Thanks to Rob Eagleston, I got to see Rod Meldrum's recent DVD entitled DNA Evidence for Book of Mormon Geography. If you haven't seen it, you should. I'll probably be thinking about this for awhile.
The 4-hour DVD basically presents two hypotheses: (1) that there is strong evidence of Hebrew DNA (i.e. Haplogroup X) in Native Americans residing in the Great Lakes Region, Ohio River Valley, and Mississippi River Valley, and (2) that the events of the Book of Mormon took place almost entirely in these same regions.
Meldrum postulates as follows: (1) that Lehi's family landed somewhere along the Gulf Coast, likely somewhere between Louisiana and Florida; (2) that the Nephites migrated to the North along the Mississippi River and East through the Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes regions; and (3) that the Lamanites ultimately occupied everything to the South, Southeast, and West as far as the Rocky Mountains. Meldrum identifies potential Book of Mormon cities, rivers, and other sites with surprising exactness. In fact, he specifically pinpoints the present-day town of Zarahemla, Iowa, as the site of the ancient city of Zarahemla, and he identifies the River Sidon as the present-day Mississippi River. He further asserts that the temples, cities, homes, and war artifacts found throughout the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, and Ohio River Valley are more consistent with the Nephite civilization described in the Book of Mormon than the temples, cities, homes, and war artifacts found in Central America.
Until now, I've never been too interested in mapping the events of the Book of Mormon. In fact, as a missionary in Guatemala, I scoffed at "Ancient Church Site" tours, because they all seemed ridiculously speculative and even illogical. Despite my skeptical inclinations, I was strongly convinced by many of the theories contained in this DVD. In fact, Meldrum has completely changed my mind about the possibility of mapping some of the significant sites of the Book of Mormon. The DNA evidence is compelling on its own, but Meldrum also goes through approximately 3 hours of other evidence (too vast to discuss here), which fully supports his hypotheses. His hypotheses are also completely consistent with the Church's recent one-word alteration to the Introduction to the Book of Mormon.
Like most (if not all) scholars, Meldrum might have made some flawed assumptions in the DVD. But I'll let you be the judge. That said, the only part of the DVD that bothered me was his slightly unprofessional criticism of John Sorenson and other scholars who have advanced the Central American theories. I was also a little uncomfortable with his friend's testimony of his "conversion" to the Church based, at least in part, on some of Meldrum's findings. Whether or not you ultimately agree with all of Meldrum's ideas, this DVD is highly informative and certainly one of the most fascinating presentations I have ever seen on the DNA and geography issues raised by the Book of Mormon. I can't recommend it enough.
The 4-hour DVD basically presents two hypotheses: (1) that there is strong evidence of Hebrew DNA (i.e. Haplogroup X) in Native Americans residing in the Great Lakes Region, Ohio River Valley, and Mississippi River Valley, and (2) that the events of the Book of Mormon took place almost entirely in these same regions.
Meldrum postulates as follows: (1) that Lehi's family landed somewhere along the Gulf Coast, likely somewhere between Louisiana and Florida; (2) that the Nephites migrated to the North along the Mississippi River and East through the Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes regions; and (3) that the Lamanites ultimately occupied everything to the South, Southeast, and West as far as the Rocky Mountains. Meldrum identifies potential Book of Mormon cities, rivers, and other sites with surprising exactness. In fact, he specifically pinpoints the present-day town of Zarahemla, Iowa, as the site of the ancient city of Zarahemla, and he identifies the River Sidon as the present-day Mississippi River. He further asserts that the temples, cities, homes, and war artifacts found throughout the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, and Ohio River Valley are more consistent with the Nephite civilization described in the Book of Mormon than the temples, cities, homes, and war artifacts found in Central America.
Until now, I've never been too interested in mapping the events of the Book of Mormon. In fact, as a missionary in Guatemala, I scoffed at "Ancient Church Site" tours, because they all seemed ridiculously speculative and even illogical. Despite my skeptical inclinations, I was strongly convinced by many of the theories contained in this DVD. In fact, Meldrum has completely changed my mind about the possibility of mapping some of the significant sites of the Book of Mormon. The DNA evidence is compelling on its own, but Meldrum also goes through approximately 3 hours of other evidence (too vast to discuss here), which fully supports his hypotheses. His hypotheses are also completely consistent with the Church's recent one-word alteration to the Introduction to the Book of Mormon.
Like most (if not all) scholars, Meldrum might have made some flawed assumptions in the DVD. But I'll let you be the judge. That said, the only part of the DVD that bothered me was his slightly unprofessional criticism of John Sorenson and other scholars who have advanced the Central American theories. I was also a little uncomfortable with his friend's testimony of his "conversion" to the Church based, at least in part, on some of Meldrum's findings. Whether or not you ultimately agree with all of Meldrum's ideas, this DVD is highly informative and certainly one of the most fascinating presentations I have ever seen on the DNA and geography issues raised by the Book of Mormon. I can't recommend it enough.
To purchase or obtain additional information about the DVD, please visit:
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Glad you liked it. I can't wait to get me talk out of the way so I can see it for myself. My thanks go to Noah Tyler for supplying me with a copy. It kills me that you have to stay caged up in this perfect weather. I'd be happy to pull you in a Radio Flyer around your neighborhood.
Sounds interesting - we're reading in Alma right now so I've been thinking of the Mississippi as the Sidon river thing.
Maybe you can show the video in GD as a lesson?!?
Eric, you're welcome to borrow my copy of the DVD. I just noticed that the author of the DVD is coming to Mesa next month to present his research.
Research by Zegura et al in 2004 calculated (using an 'effective' mutation rate of 0.69 per 1000) that the earliest male ancestor of most Native Americans lived as early as about 10,000 years BP. When Kayser's observed rate of 2.8 per 1000 is plugged into Zegura's calculations, that date drops to 2,500 years BP (Well within BOM times).
In 2007 there were two failures in the field of the 'effective' mutation rate for Y-chromosome.
One was in the work of Pakendorf, et al. [1] Pakendorf states "... it has recently been proposed that ‘effective’ mutation rates (Zhivotovsky et al. 2004), ... may reflect the true historical processes better .... Using the average ‘effective’ rate of [0.69 per 1000] calculated by Zhivotovsky et al. (2004) results in a much greater age of the Yakut male expansion of approximately 3800 years, .... However, these older dates are inconsistent with linguistic and archaeological evidence: Yakut is clearly a Turkic language, and the first group to split off from the Turkic language family was the so-called Oghuric group, which has been historically documented in the Ponto-Caspian steppes in the middle of the 5fth century AD (Golden 1998; Johanson 1998). Thus, the split of Yakut from Common Turkic cannot be earlier than 1,500 years BP."
The other failure is the work of Sharma et al [2]. Sharma calculates an age range between 34000 and 75000 years BP for Q in India using the 'effective' rate of 0.69 per 1000. Kayser's observed rate of 2.8 per 1000 reduces this to a believable 8500-18750 BP.
These two real world failures of the ‘effective’ Y mutation rate raises serious doubts about its validity. Application of the faster observed rate tells of an apocalyptic event around 600 BC similar to events described in the Book of Ether and or 1 Nephi.
Regards
Doug Forbes
Sources:
[1] Investigating the effects of prehistoric migrations in Siberia: genetic variation and the origins of Yakuts
Brigitte Pakendorf • Innokentij N. Novgorodov •Vladimir L. Osakovskij • Al’bina P. Danilova •
Artur P. Protod’jakonov • Mark Stoneking
Hum Genet (2006) 120:334–353
DOI 10.1007/s00439-006-0213-2
[2] A novel subgroup Q5 of human Y-chromosomal haplogroup Q in India
BMC Evolutionary Biology 2007, 7:232 doi:10.1186/1471-2148-7-232
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/7/23
15,000 years ago.
Please be very, very careful in regards to this dvd/presentation. You have already hit upon one very crucial concern in regards to your friend who has been "converted" because of this presentation. Please see fairlds.org for a complete review of this dvd.
I have seen the dvd / presentation and regardless of whether or not someone was converted to the Gospel one way or another...the fact of the matter still remains as follows: Those of us who have testimonies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints KNOW the Book of Mormon is true. That the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith, through translation of plates given him by an Angel of the Lord. Rod Meldrum takes nothing away from such a testimony by proposing that evidence suggests that the Book of Mormon land may be in one place or the other.
As such, rather than "being careful", I would "be wise" and prudent through the use of tools such as discernment and especially the use of the spirit to know if it is something that you should "be afraid" of. The fact of the matter is that what Rod Meldrum is proposing is no different then the propositions that have been put forth for the last nearly 200 years regarding the proposed lands of the Book of Mormon except that his proposed lands are a bit further north (and happen to coincide with DNA evidence, Book of Mormon words, Archeological discovery, Joseph Smith's own known comments and writing on the subject.
Also I would like to say to fairlds.org, if you truly cared, then you would be honest by critiquing (in a professional and non-judgemental manner)his arguments by discussing how well reasoned...(or in your case "not reasoned) the argument is that he contends.
And please make no mistake, what you proposed to do was a debate, but instead it turned into a mud-slinging, "Be carefull!" and a warning to those (this would be you speaking not me)poor naive lds saints that would go astray and loose their testimony if they were ever "enticed" into believing that maybe the Nephites could have been from the midwest / Great Lakes area.
So to end, I beleive that you should "publish" on your site a "real" argument that considers the logical soundness of the argument, facts and quotations which he shares with you all rather then pointing a bony finger of heresy at him by saying that "How could he say that all the leaders didn't pay attention to what Joseph said?!! How dare him.
When you attack a person and slander a person's character rather than attack the supporting positions or evaluating the evidence, it makes you look like an immature illogical bumpkin just looking out for number one. (So how much money have you made off those central american theories of yours....and more importantly, that wouldn't have anything to do with your interest in Rod's research would it?) ... Of course not.
FAIR answered most every claim made by Rod Meldrum in a comprehensive form, and Meldrum has yet to show that their critique is wrong in any way, other than saying he is being picked on. Not a very scholarly way to defend your theory for someone that is presenting scholarship.
http://www.fairlds.org/DNA_Evidence_for_Book_of_Mormon_Geography/
See here for more info.
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