We’re continuing our discussion with Jim Vun Cannon, a counselor in the First Presidency of the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Jim gave his testimony of the Book of Mormon in part 2 of our conversation, and we touched on the Book of Mormon in our previous episode, and we talked about Remnant scriptures including the Doctrine & Covenants and Book of Mormon. Today we will delve deeper into mysteries such as whether issues surrounding DNA & Book of Mormon are compatible. I first asked Jim if he believes the Book of Mormon is a literal history or simply a foundational scripture as the Community of Christ believes?
GT: Let’s talk about the Book of Mormon. We’ve talked about that. I know in the LDS Church, most people I think believe it’s a literal history. It seems like in the Community of Christ, most probably don’t. {chuckles}
Jim: I would say you’re probably right.
GT: Where does the Remnant Church fit on that spectrum?
Jim: We believe that it is an absolute literal history. We believe that there were Lamanites and Nephites and Jacobites and Josephites and all the different –ites that were here upon the land. Obviously there’s a good debate on where they really were exactly for North and South America and so forth, and where maybe in North America and so forth. But yes we do believe that it was a literal people that were here.
I also asked him some of the questions of critics.
GT: One of the big knocks against the Book of Mormon is DNA. A guy by the name of Simon Southerton, an Australian researcher has said you don’t find any evidence of DNA. I think the LDS—well I won’t say the LDS Church response, [because] the LDS Church I believe is neutral on the issue, but a lot of LDS researchers have said, well the population was probably a lot smaller, so you wouldn’t have any evidence of that. What do you think?
Jim: Well you know, first of all, I think that whole study—I feel there was a motive to putting together that research, first of all. I don’t feel that was fair and scientific in the way that it was done. Considering if you really want to look at the groups of people, you could argue that Ishmael, is that really the name of a good practicing Jew? I don’t know, but I have a lot of questions. Oh by the way, how many peoples actually came to the Americas? I’ll just put it that way. We’ll summarize. How many different people came?
Well there were a lot of people, and they’re finding a lot of archaeological evidence of a lot of people, so to say that we know that all the Indians were Lamanites I think is really a fallacy. I don’t think you can really say that. They may or may not be. We really don’t know which ones really are or aren’t. For them to go forward and try to put together DNA evidence based on that, plus the other thing is you’re talking about many, many generations back. Trying to argue that you’ve got somebody you can match DNA with from that time period to this time period, I don’t think that science is quite there yet for that.
I really think that it’s a, “ah, we got them! We’re going to disprove the Book of Mormon in one fell swoop.” It’s just kind of like, ”no guys, I don’t think so.” I just don’t think that from my background, being in engineering, I don’t really feel like all the boxes were checked. I don’t really feel like it was an exhaustive study. I felt like there was more of a motive for putting together the research instead of actually looking at it objectively.”
Do you agree with Jim. Did Simon Southerton have an agenda to prove the Book of Mormon was false? Check out our conversation…..
