On 12/17/2015 08:13 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
But here-and-now,
https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-m...udies?lang=eng
seems to me like they are walking it back (if, in fact, there is
anything to walk back)... although they're leaving themselves some
wiggle room.

I read that as a log winded statement that DNA analysis can neither
confirm of deny that any extant Native Americans can be linked to the
Near East. After unsuccessful attempts to confirm the link one has to
fall back to DNA does not deny the Truth either. So I guess there is a
little wiggle room by moving from the Lamanites were the principal
ancestors of the modern Native Americans to they were among the
ancestors although we can't prove it.

To attempt to treat the vivid descriptions of the Nephites, Lamanites,
and Jaredites as allegory or metaphor would go against Joseph Smith's
explicit statements. Start down that path and soon there's nothing left.
The Book of Mormon isn't a supplemental text that can be shuffled of to
Apocrypha.

Then there are the apologetics for the various anachronisms. Like most
religious apologetic writings it's preaching to the choir.