The Book of Mormon and DNA Research: Essays from the Af Rms Review and the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies Daniel C

Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Maxwell Institute Publications 2008 The Book of Mormon and DNA Research: Essays from The aF rms Review and the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies Daniel C. Peterson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi Part of the Religious Education Commons Recommended Citation Peterson, Daniel C., "The Book of Mormon and DNA Research: Essays from The aF rms Review and the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies" (2008). Maxwell Institute Publications. 81. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/81 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Maxwell Institute Publications by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. H\Y6cc_cZAcfacbUbX8B5FYgYUfW\, the best of the maxwell, institute h\Y 6cc_ AcfacbcZ ½UbX½ 8B5FYgYUfW\ 9ggUmgZfcaBVS4/@;A@SdWSe UbXh\Y8]c`\OZ]T0]]Y]T;]`[]\AbcRWSa 9X]hYXVm8Ub]Y`7"DYhYfgcb The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship Brigham Young University Provo, Utah Cover design by Jacob D. Rawlins The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship Brigham Young University 200 WAIH Provo, UT 84602 © 2008 The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Book of Mormon and DNA research : essays from the Farms review and the Journal of Book of Mormon studies / edited by Daniel C. Peterson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8425-2706-4 (alk. paper) 1. Book of Mormon. 2. DNA—Analysis. 3. Lehi (Book of Mormon figure) 4. Nephi (Book of Mormon figure) 5. Indians—Origin. I. Peterson, Daniel C. BX8627.B62733 2008 289.3’22—dc22 2008017034 Contents About the Contributors.............................................. vii Introduction Daniel C. Peterson...................................................ix The Problematic Role of DNA Testing in Unraveling Human History John L. Sorenson ....................................................1 A Few Thoughts from a Believing DNA Scientist John M. Butler.....................................................23 Before DNA John L. Sorenson and Matthew Roper .................................27 Addressing Questions surrounding the Book of Mormon and DNA Research John M. Butler.....................................................71 DNA and the Book of Mormon: A Phylogenetic Perspective Michael F. Whiting . 79 Detecting Lehi’s Genetic Signature: Possible, Probable, or Not? David A. McClellan ................................................99 vi The Book of Mormon and DNA Research Who Are the Children of Lehi? D. Jeffrey Meldrum and Trent D. Stephens.............................157 Nephi’s Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations Matthew Roper ................................................... 185 Swimming in the Gene Pool: Israelite Kinship Relations, Genes, and Genealogy Matthew Roper ...................................................225 Elusive Israel and the Numerical Dynamics of Population Mixing Brian D. Stubbs ...................................................263 Index.................................................................283 About the Contributors John M. Butler holds a doctoral degree in chemistry from the University of Virginia and is the author of eighty research articles and book chapters on human DNA, including essays on Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA as applied to human-identity testing. He has received a number of awards in the field of forensic genetics and is the author of the award-winning textbook Forensic DNA Typing, now in its second edition. In July 2002, Butler received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President George W. Bush in a White House ceremony for his work in pioneering modern forensic DNA testing. He is currently employed as a research chemist in the Biochemical Science Division at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he directs a project team developing new DNA technologies for forensic and human-identity applications. David A. McClellan earned a PhD from Louisiana State University. He is an assistant professor of integrative biology at Brigham Young University, where he researches the theoretical aspects of protein and DNA molecular evolution. This includes mathematical and statistical modeling, software and other methodology development, and empiri- cal analysis of protein-coding gene sequences. D. Jeffrey Meldrum holds a PhD in anatomical sciences with an em- phasis in physical anthropology from SUNY at Stony Brook. As an associate professor of biology at Idaho State University, he teaches human anatomy and evolution. His research in evolutionary morphology and paleontology centers on primate and human locomotion. viii The Book of Mormon and DNA Research Matthew Roper, who received a master’s degree from Brigham Young University, is a resident scholar at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. John L. Sorenson, who earned his PhD at UCLA, is emeritus professor of anthropology at Brigham Young University. His major in- terest has been in applied sociocultural anthropology. He served as head social scientist at General Research Corporation in Santa Barbara, California, and was founder and president of Bonneville Research Corporation in Provo, Utah. He has published extensively in Mesoamerican archaeology. Trent D. Stephens holds a PhD in anatomy and embryology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a professor of biology at Idaho State University, and his research in embryology and teratology focuses on the mechanisms of limb development. Brian D. Stubbs earned a PhD from the University of Utah and now teaches English, Spanish, and ESL at the College of Eastern Utah–San Juan Campus, where he also does research on the Ute, Hopi, and Tewa languages spoken in the region. Michael F. Whiting holds a PhD in entomology from Cornell University. He has received multiple National Science Foundation (NSF) grants (including the prestigious NSF CAREER award), regu- larly serves on review panels for NSF, and is director of Brigham Young University’s DNA Sequencing Center and an associate professor in Brigham Young University’s Department of Integrative Biology. Introduction Daniel C. Peterson he normal way of dealing with the Book of Mormon ‘scientifi- “Tcally,’ ” wrote Hugh Nibley in 1967, “has been first to attribute to the Book of Mormon something it did not say, and then to refute the claim by scientific statements that have not been proven.”1 More than forty years later, Professor Nibley’s words still ring true. In this volume, the first in the series The Best of the Maxwell Institute, we present articles written by contributors to both the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and The FARMS Review that deal specifically with the subject of DNA and the Book of Mormon. Where applicable, we have updated the references to reflect later publications. Although the question of limited geography is strongly linked to DNA and the Book of Mormon, we will not be dealing with that in this volume. It will appear in a volume on approaches to the Book of Mormon. However, a comprehensive survey of the literature by Matthew Roper can be found in The FARMS Review 16/2 (2004) 225–74, and on the Maxwell Institute Web site. The first article, John L. Sorenson’s “The Problematic Role of DNA Testing in Unraveling Human History,” was published before the so- called controversy about DNA and the Book of Mormon had drawn much attention among the general public. Sorenson’s article serves as an introduction to the subject, highlighting the complexity of the research and the tools used to conduct it. In a short piece, John M. Butler, the lead scientist in developing DNA tests that identify the vic- tims of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, points to the insurmountable difficulties in identifying the genetic x The Book of Mormon and DNA Research heritage of the chief ancestors of the Lehite peoples. One of his points is that the females in the Lehite colonies all inherited their mitochondrial DNA from Ishmael’s wife, about whom we know almost noth- ing, including whether she was a full-blooded Israelite. “Before DNA,” by John L. Sorenson and Matthew Roper, sets out the major cultural, historical, and theological questions that a person must attempt to answer before turning to science. Though necessar- ily brief, their answers to fourteen questions bring us inside what scholars have learned during the past century about ancient America. John Butler’s second piece in this collection, “Addressing Questions surrounding the Book of Mormon and DNA Research,” gives an in- depth study of DNA with regard to ancestry studies. He insightfully addresses the tension between science and religion as he turns the question of DNA ancestry studies to the Book of Mormon. Michael F. Whiting’s DNA-related work on walking sticks that re- evolved the ability to fly 50 million years after losing it was featured in the 16 January 2003 issue of the journal Nature. In “DNA and the Book of Mormon: A Phylogenetic Perspective,” Whiting, a BYU professor of biology, frames the challenges of creating an experiment that could determine scientifically which Native Americans are de- scendants of any of the three known colonizing groups mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

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