The Ten Lost Tribes and the Birth of Mormonism

The Book of Mormon, a collection of unknown Mesoamerican prophecies thought by Mormons to have been compiled by the prophet/historian Mormon, was first published in 1830 in Palmyra, New York. The publisher, Joseph Smith (1805–1844), claimed to have found the book in 1827 in the form of gold plates, the location of which was given to him in revelation by the last of the prophets, Moroni, who had buried the entire collection. The basic theological premise of the movement identified America with “Zion,” and the Church of the Latter-day Saints as “Israel.” Rafinesque’s outrage reveals much about the cultural moment when Mormonism first appeared. What mattered was rational thought; indeed, Rafinesque seems as annoyed with Kingsborough’s idiocy as with Mormonism itself. Kingsborough’s sad fate—to have lost all in pursuit of the tribes—marked one of the last attempts to prove the Israelite identity of the Native Americans by way of ethnographic research, a tradition that had begun with the early Spanish writers whom he translated. The Jewish Indian theory as a scientific project died more or less with him. However, the elaboration of theology based on the idea that the ten tribes had arrived in America had only just begun to prevail. Mormonism is its most significant product.

The well-researched history and tenets of Mormonism are beyond the scope of this book. Yet it is worth stressing here one important Mormon principle: the transposition from theology to revelation of the principle of loss. Whereas Simon had tried to resuscitate the Jewish Indian theory by evoking its theological value, the Book of Mormon breathes life into it with revelation. Colin Kidd points out that “the book of Mormon is particularly rich with ethnological and genealogical lore” describing the roots of all sorts of biblical “ethnicities” found in America, thereby making its terrain and history part of the Bible. America was thus imbued with a biblical past that predated European colonization. What the Book of Mormon takes from the debates about the ten lost tribes is the singular possibility acknowledged since the early sixteenth century: that a biblical people had arrived in America. This new biblical past was implied in the sacred Mormon texts. Crucial in this regard is the idea that knowledge—or, more aptly, revelation—accompanied the Israelites who came to America. If the exile of the tribes were the miraculous work of God, he surely knows where they now are: “But now I go unto the Father, and also to show myself unto the lost tribes of Israel, for they are not lost unto the Father, for he knoweth whither he hath taken them,” declared the Mormon prophet Nephi (3 Nephi 17:4). If God carried the tribes away, he also revealed himself to them; and this revelation is to be united with the OldWorld revelation. This unification is carried out in the Book of Mormon: “And it shall come to pass that the Jews shall have the words of the Nephites, and the Nephites shall have the words of the Jews; and the Nephites and the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of Israel; and the lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and the Jews” (2 Nephi 29:13).

Loss is central in Mormon prophecies. Isaiah speaks only once about the “lost in Assyria”; Jesus commands his disciples only once to “go unto the lost sheep of Israel.” The Book of Mormon, however, deals with loss profusely, echoing the language of the older prophecies: “And behold, there are many who are already lost from the knowledge of those who are at Jerusalem. Yea, the more part of all the tribes have been bled away; and they are scattered to and fro upon the isles of the sea; and whither they are none of us knoweth, save that we know that they have been led away” (1 Nephi 22:4).

Even with the revelation of the Book of Mormon, loss does not end. In fact, it becomes more acute, as it is revealed that there are more lost peoples, lost even to our knowledge.We find the ten tribes “bleeding away” from the body of Israel, scattered all over the earth in the “isles of the sea,” not only in the Americas. Herein lies the moment of turning loss itself into revelation. The finder of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, turns at the precise moment of finding into a prophet himself. In 1831, Smith was given his own revelation: “After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto us; and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north” (Doctrine and Covenants 110:11). The “land of the north” appeared again in another vision promising “they who are in the north countries shall come in remembrance before the Lord” (Doctrine and Covenants 133:26). The North Pole and the idea of north play an important role in the Mormon geographical imagination. Orson Pratt (1811–1881), one of the original twelve apostles of Joseph Smith and a leading Mormon scholar, wrote:

When the Ten Tribes left Assyria they crossed the Euphrates River from west to east, miraculously. They must have repented of their sins or God would not have miraculously divided the river for them to pass over. They likely passed between the Black and Caspian Seas and continued on through Russia to the extreme north shores of Europe, i.e., 2500 miles north. But this could not be a year and a half’s journey: indeed, it would not be an average of five miles a day. From many intimations of ancient prophecy they evidently had a highway made for them in the midst of the Arctic Ocean and were led to a land in the neighborhood of the North Pole. This region would be about 4000 miles north of their Assyrian residence and could be traveled in eighteen months time at an average of a little less than eight miles a day.

Isaiah’s “highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria” (11:16) resonates here. Smith too claimed that a “highway shall be cast up in the midst of the great deep” (Doctrine and Covenants 133:34). Pratt’s calculations resemble those made by de Galindo who, in the 1580s, contemplated the tribes’ path to the Canaries. The early Mormons, too, debated the geography of the ten tribes and the status of the knowledge they introduced. Pratt—in a fascinating passage that reveals that even geographical science could never rest on its laurels—also wrote, “The Prophet Joseph [Smith] once in my hearing advanced his opinion that the Ten Tribes were separated from the Earth; or a portion of the Earth was by a miracle broken off, and that the Ten Tribes were taken away with it, and that in the latter days it would be restored to the Earth or be let down in the Polar regions.”

As revelations, Mormon claims are immune to any scientific challenge—not the case with the Jewish Indian theory, which relied on ethnographic findings. Nevertheless, scientific challenges to Mormonism have been an integral part of its history since its inception. And for its part, Mormon science is interested in proving the correlation between the various nations mentioned in the Book of Mormon and, for instance, the mound builders.

The power of the Mormon Church of Latter-day Saints lies, however, not in such proofs so much as in the conversion or restoration of the lost into the center of its revelation and in the commissioning of its prophets to the task of “gathering Israel from the four parts of the earth,” as Joseph Smith commanded. The Book of Mormon and the subsequent revelations represent one of the most radical reactions to the idea of the hope of Israel. The church, “Israel,” is engaged in an unrelenting effort to reunite with the lost—the rest of humanity—a true fulfillment of the hope of Israel and a true Concordia Mundi.