What's This Fuss About DNA?

Michael De Groote wrote a nice series of articles for MormonTimes that quickly examines the fuss about DNA and the Book of Mormon. Reading this short series is a great way to get educated on the issue. It's a 4-part series; part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4. The introduction:

Somewhere among the varied coasts of the two American continents was landfall for a small group of ancient Israelite seafarers led by a prophet named Lehi.

Whether they stepped upon the sands of an empty or crowded continent is at the heart of the DNA debate over the historical nature of the Book of Mormon.

Ugo Perego, an Italian-born researcher in human genetics, tries to look with a scientist's eye at the controversy surrounding DNA and the Book of Mormon.

He is a bit impatient with some of the strong conclusions of some critics and LDS apologists. There is too little data. He believes critics and apologists need to be cautious.

"I see that from both the critics' side and the LDS side there is quite a bit of misunderstanding on the subject," Perego said. "We should not fight over it. It seems to me to be almost a waste of time that people will actually entertain the thoughts that either DNA can prove or disprove the Book of Mormon."

An Apostolic Witness of the Book of Mormon

One of the highlights for me of the 179th Semi-annual General Conference was Elder Holland's testimony of the Book of Mormon. It is much better watched (.wmv) than read, but here is an excerpt:

As one of a thousand elements of my own testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, I submit this as yet one more evidence of its truthfulness. In this their greatest—and last—hour of need, I ask you: would these men blaspheme before God by continuing to fix their lives, their honor, and their own search for eternal salvation on a book (and by implication a church and a ministry) they had fictitiously created out of whole cloth?

Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their children fatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be “houseless, friendless and homeless” and that their children will leave footprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor. Never mind that legions will die and other legions live declaring in the four quarters of this earth that they know the Book of Mormon and the Church which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of that, and tell me whether in this hour of death these two men would enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if not the very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.

For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator. In this I stand with my own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, “No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.”

I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be: “a stone of stumbling, . . . a rock of offence,” a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. Witnesses, even witnesses who were for a time hostile to Joseph, testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled the plates. “They have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man,” they declared. “Wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.”

The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution

Ask your average member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) what he thinks of evolution, and he'll probably tell you it's a fallacy. Ask him what his Church says about evolution and he'll probably tell you that Church doctrine says it's a fallacy as well. He would be wrong. The Mormon Church has no official doctrinal position on the question of organic evolution. Many members are unaware of this. Mormon apologist Michael R. Ash, however, is completely aware of the debate that has taken place about evolution among members and leadership in the Church, and put that knowledge into a great essay that seeks to clear the myth held by so many that the Mormon Church has a negative view of evolutionary theory. His introduction:

Several years ago while teaching the priests’ quorum, part of my lesson focused on the deceptive methods used by Satan. I asked my class for suggestions as to what tools, techniques, and deceptive teachings Satan employs. Some of their responses included the immorality in movies, television, and music, or the notion that there is no God. Then the bishop, as president of the priests’ quorum and a regular attendee of the class, said, “Evolution.” In the years since this event, I’ve found that there are a number of members who believe that evolution is a doctrine of the devil. It is apparent that many members are not familiar with the official position of the church on the topic of evolution, nor of the past history associated with this issue. The purpose of this paper is not to take a position on whether evolution is correct or is in error, but rather to demonstrate that the church’s official stand on the subject is neutral and that many faithful Latter-day Saints, including LDS scientists, accept evolution as a currently valid scientific theory. (Read the entire thing here, .pdf)