Caller: Hello - first I'd like to say God bless you. I sure enjoy your program very much.
Pastor Doug: Well thank you.
Caller: And I probably have a silly question but I was wondering - you were talking a while ago about the world being divided before the flood.
Pastor Doug: Yes.
Caller: I was wondering if there was anything in the Bible that mentions where the Native American Indian came from? I've heard all kinds of theories. I've asked different Pastors about this and I never did get an answer. I just wondered if there was anything in the Bible about that?
Pastor Doug: Okay. Well first let me - You know I quoted a Scripture and never gave the reference. It's Genesis 10:25 where it says it was in the days of Peleg that the earth was divided. As far as where the different races and people who populated the world came from, the Bible tells us in Genesis 11 that the whole earth was of one language but at the Tower of Babel, when the Lord confounded the language because they were rebelling basically, He scattered them. And so from that time, there was a great migration that took place in Genesis 11. You remember when I said about the continents may have been closer together and there was a shift later?
Caller: Right.
Pastor Doug: From that time some of these people may have migrated to North America. They believe that the natives that went to South America may have gone across by boat. Some of the natives in North America may have come over the Berrien Strait - it could have been dry at that time. But these are people who very much resemble the inhabitants in the Orient.
Matter of fact, I worked in a Navajo reservation for a year and a half and my neighbors were all Navajos. And one of my neighbors came over one day and he said, 'Pastor Doug, I've got a question for you. Some Latter Day Saints, Mormon friends, just left my house and they tell me I'm a Jew'. You may have heard that the Latter Day Saints believe that the American Indians are the lost tribes of Israel. Well I'm looking at this fellow - now I'm Jewish - and I'm looking at my friend here and he said, 'Doug, I've been to Viet Nam and everyone over there confused me. I look like a Vietnamese but I don't look anything like you, so I just wanted to know if we're brothers?' And I said, 'Tim we are brothers but I don't think that it's because you're Jewish'. There's nothing in the Bible that says the American Indians were descendents from the lost tribes of Israel. I believe that they migrated over like the other peoples that found their way to the islands in Australia Pacific and so forth.
Caller: Okay, I sure thank you very much and God bless you.
Pastor Doug: Okay and God bless you.