A Fuller Explanation Of Coincidence:

[Luigi]

"If the Salalah Coast is â??the place Bountifulâ??, then it also must have an ore body nearby where Nephi could, â??find ore to moltenâ?¦â? (I Nephi 17:9). This is a very specific and bold claim! It requires two rather unique conditions: the existence of an iron ore body, and a type of ore that can melt at the low temperatures attainable in a bellow-assisted fire (I Nephi 17:11). Not only are iron-ore bodies rare, particularly in Arabia, but also most ores require temperatures much hotter than a wood fire can reach."

Read the entire article at http://www.meridianmagazine.com/articles/040728ore.html

Of course JS was able to discover this unique feature of his Bountiful while in the mideast. He was afraid that the NY farmers would not believe the BOM unless he was able to add such authentic details.

Or, are you insisting that this is just another coincidence?

So far I have investigated only one claim in this Meridian Magazine article:

"Not only are iron-ore bodies rare, particularly in Arabia...."

I came up with this:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/200...u-mgs110401.php

The contact name is a gentleman from Ohio University and it appears this release was to coincide with Geological Society of America annual meeting in Boston in 2001. The release states

"Among the proposed mineral sites are more than 300 square miles of potential silver deposits, 3,000 square miles of potential iron ore". This is describing potential sites in Saudi Arabia.

I will have to look more into the other facts of the article. However, I will say that if the rest of the article is correct that it is fairly impressive.

[asbestosman]

People! Please consider:

1. In a city where 1 in 1000 has HIV you are picked at random for HIV testing. The test is 99.9% accurate!! (both for true positive and true negitives). Suppose you test positive. Given that you have tested positive what are the chances that you do really have HIV?

drum role.....

Only 17% or less ! (use Bayes Formula)

Most people guess way off--after all the test is really accurate! 99.9% accurate.

Tarski,

I looked up Bayes' formula, but my head started to hurt halfway down the page. I would think that if you test positive for HIV wth a 99.9% accurate test, the chance that you really have HIV would be 99.9%. Given that you have tested positive, I don't see why the frequency of HIV in the general population would the validity of the test. Am I totally missing something? Any possibility you could type out what these values would look like when inserted in the formula?

-CK

I agree. I plugged the numbers through and ended up with a 50% chance.

A = aids / HIV

T = Test positive for HIV

P(T|A) = .999

P(A) = .001

P(TA) = .000999

P(T|~A) = .001

P(T~A) = .000999

P(A|T) = P(TA) / (P(TA) + P(T~A))

= .000999 / (.000999 + .000999)

= 0.5

or 50%

[maklelan]

With the Holley stuff there is no claim of morphology or trasnliteration, so the differences are unaccounted for. It's as simple as that.

Alrighty, let me account for the differences: creative license on the part of the author. People who create fictional worlds use real names for inspiration, but aren't bound by any rules of linguistics.

Let's examine the claim, then:

They're either authentic and all the operations are normal and predictable, or he injected his own imagination into some collections of words and just happened to land smack dab into perfect correlation with morphological and transliteration variants. The law of Parsimony makes it clear which conclusion we must choose. You're argument grows weaker and weaker by the minute.

[The Dude]

With the Holley stuff there is no claim of morphology or trasnliteration, so the differences are unaccounted for. It's as simple as that.

Alrighty, let me account for the differences: creative license on the part of the author. People who create fictional worlds use real names for inspiration, but aren't bound by any rules of linguistics.

Let's examine the claim, then:

They're either authentic and all the operations are normal and predictable, or he injected his own imagination into some collections of words and just happened to land smack dab into perfect correlation with morphological and transliteration variants. The law of Parsimony makes it clear which conclusion we must choose. You're argument grows weaker and weaker by the minute.

You can't be serious.

[consiglieri]

With the Holley stuff there is no claim of morphology or trasnliteration, so the differences are unaccounted for. It's as simple as that.

Alrighty, let me account for the differences: creative license on the part of the author. People who create fictional worlds use real names for inspiration, but aren't bound by any rules of linguistics.

Dear Dude,

Here is where you lose me. I agree with you that people who create fictional worlds use real names for inspiration, but aren't bound by any rules of linguistics.

If Joseph Smith created a fictional world in the Book of Mormon, how are we to account for the fact that the fictional names he used are bound by the precise rules of linguistics applicable to the world in which he staged the beginning of the Book of Mormon; i.e., the Egyptian/Hebrew world of 600 B.C.?

I am starting to think that "coincidence" is too small a word.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[Tarski]

P(A|T) = P(TA) / (P(TA) + P(T~A))

= .000999 / (.000999 + .000999)

= 0.5

or 50%

oops. The true positives was .999 but the false positives was supposed to be .995.

Amazing it makes such a difference. Here is the calculation I did which I may have still plugged in wrong-- check me(I am in a big hurry)

I=event of being infected

T=event of testing positive

[Olavarria]

It's just as much as a stretch as NHM= NAHOM is. Then, how is NHM not a stretch?

I believe that Ive been over this a millian times.

1) Nehem and Nahom, phonetically, are basically the same word. They are homophones. In semetic languages, it is the constanants that matter. Maybe DCP can clear this up. Ill start another thread and ask him. Its kinda like Yosef in hebrew and Yusuf in arabic.

2)Nehem/Nahom is the right name in the right place at the right time.

a)right name:the marib temple complex alters

b)right place: it took a roman legion 6 months to get from Syria-Palestine to Marib(a city just 25 miles or one days journey on foot from NHM). It took Lehi's family of civilians no longer than 9 months(the birth of the first children are mentioned after Ishmael's death). Nehem is "nearly eastward" from Wadi Sayq, the only possible Bountiful. It has the correct flora(it has all kinds of fruit and sturdy timber),honey,and iron ore depsits. Wadi Sayq(and Korori) are the only verdant areas on the entire coast of the arabian peninsula. Ivee seen satelite photos and from space they look like one little sliver of green. Wadi Sayq also has a ship building tradition that goes back to no later than 500bce(according to non-mormon archeologists).

c)right time=the Marib altars that bear the name of Nehem(proving he tribe and its associated land existed in antiquity) date to 600 BCE.

d) The libraries that Joseph Smith could have visited during his New England years are :Dartmouth College in Hanover , New Hampshire which was close to where the Smiths lived when Joseph was between the ages of 5-7 years old, and John H. Pratt's Manchester lending library, near Palmyra where Joseph spent his teenage years from 1816 on up. Contemporary maps that deal with the Nehem tribal area do not appear in those libraries during the times that Joseph lived near their vicinities.

[Tarski]

It's just as much as a stretch as NHM= NAHOM is. Then, how is NHM not a stretch?

I believe that Ive been over this a millian times.

1) Nehem and Nahom, phonetically, are basically the same word. They are homophones. In semetic languages, it is the constanants that matter. Maybe DCP can clear this up. Ill start another thread and ask him. Its kinda like Yosef in hebrew and Yusuf in arabic.

.

Yeh yeh, we know. How convenient for your argument. But it doesn't make things any more impressive numerically.

Just to exaggerate an analogy, what if just an

"N" were found and suppose that it were really true that just an "N" could have stood for any five or less letter word that starts with N. Even if we learned this were true somehow, we wouldn't suddenly become impressed would we?

The more things NHM could have really stood for, the less impressive it gets.

[asbestosman]

oops. The true positives was .999 but the false positives was supposed to be .995.

Amazing it makes such a difference. Here is the calculation I did which I may have still plugged in wrong-- check me(I am in a big hurry)

Yep the math checks out.

Since now false positives happen 5x as frequently as before (and the total chances of a positive test are multiplied by 3) it makes a huge difference.

[Olavarria]

Perhaps the most innovative portion of the study is the section on geography. Several anti-Mormons shouted with glee when they first laid eyes on the map of proposed Book of Mormon lands shown side by side with the map of New England (see figs. 1 and 2), while some LDS scholars looked forward to studying the maps since it seemed that a fresh point of attack worthy of scrutiny had finally reared its head. An exhaustive study of the maps is beyond our purview here.14 Nonetheless, my general findings are summarized below:

Of the 17 Book of Mormon place names treated by Mr. Holley, nine of them (more than 50%) are mentioned only once or twice in the entire Nephite/Jaredite record. This reveals an effort to try to pinpoint cities which have little or no clue given as to their respective locations from the text of the Book of Mormon itself. Even so, it surprised me to learn that many of the cities on Holley's maps are placed in incorrect relationship to one another.

For instance, Angola and Jacobugath should be north of Zarahemla (Mormon 2:3b-4 and 3 Nephi 7:12a; 9:9a); Alma should be north of Lehi-Nephi (Mosiah 18:30-34; 23:1-4, 19; 24:20, 24-25); Jerusalem should be in the land of Lehi-Nephi (Alma 21:1; 24:1); and Morianton should be on the eastern borders of the land southward (Alma 50:28-34; 51:26). Mr. Holley has altered these locational relationships in every instance. Furthermore, he displays a glaring inconsistency in his treatment of the river Sidon. On his maps, he sees a parallel between this river and the Genesee River, yet on pages 14-15 he draws a parallel between the river Sidon and the Ohio River.

Other pertinent questions surface when considering just how original the place names are. For instance, several of the Book of Mormon place names appear in the Bible. These include Ephraim (2 Samuel 13:23), Ramah (Joshua 19:36), and, of course, Jerusalem. If the author of the Book of Mormon were given to pilfering, why would he need the Manuscript Story when the Bible would serve just as well?

It is also important to note that some of the New England cities were not even incorporated entities prior to 1830. Angola was incorporated in 1873,15 and in Monroe County, Ohio, Jerusalem's post office wasn't established until January 8, 1850. Thus, Mr. Holley's claim that such places were known in the neighborhood of Joseph Smith is chronologically misinformed. Finally, to draw etymological parallels between "Jacobugath" and "Jacobsburg," or "Shurr" and "Sherbrooke" is to strain one's credulity.16

Ill never cease to be amazed by the amount of strawmen found on this board. Anti's focus on the name NHM while ignoring its relationship to everything else.

Teancum=Tillman(Pat Tillman). He was a warrior and unlike Tecumesh was "fair and delightsomne" like everygood Nephite.

Shur=Sherbrook. I think this can be chalked up to chance given the coomon use of "sher" in english place names. That one would be around Joseph's hood is not surprising. Sherwood forest,Sherman Oaks etc.

Moroviantown=Morianton. Compare Morianton=Meriaton, Moriamon=MeriAmen

[Tarski]

oops. The true positives was .999 but the false positives was supposed to be .995.

Amazing it makes such a difference. Here is the calculation I did which I may have still plugged in wrong-- check me(I am in a big hurry)

Yep the math checks out.

Since now false positives happen 5x as frequently as before (and the total chances of a positive test are multiplied by 3) it makes a huge difference.

Of course. But, I have never seen anyone quess this if they have never seen a Bayes formula problem before. As one person said above

"I would think that if you test positive for HIV wth a 99.9% accurate test, the chance that you really have HIV would be 99.9%."

wrong! (as you know)

It isn't so easy to throw a math guy like you off but in this little problem the number of considerations was small and the problem well formulated. With the NHM thing, I keep thinking of new factors everytime I consider it.

[maklelan]

An example of the difficulty of establishing vowels and the ludicrousness of demanding consistent vowelling:

Egyptian Sheshonk is called Shishak in the English Bible (how do you pronounce that?). In Hebrew it is pronounced "Sheeshahk." Josephus calls him Shashanq. Akkadians called him Susink, but in Akkadian we normally pronounce the transliterated "s" as "sh." Wanna hear the funniest part? Sometimes the Egyptians wrote his name with the "n" and sometimes they didn't. We don't really know how they pronounced the vowels, because they didn't use any, but the consonants are either Sh-sh-n-k or Sh-sh-k. What is the main difference in the names? Vowels, and this is among contemporaries. What is a logical conclusion here: that they are different people who coincidentally share similar names, or they are the same person? Shall we apply the same criterion to NHM or continue this utterly ridiculous argument about the "difference" between NHM and Nahom?

[Noggin]

Ill never cease to be amazed by the amount of strawmen found on this board. Anti's focus on the name NHM while ignoring its relationship to everything else.

But, your last post (above) is also chalk full of strawmen argumentation. If you read an argument, and you find yourself quickly saying, "but what does that have to do with the crux of the opposite side's assertion?" chances are you are looking at a strawman argument. Geography, big deal.

The quote you just provided beats on Holley's map because of actual geography. I just have to say, "So?... And?...?". Like I laid out for Helix, what difference does it really make that the Holley's "Hits" are not placed at the precise geographical location? What does that have to do with it? So what if the river sidon is east west north or south of zarahemla or whatver geographical problem your quote outlines. It is a strawman designed to detract from the more problematic issue. And, the author of that quote you provide wants his audience to feel warm and fuzzy that he is knocking it down. It's just a distraction tactic.

You can place the names anywhere on the proximity map in upstate New York. I don't care where. The names are still there. And they are there right where Joseph Smith would have seen them and, by chance, received the idea to use them or morphs of them in his book. Tecumseh has many references to Teancum, and the river Kishkiminetas etc cannot be excused casually (well, you are doing it, but oh well).

Dismiss the Holley Hits. Fine. But you will then have to dismiss NHM by the same logic. imo.

Noggin

[helix]

That is one of the softball easy swings about the map. But if I were to argue that Smith picked or allowed inspiration to flow to him for book of Mormon name sources from surrounding existing towns and rivers etc, what difference would it make where the names were located on his map? Would it matter if his map was wrong? Would it matter if one river was 100 or 200 miles in a different local? Would it matter if Moravianton (Morianton) was placed at the wrong lake etc? As long as Moravianton existed, and a name like Morianton pops up in the book of Mormon, a coincidence exist that can provide a question mark for name source doubting.

Oh, that's find to point out cities and say the cities may have been used, while geographically, they have no relation. I just don't like the concept of showing them on a map, because it leads people to think that the parallels are both names AND location. That was exactly his intention when he tried to place Book of Mormon cities on a map. But really, those placings are horribly, horribly wrong, and it says something about the quality of the authors work.

Is it coincidence? Oh who knows. Is Kishkimenetas River a coincidence? Oneidah? Sherbrooke/ Shur? I don't know. It just adds weight. Same as NHM adds weight. You had some really good points to make about NHM = Nahom.

This is precisely why I made a thread long ago to point out convincing yet false parallels. Sure, you can find some interesting matches, but, those are to be expected. If you find the same quality of matches comparing BoM place names to Washington State names, what does that tell you? It tells you that the hits are by chance, and not because they were related. Sure, Joseph Smith could have used local names to come up with his BoM names. But, if the quality of matches are no better than matches found in modern day Washington State, the entire argument that Joseph borrowed local names instantly has zero convincing or persuading evidence behind it. You cannot believe one set of coincidences and reject an equally similar set of coincidences.

Jeruselem and the Red Sea have no weight as everyone in 1820-30 knew of these names. Nahom is the only name on your list worth looking at. Right?

Yes. I listed that to show that in the Old World, the Book of Mormon only gives us 3 names that sound as if they were pre-existing before Lehi arrived. And Jerusalem and the Red Sea are obviously already known and identified. And so when trying to find Old World city parallels, it's Nahom vs. an entire list of ancient Arabian cities (1 vs. many). For Holley's map, its hundreds of BoM names vs. an entire list of American and Canadian names (many vs many). My point is, you're statistically far more likely to find parallels based on random chance alone in a many vs. many scenario, compared to a 1 vs many scenario. Or in other words, we should expect to find far greater parallels popping up by sheer chance in Holley's map compared to the BoM Old World map, simply because of the greater number of cities we have to compare with. That's partially why the Nahom/NHM parallel is stronger than a good Kishkiminetas/Kishcumen parallel. A 1 vs many parallel is much less likely to come by than a many vs many parallel.

That's very important to remember, because when you start freeing yourself to compare anything with anything else, you can get pretty good parallels.

For example:

Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846

Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946

Lincoln was elected President in 1860

Kennedy was elected President in 1960

Lincoln's wife lost a child while living in the White House

Kennedy's wife lost a child while living in the White House

Lincoln was directly concerned with Civil Rights

Kennedy was directly concerned with Civil Rights

Lincoln was shot in the back of the head in the presence of his wife

Kennedy was shot in the back of the head in the presence of his wife

Lincoln shot in the Ford Theatre

Kennedy shot in a Lincoln, made by Ford

Lincoln was shot on a Friday

Kennedy was shot on a Friday

The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was known by three names, comprised of fifteen letters

The assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was known by three names, comprised of fifteen letters

Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and fled to a warehouse

Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and fled to a theater

Booth was killed before being brought to trial

Oswald was killed before being brought to trial

There were theories that Booth was part of a greater conspiracy

There were theories that Oswald was part of a greater conspiracy

Lincoln's successor was Andrew Johnson, born in 1808

Kennedy's successor was Lyndon Johnson, born in 1908

But LDS followers don't have the luxury of taking anything and comparing it to anything else. When it comes to the BoM's Old World account, we have to take that 1 specific thing and compare it against today's knowledge. And the fact that so many parallels can still be found makes it statistically much harder to wave away as random chance or lucky guesses.

How much credence do you give Joseph Smith for borrowing the names found in the book of Mormon matching landmarks and historical heroes of his day? It is the proximity of the names to Smith's home base that suggest Smith used them in his book.

They do? How? How are those parallels any better than modern day Washington state parallels? What do you define as proximity...a thousand mile radius? That's literally tons of place names available. As I've said before, I'm honestly very surprised Holley didn't find MORE parallels. I'd figure, statistically speaking, he should have found many more by sheer random chance alone.

I can add that Holley looked for reasons why Smith would have chosen names like Tecumseh and Moraviantown; pairing these names with a name like Teancum and Morianton. It's not that far fetched to see Tecumseh in Teancum?... especially when both are "right hand man" indian warriors playing pivotal roles in wars

Wow! So many parallels, it must be proof, right? If you scramble the name Tecumseh, add a letter "n", drop the letters "s" and "h", you end up with...Teancum. And Antipus sounds sort of like Annapolis. Just leave out the "l", throw in an "t", and you've phonetically got it. Smith must have borrowed Antipus/Annapolis too, right? Don't get me wrong, I can understand where The Dude is coming from. Using authentic names and scrambling them can definitely give you other decent sounding names.

Ultimately, my main point I'm arguing is that the Holley's parallels do nothing to show they are somehow extraordinary. And since they aren't extraordinary, they shouldn't be treated as such. In my opinion, the NHM/Nahom parallel alone isn't that much better. But it is total amount and quality of Old World parallels, with NHM being one of them, that is extraordinary.

[Tarski]

Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846

Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946

Lincoln was elected President in 1860

Kennedy was elected President in 1960

Lincoln's wife lost a child while living in the White House

Kennedy's wife lost a child while living in the White House

Lincoln was directly concerned with Civil Rights

Kennedy was directly concerned with Civil Rights

Lincoln was shot in the back of the head in the presence of his wife

Kennedy was shot in the back of the head in the presence of his wife

Lincoln shot in the Ford Theatre

Kennedy shot in a Lincoln, made by Ford

Lincoln was shot on a Friday

Kennedy was shot on a Friday

The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was known by three names, comprised of fifteen letters

The assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was known by three names, comprised of fifteen letters

Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and fled to a warehouse

Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and fled to a theater

Booth was killed before being brought to trial

Oswald was killed before being brought to trial

There were theories that Booth was part of a greater conspiracy

There were theories that Oswald was part of a greater conspiracy

Lincoln's successor was Andrew Johnson, born in 1808

Kennedy's successor was Lyndon Johnson, born in 1908

OK all you amateur probablists who like to multiply .9 times itself dozens of times,

calculate the odds for the above.

[helix]

OK all you amateur probablists who like to multiply .9 times itself dozens of times,

calculate the odds for the above.

Heh. One of these days, I want to make a web page that allows posters here to plug in their probabilities for dozens of things regarding Mormonism. I'd also get to let users cherry pick which things they want to use, and which should be ignored. That way, we can end up with a probability of Mormonism's truthfulness to be somewhere between .00000000001 and .999999999999

That should help narrow things down.

[Chris Smith]

Tarski,

I'm trying to wrap my mind around this. Say we go into a country where 1 in 1000 people has HIV. A large but random sampling of people has been selected for testing and 100 of them tested positive. Does your equation predict that only 17 of these people actually have HIV?

-CK

[Tarski]

Tarski,

I'm trying to wrap my mind around this. Say we go into a country where 1 in 1000 people has HIV. A large but random sampling of people has been selected for testing and 100 of them tested positive. Does your equation predict that only 17 of these people actually have HIV?

-CK

Yes--on the average. That is, at least if you assume that the tests have the accuracy ratings I used. Does it surprise you? I don't know what the real accuracies are but the paradox is that 99.5% accuracy sounds high. This example is a classic example for probability and statistics classes and the numbers I used seem popular. In fact, this guy uses the same numbers that I did: http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/sfm/probability.pdf

I first saw this example in the text for a basic math class that I taught a while back (it was called "finite math" or something and included a chapter on probability).

Notice that there are actually two numbers that rate the accuracy: One that deals with false positives and one with false negatives. I used .001 and .005 respectively. That would be 99.9 accurate on the positives and 99.5% accuracy for negatives.

The link above talks about a couple of other "probability paradoxes". Human intuition on many questions of likelihood is notoriously bad.

[Olavarria]

Dismiss the Holley Hits. Fine. But you will then have to dismiss NHM by the same logic. imo.

One has nothing to do with the other. Holly's "hits" have been refuted. Where is your refutation of Lehi's trail,absent of red herrings.

[Chris Smith]

Yes--on the average. That is, at least if you assume that the tests have the accuracy ratings I used. Does it surprise you? I don't know what the real accuracies are but the paradox is that 99.5% accuracy sounds high. This example is a classic example for probability and statistics classes and the numbers I used seem popular. In fact, this guy uses the same numbers that I did: http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/sfm/probability.pdf

I first saw this example in the text for a basic math class that I taught a while back (it was called "finite math" or something and included a chapter on probability).

Notice that there are actually two numbers that rate the accuracy: One that deals with false positives and one with false negatives. I used .001 and .005 respectively. That would be 99.9 accurate on the positives and 99.5% accuracy for negatives.

The link above talks about a couple of other "probability paradoxes". Human intuition on many questions of likelihood is notoriously bad.

It's so counter-intuitive that I thought about it for about half an hour and still couldn't figure it out. It finally clicked when I thought about a simplified example. I don't know why the idea was so bizarre to me; I'm usually good at math! Oh well, I remember it took me a while to be OK with logarithms, too.

-CK

[asbestosman]

The link above talks about a couple of other "probability paradoxes". Human intuition on many questions of likelihood is notoriously bad.

They don't have it, but one of my favorites is to ask someone what the probability is of having n people (with unique names) each put their names in a hat, mix it up and then have nobody draw their own name.

As n grows sufficiently large (say 100), the probability approaches exp(-1). or about 37%

[maklelan]

The link above talks about a couple of other "probability paradoxes". Human intuition on many questions of likelihood is notoriously bad.

Even in non-statistical questions we get in the way of our own mind. I'll give an example that you can go look up on the internet but no one here will probably get right.

What professional baseball player holds the record for most stolen bases in a single season?

[Not quite me]

Dismiss the Holley Hits. Fine. But you will then have to dismiss NHM by the same logic. imo.

One has nothing to do with the other. Holly's "hits" have been refuted. Where is your refutation of Lehi's trail,absent of red herrings.

I missed the part where they've been refuted. Yeah, a few are geographically not right, but several are, and several are not easily dismissed: kishkiminetas, for one.

The point of this thread, it seems to me, is that if you are looking for parallels hard enough, you'll find them. And once in a while you might find an apparently really good one, like NHM. The question is whether the parallels are real or are just attempts to link unrelated things.

[maklelan]

The point of this thread, it seems to me, is that if you are looking for parallels hard enough, you'll find them. And once in a while you might find an apparently really good one, like NHM. The question is whether the parallels are real or are just attempts to link unrelated things.

Agreed. And this question is one that you all categorically refuse to answer. You instead sidestep it by throwing out your own weak parallels in a silly attempt to dillute the significance of it. The veracity of NHM as a parallel is not determined by how many other parallels you can unearth, but by the merit of the parallel in and of itself. This you have all refused to address. Now that we all agree it is the priority, why don't you start giving us some real arguments that directly address NHM?

[Not quite me]

The point of this thread, it seems to me, is that if you are looking for parallels hard enough, you'll find them. And once in a while you might find an apparently really good one, like NHM. The question is whether the parallels are real or are just attempts to link unrelated things.

Agreed. And this question is one that you all categorically refuse to answer. You instead sidestep it by throwing out your own weak parallels in a silly attempt to dillute the significance of it. The veracity of NHM as a parallel is not determined by how many other parallels you can unearth, but by the merit of the parallel in and of itself. This you have all refused to address. Now that we all agree it is the priority, why don't you start giving us some real arguments that directly address NHM?

I think it's a great parallel. It does everything that a valid Nahom should do. But, when weighed against the entirety of the problems and anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, it is not a compelling parallel. Until you can account for the serious problems in the book, NHM is an interesting hit, but nothing more.

Think of it another way: James Fenimore Cooper wrote his book "The Prairie" long before the western US prairies were settled. The man had never been there and had only a superficial understanding of what the place was like. But when pioneers did start moving to the prairies, many of them said it was just the way that Cooper described. Was it really? Or were their expectations colored by their reading?