For evidence, well beyond a Latter-day Saint context, for the presence of Hebrew in pre-Columbian America, see J. Huston McCulloch, “The Bat Creek Inscription: Cherokee or Hebrew?
Tennessee Anthropologist 13/2 (1988): 79-123; Cyrus H. Gordon, “A Hebrew Inscription Authenticated,” in By Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley, ed. John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1990), 1:67-80; and the debate between J. Huston McCulloch, “The Bat Creek Inscription: Did Judean Refugees Escape to Tennessee?” Biblical Archaeology Review 19/4 (July-August 1993): 46-53, 82-3, and p. Kyle McCarter, “Let’s Be Serious about the Bat Creek Stone,” Biblical Archaeological Review 19/4 (July-August 1993): 54-5, 83. Matthew Roper surveys the current state of the question on the Bat Creek materials in the present issue of this Review, on pages 139-43. Compare Welch, Reexploring the Book of Mormon, 29-31.