Chosen for What?
“Israel the chosen seed;
Israel the Lord's people; Israel the only nation since Abraham that
had worshiped Jehovah . . . And so all Israel shall be saved: as it
is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall
turn away ungodliness from Jacob . . . But sadly: ‘They are
not all Israel, which are of Israel’ (Rom. 9:6), and only those
who turn to their God and accept him as the Promised Messiah shall
inherit with the chosen seed either in time or in eternity.”
(Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah, Vol.4, p.332)
Spiritual Change Reaches the Genetic Level: Jewish families have
a genetic imprint that identifies them not only as part of the original
people of Israel, but specifically those who once carried priesthood
responsibilities. Note the excerpts from the following article that
appeared in the Jerusalem Post as well as the New York Times.
Priestly Genes From Father to Son:
“In an unusual marriage
of science and religion, researchers have found biological evidence
in support of an ancient belief: certain Jewish men, thought to
be descendants of the first high priest, Aaron, the older brother
of Moses, share distinctive genetic traits, suggesting that they
indeed members of a single lineage that has endured for thousands
of years. The men are known as Jewish priests, a designation that
since the time of Aaron 3,300 years ago has been passed down through
the generations, exclusively from fathers to sons. The only way
to become a priest is to be born the son of one. They differ from
rabbis, though a priest may choose to become a rabbi. Historically,
certain blessings and rituals could be performed only by priests,
and some congregations today still follow that tradition.”
What’s in a Name?
“Many priests have the surname Cohen
or Kohen, which in Hebrew means priest, or related names like Kahn
or Kahane. Those with other surnames generally have the words ‘ha'kohen,’
for ‘the priest’ inscribed on their gravestones, sometimes
with an image of hands raised in a characteristic gesture of blessing.
Even in families where priests no longer perform the traditional
religious duties, knowledge of the heritage is often preserved.
It was the patrilineal nature of Jewish priesthood that piqued the
curiosity of a research team from Israel, England, Canada and the
United States. Knowing that another bit of a man's identity is also
passed strictly from father to son -- namely, the Y chromosome,
which carries the gene for maleness -- they set out to determine
whether that chromosome might carry special features that would
link the priests to each other and set them apart from other men,
confirming the priests' unique paternal lineage.”
Memory of “Two Priesthoods:”
“The subjects of
the current study were 188 Jewish men from Israel, North America
and England. The researchers did not rely on surnames to identify
priests, but instead asked the men if they had been told they were
priests. Sixty-eight had, and the rest identified themselves as
‘Israelites,’ a term used to describe laymen. (Men who
said they were Levites, members of a different priesthood, were
omitted from the study.) The researchers obtained Y chromosomes
by extracting them from cell samples scraped from the men's mouths.
They studied two sites, or markers -- known variable regions of
DNA -- to find out whether the priests and Israelites differed.
They did. Only 1.5 percent of the priests, as opposed to 18.4 percent
of the laymen, had the first marker. The other marker, which could
appear in five different forms, tended to occur most often in one
version in the priests. Fifty-four percent of the priests had this
version and 33 percent of the others had it.”
Genetics and Culture Give Same Picture:
“‘The simplest,
most straightforward explanation is that these men have the Y chromosome
of Aaron,’ said Dr. Karl Skorecki, a coauthor of the report
who conducts genetic research at the Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology, in Haifa. ‘The study suggests that a 3,000-year-old
oral tradition was correct, or had a biological counterpart.'' There
are at least 350,000 priests around the world today with that same
chromosome, he and his colleagues estimate, about 5 percent of the
Jewish male population. They are all related, Dr. Hammer said, and
could be considered distant cousins on their fathers' side. ‘It's
a beautiful example of how father-to-son transmission . . . one
genetic and one cultural, gives you the same picture,’ Dr.
Hammer said.”
Priestly Marker is Ancient:
“The study also supports the
idea that the priesthood was established before the world Jewish
population split into two major groups 1,000 years ago, as a result
of migrations. The marker findings in the priests were similar in
Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, indicating that the priesthood antedated
the division. Asked to comment on the study, Dr. James Lupski, a
medical geneticist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston,
said: ‘It's amazing to think how you can use these technologies
to investigate history and evolution. They took a very interesting
approach that will certainly be useful for studying the Y chromosome.
And a report like this is going to stimulate interest, stimulate
other groups around the world to confirm it in a different way.’”
Desire to Authenticate Priesthood:
“Dr. Hammer said he did
not know whether the chromosome testing used in the study would
be of interest to anyone other than scientists. But, he said, ‘I
do know someone named Cohen who said he'd be interested, in having
the test, just to find out if he was really a priest.’ At
this point, the test could suggest that a man was a priest, but
not prove it. It could, however, rule out the possibility with a
high degree of certainty.”
Will Priestly Leadership be Restored?
“‘It could say
your DNA is not consistent with patrilineal descent from a common
ancestor, Aaron,’ Dr. Skorecki said. ‘Whether the religious
community would accept that as grounds for exclusion is not an issue
I'd want to get into. It's for the rabbis to debate.’ Rabbi
Aaron Panken, of the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion
in Manhattan, said: ‘There's a lot of danger in this for religious
fanatics to go off in different directions. It could become a tool
for fundamentalists to try to weed out who is not a Cohen, and that
would be troublesome.’ In addition, Rabbi Panken said, because
priests were traditionally banned from marrying divorced women,
he could imagine fundamentalist groups demanding DNA testing before
permitting any man to marry a divorced woman, to make sure the man
was not a priest. ‘It would also concern me if we began to
look backwards,’ he said, ‘romanticizing the hereditary
model of priestly leadership. Do we want a hereditary leadership
pattern in the Jewish community? We haven't had that in 2,000 years.’”
(Denise Grady, The New York Times, Tuesday, January 7, 1997)
What If Latter-day Saints’ Mighty Change Was Also Genetic?
Now, combine the ability to make a genetic identification with the
mighty spiritual change that Alma speaks of and wonder how mighty
it is. Does it change you completely, “whole-istically?”
How exciting it would be for the same genetic study to be made on
Latter-day Saints who have been given the priesthood. Mormons claim
a blood descendancy from the biblical tribes of Israel and function
in restored priestly Temple rites.
Are You Chosen?
“We are the chosen people, the elect of God,
those in whose veins flows believing blood. Abraham is our father.
We are the children of the prophets and have been born in the house
of Israel. Isaac and Jacob are our forebears. We are the children
of the covenant God made with Abraham, that Abraham's seed should
have the right to the gospel and the priesthood and eternal life.
There is no blessing ever offered to the ancients that is not ours
to obtain. ‘If God be for us who can be against us! Who shall
lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?’ (Romans 8:31,
33.)” (Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of
Faith, p.40)
The latter-day Temples hold the sacred secrets of what was, what
is and what will be. Could part of the secret of the mighty change
be seen in LDS genetics, in that our blood would be changed - cleansed?
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