Thomas W Murphy

Edmonds Community College, Anthropology, Faculty Member

Thomas Murphy, Ph.D. from U. of Washington in 2003, recently retired from his role as Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Edmonds College. He founded the Learn and Serve Environmental Anthropology Field (LEAF) School in 2006. He has conducted ethnographic, ethnohistorical, and environmental research in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia as well as archaeological projects at Japanese Gulch and Hope Island in the Salish Sea basin. He won Honorable Mention in the 1993 Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics for a reflective essay on the Persian Gulf War. The Dialogue Foundation awarded him the 1998 Theology and Scripture Writing Award for his article, "Laban's Ghost." Students at Edmonds CC selected him for the Lifetime Honorary Triton Award for Outstanding Faculty in 2005 and the Board of Trustees followed three years later with the Excellence in Education Award. In 2011 the Washington Association of Conservation Districts selected him as the Washington State Conservation Educator of the Year and in 2014 KSER Public Radio recognized him for the Voice of the Community - Community Impact by an Individual for his municipal partnerships with the Cities of Mukilteo and Lynnwood. His leadership of ecological and archaeological projects helped the College, City of Mukilteo and Snohomish County win a VISION 2040 Award from the Puget Sound Regional Council for the Japanese Gulch Fish Passage Improvement Project.

less

1,369 Followers 384 Following 64 Co-authorsTotal Views17 Public Mentions

Videos

49:23

Dr. Elisa Pulido discusses Margarito Bautista, Nahua Mormon, with Dr. Thomas Murphy

Dr. Thomas Murphy, an anthropologist focusing on Indigenous Mormonisms, interviews historian Dr. ... more

22 views

Thesis

Imagining Lamanites: Native Americans and the Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon, first published by Joseph Smith, Jr. in 1830 in Palmyra, New York, draws upon... more The Book of Mormon, first published by Joseph Smith, Jr. in 1830 in Palmyra, New York, draws upon colonial and antebellum biblical hermeneutics and nineteenth century myths of the origin and fate of an ancient American civilization of Mound Builders to construct a textual image of people of Hebrew descent called Lamanites. The author casts Lamanites as the antithesis of civilized, Christianized, white Nephites and employs legends of a Semitic patriarchal seed and a Hamitic curse of a dark skin to naturalize the authority of white men. The text formulates a model of conversion that conflates religious with economic, political, social, and biological transformation. Mormons of European heritage drew upon the portrait of Lamanites from this sacred text to target American Indians for conversion, adoption, and assimilation while justifying the usurpation of Native American lands. Rather than facilitating the disappearance of Lamanites, Mormon evangelization fostered the emergence of a new and dynamic Lamanite identity. American Indian converts to Mormonism in the United States, Mexico, and beyond have adopted, contested, and creatively reconstructed Lamanite status in ways that often defied Mormon attempts to turn them white. Meanwhile, Mormon scholars have struggled with archaeological, historical, and biological evidence contradicting claims of a Hebrew origin of American Indians and offered new images of Lamanites that narrowed the geographical range of the Book of Mormon from a hemispheric view to more limited geographies in places like Central America. Recent development of DNA research into American Indian origins has undermined claims of Hebrew ancestry for American Indians in Central America and beyond. Some Mormon scholars are now claiming the Hebrews of the Book of Mormon left no genetic descendants while others are entertaining the possibility that the scripture may be inspired fiction.

Thomas W Murphy

Log In