News Reports Re: Columbus being Jewish --> Any significance?

[smac97]

I saw this story over the weekend:

Columbus probably Spanish and Jewish, study says

Quote

Famed explorer Christopher Columbus was likely Spanish and Jewish, according to a new genetic study conducted by Spanish scientists that aimed to shed light on a centuries-old mystery.

Scientists believe the explorer, whose expedition across the Atlantic in 1492 changed the course of world history, was probably born in western Europe, possibly in the city of Valencia.

They think he concealed his Jewish identity, or converted to Catholicism, to escape religious persecution.

The study of DNA contradicts the traditional theory, which many historians had questioned, that the explorer was an Italian from Genoa.

 

...

Countries have argued for years over the explorer's origin, with many claiming him as one of their own.

There have been an estimated 25 conflicting theories of his birthplace, including Poland, Great Britain, Greece, Portugal, Hungary and Scandinavia.

These new findings are based on more than two decades of research.

The study began in 2003, when José Antonio Lorente, professor of forensic medicine at Granada University, and the historian Marcial Castro, exhumed what were believed to be the remains of Columbus from Seville Cathedral.

Columbus died in the Spanish city of Valladolid in 1506 but wished to be buried on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. His remains were taken there in 1542 but centuries later were transferred to Cuba before being finally laid to rest in Seville.

The researchers also took DNA samples from the tomb, and from the bones of Columbus' son, Hernando, and brother, Diego.

Since then scientists have compared that genetic information with that of historical figures and the explorer's relatives in order to try and solve the mystery.

The previously widely accepted theory was that Columbus was born in Genoa in 1451, to a family of wool weavers.

But they now believe he lived in Spain - likely in Valencia - and was Jewish. They think he hid his background to avoid persecution.

Around 300,000 practising Jews lived in Spain, before they along with Muslims were ordered to either convert to Catholicism or leave the country in 1492, the year Columbus landed in the Americas.

Announcing the study's results on the television documentary Columbus DNA: His True Origin, Professor Lorente said they were "almost absolutely reliable".

Christopher Columbus was secretly Jewish, new DNA study reveals

Quote

A new DNA study on the 500-year-old remains of Christopher Columbus has found that the controversial explorer was actually a Sephardic Jew from western Europe.

Spanish researchers announced their findings in a new documentary, titled Columbus DNA: The true origin, which aired on Spain’s national broadcaster TVE. Since 2003, scientists have tested samples of remains buried at Seville Cathedral in Spain, believed to be the final resting place of the 15th-century explorer.

In the documentary, Jose Antonio Lorente, a professor of forensic medicine, who led the research at the University of Granada, said his analysis revealed that Columbus’s DNA was “compatible” with his being of Jewish origin.

Throughout the 21-year investigation, DNA experts compared samples of the remains with those of Columbus’s known relatives and descendants. “We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Fernando Colon, his son,” Professor Lorente said, per CNN. “And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Fernando, there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.”

Columbus was previously believed to be an Italian from Genoa, born in 1451 to a family of wool weavers. Over the years, historians have suggested that the explorer could have been Greek, Basque, Portuguese, or British. While researchers were unable to pinpoint Columbus’s place of birth, they acknowledged after analysing 25 possible locations that he was likely to have come from the Spanish Mediterranean region.

“The DNA indicates that Christopher Columbus’s origin lay in the western Mediterranean,” Prof Lorente said. “If there weren’t Jews in Genoa in the 15th century, the likelihood that he was from there is minimal. Neither was there a big Jewish presence in the rest of the Italian peninsula, which makes things very tenuous.”

An estimated 300,000 Jews were living in Spain before the era of the “Reyes Catolicos”, during which Catholic monarchs King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella ordered Jews and Muslims to convert to Christianity or face exile. The expulsion of Jews from Spain occurred in 1492, the same year that Columbus made his first voyage to the Americas.

Now, researchers believe Columbus either concealed his Jewish identity or converted to Catholicism to escape religious persecution. The term “Sephardic” is derived from Sepharad, a Hebrew word that refers to the Iberian peninsula, which includes modern-day Spain and Portugal.

As a result of the study, Prof Lorente also confirmed theories that the remains in Seville Cathedral belonged to Columbus. “The outcome is almost absolutely reliable,” he said.

This article is circumspect and sensible: Experts advise caution about report Christopher Columbus was Jewish

Quote

For many years, guides leading visitors on tours of Jewish history in Spain have shared rumors that Christopher Columbus was Jewish. A new documentary that garnered worldwide press coverage ahead of Columbus Day on Monday states that DNA evidence proves that the explorer was a member of the tribe, but experts told JNS that such a claim should be taken with a grain of salt.

The national Spanish broadcaster TVE aired “Columbus DNA: The true origin” on Saturday, Reuters reported. “Researchers conducted a 22-year investigation, led by forensic expert Miguel Lorente, by testing tiny samples of remains buried in Seville Cathedral, long marked by authorities there as the last resting place of Columbus, though there had been rival claims,” the wire reported.

“We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son,” Lorente said in the documentary, per Reuters. “And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.”

The wire titled its article “Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, study finds.” Headlines in New York Post (“Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, study finds”), BBC (“Columbus probably Spanish and Jewish, study says”) and Fox News (“Columbus remains, verified after 500 years, show he was Jewish: documentary”) hedged similarly, while a Guardian headline stated that Columbus “may” have been Jewish and the Telegraph that “Christopher Columbus was secretly Jewish.”

“The recent DNA evidence regarding Columbus is very interesting and helps to illuminate his biography and the era in which he lived. I would offer one caveat, though: While it indicates that Columbus had Jewish heritage, it does not indicate that Columbus was a professing, Jew,” said Jonathan Ray, professor of Jewish studies at Georgetown University.

According to Ray, who is the author of the 2023 book Jewish Life in Medieval Spain: A New History, there is no proof that Columbus (1451-1506) lived a Jewish life, “nor even as a crypto-Jew,” and the historical record indicates he was Catholic.

“Rather, it would seem to indicate that he was a converso, or New Christian as they are often called—that is, a descendant of Iberian Jews who had converted to Christianity under duress during the century leading up to Spain’s expulsion of the Jews in 1492,” Ray told JNS. “Some of these conversos remained steadfast to Judaism, albeit in secret, leaving Spain and Portugal to return to Judaism in other lands.”

Some conversos stayed in the Iberian Peninsula and “although they met stiff resistance from many of their ‘old Christian’ neighbors, fully embraced Christianity and eventually integrated into Iberian society,” Ray added. “We already know of Jewish converts, who became important bishops in late-medieval Spain. Now, it seems, we also know of a major explorer who also had Jewish roots.”

Several experts told JNS that the public should regard the claim in the documentary skeptically.

“This is a story that never dies,” Ronnie Perelis, associate professor of Sephardic studies at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies of Yeshiva University, told JNS.

“For over a century, if not since his own lifetime, people have been obsessed with Columbus’s origins. He is a fascinating, flawed and enigmatic figure,” added Perelis, the author of the 2016 book Blood and Faith: Family and Identity in the Early Modern Sephardic Atlantic.

“I encourage people to read his own writings to appreciate his complex identity—he was an autodidact, who took advantage of the explosion of knowledge after the birth of printing to create an eclectic theology that had many Judaic elements—but in a deeply Christian, mystical vein,” Perelis said. “Genetics doesn’t make someone Jewish.”

In 1992, Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis and director of its Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, published an essay on “the mythical Jewish Columbus and the history of America’s Jews.”

Jason Guberman, executive director of the American Sephardi Federation, told JNS that “there have long been suspicions that Columbus was Jewish or had Sephardic Jewish roots.”

The year 1492 was not only when Columbus “sailed the ocean blue with the support of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella,” according to Guberman. “That was also the year the Spanish rulers promulgated the Alhambra Decree, or Edict of Expulsion, completing a process that began in 1391 to destroy the Iberian Peninsula’s Jewish communities by conversion or deportation.”

“Sephardim were nevertheless prized for their erudition and technical skills. Columbus’s crew included several conversos, most notably his interpreter, Luis de Torres. For those who had been converted or were the descendants of converts, so-called ‘new Christians,’ there was always the risk of an accusation leading to torture, ruin and death at the hands of the Inquisition,” Guberman said.

“Now that the question of Sephardic Jewish ancestry has been settled, there should be renewed scholarly inquiry into Simon Wiesenthal’s thesis that Columbus was on a ‘secret mission’ to find a safe haven for his persecuted people,” Guberman added. “For example, how the unusual tolerance of Columbus’s family for conversos led to an open Jewish community at Jamaica.”

Who ‘owns’ Columbus?

Ori Soltes, an author and former director of the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum, told JNS that “the DNA issue that focuses on the so-called tomb of Columbus in Seville is fraught with political issues pertaining to national pride and with it, which country can claim Columbus as its own.”

Soltes, who also teaches at Georgetown, said that writer and researcher Peter ****son, of Virginia, has shown in “meticulous studies” that “spurious DNA claims aside, Columbus was a child of his era and his bloodline mixed Spanish, Genoese and French strains—indeed, more than just these three—as well as intertwining Jewish and Christian strains.” (JNS sought comment from ****son.)

That Columbus has both Jewish and Christian blood is unsurprising “given that he set sail from a country that had spent a century producing various sorts of conversos by the time of his first voyage,” Soltes said.

“Other aspects of his story, from the way he signed his letters to his son to his insistence that his ships sail before midnight of the day (Aug. 3) when the edict of expulsion was to go into effect also point to the interweave of religious and national identities that would have comprised him,” he added.

Matt Goldish, a history professor and chair of Jewish history at Ohio State University, told JNS that an “extensive older literature” has made the claim that Columbus was Jewish.

Among the reasons that claim has been made are “why did a Genoese mariner speak and write in Spanish?” and “why did Columbus leave some money to certain Jews or conversos?” Goldish said. Columbus also had an “odd signature,” he added. (Some have claimed that the explorer wrote the Hebrew letters bet and hay in the corner of his documents.)

“All of this was interesting but by no means conclusive. DNA evidence is much stronger, but it also has its problems,” Goldish told JNS. “DNA, for example, does not actually tell you that someone is or is not Jewish—it says that most Jews from a certain region seems to have common ancestors, and a given person shares to whatever extent in the DNA of those ancestors.”

The Ohio State professor said that the DNA evidence seems “pretty strong,” but cautioned that “Jewish ancestry does not mean Columbus was a Jew.”

“What it probably means is that he was a descendant of conversos (sometimes called marranos) who had converted in Spain or elsewhere in Western Europe during the 14th or 15th centuries,” he said.

Journalists who cover Jewish topics also approached the news cautiously. “The chatter around the ‘Columbus was Jewish’ report gets at the complications of Jewishness, nationality and the use of genes as proof of ‘identity,’” wrote Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch.

“Columbus was obviously and explicitly a Christian. But he was also— apparently—of Sephardic Jewish descent,” Goldberg wrote. If Columbus was the latter, “what? He wasn’t Spanish? Or Italian? Or Christian? Lots of Spaniards have Moorish genes, are they not Spaniards? Italians are a melting pot of genetic lineages from all over the Mediterranean,” he added.

“It wasn’t until fairly recently that Italy was considered a single nation or had a single language. The fact that Columbus was of Jewish descent doesn’t necessarily answer many of the questions the researchers were trying to answer,” Goldberg wrote. “But it does raise some more interesting questions.”

Andrew Koss, a historian and senior editor at Mosaic magazine, wrote that “I highly doubt the study ‘proves’ anything.”

“I don’t see how they can be sure they have Columbus’s DNA,” he wrote. “And DNA can’t prove someone was Jewish, only show it’s more or less likely.”

Whether Columbus had any Jewish ancestry, the explorer wrote approvingly in his journals of the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, expelling Jews from their kingdom.

“I saw the Moorish king come out of the gates of the city and kiss the royal hands of your highnesses,” he wrote, “and your highnesses, as Catholic Christians … took thought to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the said parts of India, to see those princes and peoples and lands.”

The king and queen also dispatched him, he wrote, to observe “the manner which should be used to bring about their conversion to our holy faith, and ordained that I should not go by land to the eastward, by which way it was the custom to go, but by way of the west, by which down to this day we do not know certainly that anyone has passed.”

“Therefore, having driven out all the Jews from your realms and lordships in the same month of January, your highnesses commanded me that, with a sufficient fleet, I should go to the said parts of India, and for this accorded me great rewards and ennobled me so that from that time henceforth I might style myself ‘don’ and be high admiral of the ocean sea and viceroy and perpetual governor of the islands and continent which I should discover,” he added, “and that my eldest son should succeed to the same position, and so on from generation to generation forever.”

A few thoughts:

1. At first blush, I don't really find this story to be particularly noteworthy.  I just don't care that much about the genetic ancestry of Columbus (or, for that matter, any other notable historical figure).  It does not have much to do with the individual's life, accomplishments, etc.  From the last article:

Quote

“I encourage people to read his own writings to appreciate his complex identity—he was an autodidact, who took advantage of the explosion of knowledge after the birth of printing to create an eclectic theology that had many Judaic elements—but in a deeply Christian, mystical vein,” Perelis said. “Genetics doesn’t make someone Jewish.”
...
The Ohio State professor said that the DNA evidence seems “pretty strong,” but cautioned that “Jewish ancestry does not mean Columbus was a Jew.”

“What it probably means is that he was a descendant of conversos (sometimes called marranos) who had converted in Spain or elsewhere in Western Europe during the 14th or 15th centuries,” he said.

Journalists who cover Jewish topics also approached the news cautiously. “The chatter around the ‘Columbus was Jewish’ report gets at the complications of Jewishness, nationality and the use of genes as proof of ‘identity,’” wrote Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch.

“Columbus was obviously and explicitly a Christian. But he was also— apparently—of Sephardic Jewish descent,” Goldberg wrote. If Columbus was the latter, “what? He wasn’t Spanish? Or Italian? Or Christian? Lots of Spaniards have Moorish genes, are they not Spaniards? Italians are a melting pot of genetic lineages from all over the Mediterranean,” he added.

2. Columbus, like pretty much every historical figure these days, is "controversial":

Quote

Columbus was widely celebrated in the centuries after his death, but public perception fractured in the 21st century due to greater attention to the harms committed under his governance, particularly the beginning of the depopulation of Hispaniola's indigenous Taíno people, caused by Old World diseases and mistreatment, including slavery.
...
The Americanization of the figure of Columbus began in the latter decades of the 18th century, after the revolutionary period of the United States,^[258] elevating the status of his reputation to a national myth, homo americanus.
...
The American Columbus myth was reconfigured later in the century when he was enlisted as an ethnic hero by immigrants to the United States who were not of Anglo-Saxon stock, such as Jewish, Italian, and Irish people, who claimed Columbus as a sort of ethnic founding father.^[264][265] Catholics unsuccessfully tried to promote him for canonization in the 19th century.
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From the 1990s onward, a narrative of Columbus being responsible for the genocide of indigenous peoples and environmental destruction began to compete with the then predominant discourse of Columbus as Christ-bearer, scientist, or father of America.^[268] This narrative features the negative effects of Columbus' conquests on native populations.^[154] Exposed to Old World diseases, the indigenous populations of the New World collapsed,^[269] and were largely replaced by Europeans and Africans,^[270] who brought with them new methods of farming, business, governance, and religious worship.
...
Columbus has been criticized both for his brutality and for initiating the depopulation of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, whether by imported diseases or intentional violence. According to scholars of Native American history, George Tinker and Mark Freedman, Columbus was responsible for creating a cycle of "murder, violence, and slavery" to maximize exploitation of the Caribbean islands' resources, and that Native deaths on the scale at which they occurred would not have been caused by new diseases alone. Further, they describe the proposition that disease and not genocide caused these deaths as "American holocaust denial".^[296] Historian Kris Lane disputes whether it is appropriate to use the term "genocide" when the atrocities were not Columbus's intent, but resulted from his decrees, family business goals, and negligence.^[297] Other scholars defend Columbus's actions or allege that the worst accusations against him are not based in fact while others claim that "he has been blamed for events far beyond his own reach or knowledge".^[298]

3. Latter-day Saints have a "religious" interest in Columbus insofar as he is apparently referenced in The Book of Mormon:

• Scripture Central: Why Did Nephi Prophesy of Christopher Columbus?
• Book of Mormon Central: Why Did Nephi Prophesy of Christopher Columbus? (1 Nephi 13:12)
• FAIR: Christopher Columbus in the Book of Mormon
• Latter-day Saints Mag: Christopher Columbus, the Book of Mormon, and the Gathering of Israel
• LDS Living: What Latter-day Saints Should Know About Christopher Columbus and the Restoration
• BYU Religious Studies Center: Columbus: Fulfillment of Book of Mormon Prophecy
• Ask Gramps: Does the Book of Mormon mention Christopher Columbus?

This creates a fairly unique and specific religious dimension on the story of Columbus.  From the LDS Living article:

Quote

“Only with Columbus’s undertaking,” wrote the Italian historian Paolo Taviani, “did Europe, Islam, India, China, and Japan learn of the existence of a New World. And that changed the course of human history profoundly.”2

While everyone knows what Columbus did, why he did it is the subject of much speculation and argument among historians. Where did the idea come from to reach the East by sailing west? Why did he continue to persist with such unwavering conviction after his proposal was rejected time and again in both Portugal and Spain? When his proposal brought him ridicule and rejection, why did he keep insisting that he could, and would, cross the ocean? And why was he so unshakably certain that he could do what no one else had done and what everyone else thought was impossible?

Nephi tells us why Columbus sailed: “I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man.” And while historians may debate Columbus’s motives, from his writing it seems that Columbus himself knew why he did what he did:

"With a hand that could be felt, the Lord opened my mind to the fact that it would be possible to sail, and he opened my will to desire to accomplish the project. . . . This was the fire that burned within me. . . . Who can doubt that this fire was not merely mine, but also of the Holy Spirit . . . urging me to press forward?"3

Although Columbus never had access to Nephi’s prophecy—during his time, it was written in an unknown language on gold plates buried in a hill on a continent that Columbus was yet to discover—his words leave many convinced that he thought his voyage was the fulfillment of prophecy:

"The Lord purposed that there should be something clearly miraculous in this matter of the voyage to the Indies. . . . I spent seven years here in [the] royal court discussing this subject with the leading persons in all the learned arts, and their conclusion was that all was in vain. That was the end, and they gave it up. But afterwards it all turned out just as our redeemer Jesus Christ had said, and as he had spoken earlier by the mouth of his holy prophets."4

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the life of this remarkable man is how much it seems he truly understood his prophetic mission and his place in history.

Why Did Nephi Single Out Columbus?

In the 42 verses of 1 Nephi 13, Nephi identifies only one individual: the “man among the Gentiles” whom we know as Christopher Columbus. Why did Nephi focus on Columbus and not Martin Luther, George Washington, or others who played important roles in preparing the way for Joseph Smith?

One potential answer seems to be found in history. Columbus didn’t just discover America; he discovered the highway to America. By unlocking the secret of the trade winds, he made travel between Europe and the New World predictable and commercially feasible.

And that changed everything.

In our modern world, where we can see every corner of the globe online, it is difficult to appreciate the impact of Columbus’s discovery of a new and unimagined continent. Columbus’s account of his first voyage, published just weeks after his return, became an instant bestseller, going through three printings in Rome before the end of the year. His discoveries ignited an intellectual wildfire that spread across Europe.

Only 11 years after Columbus’s death in 1506, Martin Luther sent his 95 theses to the Bishop of Mainz, beginning the Protestant revolution. Seven years after Luther, William Tyndale translated the Bible into English. That English Bible inspired the Separatist movement in England, leading to the voyage of the Pilgrims in 1620 and the great Puritan migration to America beginning in 1630. In 1776, the descendants of those early immigrants declared themselves an independent nation and defended that declaration through a war in which they miraculously defeated the greatest military power currently on the planet. It was in this new nation that a young Joseph Smith went to a grove of trees early in the morning of a spring day in 1820 and later received and translated the ancient record containing Nephi’s prophecy of Christopher Columbus.

So why did Nephi single out Columbus? Perhaps it was because no other single individual would have such an impact on preparing the world for the Restoration. Just as historians mark 1492 as the year the modern age began,5 it is in many respects the year the Restoration began. No voyage of any man in all of recorded history since Noah would change the world as certainly and completely as the great voyage of discovery of Christopher Columbus. This discoverer unlocked what the Lord had locked away— the Promised Land of the Americas—and set in motion a series of events that would culminate with Joseph Smith and the Restoration. Even without a knowledge of the Restoration, the 16th-century historian Francisco López de Gómara proclaimed that Columbus’s voyage was “the greatest event since the creation of the world, save the incarnation and death of Him who created it.”6

4. My question is this: If Columbus was religiously Christian (Catholic), and possibly also ethnically Jewish.  Does this matter?  Does this affect, or should it affect, our assessment of Columbus insofar as he is referenced in The Book of Mormon?  If Columbus was ethnically Jewish, does that carry any doctrinal import for the Latter-day Saints?  Or is this recent genetic study just a curiosity?

Thanks,

-Smac

[Dario_M]

Was Colombus not from Europe Italy. I don't believe he has much to do with the Josep Smith or the book of mormon. 

[blackstrap]

30 minutes ago, smac97 said:

"almost absolutely reliable".

Seems about right. Absolutely positively possible .

[smac97]

23 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

Was Colombus not from Europe Italy. I don't believe he has much to do with the Josep Smith or the book of mormon. 

Well, he may have been prophetically referenced in The Book of Mormon.  That's the link.

Thanks,

-Smac

[manol]

I find this interesting.

My mother (who had been LDS) converted to Judaism, and told me she learned that Columbus was actually Jewish.  I didn't argue with her about it but in my mind dismissed the idea as being a "faith-promoting rumor", having grown up with the history books saying he was Italian.  Well maybe her source for that information was pretty good after all.

[CV75]

58 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I saw this story over the weekend:

Columbus probably Spanish and Jewish, study says

Christopher Columbus was secretly Jewish, new DNA study reveals

This article is circumspect and sensible: Experts advise caution about report Christopher Columbus was Jewish

A few thoughts:

1. At first blush, I don't really find this story to be particularly noteworthy.  I just don't care that much about the genetic ancestry of Columbus (or, for that matter, any other notable historical figure).  It does not have much to do with the individual's life, accomplishments, etc.  From the last article:

2. Columbus, like pretty much every historical figure these days, is "controversial":

3. Latter-day Saints have a "religious" interest in Columbus insofar as he is apparently referenced in The Book of Mormon:

• Scripture Central: Why Did Nephi Prophesy of Christopher Columbus?
• Book of Mormon Central: Why Did Nephi Prophesy of Christopher Columbus? (1 Nephi 13:12)
• FAIR: Christopher Columbus in the Book of Mormon
• Latter-day Saints Mag: Christopher Columbus, the Book of Mormon, and the Gathering of Israel
• LDS Living: What Latter-day Saints Should Know About Christopher Columbus and the Restoration
• BYU Religious Studies Center: Columbus: Fulfillment of Book of Mormon Prophecy
• Ask Gramps: Does the Book of Mormon mention Christopher Columbus?

This creates a fairly unique and specific religious dimension on the story of Columbus.  From the LDS Living article:

4. My question is this: If Columbus was religiously Christian (Catholic), and possibly also ethnically Jewish.  Does this matter?  Does this affect, or should it affect, our assessment of Columbus insofar as he is referenced in The Book of Mormon?  If Columbus was ethnically Jewish, does that carry any doctrinal import for the Latter-day Saints?  Or is this recent genetic study just a curiosity?

Thanks,

-Smac

I do not think it matters. Many Church leaders from President Young onward identified him, correctly or not, as the "man among the Gentiles" (1 Nephi 13:12), seemingly irrespective of religion or nationality. https://rsc.byu.edu/christopher-columbus-latter-day-saint-perspective/columbus-fulfillment-book-mormon-prophecy#:~:text=In 1976%2C President Ezra Taft,of the people in Europe. Anyone can be inspired of God.

Similarly, the house of Israel is neither a religion nor an ethnicity but a reference or framework for God's covenants with His children from a particular time onward. Just as "Gentile" is but a reference or framework for God's promises to those outside the covenant from a particular time onward (and (Moses coined the term).

The Book of Mormon prophecies of the interactions between the Gentiles and the remnants of the house of Israel are religion- / ethnicity- neutral. The covenants of the house of Israel and the great promises to the Gentiles in both the Bible and the Book or Mormon frame the broader context.

Edited October 14, 2024 by CV75

[Dario_M]

12 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Well, he may have been prophetically referenced in The Book of Mormon.  That's the link.

Thanks,

-Smac

Colombus time was way bevore Joseph Smith. 

[CV75]

8 minutes ago, manol said:

I find this interesting.

My mother (who had been LDS) converted to Judaism, and told me she learned that Columbus was actually Jewish.  I didn't argue with her about it but in my mind dismissed the idea as being a "faith-promoting rumor", having grown up with the history books saying he was Italian.  Well maybe her source for that information was pretty good after all.

I had heard this too, a long time ago, but I cannot remember where/how.

[Danzo]

On my mission to Italy, I was able to visit the birthplace of Cristoforo Colombo in two different Cities.  Genova, and Cogoleto.  I am not sure how many other places he was born.

 

 

[Pyreaux]

I suspect its now newsworthy, as there is a political motive to further polarize the left and the right of the west. The overlap of the side and generation that wants to "Free Palestine" also thinks Christopher Columbus was just an evil white colonizer, so of course won't be surprised if he was also an evil Jewish colonizer.

Have a happy Columbus Day! Eat spaghetti or pizza in celebration of Italian-American heritage and watch The Goonies (1985) written by Christopher Columbus.

Edited October 14, 2024 by Pyreaux

[ksfisher]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Does this affect, or should it affect, our assessment of Columbus insofar as he is referenced in The Book of Mormon? 

The first thing I would say here is that the Book of Mormon does not explicitly name Columbus.  Latter-day Saints have chosen to read Columbus into the Book of Mormon without really knowing who it was that Nephi saw in his vision. 
 

Personally, I think it just as likely that the man Nephi saw in 1 Nephi 13:12 was not a specific person, but a figure used to symbolize the European discovery of the New World.  

[smac97]

7 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Quote

Does this affect, or should it affect, our assessment of Columbus insofar as he is referenced in The Book of Mormon? 

The first thing I would say here is that the Book of Mormon does not explicitly name Columbus.  Latter-day Saints have chosen to read Columbus into the Book of Mormon without really knowing who it was that Nephi saw in his vision. 

Yes.  Columbus is the prevailing interpretation.  

7 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Personally, I think it just as likely that the man Nephi saw in 1 Nephi 13:12 was not a specific person, but a figure used to symbolize the European discovery of the New World.  

Or Columbus could be that "figures used to symbolize the European discovery of the New World."

Thanks,

-Smac

[ZealouslyStriving]

It's interesting that in Nephi, if indeed it is referencing Columbus, it says "a man among the Gentiles" not "a Gentile" (1 Nephi 13:12)

[The Nehor]

I assume everything said in a documentary is either wrong or a gross overexaggeration.

Unless the documentary is done by Philomena Cunk in which case they are always completely accurate.

 

[CV75]

22 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

The first thing I would say here is that the Book of Mormon does not explicitly name Columbus.  Latter-day Saints have chosen to read Columbus into the Book of Mormon without really knowing who it was that Nephi saw in his vision. 
 

Personally, I think it just as likely that the man Nephi saw in 1 Nephi 13:12 was not a specific person, but a figure used to symbolize the European discovery of the New World.  

The Columbus interpretation seems to have originated with Brigham Young, and it is reasonable enough. The important thing for me is that the Lord set forth the latter-day interaction between the Gentiles and the remnants of the house of Israel as prophesied in the Book of Mormon, specifically the descendants of Lehi in the land of the future New Jerusalem (3 Nephi and Ether). "New Jerusalem" itself may be a symbolic term referring to the Restoration of the Gospel, its fulness and all that follows, though it is reasonable to assume it involves a literal City. 

[The Nehor]

Ugh, read some of this and it is very inconclusive. The conclusions drawn aren’t supported by the evidence. Also the history is wrong. Talking about suspecting he was a Jew and converted to prevent persecution. That had been the case for centuries. Except for Granada the Reconquista was completed in the mid-13th century. Even if his ancestors were Jewish it is probably even more likely that they converted long before. Also they state he probably wasn’t born in Italy because there weren’t a lot of Jews in Italy. WHAT??? No.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy pop history.

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

I suspect its now newsworthy, as there is a political motive to further polarize the left and the right of the west. The overlap of the side and generation that wants to "Free Palestine" also thinks Christopher Columbus was just an evil white colonizer, so of course won't be surprised if he was also an evil Jewish colonizer.

Have a happy Columbus Day! Eat spaghetti or pizza in celebration of Italian-American heritage and watch The Goonies (1985) written by Christopher Columbus.

The mentality of "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" accommodates both left- and right-wing antisemitism.

[Calm]

18 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I assume everything said in a documentary is either wrong or a gross overexaggeration.

Unless the documentary is done by Philomena Cunk in which case they are always completely accurate.

 

New to me, hilarious…

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, Danzo said:

On my mission to Italy, I was able to visit the birthplace of Cristoforo Colombo in two different Cities.  Genova, and Cogoleto.  I am not sure how many other places he was born.

 

 

People have been fighting over Christopher Columbus being part of a specific group for a long time now.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

....................

1. At first blush, I don't really find this story to be particularly noteworthy.  I just don't care that much about the genetic ancestry of Columbus (or, for that matter, any other notable historical figure).  It does not have much to do with the individual's life, accomplishments, etc.  .............

2. Columbus, like pretty much every historical figure these days, is "controversial":

..........................

4. My question is this: If Columbus was religiously Christian (Catholic), and possibly also ethnically Jewish.  Does this matter?  Does this affect, or should it affect, our assessment of Columbus insofar as he is referenced in The Book of Mormon?  If Columbus was ethnically Jewish, does that carry any doctrinal import for the Latter-day Saints?  Or is this recent genetic study just a curiosity?

..............

-Smac

 

5 hours ago, CV75 said:

I do not think it matters. Many Church leaders from President Young onward identified him, correctly or not, as the "man among the Gentiles" (1 Nephi 13:12), ................

Similarly, the house of Israel is neither a religion nor an ethnicity but a reference or framework for God's covenants with His children from a particular time onward. Just as "Gentile" is but a reference or framework for God's promises to those outside the covenant from a particular time onward (and (Moses coined the term).

The Book of Mormon prophecies of the interactions between the Gentiles and the remnants of the house of Israel are religion- / ethnicity- neutral. ..................

A couple of things:  Yes, like many famous historical figures, Cristobal Colon has become a subject of "controversy," to be judged based upon very recent moral and ethical norms.  This ignores the obvious fact that those historical figures lived at a time when life was "nasty, brutish, and short," and they were integral parts of that bestial world.

The Book of Mormon does speak of Colon's discoveries leading to the depredations of the Gentiles upon the indigenous peoples of the New World (I Ne 13:14).  A demographic and cultural disaster, no doubt.

The upshot is ironic, if it is true that Colon was a Sephardic converso.  Because it is also true that Lehi was a member of the Israelite tribe of Manasseh, and that Mulek was a member of the royal family of the tribe of Judah, a descendant of David.  The BofM makes such Israelite remnants of great significance, as does the Bible.  It is fashionable today to deny all such significance, thus ignoring both genetics and Holy Writ.

[rodheadlee]

11 hours ago, manol said:

I find this interesting.

My mother (who had been LDS) converted to Judaism, and told me she learned that Columbus was actually Jewish.  I didn't argue with her about it but in my mind dismissed the idea as being a "faith-promoting rumor", having grown up with the history books saying he was Italian.  Well maybe her source for that information was pretty good after all.

It's funny I read that Columbus was a Sephardic Jew in a novel many years ago. I cannot remember the name of that novel but the story stuck with me.

[The Nehor]

36 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

It's funny I read that Columbus was a Sephardic Jew in a novel many years ago. I cannot remember the name of that novel but the story stuck with me.

It is not a new theory. This is just supposedly evidence supporting it but it is pretty dubious. Is it possibly true? Sure.

[Dario_M]

The time that columbus lived was so long ago, oh my. I don't see any correlation between columbus and the LDS community.  

Edited October 15, 2024 by Dario_M

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Dario_M said:

The time that columbus lived was so long ago, oh my. I don't see any correlation between columbus and the LDS community.  

The Book of Mormon has a verse that may be a prophecy about Columbus, though more likely imo like the others said above, a symbolic figure.  Because some leaders have identified the figure as Columbus, some Saints have had an interest in him in the past. 
 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/13?lang=eng#p33

Quote

11 And it came to pass that the angel said unto me: Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethren.

12 And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.

13 And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.

14 And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten.

15 And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtainthe land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain.

 

[Dario_M]

36 minutes ago, Calm said:

The Book of Mormon has a verse that may be a prophecy about Columbus, though more likely imo like the others said above, a symbolic figure.  Because some leaders have identified the figure as Columbus, some Saints have had an interest in him in the past. 
 

Yeah. Was columbus not that guy from italy who discoverd America for the first time? 

Thank you for your link i will dig into it. 

36 minutes ago, Calm said:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/13?lang=eng#p33