An analysis of traditional LDS views regarding the descendants of Nephitic and Lamanitic peoples.
Latter-day Saints are quite unique when it comes to science. Quite often, as in the examples of evolution and the Big Bang, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints automatically create a sort of dichotomy for themselves. In other words, if they hear something in a science class or a biology class that appears on the outside to contradict what they were taught in a Sunday School class, there exists a decision to choose between one or the other.
Often, one of two scenarios takes place. The first and most popular of the two usually happens with the individual automatically dismissing the scientific claims or theories as being an affront to the spiritual beliefs and thus have to be false. Without formulating a response as to why they are false, they will go to great length and theories to explain them away with just as wild notions as their feel their instructors have.
The second scenario commonly finds someone on the other side of the spectrum. They are presented with exactly the same information, but rather than seeing it as being an affront to their spiritual beliefs, they welcome it as a new and higher knowledge that supersedes spiritual knowledge. As such, they cannot see any possibility of correlation between both scientific and spiritual knowledge, and end up solely embracing the scientific. Sadly enough, their once firm belief in a gospel integral to their life is now miniscule.
I must say I have found myself often in predicaments explained above and usually saw myself in the first scenario. Over the years, I have learned for myself that scientific knowledge and spiritual knowledge are not opposing forms of knowledge. Rather I have found them to be quite complementing of the other.
This article touches upon one such dilemma. Right from my Primary and Sunday School days, I remember being taught that the indigenous people of North and South America were descended from the progeny of Lehi, the first prophet mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Building upon that, I also recall being taught that Lehi’s family members were the ancestors of these same peoples.
I never really did have any problem with this until I reached high school. Among such things as the theories of evolution and the Big Bang, I was taught that the indigenous peoples of the American continents were descended from Mongolian nomads that crossed over the exposed ocean floor of the Bering Strait between what is know Alaska and Russia. As many Latter-day Saints are prone to do, I dismissed this as being impossible since it appeared to conflict what I had previously been taught in Sunday School and Primary classes.
This paper outlines the current opinion I have on the matter and analyses the traditional view I touched upon in the previous view. I am not setting out to prove the Bering Strait theory is correct or incorrect. Nor am I setting out to say that the Book of Mormon can be used to support or refute scientific evidence or theories. My only purpose is to show that scientific and spiritual knowledge can indeed co-exist together.
I believe the first time I ever came upon the “correlation option” was when I was doing some intense scripture study as preparation for my impending full-time missionary service. I was studying the Book of Mormon and read in its Introduction that the “Lamanites… are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.”
This quite intrigued me because the statement did not say that the Lamanites were “the only ancestors of the American Indians”, nor did it even say that they were “the ancestors of the American Indians.” Rather it says they were “the principal ancestors”. I realised that this meant the possibility of ancestry derived from Mongolian nomads, Norse Vikings or any other migratory peoples was indeed quite possible.
Now, I do not want to be one to play semantical games as to what exactly does “principal” mean, nor do I want to try and prove that this statement somehow disproves any scientific evidence that suggests otherwise. My only purpose here is to suggest that scientific and spiritual teachings can co-exist in a degree of harmony.
This, however, was not what intrigued me the most. I was more astounded by the fact that I now realised that scientific evidence and spiritual instruction could actually coincide. In fact, if it was possible the Bering Strait theory and the Lehitic peoples teaching could co-exist, I thought, then why could evolution and creationism not co-exist? Why could the world not be 4.5 billion years old? This discovery opened up a whole new world of acceptance and understanding and removed from my mind years of doubt.
Not to be quick to base my new found belief on one simple statement, I decided to do some more studying on the subject and noticed that leaders in the Church had discussed, though briefly, this very subject and left this same sort of opportunity open that the Introduction to the Book of Mormon does.
For example, President Spencer W. Kimball taught, “Through the centuries of movements, discovery, exploration, settlement, and colonization of the people of this land, it is not impossible that there could have seeped across the Bering Strait a little Oriental blood, as claimed by some people, and possibly a little Norse blood may have crossed the North Atlantic”[1].
LDS
scriptorian Elder Bruce R. McConkie stated something similar with “It is quite
apparent that groups of orientals found their way over the Bring Strait and
gradually moved southward to mix with the Indian peoples. We have records of a
colony of Scandinavians attempting to set up a settlement in America some 500
years before Columbus. There are archeological indications that an unspecified
number of groups of people probably found their way from the old to the new
world in pre-Columbian times. Out of all these groups would have come the
American Indians as they were discovered in the 15th century.”[2]
[1] The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, Inc, 1982), 598
[2] Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, Inc., 1966), 33
