The belief that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas are of
Israelite descent dates back to the fifteenth century. The discovery of the populated
New World seemed to challenge Europeans' theories of human origins, with the question of how the origins of Indigenous peoples in the Americas fitted into scriptural history. Various ideas arose, including possible relationships to
Egyptians,
Phoenicians,
Carthaginians,
Vikings,
Tartars, the
Chinese people or
Atlantis. However, the most popular idea to emerge was that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas were the descendants of the
lost tribes of Israel.
Spanish writings The theory was discussed by Spanish writers in the sixteenth century, including
Diego de Landa in his
Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (
The Relation of the Things of the Yucatan), written around 1566, and
Diego Durán's
History of the Indies of New Spain (1581). The first work to address the theory systematically came in 1607:
The Origin of the Indians of the New World by Dominican Gregorio García. García argued based on supposed similarities in appearance, custom (including idolatry) and language (including the frequency of
glottals) that the lost tribes of Israel travelled to the Americas alongside other migrations, including of Carthaginians and Phoenicians and people from China, Tartary and Atlantis. The book also makes etymological arguments: for example, García asserted that "Mex-" in "Mexico" was based on the Hebrew term "
Messiah". The theory was not just of historical concern: it carried concomitant eschatological implications as the return of the lost tribes and conversion of the entire Jewish nation would herald the
Second Coming of Jesus.
Elias Boudinot's
A Star in the West, or, a Humble Attempt to Discover the Long Lost Ten Tribes of Israel (1816) The Book states that Jewish people emigrated to the Americas after the destruction of the first Temple and it also states that
Jesus Christ appeared in the Americas and preached to Native Americans after his resurrection. Following the 1830s, the theory's popularity waned in both religious and scientific discourse, and almost entirely disappeared by the 20th century, Interest in the theory resurfaced at the end of the 20th century as increasingly-available DNA testing provided a new line of inquiry. In the 1990s and early 2000s,
Thomas Murphy and
Simon Southerton interrogated the historicity of the Israelite origins narrative in order to push the LDS to change doctrine concerning race. Murphy argued that the absence of Middle Eastern genetic markers in indigenous American groups not only proved that the Book of Mormon is historically inaccurate, but that it is further a man-made racist document produced in the context of early 19th century white social norms. Southerton expanded on this perspective in 2004, arguing that the Book of Mormon was pure fantasy born of pre-Civil War white racial anxiety.
John L. Sorenson and Matthew Roper responded to these arguments by demonstrating that indigenous American genetics were more complicated than portrayed by Southerton and Murphy, and that believing in the existence of indigenous Americans not descended from Israelites was compatible with Mormon faith. In 2007, the LDS scriptures committee adjusted its Book of Mormon explanatory text for indigenous American ancestry from "they are the principal ancestors of the Native Americans" to "they are among the ancestors of the Native Americans". ==See also==