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> one of the lost tribes of Israel is a popular suspect As far as I know, this idea is a creation of the Mormon church, which believes (based on their foundati
by jacobolus 8y ago
> one of the lost tribes of Israel is a popular suspect
As far as I know, this idea is a creation of the Mormon church, which believes (based on their foundational holy text) that all native Americans are descended from a lost tribe of Israel, and which has spent significant resources sending archeologists around North America to prove this theory. (It turns out that if you lead with your conclusions, it is hard to do science. Some of the investigations of physical evidence are alright, but the reasoning and conclusions drawn from them are farcical.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mormon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mo...
- bunderbunder 8y agoThe Lost Tribe folklore was already almost 2 centuries old by the time Smith produced the Book of Mormon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes#Native_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes#Native_America...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jacobolus 8y agoAha, fair enough. The Mormons have put a lot more work into trying to defend/substantiate this theory than its other adherents have, from what I can tell searching around the web.
- ChainOfFools 8y agoit's also not unreasonable to assume that the prevalence of these myths was itself a major contributing substrate of the theology dreamed up by Joseph Smith.