNA. Apologists haven't either, as far as I have seen.

Here's a good summary: Ancient DNA Studies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica

The samples discussed in the research linked above (represented by the colored dots in the image to the right) come from before 95% of the gene pool was destroyed. Some samples even date to the Book of Mormon time period. Seems mtDNA haplogroups found in ancient individuals is still entirely A, B, C, D. 

One unexpected outcome from recent aDNA research mentioned in the paper is that Native Americans mixed with Polynesians before Columbus.

I find this interesting because we do believe that the Polynesians are descendents of Lehi, and their DNA has been isolated in the islands since the Book of Mormon time period.

What does it tell us?

[Hamilton Porter]

16 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

True that critics aren't addressing the most recent research into ancient DNA. Apologists haven't either, as far as I have seen.

Here's a good summary: Ancient DNA Studies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica

The samples discussed in the research linked above (represented by the colored dots in the image to the right) come from before 95% of the gene pool was destroyed. Some samples even date to the Book of Mormon time period. Seems mtDNA haplogroups found in ancient individuals is still entirely A, B, C, D. 

One unexpected outcome from recent aDNA research mentioned in the paper is that Native Americans mixed with Polynesians before Columbus.

I find this interesting because we do believe that the Polynesians are descendents of Lehi, and their DNA has been isolated in the islands since the Book of Mormon time period.

What does it tell us?

Great thanks for posting.