God probably won't allow us to find Nahom

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

.........I don't disagree. In a random sample of ten simple Old Testament names I was able to find 7 inscription rocks in Old South Arabia that match. 

Okay assuming your numbers of 2300 Biblical names and 20 toponyms near the Nihm tribal region the odds are 1 in 115, or 0.8%. You can use a calculator to verify https://percentagecalculator.net/

In a national lottery the odds of winning just seven dollars are 1 in 500. There are no "nearly impossible" odds for Nahom .........................................

There are many aspects about our Book of Mormon, Nahom is just one of them. ...............................................

You need to read the anthropic principle fallacy. Like I tell Neal above "if you think it is very unlikely (or very improbable) for the NHM tribe = Nahom ........... a coincidence ........................................

No crazy one in a million coincidence is required. It is not "nearly impossible" like smoot claims. 

............................................

On the one hand, you tell us that "God probably won't allow us to find Nahom" (your thread title), but on the other that the odds are so good that finding Nahom is easy and a done deal.  Not even a coincidence.  Doublespeak, Sam.  You are talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Your comments on statistical likelihood here are nonsense.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

6 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I realize that this is low because you have to add into the equation the probability of Joseph Smith guessing a 3 consonant combination, using all possible combinations (the other 58% of him guessing a random word)

Nahom is an Old Testament name, according to Book of Mormon Nahom is in the Old World.  Nahom, Naham, Nehum, Nahum are probably the same word in Hebrew. It is not making up a word out of nothing.

6 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

but it is probably not a huge number for a 100 square miles or so surrounding the Nihm region

Ancient nhr toponym is west of Khor Rori, nhr matches Book of Mormon name Nehor (Alma 1:15).  There are probably plenty of ancient Old South Arabia toponyms that match Old Testament names. 

6 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I also think the linguistic argument for Nahom is very good. While the linguistic argument doesn't really do anything for tying Nahom down to a specific geographical location, it still works as evidence related to Nahom. It just takes a different approach. What are the odds that a relatively unlearned writer in the 19th century would use an NHM term in a way that immediately evokes the relevant Arabic connotations as well as Hebrew connotations (assuming a wordplay is at work based on similar sounding words), and which utilizes themes and motifs in a way that is similar to other Biblical narratives which use these terms?

PeterPear says "Ishmael waited to die until he reached Nehem or Nahom". What are the odds of Ishmael dying in "mourn" region?  I do believe Ismael dying in "mourn" is just a coincidence.  In a 1782 map there is an "X" below Nehem,  some anti-Mormons claim Smith saw the "X" as a hidden treasure symbol. Life is full of coincidences my friend. However, I don't think daughters crying for their father is a coincidence. Daughters always cry when the father dies.   

 

6 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

So, in my view, the overall message of the video is that Nahom is a multi-facet evidence

Evidence? Possibilities are not evidences. Lindsay writes "In fact, Hebrew has two NHM roots, one with the relatively hard heth and one with the softer hē. Since English has only one H to transliterate these letters, it is unclear which root Nephi used, though most writers assume it is the first. The first root is nacham (Strong’s H5162, נָחַם) which is typically translated as “comfort” but can also mean “to be sorry” or to “suffer grief.”83 Gesenius indicates that it is “like the Arabic” cognate naḥima.84 This root for Nahom would make an apparent word play with the verse immediately following Nahom, where the daughters of Ishmael “mourn exceedingly” (1 Nephi 16:35) and are obviously in need of comfort. In proposing a word play here, Stephen D. Ricks (and others) have discussed the issue of differing H sounds and noted that while the local Nehem may have had an etymology different than the Arabic naḥama, “to sigh or moan,” nevertheless, a mourning-related Hebrew Nahom with its hard H still could have been understood by Nephi to be related. This is not an essential point, but still noteworthy." Notice Lindsay is saying "could have been", I don't consider "could have been" as evidence. 

In another article Lindsay writes "one of the objections made against LDS efforts to identify Nephi’s Nahom with the ancient and modern Nihm tribe is that the Hebrew word nacham (Strong’s H5162, נָחַם), a word associated with death, mourning, and comforting suggestive of a wordplay in Nephi’s text, has a hard H while the Arabic Nihm and the ancient South Arabian NHM of the Nihm tribe employ a softer H.35 But the existence of the Nikkum name, in the text from both Carsten Niebuhr36 and Conder37 and on Conder’s map, could be transliterated from a related NHM word with the hard H, which sometimes is transliterated with a K or KK. In other words, it could be that a local dialect in Yemen once used a hard H for an NHM name, possibly suggesting that previously a hard H may have been used" Notice the "possibly suggesting" again?   I do believe Book of Mormon's Nahom is "mourning", but I can't prove it. 

6 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

But by all means, keep searching for names. 

Thank you! I will. 

Edited September 23, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[SamuelTheLamanite]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

 on the other that the odds are so good that finding Nahom is easy and a done deal.

I am not saying finding NHM is easy and a done deal.  I earlier clarified I made a mistake. 

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

On the one hand, you tell us that "God probably won't allow us to find Nahom" (your thread title),

Yes, I doubt Book of Mormon's Nahom is the NHM tribe. Where is the contradiction? 

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Your comments on statistical likelihood here are nonsense.

What am I saying about statistical likelihood? If you think it is very unlikely (or very improbable) for the NHM tribe = Nahom match to be a coincidence please tell me why. How did you do figure out the odds? I honestly don't see a need for a "nearly impossible" coincidence. 

Edited September 23, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[thesometimesaint]

On 9/21/2017 at 7:29 AM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

We can say the same about the long mountain range. Wasn't God helping them?  In the Bible how did God feed the Isralites wondering for 40 years? 

Manna which means what is it. There is some idea that Manna is a type of mushroom.

[Robert F. Smith]

13 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I am not saying finding NHM is easy and a done deal.  I earlier clarified I made a mistake. 

Yes, I doubt Book of Mormon's Nahom is the NHM tribe. Where is the contradiction? 

What am I saying about statistical likelihood? If you think it is very unlikely (or very improbable) for the NHM tribe = Nahom match to be a coincidence please tell me why. How did you do figure out the odds? I honestly don't see a need for a "nearly impossible" coincidence. 

You admitted that you had been in error on your first proposal.  I had summed up your own contradiction for you as follows:

Quote

On the one hand, you tell us that "God probably won't allow us to find Nahom" (your thread title), but on the other that the odds are so good that finding Nahom is easy and a done deal.  Not even a coincidence.  Doublespeak, Sam.  You are talking out of both sides of your mouth.

When your opinion swings wildly from one extreme to the other, Sam, there can be no confidence that your views are any more than a will-o-the-wisp.  Why should they be taken seriously?

This tendency to extreme views shows itself also in your talk of "nearly impossible" coincidence.  Something unlikely does not need to be nearly impossible to be impressive.  And it is not only one single instance of anything which is impressive, but the concatenation of such instances which truly makes a credible case.  Thus, not only is there a Nehem in the vicinity of Book of Mormon Nahom, and also the Kharfot in Khor Kharfot meaning "Bountiful, Abundant," but also the name of the extra-biblical prophet Neum in 1st Nephi (19:10) is a transliteration of the Hebrew prophetic term nēʼūm "visionary utterance; decree" (Genesis 22:16, Numbers 24:3-4,15-16, 2 Samuel 23:1a, Proverbs 30:1, Psalm 36:2, Ezekiel 36:23, Zechariah 12:1, Malachi 2:1).^[1]  

^[1] H. Kosmala, in Vetus Testamentum, 14/3 (1964):428,431-432; P. Joüon & T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 2^nd ed., with corr. (Rome: Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2011), §88Ck note 1, citing Qimron.

Just how many unlikely things do you prefer to explain before breakfast each day, Sam?

[Robert F. Smith]

13 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Nahom is an Old Testament name, according to Book of Mormon Nahom is in the Old World.  Nahom, Naham, Nehum, Nahum are probably the same word in Hebrew. It is not making up a word out of nothing.

False.  As I have already explained to you, Nahom is not an OT name, even though it is a good theoretical Hebrew formation, and likely related to those other OT formations which you list here.  Scholars seem to agree on that.

13 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Ancient nhr toponym is west of Khor Rori, nhr matches Book of Mormon name Nehor (Alma 1:15).  There are probably plenty of ancient Old South Arabia toponyms that match Old Testament names. 

As I previously pointed out to you, the Semitic consonants nhr can mean "river" (nahar, nahr), which is not the meaning of Nehor, which comes from a very different root -- which is not visible in Latin transliteration.  Nehor also comes from a much later New World context, so that your comparison is meaningless.

13 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

PeterPear says "Ishmael waited to die until he reached Nehem or Nahom". What are the odds of Ishmael dying in "mourn" region?  I do believe Ismael dying in "mourn" is just a coincidence.  In a 1782 map there is an "X" below Nehem,  some anti-Mormons claim Smith saw the "X" as a hidden treasure symbol. Life is full of coincidences my friend. However, I don't think daughters crying for their father is a coincidence. Daughters always cry when the father dies.   

The anti-Mormons regularly have Joseph doing things as a scholarly researcher which are even more difficult to believe than receiving gold plates from an angel.  In fact, to go by their silly claims, Joseph must have gotten his doctorate in ancient languages at Harvard.  They regularly strain out gnats and then swallow camels in their zeal to find fault.

13 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

.......................... In proposing a word play here, Stephen D. Ricks (and others) have discussed the issue of differing H sounds and noted that while the local Nehem may have had an etymology different than the Arabic naḥama, “to sigh or moan,” nevertheless, a mourning-related Hebrew Nahom with its hard H still could have been understood by Nephi to be related. This is not an essential point, but still noteworthy." Notice Lindsay is saying "could have been", I don't consider "could have been" as evidence. 

In another article Lindsay writes "one of the objections made against LDS efforts to identify Nephi’s Nahom with the ancient and modern Nihm tribe is that the Hebrew word nacham (Strong’s H5162, נָחַם), a word associated with death, mourning, and comforting suggestive of a wordplay in Nephi’s text, has a hard H while the Arabic Nihm and the ancient South Arabian NHM of the Nihm tribe employ a softer H.35 ...................., could be transliterated from a related NHM word with the hard H.................... In other words, it could be that a local dialect in Yemen once used a hard H for an NHM name, possibly suggesting that previously a hard H may have been used" Notice the "possibly suggesting" again?   I do believe Book of Mormon's Nahom is "mourning", but I can't prove it. ........................

You say that "I don't consider 'could have been' as evidence."  Yet non-Mormon Hebraists see the hard and soft H as being used in wordplay -- for example, W. W. Hallo has observed, the names Haran and Ḫarran may well have been loosely associated merely by similarity of sound (Encyclopaedia Judaica, VII:1328-1329, cited in BAR, 26/5 [Sept-Oct 2000]:12) = the KJV biblical place-name Haran (GARAN/KASKAL) = Ḫarran/Ḫarranum, Carrhae.  Since you don't understand scholarship or evidence, naturally none of this makes any sense to you.  So you make your personal level of ignorance the measure of all reality.

[carbon dioxide]

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

On the one hand, you tell us that "God probably won't allow us to find Nahom" (your thread title), but on the other that the odds are so good that finding Nahom is easy and a done deal.  Not even a coincidence.  Doublespeak, Sam.  You are talking out of both sides of your mouth.

 

If God does not want us to find Nahom to test our faith, I wonder why he allowed us to know where Jerusalem is.  Hiding that would also test our faith.

[Ryan Dahle]

15 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

21 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I realize that this is low because you have to add into the equation the probability of Joseph Smith guessing a 3 consonant combination, using all possible combinations (the other 58% of him guessing a random word)

Nahom is an Old Testament name, according to Book of Mormon Nahom is in the Old World.  Nahom, Naham, Nehum, Nahum are probably the same word in Hebrew. It is not making up a word out of nothing.

Well you only have a 42% chance of getting a match with an Old Testament name. The other 58% is random. Remember, you can't base the probability on what word was actually chosen. You have to base it upon what word or words could have been chosen. Besides, I'm actually helping out your argument. You can't just forget about the other 58% possibility that he made up his own non-Old Testament word.

 

15 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

21 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

but it is probably not a huge number for a 100 square miles or so surrounding the Nihm region

Ancient nhr toponym is west of Khor Rori, nhr matches Book of Mormon name Nehor (Alma 1:15).  There are probably plenty of ancient Old South Arabia toponyms that match Old Testament names. 

Honestly, we already went over this. Nehor isn't even in the Bible. And why keep bringing up names that aren't in the Nihm tribal region? It isn't relevant to the probability of guessing Nahom. All it is doing is saying what are the odds of finding a consonant match with ANY one of the 188 unique names in the Book of Mormon ANYWHERE in Arabia. 

 

15 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

PeterPear says "Ishmael waited to die until he reached Nehem or Nahom". What are the odds of Ishmael dying in "mourn" region?  I do believe Ismael dying in "mourn" is just a coincidence.  In a 1782 map there is an "X" below Nehem,  some anti-Mormons claim Smith saw the "X" as a hidden treasure symbol. Life is full of coincidences my friend. However, I don't think daughters crying for their father is a coincidence. Daughters always cry when the father dies.   

The problem is that the wordplay and thematic connection going on here are way deeper than the fact that the daughters of Ishmael mourned.

 

15 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Evidence? Possibilities are not evidences. Lindsay writes "In fact, Hebrew has two NHM roots, one with the relatively hard heth and one with the softer hē. Since English has only one H to transliterate these letters, it is unclear which root Nephi used, though most writers assume it is the first. The first root is nacham (Strong’s H5162, נָחַם) which is typically translated as “comfort” but can also mean “to be sorry” or to “suffer grief.”83 Gesenius indicates that it is “like the Arabic” cognate naḥima.84 This root for Nahom would make an apparent word play with the verse immediately following Nahom, where the daughters of Ishmael “mourn exceedingly” (1 Nephi 16:35) and are obviously in need of comfort. In proposing a word play here, Stephen D. Ricks (and others) have discussed the issue of differing H sounds and noted that while the local Nehem may have had an etymology different than the Arabic naḥama, “to sigh or moan,” nevertheless, a mourning-related Hebrew Nahom with its hard H still could have been understood by Nephi to be related. This is not an essential point, but still noteworthy." Notice Lindsay is saying "could have been", I don't consider "could have been" as evidence. 

In another article Lindsay writes "one of the objections made against LDS efforts to identify Nephi’s Nahom with the ancient and modern Nihm tribe is that the Hebrew word nacham (Strong’s H5162, נָחַם), a word associated with death, mourning, and comforting suggestive of a wordplay in Nephi’s text, has a hard H while the Arabic Nihm and the ancient South Arabian NHM of the Nihm tribe employ a softer H.35 But the existence of the Nikkum name, in the text from both Carsten Niebuhr36 and Conder37 and on Conder’s map, could be transliterated from a related NHM word with the hard H, which sometimes is transliterated with a K or KK. In other words, it could be that a local dialect in Yemen once used a hard H for an NHM name, possibly suggesting that previously a hard H may have been used" Notice the "possibly suggesting" again?   I do believe Book of Mormon's Nahom is "mourning", but I can't prove it.

Like I said, there is more going on here than you realize. First of all, we don't know how the "h" was pronounced in ancient Arabia in 600 BC (as Robert mentioned), and you don't by any means have to have a word that sounds exactly the same in order to base a wordplay off of it. Second of all, the connotations for nhm in Arabic are also all right there in the text, right along side the naham connotations. But it's more than that. Its the way that narrative itself strongly suggests that naham connotations are intended. I don't have time to go into it right now, but you would have to read Goff's paper on it, which was the impetus for my own study.

So, there is evidence that makes this possibility a good probability. What are the odds that he gets the Arabic connotations right, the Hebrew connotations right, and the Hebrew narrative motifs right, all in a few verses right after mentioning Nahom? Not good if he is making random stuff up. 

 

[Ryan Dahle]

15 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

On the one hand, you tell us that "God probably won't allow us to find Nahom" (your thread title),

Yes, I doubt Book of Mormon's Nahom is the NHM tribe. Where is the contradiction?

Samuel, this is what I was getting at before, and what I think Robert misunderstood (pertaining to my comment). If your goal is to show other believing Latter-day Saints that it is harder than many of them think to convince non-LDS of the statistical unlikelihood of Joseph Smith guessing Nahom, then that is fine. However, if your goal is to actually convince Latter-day Saints that there isn't a good probability of finding Nahom, then you are using an argument that is meaningless from a believing LDS perspective.

If the latter scenario is the case, then there is no need to go through all this rigmarole about probabilities with names. This is because believing Latter-day Saints don't have to wonder whether or not Joseph Smith was just randomly making up names. We know he wasn't. In this case, we are only looking for NHM names, and we are MUCH more likely to find the Real Nahom, assuming it can be found. This distinction makes a huge difference.

Maybe you should clarify who you are trying to convince and what assumptions you expect them to have. 

[PeterPear]

On 9/19/2017 at 10:29 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

They did not know where they were in particular.  Only the local tribesmen would know that.  Nephi had been hunting in the mountains (16:30), and they had bee camping in the area.  Ishmael up and died unexpectedly, and the locals probably told them the name of the general area -- Nahom.   They way we know the difference is that previous places, Valley of Lemuel, River Laman, Shazer, were named as such explicitlyt by Lehi.  But Nahom is different for a reason.

Too bad you were never a scout, and therefore don't know what the Boondocks are (hint: wilderness).

I'm an Eagle Scout, Dr. Smith. I received it in the 70s when Scouts were Scouts, not some organization that now has a gender-ID problem. I'd bet I've hiked more wilderness areas than you So. Cal. Beach boys ever have. 😉 Your version of the Boondocks was likely getting lost on the way to the Beach Party then running home crying to Mama when you got sunburnt or when your pinkie toe was pinched by a crab when wearing Birkenstocks with your 60s hippie hair. 😄 But you know I jest. You don't have hair.

But you were the one claiming earlier in a response to another that a simple reference to the text is necessary. Now you claim Lehi's group encountered the locals. Yeah right. 

Dr. Smith, Revisionist Historian for the Book of Mormon. "Lehi encountered the locals." Yet the text never states such but the opposite, parenthetically by Mormon. You should stop ignoring Mormon's footnotes.

20 I am Mormon, and a pure ^adescendant of Lehi. I have reason to bless my God and my Savior Jesus Christ, that he brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem, (and ^bno one knew it save it were himself and those whom he brought out of that land) and that he hath given me and my people so much knowledge unto the salvation of our souls.

[PeterPear]

On 9/19/2017 at 10:29 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

They did not know where they were in particular.  Only the local tribesmen would know that.  Nephi had been hunting in the mountains (16:30), and they had bee camping in the area.  Ishmael up and died unexpectedly, and the locals probably told them the name of the general area -- Nahom.   They way we know the difference is that previous places, Valley of Lemuel, River Laman, Shazer, were named as such explicitlyt by Lehi.  But Nahom is different for a reason.

Too bad you were never a scout, and therefore don't know what the Boondocks are (hint: wilderness).

See my earlier response.

Boondocks. I could drop you off in the Superstition Wilderness and you would be so lost your bleached bones wouldn't be found but 2 yrs later. 😉

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, PeterPear said:

............................................

Boondocks. I could drop you off in the Superstition Wilderness and you would be so lost your bleached bones wouldn't be found but 2 yrs later. 😉

Hopefully grasping some gold with my cold dead hands.  

Edited September 24, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, PeterPear said:

I'm an Eagle Scout, Dr. Smith. I received it in the 70s when Scouts were Scouts, not some organization that now has a gender-ID problem. I'd bet I've hiked more wilderness areas than you So. Cal. Beach boys ever have. 😉 Your version of the Boondocks was likely getting lost on the way to the Beach Party then running home crying to Mama when you got sunburnt or when your pinkie toe was pinched by a crab when wearing Birkenstocks with your 60s hippie hair. 😄 But you know I jest. You don't have hair.

But you were the one claiming earlier in a response to another that a simple reference to the text is necessary. Now you claim Lehi's group encountered the locals. Yeah right. 

Dr. Smith, Revisionist Historian for the Book of Mormon. "Lehi encountered the locals." Yet the text never states such but the opposite, parenthetically by Mormon. You should stop ignoring Mormon's footnotes.

20 I am Mormon, and a pure ^adescendant of Lehi. I have reason to bless my God and my Savior Jesus Christ, that he brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem, (and ^bno one knew it save it were himself and those whom he brought out of that land) and that he hath given me and my people so much knowledge unto the salvation of our souls.

I ain't no doctor, reverend pete, and I ain't no revisionist or divisionist historian.  You bin wearen your phony beerkinstocks too long, good buddy.  You seem to have gone back to nature and to the wild -- playing let's pretend in your backyard.  Sorry to hear about your gender ID problem.

But about that bad hair you say you have, curlyboy.  We always had very little hair when I was in the USMC.  We had to shave it high and tight.  And, instead of the pretend hikes you took, we went on actual forced marches, long distances with full combat gear.  Of course you have your John Wayne movies to fall back on, you and he never having spent any time at war.  Yeh, brave pete in his fantasy world . . .

[SamuelTheLamanite]

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

As I previously pointed out to you, the Semitic consonants nhr can mean "river" (nahar, nahr), which is not the meaning of Nehor, which comes from a very different root -- which is not visible in Latin transliteration.  Nehor also comes from a much later New World context, so that your comparison is meaningless.

nhr is a tophonim according to website http://dasi.humnet.unipi.it/index.php?prjId=1&corId=0&colId=0&navId=125562805. Also see Minaeans. 

I understand Nehor and nhr are unrelated, it is just a coincidence that nhr is west of Khor Rori, and dates close to the time of Lehi. The region of the mineans is allowed by Book of Mormon description, see map below. Yes, nhr = Nehor is a meaningless comparison because it is just a coincidence. 

 

Quote

word	language	lexicon/onomastics	occurrences
nhr
	Minaic
		Toponym	1

"The Minaean people were the inhabitants of the kingdom of Ma'in (Old South Arabian mʿn, vocalized Maʿīn; modern Arabic معين Maʿīn) in modern day Yemen, dating back to the 6th century BCE-150 BCE"

 

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

False.  As I have already explained to you, Nahom is not an OT name, even though it is a good theoretical Hebrew formation, and likely related to those other OT formations which you list here.  Scholars seem to agree on that.

I know Book of Mormon Nahom is not found in the Old Testament, but the Book of Mormon has many Old Testament names.  I think it is possible that Nahom place was named after the prophet Nehemia. 

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The anti-Mormons regularly have Joseph doing things as a scholarly researcher

My point is the the "X" in the Nehem map is just coincidence. Ishmael dying in Nahom is another coincidence. Life is full of coincidences. 

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You say that "I don't consider 'could have been' as evidence."  Yet non-Mormon Hebraists see the hard and soft H as being used in wordplay -- for example, W. W. Hallo has observed, the names Haran and Ḫarran may well have been loosely associated merely by similarity of sound (Encyclopaedia Judaica, VII:1328-1329, cited in BAR, 26/5 [Sept-Oct 2000]:12) = the KJV biblical place-name Haran (GARAN/KASKAL) = Ḫarran/Ḫarranum, Carrhae.

I still don't understand how possibilities are evidences. I agree it is possible.    

7 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Honestly, we already went over this. Nehor isn't even in the Bible. And why keep bringing up names that aren't in the Nihm tribal region? It isn't relevant to the probability of guessing Nahom. All it is doing is saying what are the odds of finding a consonant match with ANY one of the 188 unique names in the Book of Mormon ANYWHERE in Arabia. 

I probably missed it sorry. Nhr is west of Khor Rori, nhr is in a region allowed by Book of Mormon description. Miniac language is close to the Nehem tribe region, see map above. 

Yes, Nehor is not in the Bible, you find many more matches for Biblical names. 

Quote

don't you think Nephi would have mentioned that in his efforts to connect his story to the Israelite Exodus (like he did in so many other ways) and to show us the tender mercies of the Lord.

Nephi didn't mention a lot of things, including contact with outsiders. See what PeterPear writes above. 

Nephi writes, "many more things which I do not write in this book; for I have written as many of them as were expedient for me in mine other book." 

7 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

 

Nahom looks like Naham or the prophet Nehemia. What are the odds? 

Do you and Robert believe that Nahom evidences are "nearly impossible" odds? 

Edited September 24, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[SamuelTheLamanite]

Made changes to add map above.

Edited September 24, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[SamuelTheLamanite]

6 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

So, there is evidence that makes this possibility a good probability. What are the odds that he gets the Arabic connotations right, the Hebrew connotations right, and the Hebrew narrative motifs right, all in a few verses right after mentioning Nahom? Not good if he is making random stuff up. 

I don't know. What are the odds of Ishmael dying in Nahom? The crazy coincidence is that Ismael died in Nahom, daughters crying for their father is not a coincidence.  Daughters always cry when their father dies "daughter mourning for their father," - Mosiah 21:9. I honestly don't understand why "mourning" is evidence because crying is something we do when we lose a loved one.  

Coincidences happen everywhere. Remember what Robert told me about nhr meaning river? Well, "river" and "Nehor" appear in the same verse in the Book of Mormon 

"7 And now it came to pass that when Alma had made these regulations he departed from them, yea, from the church which was in the city of Zarahemla, and went over upon the east of the river Sidon, into the valley of Gideon, there having been a city built, which was called the city of Gideon, which was in the valley that was called Gideon, being called after the man who was slain by the hand of Nehor with the sword."

Do we agree that the words "river" and "Nehor" appearing in the same verse is just a coincidence? Just because "mourn" appears "few verses right after mentioning Nahom" doesn't mean we have impossible odds. 

Edited September 24, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[Glenn101]

On 9/22/2017 at 6:01 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

No crazy one in a million coincidence is required. It is not "nearly impossible" like smoot claims. 

I am still working on the project just to let you know. The conversation is very interesting, I like it. Thanks. 

Sam, I think that maybe you are looking at the odds a bit differently than I. Finding the name Nahom, in the Book of Mormon is not remarkable in and of itself since there are similar Biblical names, although the prophet Nahum is the only one I am aware of. It is the context in which the name is found that is remarkable. That context is in the general directions that Nephi gave us in his very sparse journey narrative. Following those general directions takes one somewhere along the Gulf of Aqaba, then down (southerly) a route pretty much paralleling the Red Sea then an easterly turn towards Bountiful. It just happens that the area known in 1763 as Nehem lies along that route and there is no other known route that the Lehi clan could have taken that included that name. The altars that have been found at the Baran temple is that they bring the name within the time that Lehi's party would have passed through the area. It does not matter to me whether there were other NHM names at the time although assiduous searches on your part have only turned up the name in the same area that we are talking about. What matters to me is that each find such as the Wadi Tayyib Al Ism, Nehem and Nihm, verdant areas in the Dhofar region take Nephi's travel narrative to an entirely plausible plateau.

Glenn

[SamuelTheLamanite]

13 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

 That context is in the general directions that Nephi gave us in his very sparse journey narrative. Following those general directions takes one somewhere along the Gulf of Aqaba, then down (southerly) a route pretty much paralleling the Red Sea then an easterly turn towards Bountiful. It just happens that the area known in 1763 as Nehem lies along that route and there is no other known route that the Lehi clan could have taken that included that name.

The ancient toponym nhr is located west of  Bountiful, and dates close to the time of Lehi.  Nhr is located in a region allowed by Book of Mormon description. Also the words "river" and "Nehor" are found in the same verse, see Alma 6:7.  Nehor matching Nhr is just a coincidence, and we can probably say the same thing about many Old Testament names matching ancient toponymns in Old South Arabia. 

13 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

 The altars that have been found at the Baran temple is that they bring the name within the time that Lehi's party would have passed through the area

Yes, we know the NHM altars in Ba'ran are 75+ miles away from the Nehem tribe. Ryan told me Nehem was a bigger region in 600 BC, but I honestly don't know about that. 

Edited September 24, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[Glenn101]

6 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

The ancient toponym nhr is located west of  Bountiful, and dates close to the time of Lehi.  Nhr is located in a region allowed by Book of Mormon description. Also the words "river" and "Nehor" are found in the same verse, see Alma 6:7.  Nehor matching Nhr is just a coincidence, and we can probably say the same thing about many Old Testament names matching ancient toponymns in Old South Arabia.

NHR is not in dispute. There is no context in the Book of Mormon for nhr the personal name and a toponymn. In a way it is hardly a coincidence that many Old Testament names match toponymns in Old South Arabia. Hebrew is a Semitic language as are the languages of the different tribes found in Old Arabia. It would really be surprising therefore if there were few or no matches. From my viewpoint it makes the NHM convergence more remarkable because that particular name as a place name seems to be a rarity in that era.

Maybe you need to look in areas other than ancient Arabia for that place name. Finding NHM as a place name in other areas of the world that date to the time of Lehi would weaken the improve the odds that using it as a place name is just a coincidence. It would not change the context in the Book of Mormon though, if I am looking at it correctly.

If God were trying to "hide" Nahom from us, it would make more sense that He would have influenced many others to give other areas a place name that involved NHM in places like Egypt and other countries with Semitic languages.

Glenn

 

[Glenn101]

7 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I don't know. What are the odds of Ishmael dying in Nahom? The crazy coincidence is that Ismael died in Nahom, daughters crying for their father is not a coincidence.  Daughters always cry when their father dies "daughter mourning for their father," - Mosiah 21:9. I honestly don't understand why "mourning" is evidence because crying is something we do when we lose a loved one.  

The Book of Mormon does not say that Ishmael died in Nahom. It says that Ishmael died and was buried in the place called Nahom. Now the two could be connected, or Ishmael may have died somewhere else and was transported to Nahom to be buried because some locals informed Lehi and family where the burial grounds were located.

I think that the play on words idea is really irrelevant to where Ishmael was buried. If the family had been close to Marib when Ishmael died the text could just as well have said that Ishmael dies and was buried at Marib. Nahom was just the place that the families were close to when he died. Now, if Nephi had said that Ishmael died and was buried at the place we called Nahom, a play on words might be indicated and the fact that there was a NHM region around would probably be just a coincidence.

Glenn

[PeterPear]

9 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

The Book of Mormon does not say that Ishmael died in Nahom. It says that Ishmael died and was buried in the place called Nahom. Now the two could be connected, or Ishmael may have died somewhere else and was transported to Nahom to be buried because some locals informed Lehi and family where the burial grounds were located.

I think that the play on words idea is really irrelevant to where Ishmael was buried. If the family had been close to Marib when Ishmael died the text could just as well have said that Ishmael dies and was buried at Marib. Nahom was just the place that the families were close to when he died. Now, if Nephi had said that Ishmael died and was buried at the place we called Nahom, a play on words might be indicated and the fact that there was a NHM region around would probably be just a coincidence.

Glenn

Oh most certainly.

Because Lehi brought embalming fluid with him to inject into his friend's corpse for it to be preserved in the heat of Arabia so Ishmael's body wouldn't stink while they decided to carry it to Nahom, because Nahom has grave sites and the Sons of Lehi and Ishmael who later built a ship couldn't dig a simple grave immediately after the death of their father and father-in-law because they were so disrespectful to Jewish customs of burying the dead within 24 hrs.

"Let us carry the body of your deceased father," stated Nephi to his wife, " through the Wilderness to Nahom, because there we knowest from this travel book of Arabia given to us by Bishop Bernheisel of New York that Nahom is just coincidentally over there beyond the next three wadis and low-lying hills."

"And the daughters of Ishmael mourned in the way because their Father's body stank in the way as it was transported through the heat of the desert. And Ishmael's children sang as they walked and walked and walked. And walked!"

This of course is why later in approx 80 B.C. the wife of Lamoni lamented to Ammon whether her husband she be buried after only two days had passed. Ammon of course had forgotten to bring some embalming fluid with him from the Land of Zarahemla like all good missionaries should.

Seriously, Glenn, do you or Dr. Smith ever use common sense? Have you ever googled "Ancient Jewish practice of burying the dead"?

Does the Book of Mormon itself have any clues how the descendants of Lehi and Ishmael treated their dead?

Are you able to read the verses after 1Nephi 16:34 and ascertain that after Ishmael died and was buried they were still in the wilderness?

5 Therefore, if this is the case, I would that ye should go in and see my husband, for he has been laid upon his bed for the space of two days and two nights; and some say that he is not dead, but others say that he is dead and that he stinketh, and that he ought to be placed in the sepulchre; but as for myself, to me he doth not stink.

 

 

 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

10 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

 In a way it is hardly a coincidence that many Old Testament names match toponymns in Old South Arabia.

So we expect to find many matches for Old Testament names near Nehem tribal region? If that is the case I don't see "nearly impossible" odds. 

44 minutes ago, PeterPear said:

Because Lehi brought embalming fluid with him to inject into his friend's corpse for it to be preserved in the heat of Arabia so Ishmael's body wouldn't stink while they decided to carry it to Nahom, because Nahom has grave sites and the Sons of Lehi and Ishmael who later built a ship couldn't dig a simple grave immediately after the death of their father and father-in-law because they were so disrespectful to Jewish customs of burying the dead within 24 hrs

Thanks for the excellent response, I couldn't have said it better myself.

36 minutes ago, PeterPear said:

 

Are you able to read the verses after 1Nephi 16:34 and ascertain that after Ishmael died and was buried they were still in the wilderness?

 

Isn't it a fun coincidence that "Nehor" and "river" are in Alma 6:7? Robert told me "the Semitic consonants nhr can mean "river" and Ryan told me "a few verses right after mentioning Nahom"  

 

[Glenn101]

58 minutes ago, PeterPear said:

Seriously, Glenn, do you or Dr. Smith ever use common sense? Have you ever googled "Ancient Jewish practice of burying the dead"?

Of course. Lehi, being a prophet had already divined this emergency and had his sons build an insulated casket and packed it with ice from nearby ice caverns that Lehi had discovered with the Liahona. Ishmael was then transported therein to the first burial site that the family was allowed to use by the local tribesmen that were ushering them through the territory. Burial circumstances being dictated and thus somewhat modified due to present quite abnormal circumstances.

Glenn

[SamuelTheLamanite]

11 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Maybe you need to look in areas other than ancient Arabia for that place name.

There is one NHM inscription in North Arabia that dates to the time of Lehi. I have no idea if it is an ancient place name,  it doesn't say. See http://krc.orient.ox.ac.uk/ociana/corpus/pages/OCIANA_0047115.html

On 9/15/2017 at 9:00 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

The late Safaitic & Hismaic graffiti which you cited from many centuries after Lehi in North Arabia, are (as I have already pointed out) irrelevant. 

According to website one NHM inscription is from Taymanitic. Taymanitic dates to mid-1st millennium BCE

Search nhm here http://krcfm.orient.ox.ac.uk/fmi/webd#ociana  in the "transliterated text" and look for Taymanitic

[Glenn101]

45 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

So we expect to find many matches for Old Testament names near Nehem tribal region? If that is the case I don't see "nearly impossible" odds.

We do not expect anything. I noted that it is not surprising being as the languages of the South Arabian tribes had Semitic roots as does Hebrew. It would be more surprising if there were no matches whatsoever. Now, have you found a NHM anywhere else than the South Arabia area?

Glenn