NHM is so incredibly convincing, given it was virtually unknown to a XIX New Englander, and that the description of both NHM and Bountiful are so spectacularly, and impossibly, accurate, that it/they alone ought to tip the balance for anyone who sees them.
What is the description of Nahom?
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Calculating the odds of Joseph's coming up with the details of Lehi's Arabian trek that so closely match the actual terrain and cultural facts make any possibility of its being a coincidence trivial to the point of vanishing.
7 years to cross the Empty Quarter is convincing.
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A further follow up is how much such "similar reasonable evidence" would it require?
Given the lack of placing the Book of Mormon's New World geography, the lack of identifying the overwhelming majority of its more than 120 named places, its people, its language (ref. Egyptian), its culture (New World Christianity/Judaism)... there is no good reason to assume that a consonant equivalent with Nahom to Nihm is anything more than coincidence (provided a 600 B.C. toponym is ever proven).
Atheism: the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything, and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
1. The LDS church has not endorsed any proposed location. Until then, claims made by apologists remain personal opinion and speculative.
2. The proposed link between Nahom and the Nihm tribe and altar inscriptions are based on linguistic assumptions.
Fair statements.
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3. A linguistic link to Hebrew is also an assumption, as the Book of Mormon was written in Reformed Egyptian.
True, and (as James Hoch and Yoshiyuki Muchiki point out) Egyptian n?m may apply to those who are dead as having been "carried off, taken away." It is used in the tomb of Neferhotep I "Servants lament their deceased master: 'The shepherd of us both has been taken away from me'."
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4. The name of a tribe does not give us a place
a. Today the Nihm tribe reside about 25 miles north of Sana'a, Yemen. This is not evidence that a location named NHM existed in 600 B.C.
b. The 7th-6th century altar inscription that reads: son of Naw'an the Nihmite is also not evidence that there was a place called NHM in 600 B.C. We have to make another assumption that the tribe was predominant at the time to have its area of residence called after itself and that is was in line with Lehi's travel. There is no confirmed 600 B.C. place called NHM.
True. Still, this is an interesting "coincidence," and like all such odd facts, must be put into the overall database and evaluated as part of a cultural complex within anthropological systems theory.
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5. 1 Ne. 17:4 informs us that the journey from Jerusalem to Bountiful took 8 years. The men took wives in the valley of Lemuel (1 Ne. 16:6-7). The women gave birth around Nahom (1 Ne. 17:1). For this reason, in the Journey of Faith DVD, S. Kent Brown deduces that it took them 1 year to reach Nahom from Jerusalem. This means Lehi and company spent the next 7 years crossing the Rub' al Khali nearly eastward to reach Bountiful. If there were a group of Jews traveling down the Arabian peninsula, it's preposterous that they would have abandoned the watering holes of the Frankincense Trail to cross the Empty Quarter. That's suicide, and is a fatal flaw to the Nahom/Bountiful model ignored by apologists.
False. There is no indication that the Lehites followed the regular Frankincense Route. In fact, they most likely continued traveling "in the borders which are nearer the Red Sea" (I Nephi 2:5), known as the Tihama. The Book of Mormon does not tell us how long Lehi & Co spent in the Valley of Lemuel, nor how much time is spent at this or that encampment en route along the Red Sea coast until they stop at Nahom and then turn obliquely, undoubtedly skirting the edge of the Empty Quarter, and finally reaching the coast of the Arabian Sea. Not only are we not given a detailed itinerary, but we have no concept of the time spent in the harshest areas.
However, we do know that the progressive dessication of the area is much greater today, along with the extinction of many game animals which roamed these areas anciently. Eating meat raw could be explained by the absence of kindling for fires on that side of the great mountain range facing the monsoon. The descriptions are true to the time and place (the mise en scene) and there is nothing improbable about the journey.
Redefining excellence upwards, just to make it a challenge.
Contributor
9,845 posts
Posted 06 March 2011 - 06:31 PM
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jmordecai, on 20 February 2011 - 10:06 PM, said:
A linguistic link to Hebrew is also an assumption, as the Book of Mormon was written in Reformed Egyptian.
How many things can you get wrong in just one sentence?
First, the Lehites, or, at least, the Nephites, were cultural Jews, and for the first generation, political Jews, as well. There is every reason to accept that the language of the Book of Mormon was Hebrew.
Second, the characters on the Plates of Mormon were Egyptian, not the language. Whatever the connections between Lehi/Nephi and Egypt, and there were probably many, their language was Hebrew, and Moroni explicitly says that in the same verse where he describes the characters as reformed Egyptian. Please note the capitalization and the fact that the wording is emphatically about characters, not language.
Third, while there is no explicit language in the Book of Mormon that says so, it seems more than probable that the Nephites spoke a Hebrew dialect and wrote in a variant of Hebrew characters. The reformed Egyptian characters were a kind of hierographic notation used, as far as we can tell, exclusively by the official sacred historians like Mormon and Alma.
It is quite common in unrelated languages (like English and Russian) to transliterate proper nouns ("Smith" is "????", and we use "Putin" to identify the Prime Minister of the Confederation of Independent States), so we'd expect to see Nahom in an English translation of a Semitic word transliterated into Hebrew written in a modified form of an Egyptian "alphabet". It could be simpler if there were not so many variables, but there are.
Lehi
Edited by LeSellers, 06 March 2011 - 07:12 PM.
The public school system: "Usually a twelve year sentence of mind control. Crushing creativity, smashing individualism, encouraging collectivism and compromise, destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting it instead into meek subservience to authority".
— Walter Karp
Robert F. Smith, on 05 March 2011 - 09:28 AM, said:
False. There is no indication that the Lehites followed the regular Frankincense Route.
You do realize that interpretation differs with the majority of Farms apologists I've seen, in particular the Journey of Faith DVD?
Atheism: the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything, and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
[/i]
How many things can you get wrong in just one sentence?
First, the Lehites, or, at least, the Nephites, were cultural Jews, and for the first generation, political Jews, as well. There is every reason to accept that the language of the Book of Mormon was Hebrew.
Second, the characters on the Plates of Mormon were Egyptian, not the language. Whatever the connections between Lehi/Nephi and Egypt, and there were probably many, their language was Hebrew, and Moroni explicitly says that in the same verse where he describes the characters as reformed Egyptian. Please note the capitalization and the fact that the wording is emphatically about characters, not language.
Third, while there is no explicit language in the Book of Mormon that says so, it seems more than probable that the Nephites spoke a Hebrew dialect and wrote in a variant of Hebrew characters. The reformed Egyptian characters were a kind of hierographic notation used, as far as we can tell, exclusively by the official sacred historians like Mormon and Alma.
It is quite common in unrelated languages (like English and Russian) to transliterate proper nouns ("Smith" is "????", and we use "Putin" to identify the Prime Minister of the Confederation of Independent States), so we'd expect to see Nahom in an English translation of a Semitic word transliterated into Hebrew written in a modified form of an Egyptian "alphabet". It could be simpler if there were not so many variables, but there are.
Lehi
1 Nephi 1:2 (600 B.C.) says the record was in the language of the Egyptians.
Atheism: the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything, and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
Redefining excellence upwards, just to make it a challenge.
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Posted 07 March 2011 - 08:26 AM
jmordecai, on 06 March 2011 - 11:05 PM, said:
1 Nephi 1:2 (600 B.C.) says the record was in the language of the Egyptians.
No, 1 Nephi 1:2 says that Lehi's teaching consisted of (included) the Language of the Egyptians.
1 Nephi 1:1~2 said:
1 I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days. 2 Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.
He recorded the words of his father ("the language of my father") and his record was that: the record of his father's teaching.
It is preposterous to assume, as you seem to, that a cultural, religious vi Jew (albeit a Mannasan) would speak Egyptian to his family, even though we know he read Hebrew (the Brass Plates were not in reformed, nor any other kind of, Egyptian. Their language was Hebrew.
Further, Moroni's statement, that their language was a Hebrew dialect and their ordinary writing was in a variant of the Hebrew script, is far clearer than anything Nephi wrote about it.
Morm 9:33~33 said:
32 And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. 33 And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.
They ordinarily wrote in reformed Hebrew characters, but the plates, being small as they were (in Nephi's day, too—note how often he complains about their size, and he is not alone in this, the lament runs through the entire volume), they were forced to use a different character set, "reformed Egyptian", but the language was their own Hebrew dialect ("the Hebrew hath been altered by us also").
I do not, and I have seen no one else among us Saints who has, argue that the Nephite historians and prophets of the Book of Mormon carried no Egyptian influence into their writings. Language is a powerful tool that alters the way people think, and it seems Lehi taught his sons to speak Egyptian. One rather famous passage in Tolstoy reminds us just how powerful this influence is. Sorry, famous as it is, I have forgotten which character says it, but the idea is, after having been chastised for speaking it in French "but you can't say that in Russian!" There were probably times when a Lehite may have thought the same thing: "You can't say that in Hebrew!", but Hebrew was their mother tongue.
Lehi
The public school system: "Usually a twelve year sentence of mind control. Crushing creativity, smashing individualism, encouraging collectivism and compromise, destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting it instead into meek subservience to authority".
— Walter Karp
You do realize that interpretation differs with the majority of Farms apologists I've seen, in particular the Journey of Faith DVD?
I take it that Clan Lehi continued the practice Nephi describes in I Nephi 2:5 "he traveled in the wilderness in the borders which are nearer the Red Sea," which is the lowland coastal plain known in Arabic as the Tihama. I know of no reason why they would follow the main Incense Route, and I know of no poll of so-called "FARMS apologists" which has been taken on that matter. There may be some people both in and out of the Maxwell Institute who hold that Classic-Main-Route view, but I am unaware of them. Even though I saw the "Journey of Faith" DVD, I can't recall that position being taken by the narrator. Perhaps you could name the persons who take that position?
1 Nephi 1:2 (600 B.C.) says the record was in the language of the Egyptians.
You may be correct in that opinion about the meaning of I Nephi 1:2 (597 BC), even though your timing is a few years off. Certainly Nibley agreed with you on that (as do I), but there are some others who feel that the Book of Mormon was etched in Egyptian characters and Hebrew language. One way of determining the truth might be to decipher the so-called "Anthon Transcript."
Robert F. Smith, on 12 March 2011 - 03:37 AM, said:
I know of no reason why they would follow the main Incense Route
I think foreigners traveling in a foreign land would likely follow the main routes for trading and water.
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I know of no poll of so-called "FARMS apologists" which has been taken on that matter. There may be some people both in and out of the Maxwell Institute who hold that Classic-Main-Route view, but I am unaware of them.
Even though I saw the "Journey of Faith" DVD, I can't recall that position being taken by the narrator. Perhaps you could name the persons who take that position?
Atheism: the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything, and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
2 Ne. 19:1 (c. 559-545 B.C.) quotes nearly verbatim from Is. 9:1 of the 1611 KJV, including 5 words added by the KJV (italicized). The bigger issue is that Joseph qualified the "sea" as the Red Sea, which a) Jesus also quoted Isaiah in Mt. 4:14-15, b) "Red Sea" here is not in any source MSS, c) the Red Sea is 250 miles away to the southwest.
That's a miss.
Jesus consistently quotes from the Septuagint Greek version of the OT (or at least whoever wrote Matthew used that source), except when he occasionally quotes an Aramaic Targum -- but translated into Greek, which Jesus likely never used. Our earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew are centuries later, and even the Qumran mss of Isaiah are at least 5 centuries after Isaiah. Aside from that, we do not know what was on the Brass Plates, including any possible errors. So drawing hard and fast conclusions from just this one item is nearly impossible. Biblical texts have many such "problems," but that is not taken to mean that there is something wrong with the whole. Simply a matter of textual criticism, and certainly to be expected.
elguanteloko, on 22 February 2011 - 02:51 AM, said:
My "lol, really?" was directed to your claims that mormons don't believe in miracles.
it doesn't cohere better with physics because it doesn't have meaning in that field in the first place. "immaterial", "more pure or fine matter", etc... these things don't mean anything intelligible.
I was merely giving a Tibetan example of how normal assumptions might be wrong. After all, it is you who are making the "supernatural" claim.
I simply adopt the more rational position (of Bertrand Russell for example) that abrogation of natural law is nonsense. Why would anyone adopt it? Perhaps for the convenience of rejecting it, and thus eliminating the possibility of rational discussion of a matter which induces cognitive dissonance?
Close observers of Mormonism have commented on this tendency to regard all phenomena as unitary and in accordance with natural law. That is why Pratt's discard of immaterialism as absurd should be so instructive -- because modern science agrees wholeheartedly!! Science doesn't know of anything but matter & energy, which are interchangeable.
Thus, does Thomas F. O'Dea claim that "There is actually no room in Mormonism for philosophy as distinct from theology" (The Mormons [UofChicago, 1957], 233).; and thus does James E. Talmage say that miracles are “a higher manifestation” of “natural law” (The Articles of Faith [1901/1984], 200; Talmage, Jesus the Christ [1915], 81 [=reprint 1983], 77); so also does Brigham Young say that "We cannot talk about spiritual things without connecting with them temporal things, . . . They are inseparably connected" (quoted in L. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom [1958], 6).
I already explained my position, so I don't intend to explain it again. I CFR'd for evidence that a place called Nahom existed in 600 B.C. That has yet to be demonstrated.
That you don't understand the critics position doesn't by default prove Nahom was a place. My arguments have nothing to do with whether or not Smith had access to maps. If he did, I think he would have used Nehhm. But it's obvious he didn't since he identified the sea in Isaiah 9:1, JST (2 Ne. 19:1) as the Red Sea. I've made other points, like how the Jews survived a 7 year passage across the Empty Quarter that remain unanswered.
In historical studies of this kind (which are a regular staple of archeology, biblical history, Egyptology, and the like) one doesn't necessarily have to provide absolute proof for everything. It is quite enough to have reasonable indicators. In this case (Nahom), you insist that some actual place be proven to exist at about the right location in 600 BC. One only rarely has that luxury in ancient history. It is enough that one can show that, over time, the name itself has existed in various forms in that region (on altars, as a place, as a tribe), which only goes to back up the notion that it is credible that such a place existed as described in the Book of Mormon. But did it actually exist? We cannot know based on the available evidence, but the credibility of such a place being the cemetery of Ishmael is much enhanced by the existing evidence.
The Isaiah 9:1 point is moot, as I have indicated.
The notion that Clan Lehi spent 7 years in the Empty Quarter is nonsense. You have invented that notion for polemic purposes and the text does not suggest such a thing.
Robert F. Smith, on 12 March 2011 - 03:37 AM, said:I know of no reason why they would follow the main Incense Route
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jmordecai: I think foreigners traveling in a foreign land would likely follow the main routes for trading and water.
I know of no poll of so-called "FARMS apologists" which has been taken on that matter. There may be some people both in and out of the Maxwell Institute who hold that Classic-Main-Route view, but I am unaware of them.
This is a jumble of general search results none of which have anyone claiming that Clan Lehi adhered to the main Incense Route. Were you serious, you would find an actual quote from someone making such a claim -- not simply give me a bunch of articles to wade through.
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Quote Smith:
Even though I saw the "Journey of Faith" DVD, I can't recall that position being taken by the narrator. Perhaps you could name the persons who take that position?
This is a blatantly anti-Mormon website, and it deliberately misstates what Mormon scholars have been saying, even going so far as to claim that "To mitigate the absurdity that a group of Jews survived seven years crossing the Empty Quarter, apologists have been moving the spot where the Jews would have turned to head towards Bountiful, to get it below the Empty Quarter." The only people moving anything are the anti-Mormon polemicists.
In addition, a note under a Kent Brown quote falsely states that Nahom is not a Hebrew word. That's just dumb.
Robert F. Smith, on 28 March 2011 - 05:51 AM, said:
Jesus consistently quotes from the Septuagint Greek version of the OT (or at least whoever wrote Matthew used that source), except when he occasionally quotes an Aramaic Targum -- but translated into Greek, which Jesus likely never used. Our earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew are centuries later, and even the Qumran mss of Isaiah are at least 5 centuries after Isaiah. Aside from that, we do not know what was on the Brass Plates, including any possible errors. So drawing hard and fast conclusions from just this one item is nearly impossible. Biblical texts have many such "problems," but that is not taken to mean that there is something wrong with the whole. Simply a matter of textual criticism, and certainly to be expected.
Thus my point for Nahom: drawing hard and fast conclusions from just this one item is nearly impossible.
Atheism: the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything, and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
Robert F. Smith, on 28 March 2011 - 06:39 AM, said:
The notion that Clan Lehi spent 7 years in the Empty Quarter is nonsense. You have invented that notion for polemic purposes and the text does not suggest such a thing.
It's not my notion. You'll have to take that up with S. Kent Brown.
You have to build a time line to account for the eight years before you can easily dismiss this:
- From Jerusalem to the Red Sea (3 day journey).
- From the Red Sea to Valley of Lemuel (3 day journey)
Here the men marry the daughters of Ishmael (1 Nephi 16:7)
- From Lemuel to Shazer (4 day journey)
1 Nephi 16:13
- From Shazer to Nahom ("the space of many days")
- By 1 Nephi 17:1 the women bear children (Brown says this is evidence of about 1 year from Jerusalem to Nahom)
- 1 Nephi 17:4 places the total journey in the wilderness at 8 years.
Back out 1 year to Nahom and that leaves you with 7 years to Bountiful.
Atheism: the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything, and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
Robert F. Smith, on 28 March 2011 - 07:22 AM, said:
[/color][/size][size="2"][color="#1C2837"]This is a jumble of general search results none of which have anyone claiming that Clan Lehi adhered to the main Incense Route. Were you serious, you would find an actual quote from someone making such a claim -- not simply give me a bunch of articles to wade through.
What interest (outside of Nahom/Bountiful) would FARMS have concerning the Frankincense Trail? I take it you are not too familiar with most of the apologetic work done on Nahom. I quick sampling of the links I provided you would have yielded these quotes, just from the first page.
All parties agree that Lehi and company had to follow the Frankincense Trail, for the simple reason that it was the only way to survive the journey.
David A. LeFevre, We Did Again Take Our Journey
Lehi (who lived "at Jerusalem," and had tents, etc.), when warned to flee for his life, most likely went directly to the Frankincense Trail...
Eugene England, Through the Arabian Desert to a Bountiful Land: Could Joseph Smith Have Known the Way?
Modern research has recovered knowledge of an ancient caravan route, "The Frankincense Trail," from Dhofar, the ancient source of that precious material, to near Jerusalem; the trail conforms in detail to Joseph Smith's account of distances, turns, and specific geography...
Eugene England, Through the Arabian Desert to a Bountiful Land: Could Joseph Smith Have Known the Way?
Nibley and others note that this simple travel account fits well with what is now known of the ancient trade routes that carried frankincense from Oman and Yemen northward to the Mediterranean markets.
Noel B. Reynolds, Lehi's Arabian Journey Updated
Edited by jmordecai, 02 April 2011 - 04:45 PM.
Atheism: the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything, and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
It's not my notion. You'll have to take that up with S. Kent Brown.
You have to build a time line to account for the eight years before you can easily dismiss this:
- From Jerusalem to the Red Sea (3 day journey).
OK
- From the Red Sea to Valley of Lemuel (3 day journey)
Here the men marry the daughters of Ishmael (1 Nephi 16:7)
OK
REmained in the Valley of Lemuel xxxxx? Let's say 5 years.
- From Lemuel to Shazer (4 day journey)
1 Nephi 16:13
OK
- From Shazer to Nahom ("the space of many days")
Remained in Shazer.... journey itself took XXXXX years... let's say 2 years.
- By 1 Nephi 17:1 the women bear children (Brown says this is evidence of about 1 year from Jerusalem to Nahom)
These children.... are they the very first children who were born.... or just "children" .. Please show me how many children, when the "children born in the wilderness" were in order of birth.... or was this just an observation that they continued to bear children even while traveling in the wilderness.
PS. If you want to quote Brown, bring him here on the forum to answer these questions. Otherwise you need to answer them.
- 1 Nephi 17:4 places the total journey in the wilderness at 8 years.
Back out 1 year to Nahom and that leaves you with 7 years to Bountiful.
Only if you make assumptions outside the BOM text itself. Please answer the XXX questions from the BOM text -- chapter and verse. For example, how long did they stay in the Valley of Lemuel?
I have shown where the 7 years are included in the journey. Now prove me wrong.
Mordecai...one cannot draw any conclusions about the time of travel based off of the women having children after the men gain wives. It grants a MINIMUM of time but the greater maximum possible length of time is not established or, more importantly, closed down to a narrow window. The text does not tell us if they become pregnant immediately as infertility was an issue back then as it is now. It does not tell us if there were miscarriages before successful birthing which is very likely with the travel and activity going on as described. We do not even know if there were any children birthed before this that were not mentioned which could also be a possibility as mentioning child bearing in connection with this place may be to show only the hardship described not the strict order of events. To put out the timeline in that fashion is to assume many things not stated by the actual text.
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LeSellers, on 27 February 2011 - 07:43 PM, said:
