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From: "Dienekes Pontikos" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Malaspina et al (2001)'s Cohens -- an answer ?
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 11:07:05 -0700
References: <4622E960.4000306@comcast.net><626664.76391.qm@web52111.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <626664.76391.qm@web52111.mail.re2.yahoo.com>


On 4/16/07, ellen Levy <> wrote:
> I did want to respond to the suggeston by Dienekes
> that the CMH-12 may be deterring Cohens who do not
> possess it from coming forward as Cohens. This is
> highly speculative, Dienekes. A lot of Cohens can be
> identified just by surname only (Cohen, Katz, etc).

Nothing is preventing people from getting a DNA test without giving
their real surname or, if they use their real surname not to release
this information to anyone. DNA results are not neutral information to
people. As someone who gets e-mailed quite a lot by people about DNA
results, I can tell you that when people get a result that clashes
with their pre-conceived notions or wishes, then they may react in the
manner I was describing.

> And I think it rather unreasonable to suggest that
> because someone is a 9 or 10 out of 12 marker match to
> my grandfather's CMH rather than matching all 12
> markers, that person will assume he is not a "genuine"
> Cohanim and refuse to share Cohanim family traditions
> or history for fear of being labeled "non-genuine."

There are a great many variety of people seeking DNA tests out there.
I don't think it's right to assume that people will be equally likely
to react in an open and enlightened manner no matter what their
results are.

> I note, Dienekes, that you wrote about this in 2005 on
> your blog, entitling your posting "What was REALLY
> Aaron's lineage?" Is this what you think the debate
> is really about, determining who gets to claim descent
> from the biblical figure Aaron? I hope not.
>

It was not I who framed the debate along these terms. It is the
original literature that speaks of Old Testament priests and Aaron and
provides lines of evidence in support of the consistency of the
Biblical with the genetic picture. Aaron may or may not have existed,
and his haplotype may or may not have survived up to the present, and
it may or may not be detectible in a statistical manner. All these are
questions to be investigated, and I am merely suggesting that the
early optimism regarding this issue's successful resolution was
premature. The J1/CMH-12 cluster is interesting but we can't jump into
conclusions about what it is with the available evidence. The same
applies to other clusters as well.


--

Dienekes' Anthropology Blog
http://dienekes.blogspot.com

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