ATHEISTS ONLY

Genetic testing supports some Lemba oral traditions related to origin in the Middle East. A genetic study in 1996 of 49 Lemba males suggested that more than 50% of the Lemba Y-chromosomes are West Asian in origin, shared by Arabs and Jews.

To define the people's origin more specifically, Parfitt and others developed a larger study to compare additional Lemba subjects (for whom clans were recorded) with males from South Arabia and Africa, as well as Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. They found significant similarities between the markers of the Lemba and men of the Ḥaḍramawt in Yemen. They also learned that the population in Yemen was relatively recent, so would not have shared common ancestors with those of the Lemba.

A subsequent study in 2000 found that a substantial number of Lemba men carry a particular haplotype of the Y-chromosome known as the Cohen modal haplotype (CMH), as well as a haplogroup of Y-DNA Haplogroup J found among some Jews, but also in other populations across the Middle East and Arabia. The genetic studies have suggested that there is no Semitic female contribution to the Lemba gene pool. This indicates that Israelite men migrated to Africa in ancient times and took wives from among the local people after settling in new communities.

Among Jews the CMH marker is most prevalent among Kohanim, or hereditary priests. As recounted in Lemba oral tradition, the ancestor of the Buba clan "had a leadership role in bringing the Lemba out of Israel" and eventually into Southern Africa. The genetic study found that 50% of the males in the Buba clan had the Cohen marker, a proportion higher than in the general Jewish population. While not defining the Lemba as Jews, the genetic results confirm the oral accounts of ancestral males originating from outside Africa, and specifically from southern Arabia.

It's utterly absurd to speak of "Jewish DNA" as if there were some gene pool, or worse, some race that distinguishes "Jews" from other peoples.

I think the problem comes in when people try to claim that a sub-population's genetic uniqueness, which is always fractional, gives them some sort of innate inferiority or even guilt for something their ancestors did.

But I didn't say the DNA evidence was untrue. I just said that linking that evidence to claims of inherent superiority and/or inferiority is faulty logic.

As my students so often say, "I am not understanding." I don't see Set linking genetics and innate superiority/inferiority. What am I missing? Explain, please?

I'm willing to bet that the majority of slaves brought over from Africa weren't Christians.