In the final part of our conversation with George Potter, we’ll talk about the sticky topic of Book of Mormon DNA. How does George respond to that question? We’ll also discuss Hagoth and Thor Hyerdahl. What do they have in common? The claim is that both travelled between the Polynesian islands and South America. Check out our conversation.
Don’t miss our other conversations with George: https://gospeltangents.com/people/george-potter
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DNA & Book of Mormon
George 00:52 Anyway, I feel that if you look at where is there the most likely Nephite civilization and a Jaredite civilization in the Americas that’s supported by archeology, supported by mythology, oral traditions? The best look [is] South America at the moment. This book I told you about, 1491, before Columbus was in the Americas, what the Americas were like before Columbus, he talks about the fact that the whole archaeological world is turned upside down in the last two decades. Before, everybody thought the mother of civilizations was Mesoamerica. No, it’s Peru. And it is all the technology. Everything that happened there, culturally, went from South America northward, eventually. So, I just encourage people. He also said that most of the attention has been given archaeologically has been to Mesoamerica. Peru is just right now being discovered, like, the Nazca lines. They thought there were 20 of them. Now they’ve found over 100 of them. They just keep discovering things down there. It’s pretty new for archaeologists down there, especially places like Belte Plano, where they say there’s, like, 150 different archaeological sites. They’ve excavated two or three.
GT 02:17 Let me ask you this. It seems like Joseph Smith believes in a hemispheric model, basically North and South America. John Sorenson came in and said, “No, we think it’s more of a smaller area, limited geography.” Is it all of South America, part of South America? How big is your theory, would you say? Is it more limited, or is it all of the continent? Or what do you think?
George 02:51 In one book, based on my research, based on the limited time I’ve had there—I’ve spent a lot of time in Arabia, very little time in Peru. But it’s just, wow. The place is just such a nursery for archaeology in Peru.
GT 03:07 And Peru includes Chile, would you say, in your model?
George 03:13 There is a model that I have that it starts in Colombia, Southern Colombia. It goes all the way down to northern Chile, the Andes countries. Those are basically what I believe would be the primary lands in the Book of Mormon. I also believe that there was lots of trade and communication between North America and Mesoamerica and South America. They know of ancient trade routes. They have found Peruvian minerals up in North Carolina. And so, you have the fact that the people of South America were going into Mesoamerica, into North America, bringing the technology, bringing the culture, bringing the belief systems into those areas. There could have been missionaries. How did Moroni get from Peru to New York?
GT 04:12 Right.
George 04:13 Now, Hill Cumorah, well it’s not the Hill Cumorah. People call it Hill Cumorah. How’d he get there? It took a long time for him to get there.
GT 04:21 The two Cumorah theory.
George 04:22 He was a young man when the Nephites were destroyed, most of the Nephites were destroyed. He had years. He could have walked around the world several times. He could have taken some pack animals, put the plates on it and gotten up there. They know they were using canoes to go across the Caribbean. So, there could have been trade. There could have been lots of intermarriages and stuff like that. They’re all the children of Israel, and we’re all children of God, but the seed of Lehi could have been everywhere. They mix. Let me ask, where was the model? What’s fascinating is that found in the Amazon Basin, these are primitive tribes. They have DNA from Polynesia. Now, how did that take place? Did the people from the Amazon go to the Polynesian Islands or did the Polynesians come there?
GT 05:27 Yeah, I’ve heard there’s trade between Polynesia and South America.
George 05:30 Right.
GT 05:31 But the problem is, for a lot of people, since you mentioned DNA, I want to go there anyway, they don’t have any Israelite DNA in South America.
George 05:42 You don’t have any Hebrew DNA anywhere in the Americas, if you want to be frank.
GT 05:51 Yes, absolutely.
George 05:52 Now, [the] Sorenson Institute years ago, came out and said [that] they had found Hebrew DNA in Bolivia and in Brazil, in the Amazon. They had found Hebrew DNA. They recanted that a couple of years later, not because they didn’t find Hebrew DNA there. They said they could not verify that it hadn’t been influenced by the Spanish or the colonists. So, it wasn’t certain, anything for sure. Now, another interesting DNA study, and I can give you the links to that. But remember that the Incas believe four brothers came. And when these brothers came, there were other people there, whether they were Jaredites or just an indigenous population.
GT 06:45 So, you don’t believe South America was empty when they got here basically, okay.
George 06:47 It couldn’t have been. They were fighting wars [with] multitudes of people. Nephi talks about his friends who believed in him. Well, who are those people who went with him to the City of Nephi? Yeah, I don’t believe they’re just this pocket. There were people in the Americas. We know that. So, the four brothers come, and they then enter this indigenous population, and they teach them all these different things. Well, the DNA, there’s a team of international DNA guys, and they’re working out of Peru, who have gone to the Incas, people who tie themselves to the royal family of the Incas, which I believe were the Nephites. That purity, they say they can test their lines back to the royal family, the Incas. They looked at their DNA, and here’s something curious about their DNA. There’s an influx of DNA coming into that line back, a short period, in terms of DNA time. This confirms, or I wouldn’t say the word confirms, it matches so well, the idea of four brothers coming in and mixing it. In fact, the article that I think is written in the Journal of Science, Natural Science, says, DNA confirms the legend of the four brothers that came into South America, and that’s not LDS.
GT 08:18 They nailed it to 600 BC. Is that what you’re saying?
George 08:21 They can’t nail 600 BC, they just know that not too many generations back, there was a small influx of foreign DNA coming into the general DNA pool of the Inca line. So, they’re saying that that’s confirmed. That’s not, it has nothing to do with the church. These are scientists who claim that this DNA supports, let’s say word ‘supports,’ the theory of the four brothers entering as an exogenous DNA line into the Peruvian culture.
GT 08:53 But we don’t know that it’s Hebrew. It was just foreign. We don’t know it was Hebrew DNA.
George 08:57 No, we don’t know it’s Hebrew DNA. We don’t know what Lehi’s DNA was. Do you know what Lehi’s DNA was?
GT 09:03 Well.
George 09:04 It’s not Hebrew!
GT 09:05 My responses is…
George 09:07 They say it was Egyptian. He was actually an Arab.
GT 09:13 Because the Lemba Tribe, have you heard of the Lemba Tribe?[1] They are black Africans in South Africa. They have Hebrew DNA. They date from about 600 BC.
George 09:27 Have you ever read the book In The Blood?[2]
GT 09:30 No.
George 09:31 I might just have that here somewhere. He wrote a book and the thing that’s fascinating about his book was that he came to Salt Lake, because he was a geneticist and he’s looking at DNA. The best records on genealogy to support illnesses and things like that is found, in course, our genealogical records or family history records. So, he came here. He wrote a book about what happens to DNA, when a little bit of DNA gets into a larger pool. So, he studied, for example, the Jews that went down to Yemen. There’s a group in Yemen, historically had been Jews. The Israelis had an airlift down there and steal these people and bring them back to Israel. They’re going to get them out of Yemen. They got back to Israel. They found out they had no Hebrew DNA. They had Arab DNA. They the same thing happened when they did the Inquisition in Spain, where the Jews had to flee in 1942. During the Inquisition, they had to get out of Spain or be killed unless they converted. They all went to Turkey, or a good portion went to Turkey. They went and tested the Jews in Turkey. Guess what? They didn’t have Hebrew DNA. They had Turkish DNA. Because Romeo and Juliet, I’m sorry, people mix whether they have religious sanctions against it, it doesn’t matter. Love proceeds.
George 11:23 It was really funny, when I lived in Switzerland there was a Canton Appenzell. There’s upper Appenzell and there is lower Appenzell. It’s a valley that goes up into the Alps. And traditionally upper Appenzell were Catholics and lower Appenzell we’re Protestants. About 1900s, early 1900’s, they got upset because the Catholic boys were marrying the Protestant girls and vice versa. And so, they forced everybody who’s a Catholic to go up into the upper Appenzell from lower Appenzell and vice versa. So, they did that. Everybody had to move. So, it purified Protestants and Catholics. Guess what happened 20 years later? They’re mixing again, and they finally just gave up. Even though they had very strong convictions that they shouldn’t do that, love prevailed. So, it’s really hard to take a DNA sample of a group and say, “What happened when you mix it?” So if Lehi got there, there’s what how many? Six sons, basically?
GT 12:39 [Yes.]
George 12:39 They intermarry themselves for a few generations, and then they start marrying everybody else.
GT 12:45 It dies out.
George 12:46 It dies out very quickly. And that’s what Stephen Jones says in his book, In the Blood. It’s very interesting. He’s not LDS, of course, and he’s…
GT 12:55 But yet we have this Polynesian stuff. So that’s interesting.
George 12:58 Yeah because that’s isolated out in the Amazon. So, that’s something that’s hard to explain. But they know the Polynesians are trading. But it brings it back to Hagoth. Hagoth makes these boats. And from what I understand, the Church leaders have always said the Hawaiians are the children of Hagoth. Have you heard that?
GT 13:18 I have heard that.
George 13:19 Yeah. If that’s so, Hagoth had to travel north. He sailed north. Well, to get to Hawaii, from Peru, you’ve got to sail north and eventually take the currents or the winds over. Now, if you traveled from some other direction, the Heartland or some other place, you don’t travel north to get to Hawaii. You travel west. But from Peru, you go north. So, it’s interesting. The Incas have always had the seafaring nation. When they first encountered the Spanish, it was with the Incas, they were 150 miles out in the ocean. They’re headed out to some island to trade. And they’re in a balsa ship. The Spanish are saying, “Oh my gosh, what are these guys doing out in the middle of the ocean?” Well, they knew where they were going. They were trading. Have you ever compared the reed ships in Lake Titicaca with the reed ships in Mesopotamia?
GT 14:22 No.
George 14:26 They’re identical. They’re absolutely identical.
GT 14:29 Hmm.
George 14:29 In fact, Thor Heyerdahl wanted to travel, I guess, on The Ra originally. He went and got some shipbuilders from Egypt. Of course, the Ra fell apart, halfway across the ocean. So, what did he do, he went to Bolivia and got Bolivians to build these ships, his reed ship. But, the ships are the same. It’s crazy, at the end, they have the head of an animal on it and they have these reed ships with sails. Go to Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and then go to look at the Mesopotamia ship.
GT 15:04 I know we have got a lot of trips planned ahead: Arabia, Bolivia….
George 15:07 Well, I’m going to Peru in the end of May. Anybody who wants to see Book of Mormon sites, I’ll take them to the Jaredite site. I’ll take them to Zarahemla, Bountiful and City of Nephi. And I’ll just tell them what is there and what they’ve discovered. And then they can make up their own mind. But I was asked to go on a cruise ship one time to some other location. I said, “I can’t go there because I’d ruin the people’s vacation. {both laughing} There’s no Book of Mormon civilization there. Please find it. So look at any internal map that you want, Sorenson whoever it is, show me your map. Now, let’s go there and dig. And let’s study all that’s already been reported about the civilization that lived there. Were they a Nephite civilization? The best I can come up with is Peru. And I think it’s a pretty strong argument.
GT 16:20 I have already kept you a long time. I don’t want to keep you too much longer but thank you.
George 16:24 Well, okay.
GT 16:25 Thank you, George Potter for being here on Gospel Tangents.
George 16:28 My pleasure. Best wishes to all your listeners. May they keep exploring. We’re just at the beginning of this.
[1] See https://gospeltangents.com/tag/lemba-tribe/
[2] Can be purchased at https://amzn.to/4iPFL4U
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