1

A Very Good Question, Why Do We

Question?
Sometime ago, I was assigned to write an anthropology
paper on something I was unfamiliar with, concerning the
LDS, in my Mormon Anthropology class. And I’m glad that I
was able to talk to some who are active members of the
Church while taking the class, because they’ve allowed me
to see that active members might find questioning of their
faith to any extreme, rather unusual. Not just questioning
what everyone asks, but examining their faith on a level that
seems to condemn or over examine something to a level
that they might see as going beyond the necessity of just
learning about their faith. They want to know why people are
interested in taking religion so literally, to examine it beyond
just believing itself.

Of course, I can’t answer for everyone, but I can give, I hope

what they might feel from my own viewpoints. I was at one
time a very active member of the church, but fell away many
years ago. Mine were because of questions I had, that I
could never get an answer to; and probably never will. This
occurred because I read the “God Makers”, which the church
has always recommended, in my opinion quite advisably, not
to read. Sadly, for many who read it, they might ask
questions like I did, lose their faith, and be lost, then find
something to replace it. Or, they might just be lost, forever.
And a loss of faith is something very precious, because for
some, it’s almost life itself.

For me, it turned into an experience for the need to become

more intellectual, though I would classify myself as an
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amateur intellectual. And I must comment at this point, that I
find religion itself fascinating. So I have studied some of the
philosophical aspects of Western religion, and soon will do
so with Eastern. I have a bachelor degree in history, and am
getting a bachelor degree in anthropology. And while some
might designate me as an atheist, I would prefer to use the
term antitheist, though in some circles it’s considered the
same thing. But I digress.

Why would I want to thoroughly examine, pick apart; even

for some, seem to thrill at disproving religion, any religion?
It’s not so much disproving, but examining. Religion by its
very nature is about faith. Faith isn’t knowledge about
something; it’s a belief that something unseen does exist.
I’m looking for information that can be proven, shown
physically. You can show me the bible all day long, but the
only thing I see is a book, written by people some 3,000
years ago, not a book that proves the existence of a
supreme being. The air, my life, these don’t show me the
existence of God, what they show me is molecules, atoms,
DNA, living beings. If a god made all this, I wouldn’t expect
him to have people write a book about his existence,
expecting us to worship him, and expect certain behaviors
from us.

So, that’s why I examine things, because I don’t have faith in

such a thing, any more. Of course, I’d hope I would continue
examining things, since for me, faith without the right to
examine it so fully, is nothing but blind faith. I wouldn’t really
want everyone to stop having faith, because I realize that for
many, faith is the only thing that helps them make it through
the day. By examining religion, any religion, I learn more
about human nature, about what has been written, and in
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some cases, what the differences are between what some
wrote down, and what we can verify through historical
records or archaeological evidence. And in some cases, this
requires me to pick something apart. After all, how can
anyone find out about something, if they don’t pick it apart,
or for me, examine it?

So for me, anything that challenges historical or

anthropological information has no right to demand that I
stop examining it, on the basis of religion itself. And of
course, even those things that are seen only as religious
thought, don’t have the right to demand I not examine it.
After all, anything that examines how we behave, or should
behave, can be seen as purely philosophical. I love
philosophy, so I see it as being questionable. And even if it
wasn’t philosophical, it’s a comment. If I can’t question it,
then what’s wrong with it, why would anyone demand that I
not think about it so deeply?

Of course, there is something I want to make known before

you read what I wrote. I believe that anyone who is a
member of the LDS church has every right to write about
whatever they want, even things that question the LDS
history or philosophy. I mention this for the members,
because there is a belief that the church will excommunicate
those who write something the church feels aren’t
appropriate. Some fear that what I’ve just written will get me
excommunicated. But for me, if it does, that just leads me to
the conclusion that the church is wrong in doing so. I’m a
freethinking individual. Whether I’m an active member or
not, I have every right to question the church. So long as I’m
as considerate as possible, they really don’t have a right to
excommunicate me. Let’s face it; the members of the LDS
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church are the administration of the church. So for me, the
church has no right to tell the people what they can express,
or be excommunicated. And if I am, I say good, because I
wouldn’t desire being connected to such a faith, who has
such beliefs in their right to my time, or my thoughts.

So, unfortunately for some of my family, I submit my work to

MormonThink. I tell the LDS church openly that I’m a
member. That I do not believe much of what the church
says or has written about. I do not believe they are evil, non-
Christian or even spawns of Satan. But what I do believe is
that man, nothing more, and nothing less created them, like
every other religion around the world. There are some who
ask why I don’t start the procedures to get myself
excommunicated, if I feel this way. The answer; I don’t feel
the need to spend time doing such a thing. Why spend time
getting excommunicated, when my being an inactive
member of the church is really no different than being
excommunicated at this moment. So why say anything at
all? Because, I have a brain, I wish to use it, I wish to
question. Not just about the LDS, but about everything. It
just so happens that this was one part of what I wanted to
write about that I wanted to present to others. So, more will
follow, about other subjects. These might not be on
MormonThink, but they will be out there.

I hope you find what I wrote interesting. I know I found it to

be an interesting subject, because of what we know about
this continent because of anthropology, and what so many
have tried to connect to the Nephites, without having any
evidence to support their claims.

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 Anthropology Paper
If we had a time machine, or a system that could let us view
the past, we could answer many of the important questions
we have concerning philosophically religions issues. These
could be; was there a flood, was there an exodus from Egypt
for the Jewish people, was there a Jesus who was born in a
manger and died on a cross? And the most demanding of
all the questions, through all walks of life (altered for political
correctness); does the Pope excrete bodily waste when
walking through the woods?

This viewer could also help us answer the question of

whether the history of the Book of Mormon was true or not.
Since we don’t have any high tech method to find out for
sure, the only thing we can do is look at the evidence
provided by both the LDS and those who are only interested
in understanding the past; historians and anthropologists. It
is through these two sources, that information will be
presented about the arrival of the family of Lehi, which broke
into two factions, the Nephites and Lamanites. Evidence of
their living in the Americas, and whether the remaining
people of North and South America were actually the
descendents of these two great families, but more
specifically Lamanites. This isn’t about deciding who is right
or wrong, but examining information that has been presented
in an orderly fashion, so you can decide for yourself, if you
decide to make such a decision at all.

Lehi, family and friends arrive to the

Americas
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So, where do we begin first? Let’s start when Lehi, his
family and friends left for the Americas. According to
President Milton R. Hunter, at a meeting in April 1970, Lehi
and his family left from Jerusalem around 600 BC.1
According to the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 1:13, the people
were to be taken captive by the Babylonians. So, they fled
south to a place they called Bountiful. It was there that they
built a boat and sailed to what they called the Promised
Land. They never say whether there were any people there,
but mention forests that they found wild animals, such as
cows, oxen, horses, and goats, according to 1 Nephi 18:25.
According to Joseph Fielding Smith, they landed in South
America, and lived in South and Central America for the
greater part of their time.2 It’s known that the Lamanites
were descendants of Lehi’s sons, Laman and Lemual, along
with other members of their group. And the descendants of
the Nephites were from Nephi and those remaining. In
Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, Milton R. Hunter
wrote that the Nephites were in actuality the Toltecs.

What does history and anthropology have in relationship to

the LDS version? Well, in 587 BC, the Babylonians did
defeat Jerusalem and destroyed Solomon’s temple. So
leaving Jerusalem around 600 BC would have been a very
good idea. Okay, what about the Toltecs? Well, let’s start
with the Olmecs who lived from about 1200-900 BC,
terminating between 600-300 BC. According to Susan Toby
Evans, the Toltecs were descendants of the Early
Postclassic (AD 900-1200) capital, Tula. And from about AD
1
President Milton R. Hunter, Conference Report, April 1970, Afternoon
Meeting, p. 137.
2
Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3 vols, edited by Bruce R.
McConkie, 3: p. 73, 232, 239.
7
1200-1520 there were the Aztecs. The Olmecs covered
Southern Mexico and Guatemala. Tula was in an area long
the Gulf of Mexico. And the Aztecs, they covered Southern
Mexico. Humans transported all goods, since there were no
wheeled carts, not even oxen or horses throughout
Mesoamerica. Shaft tombs have been found in South
America, dating back to about 500 BC. In fact, according to
Colin G. Calloway, archaeologists have reached consensus
that Southern Chile was inhabited about 12,500 years ago.3

Living in the Americas

Now, while here in the Americas, the Nephites and
Lamanites war with each from time to time, until around AD
30, when they were visited by Jesus, who taught them his
teachings. It was then that the people began to live in
peace, until roughly sometime before AD 400, when the
Lamanites reared their heads again. I see the term Nephites
and Lamanites used in two different ways. One is the
people who lived separately from each other before 30 AD.
During this time, the Nephites were the followers of God,
while the Lamanites were those who did not. So, when they
were finally as one, they were known as the Nephites, the
followers of God. When they begin fighting again, we now
see the Lamanites more as people who no longer believe,
and the Nephites as those who have remained faithful to
God. Milton R. Hunter, in his book Christ in Ancient America
stated that the Mayan and other Mesoamerican calendars
were similar to the Egyptian calendar; and that the Nephites
wrote in an advanced form of Egyptian. Of course, around
586 BC, there was another group who left Jerusalem and
3
Colin G. Calloway, First Peoples, page 14
8
came to the Americas. These people would be known as
the Mulekites. President Milton R. Hunter mentioned this in
a meeting on April 1970. They later joined with the
Nephites, becoming one people who believe in God.

We’ve already covered who lived here from 600 BC to about

400 AD. The Nephites, Lamanites or Mulekites were never
mentioned in any city that archaeologist have excavated, so
far. And I would never try to explain whether there was a
Jesus who died for our sins, that’s for philosophers to
debate, or theologians. However, I can state that the
language and calendar system that the Mayans had aren’t
similar to the Egyptians. According to the Minnesota State
University eMuseum, the Egyptian calendar was based on
360 days a year, with 5 more days added at the beginning of
each New Year.4 The Mayan calendar, according to

Professor David L. Mills, University of Delaware, stated that

4
Minnesota State University eMuseum,
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/dailylife/calendar.html
9
 the Mayan calendar
was based on 365
days a year.5 As for
the language of the
Egyptians and the
Mayans, the following
figures show the
differences between
the two languages.

This example was

obtained from the
Cornell University
library website.6 It
shows how the
Egyptian writing
system looked.

The second image of

symbols came from the
Mayans.7 While some
of these symbols are
similar to Egyptian
Hieroglyphs, the rest is
a series of pictograms
that are similar to the writing system started by the Olmec.
However, if you’ll notice they are so dissimilar, that linguists

5
Professor David L Mills, University of Delaware,
http://www.ece.udel.edu/~mills/maya.html
6
Cornell University Library,
http://www.library.cornell.edu/africana/Writing_Systems/Hieroglyphics.html
7
Minnesota State University eMuseum,
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/topics/writing.html
10
haven’t managed to translate all of what is available.

And finally, we have to remember that the Mulekites left

Jerusalem after the Babylonians had conquered it. This is
still possible, if the dates were off by a year or two. So even
I would give the LDS points for their timing.

Who are the Lamanites?

Now we come to the final examination of the LDS claims to
the Book of Mormon. When the Lamanites destroyed all of
the Nephites, they reverted to their more uncivilized natures.
But most of all, they claim that the Native Americans are the
remnants of the Lamanites, that they have Jewish ancestry
in their veins. Though many have tried to decide which
tribes of Native Americans were Lamanites, they have also
declared that some Nephites did remain with the Lamanites.
However, in the Mormon Doctrine, Bruce R. McConkie wrote
that:

When Columbus discovered America, the native inhabitants,

the American Indians as they were soon to be designated,
were a people of mixed blood and origin. Chiefly they were
Lamanites, but such remnants of the Nephite nation as had
not been destroyed had, of course, mingled with the
Lamanites. (1 Ne. 13:30; 2 Ne. 3:1-3; 9:53; Alma 45:13-14;
D. & C. 3:16-19.) Thus the Indians were Jews by nationality
(D. & C. 57:4), their forefathers having come out from
Jerusalem, from the kingdom of Judah. (2 Ne. 33:8-10.)

D. Jeffrey Meldrum and Trent D. Stephens wrote a paper on

the genetic debate concerning the remaining Lamanites in
America. In their paper, they acknowledge that the DNA
11
evidence concerning the natives of the Americas,
representing Asian ancestry is accurate. However, they
state that it is impossible to determine Jewish ancestry
because of the dilution of the population; at least that’s what
I got from it, not being a biologist by profession.

Now, what does history or anthropology have to counter with

the LDS version? Let’s begin with the inhabitants of the
Americas, specifically North America. If there had been any
Nephites and Lamanites, they would have had to mingle with
quite a few people, to be accepted by many, because
America had been inhabited long before 600 BC. Here are a
few examples from First People by Colin B. Galloway.

On the northwest Pacific coast, from northern California

to Alaska, seagoing peoples were harvesting rich marine
resources five thousand years ago (pg 17)

Between 12,000 and 8,000 BC, Native American

peoples hunted on foot on the Great Plains for big game
– mammoths, mastodons, and bison (pg 20).

Some Indians in present-day Illinois were growing

squash by 5,000 BC (pg 25).

In the Eastern Woodlands, over a period of about 4,000

years, Indian peoples constructed tens of thousands of
large earthen mounds. Archaeologists have discovered
a complex of eleven mounds, near the town of Watson
Brake in northeast Louisiana, built between 5,000 and
5,400 years ago (pg 25).

Not being a biologist, the only thing I can counter with, is the
Lemba. According to Tudor Parfitt and Yulia Egorova, in the
12
paper Genetics, History, and Identity: the Case of the Bene
Israel and the Lemba, it was determined that the Lemba of
South Africa had Jewish DNA. One out of ten had the
specific information in their DNA that proved they had Jewish
ancestry. So, my question is, if they could find their DNA
remnant, which could go as far back as 700 BC, then why
couldn’t we find it in the Native Americans.

Analysis
Now comes the fun part, what do I make of all this? Let’s
begin with Lehi, his family and friends who came to America.
Everyone who reads the Bible would know that Babylon
sacked Jerusalem. And since the Book of Mormon doesn’t
actually give a date as to when Lehi got the prophecy that
Jerusalem would be sacked, we just associate the time from
what we know in history. And of course, they don’t give
enough specifics in the Book of Mormon that we could relate
specifically to a place in the Americas. We just try to
associate that information based on the scraps that are
available. So, it’s quite possible someone could have just
written the Book of Mormon’s beginnings with just the
knowledge of the Bible.

And then of course, we have the history of Central America,

and the history some have associated with the Nephites and
Lamanites. As I mentioned, the history of Central America
doesn’t mention them, and the cultures that were there, were
magnificent in their own right. The Olmecs had some
magnificent cities, along with the Mayans and the Aztecs.
And their religions were definitely nothing like Christianity.
Of course, as was noted, the calendar and written languages

13
used by the Egyptians and Mayan aren’t even remotely
similar. So, since there aren’t any similarities, we really can’t
say that the two are connected. So, it tells me that the
Nephites and Lamanites didn’t exist as the ruling class. But,
if they did exist, they could have existed as a small band of
people, similar to the Gnostics, in relationship to the Catholic
faith, around 100 AD. There, but anything they wrote or said
erased from history, accept one book in New York.

And then we come to the Lamanites, who were supposed to

be the descendants of the Jewish people. If they were
Lamanites, I would expect that the DNA could have
supported such a claim, since it could be supported for the
Lemba. But, considering that we know people lived on the
Americas as far back as 12,000 BC, this would help
substantiate the potential claim that there were no Nephites
or Lamanites. In fact, all of North and South America had to
be populated by those who came here, maybe from Asia.
But in truth, it really doesn’t matter to me how they got here,
we’re talking about people who lived on this continent more
than 11,000 years before Lehi and company ever set foot on
the Americas. They wouldn’t have become the major
players of the world, but only a small band, if they ever did
exist.

Of course, I’ve also been considering something else. When

someone looks at the prophecies of Nostradamus, they try to
see what prophecies relate to the past. But they can never
relate any of his prophecies to the future, because it’s
somewhat unclear. It’s like a fortune cookie that says your
future will become brighter. So it could be the same with the
Book of Mormon. That history could be of a small group,
relating to bigger groups, designed to tell a story of God, but
14
embellished in some cases for good story telling. Such
cases can be found in the Bible, as in the Jewish people
conquering Jericho and Ai, which were destroyed years
before the Jewish people were supposed to have entered
the Promised Land.

Conclusion
So, what has been presented? First, that Lehi, family and
friends may or may not have left Jerusalem, along with the
Mulekites when they arrive some 30 years later. And I say
may or may not, because we have no real evidence that they
came, either through journals or even historical records.
And the historical records don’t support them, because other
civilizations, quite different from what is presented in the
Book of Mormon were in existence either before or during,
even beyond the history of the Nephites and Lamanites.

We’ve learned that the written records of the Nephites has

very little in common with the Mayan language, and even
their calendar systems are different. All of this is based on
the belief that the Nephites used a writing and calendar
system much like the Egyptians.

And finally, even when everyone thinks that the people who
remained in the Americas were now Lamanites, there isn’t
any real evidence to support such a claim. No DNA or
history, since we know so many people came to the United
States and lived here, almost 11,000 years before Lehi
arrived.

Finally, we have one other thing, I feel strong about saying.

Just because many others who read this document might
15
agree with me, that the Nephites and Lamanites never
existed, really doesn’t matter. What really matters is the
message that so many get from the Book of Mormon. So in
reality, I’m questioning the history of the Nephites and
Lamanites, not the book itself. For me, it’s similar to the
Bible. Sometimes the history might not jive with the books
stories, they might even sound fanciful, but there can be a
meaning in the words that go beyond the stories. It can help
many to find peace and happiness. So remember that,
when you consider what has been written, more than
anything else you get from this paper.

16
 Works Cited
Bible: King James Version

Book of Mormon

Calloway, Colin G. (2004) First Peoples: A Documentary

Survey of American Indian History. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin’s

Cornell University Library,

http://www.library.cornell.edu/africana/Writing_Systems/Hier
oglyphics.html

Evans, Susan Toby (2004) Ancient Mexico & Central

America: Archaeology and Culture History. London: Thames
& Hudson Ltd.

Hunter, Milton R. Archaeology and the Book of Mormon

(Electronic Text: LDS Library 2006)

Hunter, Milton R. Christ in Ancient America (Electronic Text:

LDS Library 2006)

Hunter, President Milton R., Conference Report, April 1970,

Afternoon Meeting (Electronic Text: LDS Library 2006)

Levack, Brian; Muir, Edward; Maas, Michael; & Veldman,

Meredith (2004) The West: Encounters & Transformations:
Volume 1 to 1715. New York: Pearson Longman

McConkie, Bruce R. (1981) Mormon Doctrine. Salt Lake

City: Bookcraft

17
McConkie, Bruce R., Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of
Salvation, 3 Vols (Electronic Text: LDS Library 2006)

Meldrum, D. Jeffrey & Stephens, Trent D. (2003) Who are

the Children of Lehi? Journal of Book of Mormon Studies,
Vol 12, Number 1

Minnesota State University eMuseum,

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/dailylife/cal
endar.html

Minnesota State University eMuseum,

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/topic
s/writing.html

Parfitt, Tudor & Egorova, Yulia (2005) Genetics, History, and

Identity: The Case of the Bene Israel and the Lemba.
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 29:193-225

Professor David L Mills, University of Delaware,

http://www.ece.udel.edu/~mills/maya.html

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