Appearance
DNA
The claim:
"DNA analysis has concluded that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle East or from Israelites but rather from Asia."[1]
The CES Letter shows a before/after of the Book of Mormon introduction:
"...the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians"
changed to:
"...the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians"
And adds: "The Church conceded in its January 2014 Book of Mormon and DNA Studies essay that the majority of Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA."[1:1]
What would population genetics actually predict if a small Israelite family arrived in the Americas 2,600 years ago?
Nobody disputes the data
Native Americans carry five major mitochondrial DNA haplogroups: A2, B2, C1, D1, and X2a. All trace to Asian source populations arriving via Beringia during the last Ice Age.[2]
The Church's own 2014 Gospel Topics Essay says it plainly: "the majority of Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA."[2:1]
The CES Letter treats this as a mic-drop. Population genetics treats it as a starting point.
The CES Letter cites no genetic studies. No population geneticists. No peer-reviewed articles. It invokes "DNA analysis" as though the phrase alone settles the question.[1:2]
The actual science tells a different story.
Ancient lineages vanish. This is normal.
In 2016, Llamas et al. sequenced 92 complete mitochondrial genomes from pre-Columbian South American skeletons -- ranging from 8,600 to 500 years old.[3]
Then they checked modern databases.
Every single lineage was gone.
"All of the ancient mitochondrial lineages detected in this study were absent from modern data sets, suggesting a high extinction rate."[3:1]
Not most. Not a majority. Every pre-Columbian lineage they tested -- extinct in modern populations. DNA from populations as recent as 500 years ago has completely vanished in living inhabitants.
| Study | Finding |
|---|---|
| Llamas et al. 2016 | All pre-Columbian South American mtDNA lineages tested -- extinct in modern populations[3:2] |
| Helgason et al. 2009 | Iceland's founding-era mtDNA lineages (~1,100 years ago) largely absent in modern Icelanders[4] |
The Iceland case is especially telling. Researchers compared mtDNA from 1,000-year-old Icelandic skeletal remains to modern Icelanders. The ancient haplotypes were closer to populations in Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia than to the living Icelanders who are actually their descendants.[4:1]
Iceland has written records, a known founding population, and no catastrophic population collapse. The Americas had all of that working against them -- and worse.
A family of 30 walks into a continent of millions
Lehi's party numbered perhaps 30 people. The Mulekites were similarly small.[5]
The pre-Columbian Americas held tens of millions of people.[6] When a handful of migrants enters a continent already populated at that scale, their genetic signal is swamped within a few generations. This isn't apologetic spin. It's one of the most well-established phenomena in population genetics: genetic drift dilutes minority lineages in large host populations, and the initial limited diversity of a small founding group -- the founder effect -- means there was little signal to begin with.[7]
| Factor | Implication |
|---|---|
| Lehi's party: ~30 people | Negligible genetic contribution to a populated continent |
| Americas population ~600 BC: tens of millions | Host population DNA dominates within generations |
| mtDNA traces only the maternal line | After 10 generations, detects 1 of 1,024 ancestors |
| Y-chromosome traces only the paternal line | Same limitation |
Mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA each trace a single ancestral line. After 10 generations, they detect 2 of your 1,024 ancestors. The other 1,022 are invisible to these tests.[8]
The bottleneck that erased everything
Then came the catastrophe.
European contact caused a population collapse of 90% or greater across the Americas.[6:1] Michael Crawford, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Kansas, put it this way:
"The Conquest and its sequelae squeezed the entire Amerindian population through a genetic bottleneck. The reduction of Amerindian gene pools from 1/3 to 1/25 of their previous size implies a considerable loss of genetic variability."[6:2]
Any rare lineage that survived 2,000 years of genetic drift would have faced a second extinction event during the post-Columbian collapse. The combination is devastating to minority markers.
You can't find what you can't define
The most basic problem: no one knows what DNA Lehi's family actually carried.
Ugo Perego -- a population geneticist who spent years studying Native American DNA and consulted with the Church on the Gospel Topics Essay -- discovered through his own testing that he carries Y-chromosome haplogroup C. East Asian lineage. He's Italian.[7:1]
If his remains were excavated in 2,000 years, Y-chromosome analysis would classify him as "Asian origin." His documented Italian heritage would be invisible.
The Middle East in 600 BC was a genetic crossroads. Lehi's family could have carried markers that look nothing like modern Jewish or Middle Eastern populations. Without knowing the target, the search is impossible.[7:2]
Bottom line: DNA from populations as recent as 500 years ago has vanished from modern databases. The CES Letter's argument requires a lineage of ~30 people to survive 2,600 years, genetic drift, and a 90% population collapse. Population genetics predicts the opposite.
The Book of Mormon never claimed what critics think
The DNA argument works only if the Book of Mormon claims Lehi's family were the sole or principal ancestors of all Native Americans.
The text makes no such claim.
1929 -- President Anthony W. Ivins (First Presidency) in General Conference: "The Book of Mormon does not tell us that there was no one here before them. It does not tell us that people did not come after."[9]
1985 -- John Sorenson published An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, arguing for a limited geography and interaction with existing populations -- nearly two decades before DNA became an issue.[10]
1992 -- Sorenson published textual evidence for pre-existing populations in the Book of Mormon: impossible demographics (30 people don't build temples and wage wars in one generation), the outsider Sherem (Jacob 7), Mulekite language corruption from mixing with non-Hebrew speakers (Omni 1:17).[5:1]
| Year | Development |
|---|---|
| 1929 | First Presidency member acknowledges "others" in the land[9:1] |
| 1985 | Sorenson publishes limited geography model[10:1] |
| 1992 | Sorenson publishes textual evidence for pre-existing populations[5:2] |
| 2003-2004 | First major DNA-based criticisms published[11] |
| 2006 | Church changes introduction from "principal" to "among" |
| 2014 | Gospel Topics Essay formally adopts limited geography framework[2:2] |
The limited geography model wasn't invented to dodge DNA evidence. It predates the controversy by decades.
The introduction was never scripture
The "principal ancestors" language was written by Bruce R. McConkie for the 1981 edition. It's part of the introduction -- a modern study aid, not part of the translated text.[2:3]
The 2006 change to "among the ancestors" aligned the introduction with what the text actually says. Correcting an inaccurate editorial summary to match the actual scriptural text is intellectual honesty, not a doctrinal retreat.
The "all from Asia" narrative keeps getting more complicated
In 2014, Raghavan et al. sequenced the genome of a 24,000-year-old individual from Siberia and found that up to one-third of Native American ancestry derives from a population with West Eurasian genetic affinities.[12]
National Geographic reported the finding as: "Nearly one-third of Native American genes come from west Eurasian people linked to the Middle East and Europe."[13]
This is deep ancestry -- tens of thousands of years before the Book of Mormon. It doesn't support a 600 BC migration. But it demolishes the idea that Native American genetics are a simple "entirely from East Asia" story. The picture keeps getting more complicated, not less.
Haplogroup X -- a tempting argument to avoid
Some Latter-day Saint commentators have pointed to haplogroup X2a -- found in some North American populations and also in the Near East -- as evidence for the Book of Mormon.
The dating doesn't work. Molecular clocks estimate X2a entered the Americas at least 12,800 years ago. Perego himself assessed that "in order for X2a to fit within Book of Mormon chronology, the currently accepted molecular clocks would need considerable recalibration."[7:3]
Mainstream scientists and responsible Latter-day Saint geneticists reject this as Book of Mormon evidence.[14] Claiming X2a is the kind of argument that damages credibility when it fails. It has failed.
Worth Acknowledging
X2a does complicate a purely "all from East Asia" narrative. But it doesn't support Book of Mormon chronology, and honest engagement with the data requires saying so.
The Gospel Topics Essay isn't a concession
The CES Letter frames the 2014 Gospel Topics Essay as the Church "conceding" the DNA case. Read the essay. It does the opposite.
The essay walks through the population genetics -- founder effect, genetic drift, population bottleneck, molecular clock limitations, unknown target DNA -- and concludes:
"DNA studies cannot be used decisively to either affirm or reject the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon."[2:4]
That isn't a retreat. It's the scientifically defensible position. The essay engages the evidence transparently and arrives at a conclusion supported by the population genetics literature.
The CES Letter claims DNA has "concluded" the case. The Church's essay, backed by credentialed population geneticists, says the science doesn't support that conclusion.[15]
The real question DNA can't answer
Strip away the rhetoric and the DNA argument comes down to this: a small group's genetic markers weren't found in a population that lost 90% of its members and where documented ancient lineages routinely vanish.
That's not a conclusion. It's exactly what the science predicts.
The Book of Mormon's core evidence was never about DNA. It was about a 270,000-word text dictated in roughly 60 working days with no outline, no notes, no prior manuscript, and no credible naturalistic explanation.[16] DNA evidence -- regardless of which direction it points -- doesn't touch that question.
Bottom line: The CES Letter says DNA has "concluded" the case against the Book of Mormon. It cites no genetic studies, no geneticists, and no peer-reviewed research. The actual population genetics -- founder effects, genetic drift, a 90% population bottleneck, and documented extinction of entire lineage families -- predict that a small founding group's DNA would be undetectable. The science doesn't close this case. It explains why it was never open.
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Book of Mormon," no. 4, p. 11. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
"Book of Mormon and DNA Studies," Gospel Topics Essays, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (2014). https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Bastien Llamas et al., "Ancient Mitochondrial DNA Provides High-Resolution Time Scale of the Peopling of the Americas," Science Advances 2, no. 4 (2016): e1501385. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1501385 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Agnar Helgason et al., "Sequences From First Settlers Reveal Rapid Evolution in Icelandic mtDNA Pool," PLoS Genetics 5, no. 1 (2009): e1000343. https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000343 ↩︎ ↩︎
John L. Sorenson, "When Lehi's Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Others There?" Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1, no. 1 (1992): 1-34. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol1/iss1/2/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Michael H. Crawford, The Origins of Native Americans: Evidence from Anthropological Genetics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Ugo A. Perego, "The Book of Mormon and the Origin of Native Americans from a Maternally Inherited DNA Standpoint," in No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues, ed. Robert L. Millet (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2011). https://rsc.byu.edu/no-weapon-shall-prosper/book-mormon-origin-native-americans-maternally-inherited-dna-standpoint ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Ugo A. Perego and Jayne E. Ekins, "Is Decrypting the Genetic Legacy of America's Indigenous Populations Key to the Historicity of the Book of Mormon?" Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 12 (2014): 237-279. https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/is-decrypting-the-genetic-legacy-of-americas-indigenous-populations-key-to-the-historicity-of-the-book-of-mormon/ ↩︎
Anthony W. Ivins, Conference Report, April 1929. Cited in Gospel Topics Essay, "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies." ↩︎ ↩︎
John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo: FARMS, 1985). ↩︎ ↩︎
Simon G. Southerton, Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004). Southerton's DNA criticism attacked the hemispheric model that Latter-day Saint scholars had already abandoned decades earlier. ↩︎
Morten Raghavan et al., "Upper Palaeolithic Siberian Genome Reveals Dual Ancestry of Native Americans," Nature 505 (2014): 87-91. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12736 ↩︎
Ker Than, "Great Surprise -- Native Americans Have West Eurasian Origins," National Geographic, November 20, 2013. Reporting on Raghavan et al. (2014). ↩︎
Jennifer A. Raff and Deborah A. Bolnick, "Does Mitochondrial Haplogroup X Indicate Ancient Trans-Atlantic Migration to the Americas? A Critical Re-Evaluation," PaleoAmerica 1, no. 4 (2015): 297-304. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1179/2055556315Z.00000000040 ↩︎
John M. Butler and Ugo A. Perego, Let's Talk About Misconceptions with DNA and the Book of Mormon (Covenant Communications, 2025). ↩︎
"Why Is the Timing of the Book of Mormon's Translation So Marvelous?" Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/why-is-the-timing-of-the-book-of-mormons-translation-so-marvelous ↩︎