God probably won't allow us to find Nahom

[SamuelTheLamanite]

21 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

 altars at Ba'ran are not proof but good evidence that the Nihm tribe existed at the time of Lehi.

Robert confirmed there was no Nihm tribal territory in Lehi's time.  "Nobody said there was -- another strawman from you." - Robert 

I am working on Ryan Dahle's challenge, I am finding ancient toponyms near Nehem. 

Edited October 3, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[Physics Guy]

6 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The nice thing about Bayesian inference is that it depends upon the "preponderance of evidence," and some civil juries have been urged to use it.  "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is a much harder standard, which is why it is used for criminal proceedings.

I'm not sure I'd say that. Bayesian inference is about revising probabilities in light of evidence; what legal consequences the probabilities have is not inference but jurisprudence. "Preponderance of evidence" means setting the bar for legal consequences at 50%. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" means setting it somewhere quite a bit higher. Neither choice is Bayesian or non-Bayesian.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

6 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The Bible does list a lot of Arabic place-names and eponyms (especially in Genesis), mostly as descended from Ishmael and Esau (Ammon and Moab are not Arabic, but rather Canaanite, and spoke the same language as the Israelites), but biblical events don't take place in those locations.  This map shows some of that:

I think you are missing the point, but that is okay. Ryan Dahle's 100 mile radius challenge is not so hard. 

[MDalby]

This is perhaps the least beneficial thread on this entire board.  Sam is not willing to be reasonable in this discussion.   Why is this thread still open?

 

[Robert F. Smith]

16 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

I'm not sure I'd say that. Bayesian inference is about revising probabilities in light of evidence; what legal consequences the probabilities have is not inference but jurisprudence. "Preponderance of evidence" means setting the bar for legal consequences at 50%. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" means setting it somewhere quite a bit higher. Neither choice is Bayesian or non-Bayesian.

The salient point of the Bayesian Theorem is merely to provide a cumulative "body of data" which raises the level of likelihood to "probable."^[1]  The preponderance of evidence willy-nilly then carries the day -- a subjective judgment in any case, which is what juries do when forensic argument persuades them.  The Book of Mormon can be evaluated on the same basis.

---

^[1] James Joyce, "Bayes' Theorem," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Sep 30, 2003, online at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bayes-theorem/ , and David Howie, Interpreting Probability: Controversies and Developments in the Early Twentieth Century, Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002).

Edited October 4, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[SamuelTheLamanite]

12 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

Potentially. I try to look at evidence in a Bayesian way.

One more question. Do you think Nephi was doing wordplay for Nahom?  

[Robert F. Smith]

7 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I think you are missing the point, but that is okay. Ryan Dahle's 100 mile radius challenge is not so hard. 

I don't understand why a 100 mile radius would help a failed argument -- using biblical names when and where they do not appear seems absurd.  Even a game of "let's pretend" is more realistic than that.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

3 minutes ago, MDalby said:

This is perhaps the least beneficial thread on this entire board.  Sam is not willing to be reasonable in this discussion.   Why is this thread still open?

You don't have to participate if you don't want.  How rude! 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

1 minute ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I don't understand why a 100 mile radius would help a failed argument -- using biblical names when and where they do not appear seems absurd.  Even a game of "let's pretend" is more realistic than that.

I don't think you understand what I am doing, but it is okay. I will explain when I get back. 

[Physics Guy]

Even people who do believe in prophets do not believe that prophets are common. Major prophets revealing whole volumes of Scripture? Nobody believes that there have been more than one or two of these in all global history. Whereas everyone, prophet-believing or not, knows that there have been a lot of frauds who falsely pretended to be prophets and such, and used whatever tricks they could to support their claims.

So even if one believes in the Christian God, and in the possible existence of prophets, the likelihood that Joseph Smith was a major prophet would seem to be much lower than the likelihood that a guy in Smith's situation might have been a fraud who wrote stuff about Nahom because he'd read a map that showed a place name like Nahom.

I would also like to have smoking-gun evidence of Smith's fraud, instead of only suspicious patterns of behavior and that preponderance of a priori likelihood of fraud compared to genuine prophethood. Realistically, however, successful frauds do not usually give up smoking-gun evidence after nearly two hundred years. So I'm not going to hold my breath waiting.

[Glenn101]

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Robert confirmed there was no Nihm tribal territory in Lehi's time.  "Nobody said there was -- another strawman from you." - Robert 

I am working on Ryan Dahle's challenge, I am finding ancient toponyms near Nehem. 

Robert did not confirm there was no Nihm tribal territory  in Lehi's time. He only said that there was no proof of it. Robert, just like you or me cannot confirm something of which he has no knowledge, i.e. that there definitely was a Nihm tribal area at the time of Lehi. The altars do provide some pretty solid evidence for the existence of the Nihm tribe in the time of Lehi, a tribe that exists today, north of Sanaa, pretty much where the old maps show Nehem. If that tribe existed, and to deny that is to deny that the archaeologists that have been working in the area known what they are talking about, it had to exist somewhere, and the most likely spot is in the general area. What you are suggesting is that we can learn nothing by archaeology. What you are saying makes no sense.

Glenn

Edited October 4, 2017 by Glenn101
spelling

[Robert F. Smith]

16 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Robert confirmed there was no Nihm tribal territory in Lehi's time.  "Nobody said there was -- another strawman from you." - Robert 

I am working on Ryan Dahle's challenge, I am finding ancient toponyms near Nehem. 

Your strawman is not an honest basis for your claim.  I did not say that that there was no Nihm/NHM tribal territory in Lehi's time, but only that it could not be proved.  There was certainly such a NHM tribal territory in recent times, and we can infer that there was such a territory in Lehi's time -- just by extrapolating from the Bar'an inscriptions and later usage of that family/tribal name.

[Robert F. Smith]

21 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I think you are missing the point, but that is okay. Ryan Dahle's 100 mile radius challenge is not so hard. 

 

11 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I don't think you understand what I am doing, but it is okay. I will explain when I get back. 

Thank you for taking the time to school me, dear teacher.

[Physics Guy]

11 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The salient point of the Bayesian Theorem is merely to provide a cumulative "body of data" which raises the level of likelihood to "probable."

Bayes's Theorem is one line of tautological logic followed by an operation of arithmetic.

The line of logic is that the probability of A given B, times the probability of B, must be equal to the probability of B given A, times the probability of A, because both these products are equal to the probability of A and B both being true together. (Probability is the ratio of numbers of cases. Every case in which A is true if B is true, and B is true, is a case in which both A and B are true; and conversely every case in which both A and B are true is one in which B is true, and A is true if B is true. Likewise with A and B switched.)

The arithmetic is: divide both products by the probability of B, and thereby conclude that the probability of A given B is equal to the probability of B given A, times the probability of A, divided by the probabilty of B. This conclusion is Bayes's Theorem.

If this doesn't confirm for you that what I said about Bayes's Theorem was correct, then I'm afraid I have no further help to offer. It really is just arithmetic.

Edited October 4, 2017 by Physics Guy

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, Physics Guy said:

Even people who do believe in prophets do not believe that prophets are common. Major prophets revealing whole volumes of Scripture? Nobody believes that there have been more than one or two of these in all global history. Whereas everyone, prophet-believing or not, knows that there have been a lot of frauds who falsely pretended to be prophets and such, and used whatever tricks they could to support their claims.

So even if one believes in the Christian God, and in the possible existence of prophets, the likelihood that Joseph Smith was a major prophet would seem to be much lower than the likelihood that a guy in Smith's situation might have been a fraud who wrote stuff about Nahom because he'd read a map that showed a place name like Nahom.

The history in the Bible is replete with stories of the Children of Israel rejecting the prophets that had been sent to warn them, so disbelief in a prophet is not surprising. For a Christian that which is spiritual can only be spiritually discerned. (Actually not just for Christians, but they are the ones we are talking about.) My point is that they cannot logically automatically rule out God as a participant in the production of the Book of Mormon.

1 hour ago, Physics Guy said:

I would also like to have smoking-gun evidence of Smith's fraud, instead of only suspicious patterns of behavior and that preponderance of a priori likelihood of fraud compared to genuine prophethood. Realistically, however, successful frauds do not usually give up smoking-gun evidence after nearly two hundred years. So I'm not going to hold my breath waiting.

It is so mush easier today to detect literary frauds with the forensic tools that have been developed and the aid of computers etc. Although the paper trail is cold, a dedicated researcher could possibly find evidence of Joseph buying unusual amounts of paper for his rough drafts, etc. and evidence of his research over the intervening years between the discovery of the plates and the actual production of the Book of Mormon. After all he had to integrate some three hundred and thirty proper names into the Book of Mormon (and make up about 188 of them no less) and keep track of them as they appeared, disappeared, reappeared, etc. He also had to keep track of his information. Who was who, who did what, the lands and people and the interactions between them all. He had to formulate a monetary system unlike that of his day. He also had to develop or research theology not normal for his day. Could he have done this all in his head? Normally an author keeps notes as they research their work, organize them, develop rough drafts, etc. until they have a finished product. They use maybe reams of paper. If they are not hermits, someone notices them working. Burning the midnight oil, etc. A researcher should still be able to find something. Maybe not conclusive proof, but you are only looking for a smoking gun.

Now, if Joseph was a con artist, you have to admire how adroitly he wove his Nephi account into the narrative. The lost 116 pages supposedly contained the Book of Lehi. But it also apparently included the first part of the Book of Mosiah. So what does Joseph do? He devises the Nephi narrative who makes his own set of plates to be handed down from father to son ad infinitum. Then he hands things off to his brother Jacob rather than his successor and Jacob hands then down to his son, and so forth through several short books spanning several hundred years until we get to one Amaleki who said he was going to give the plates to King Benjamin. Then up pops Mormon with his abridgment eliding into the already begun Book of Mosiah. But wait, Joseph had already, cunningly, laid the foundation for his Nephi narrative in Mosiah 1 and 6 when he tells his sons "O my sons, I would that ye should remember that these sayings are true, and also that these records are true. And behold, also the plates of Nephi, which contain the records and the sayings of our fathers from the time they left Jerusalem until now, and they are true; and we can know of their surety because we have them before our eyes."

Joseph, if orchestrating a con, either had to have made a lot of notes and revisions, etc. or he kept it all in his head. Either one is an amazing feat.

Apologies to all. I am way off topic.

Glenn

Edited October 4, 2017 by Glenn101
Apology

[SamuelTheLamanite]

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Your strawman is not an honest basis for your claim.  I did not say that that there was no Nihm/NHM tribal territory in Lehi's time, but only that it could not be proved.  There was certainly such a NHM tribal territory in recent times, and we can infer that there was such a territory in Lehi's time -- just by extrapolating from the Bar'an inscriptions and later usage of that family/tribal name.

I want to apologize for misreading. When I said, "there is no evidence of Nimh territory in Lehi's time" you told me "Nobody said there was". I thought you were telling me about the tribe. 

16 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

The altars do provide some pretty solid evidence for the existence of the Nihm tribe in the time of Lehi

I am not so sure, I am reading that Nhmyn can mean stonemason. "In the Epigraphic South Arabian language of Lehi's time, the meaning of NHM is “pecked masonry,” i.e., shaping or “dressing” stone by chipping or pecking...In a Sabaean dedicatory text from the site of Urwa, NHMyn is rendered as “stonemason,” (DASI text: GI 1637)." 

According to book "Among the Bakil tribes are the Dhu Muhammad, Dhu Husayn, Arhab, Sufyan, Nihm". The Nihm tribe north of Sanaa comes from the older Bakil tribe.  Wiki says, "Bakil is an ancient Yemenite tribe from the Hamadan tribe and was one of the ruling Sabean families from the middle of the first century BC until about 100 AD."  

15 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Thank you for taking the time to school me, dear teacher.

For sure. Ryan told me "Now if you actually do find a relatively large number of legitimate place names from close to Lehi's day in the general area surrounding the Nihm tribal grounds which have legitimate BofM or Bible correspondences, then that would be significant to your argument." 

I am finding place names from Lehi's day that match Biblical name, so I do have a significant argument. I hope you see why.  

Edited October 4, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[RevTestament]

5 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

Even people who do believe in prophets do not believe that prophets are common. Major prophets revealing whole volumes of Scripture? Nobody believes that there have been more than one or two of these in all global history. Whereas everyone, prophet-believing or not, knows that there have been a lot of frauds who falsely pretended to be prophets and such, and used whatever tricks they could to support their claims.

So even if one believes in the Christian God, and in the possible existence of prophets, the likelihood that Joseph Smith was a major prophet would seem to be much lower than the likelihood that a guy in Smith's situation might have been a fraud who wrote stuff about Nahom because he'd read a map that showed a place name like Nahom.

I would also like to have smoking-gun evidence of Smith's fraud, instead of only suspicious patterns of behavior and that preponderance of a priori likelihood of fraud compared to genuine prophethood. Realistically, however, successful frauds do not usually give up smoking-gun evidence after nearly two hundred years. So I'm not going to hold my breath waiting.

That's good. Because the claim that JS was just a con artist writing a piece of fiction is about to get a lot harder to make. You can save your calculations for Bayes' Theorem until then....

[Physics Guy]

10 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

The history in the Bible is replete with stories of the Children of Israel rejecting the prophets that had been sent to warn them, so disbelief in a prophet is not surprising. For a Christian that which is spiritual can only be spiritually discerned. (Actually not just for Christians, but they are the ones we are talking about.) My point is that they cannot logically automatically rule out God as a participant in the production of the Book of Mormon.

Sure, but I don't think that automatically ruling out God is actually important in skeptical approaches to the Book of Mormon. You don't need to rule out God in any way in order to be doubtful that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I don't rule out diamonds, either—in fact, I know they exist—but if I see a sparkly little chunk of clear stuff, I expect that it's glass.

Quote

It is so mush easier today to detect literary frauds with the forensic tools that have been developed and the aid of computers etc. Although the paper trail is cold, a dedicated researcher could possibly find evidence of Joseph buying unusual amounts of paper for his rough drafts, etc. and evidence of his research over the intervening years between the discovery of the plates and the actual production of the Book of Mormon. After all he had to integrate some three hundred and thirty proper names into the Book of Mormon (and make up about 188 of them no less) and keep track of them as they appeared, disappeared, reappeared, etc. He also had to keep track of his information. Who was who, who did what, the lands and people and the interactions between them all. He had to formulate a monetary system unlike that of his day. He also had to develop or research theology not normal for his day. Could he have done this all in his head? Normally an author keeps notes as they research their work, organize them, develop rough drafts, etc. until they have a finished product. They use maybe reams of paper. If they are not hermits, someone notices them working. Burning the midnight oil, etc. A researcher should still be able to find something. Maybe not conclusive proof, but you are only looking for a smoking gun.

Now, if Joseph was a con artist, you have to admire how adroitly he wove his Nephi account into the narrative. The lost 116 pages supposedly contained the Book of Lehi. But it also apparently included the first part of the Book of Mosiah. So what does Joseph do? He devises the Nephi narrative who makes his own set of plates to be handed down from father to son ad infinitum. Then he hands things off to his brother Jacob rather than his successor and Jacob hands then down to his son, and so forth through several short books spanning several hundred years until we get to one Amaleki who said he was going to give the plates to King Benjamin. Then up pops Mormon with his abridgment eliding into the already begun Book of Mosiah. But wait, Joseph had already, cunningly, laid the foundation for his Nephi narrative in Mosiah 1 and 6 when he tells his sons "O my sons, I would that ye should remember that these sayings are true, and also that these records are true. And behold, also the plates of Nephi, which contain the records and the sayings of our fathers from the time they left Jerusalem until now, and they are true; and we can know of their surety because we have them before our eyes."

Joseph, if orchestrating a con, either had to have made a lot of notes and revisions, etc. or he kept it all in his head. Either one is an amazing feat.

I'm not sure how amazing a feat it really was. The Book of Mormon seems pretty episodic: a series of stories with relatively few links between them, not a complex epic. But okay, complex epics have been composed before now, many times. Perhaps Joseph Smith was a gifted author, a one-in-a-million literary talent. Then he could do it, right?

It might seem like a big assumption to suppose that Smith was a one-in-a-million talent. But it's a heck of a lot less big an assumption than to suppose that he was a prophet. There are around seven thousand one-in-a-million talents alive on Earth right now. Prophets are much scarcer than that.

[Glenn101]

37 minutes ago, Physics Guy said:

Sure, but I don't think that automatically ruling out God is actually important in skeptical approaches to the Book of Mormon. You don't need to rule out God in any way in order to be doubtful that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I don't rule out diamonds, either—in fact, I know they exist—but if I see a sparkly little chunk of clear stuff, I expect that it's glass.

A skeptical approach by one that denies the existence of God maybe. But when one believes in God automatically ruling Him out is not as logical.

39 minutes ago, Physics Guy said:

I'm not sure how amazing a feat it really was. The Book of Mormon seems pretty episodic: a series of stories with relatively few links between them, not a complex epic. But okay, complex epics have been composed before now, many times. Perhaps Joseph Smith was a gifted author, a one-in-a-million literary talent. Then he could do it, right?

It might seem like a big assumption to suppose that Smith was a one-in-a-million talent. But it's a heck of a lot less big an assumption than to suppose that he was a prophet. There are around seven thousand one-in-a-million talents alive on Earth right now. Prophets are much scarcer than that.

I'm not even talking about being a prophet here. I am talking about the feat of producing the book itself without any of the attendant activities that normally are involved in producing a book of the size and complexity of the Book of Mormon. Critics seem to universally be loath to actually investigate and acknowledge the amount of research Joseph would have had to do, the number of books and maps he would have had to consult, and the prodigious amount of information he would have had to correlate in order to produce the book himself. Just do a bit of research on people writing novels and such to see what kind of efforts they have to make to keep track of information such as names, people, places, movement, etc. They have computers and use spreadsheets now, but in Joseph's day everything had to be written down on paper. Do you actually believe that he could have done this in one fell swoop, arranging all of this stuff in his head as he went along, and memorizing the whole affair without committing any of it to paper?

Glenn

[Physics Guy]

I don't think writing the Book of Mormon was nearly as hard as you make it out to be. I've been plugging away at a novel myself for several years, and I have indeed generated a lot of files of notes; but this has mainly been because I can. In the beginning of my project I pretty much just typed off the top of my head, and it went much faster. We don't really need computers and spreadsheets to write novels.

Furthermore, as B.H. Roberts noted long ago, the Book of Mormon is not very good as a novel. That's not knocking it as Scripture, since of course it is not supposed to be a novel. It's supposed to be a series of ancient records composed by people who were not trying to craft satisfyingly coherent works of fiction, but simply to record their actual history. This means, though, that the comparison of the Book of Mormon with a novel, for difficulty in composition, is not accurate. Novels are expected to be much more coherent and tightly plotted than ancient records are. Fake ancient record is a forgiving literary genre with lots of built-in excuses for glitches.

It's also not clear that Smith didn't use notes, or take years to write his text. We have a few reports of him dictating from the seer stone in his hat, without a big stack of notes anywhere in sight, but I don't see how we can rule out the possibility that he got up early every morning to look over his notes, and then hid them back under the floorboard before Oliver Cowdery came over to take dictation.

I am nonetheless happy to concede that it's far from everyone who could write the Book of Mormon. I peg Joseph Smith as an unusually talented tale-spinner, even if he wasn't exactly a novelist. Just how unusually talented would he have had to be, to pull off the Book of Mormon?

I think a talent about as rare as one-in-a-thousand would probably do it. The one best storyteller in a thousand people is going to be a pretty remarkable person. Most people probably don't know anybody like that well enough to know what they can really do. But maybe I'm overly optimistic, and it would really take a one in ten- or a hundred-thousand talent to pull of the Book of Mormon under Joseph Smith's circumstances. One in a million? That has got to be enough talespinning talent. That's a pretty amazing storyteller, that one-in-a-million person.

My point is that even if we make every reasonable allowance for how hard it would be to write the Book of Mormon, there is no way that it's something so hard that only one person in a billion could achieve it. Wherease genuine major prophets have only cropped up in history, we all agree, at rates well under one in a billion. So even if Smith writing the Book of Mormon was a really tremendous feat, it's still a much more likely explanation than Smith being a prophet.

[Robert F. Smith]

10 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

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

I am not too sure, I am reading that Nhmyn can mean stonemason. "In the Epigraphic South Arabian language of Lehi's time, the meaning of NHM is “pecked masonry,” i.e., shaping or “dressing” stone by chipping or pecking...In a Sabaean dedicatory text from the site of Urwa, NHMyn is rendered as “stonemason,” (DASI text: GI 1637)." 

According to book "Among the Bakil tribes are the Dhu Muhammad, Dhu Husayn, Arhab, Sufyan, Nihm". The Nihm tribe north of Sanaa comes from the older Bakil tribe.  Wiki says, "Bakil is an ancient Yemenite tribe from the Hamadan tribe and was one of the ruling Sabean families from the middle of the first century BC until about 100 AD." 

One can translate "Nihmite" or "stone-cutter" for that same designation.  It isn't clear which should be used.  However, it is clear (as you show here) that Nihm was a tribe or clan associated with the larger Hamadan tribe as early as the 1st century B.C.

10 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

For sure. Ryan told me "Now if you actually do find a relatively large number of legitimate place names from close to Lehi's day in the general area surrounding the Nihm tribal grounds which have legitimate BofM or Bible correspondences, then that would be significant to your argument." 

I am finding place names from Lehi's day that match Biblical name, so I do have a significant argument. I hope you see why.  

Why do you or Ryan think that finding a bunch of Semitic names in the Yemen comparable to biblical names would be significant?  What does that show?  I can understand why a name akin to Nahom might be significant, but cannot understand why random biblical names would be of significance.

[Robert F. Smith]

15 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

Bayes's Theorem is one line of tautological logic followed by an operation of arithmetic.................................................

If this doesn't confirm for you that what I said about Bayes's Theorem was correct, then I'm afraid I have no further help to offer. It really is just arithmetic.

SEP says:

Quote

Bayes' Theorem is central to [conditional probabilities] both because it simplifies the calculation of conditional probabilities and because it clarifies significant features of subjectivist position. Indeed, the Theorem's central insight — that a hypothesis is confirmed by any body of data that its truth renders probable — is the cornerstone of all subjectivist methodology.  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bayes-theorem/ .

Thus, when it can be shown that the origins of the Book of Mormon are preposterous, it should be impossible to assemble credible data in its support.  That such a body of data can in fact be assembled is thus strong reason to accept the BofM as authentically historical, i.e., as probable.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

26 minutes ago, Physics Guy said:

It's also not clear that Smith didn't use notes, or take years to write his text. We have a few reports of him dictating from the seer stone in his hat, without a big stack of notes anywhere in sight, but I don't see how we can rule out the possibility that he got up early every morning to look over his notes, and then hid them back under the floorboard before Oliver Cowdery came over to take dictation.

There is no proof that Smith used notes, just like there is no proof that ancient Nhmyn is the same Nihm tribe. However, because the Book of Mormon has many KJV passages you the Physics Guy can argue Smith used a Bible because Robert Smith says "We are only extrapolating".  Some LDS scholars argue Smith did use a KJV Bible, if true it would mean Cowdery didn't notice. Both Robert and Glenn tell me we don't need proof.  

On 10/2/2017 at 9:29 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

Proof is not necessary, and is relatively rare in scholarship. 

By definition proof means "evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement" 

Quote

One can translate "Nihmite" or "stone-cutter" for that same designation. It isn't clear which should be used. However, it is clear (as you show here) that Nihm was a tribe or clan associated with the larger Hamadan tribe as early as the 1st century B.C

Thank you for clarifying it is not clear.  Nihm tribe comes much the larger Hamadan and Bakil tribes. 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

On 10/2/2017 at 5:29 PM, Glenn101 said:

 altars at Ba'ran are not proof but good evidence that the Nihm tribe existed at the time of Lehi.

The evidence is not so good, Robert told me "One can translate "Nihmite" or "stone-cutter" for that same designation. It isn't clear which should be used." So it is possible that Nhmyn was not a tribe in Lehi's time. Please notice that Nhmyn and Nihm are not necessarily the same.  

27 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Why do you or Ryan think that finding a bunch of Semitic names in the Yemen comparable to biblical names would be significant?  What does that show?  I can understand why a name akin to Nahom might be significant, but cannot understand why random biblical names would be of significance.

NHM is a Biblical name, and NHM is not necessarily Lehi's Nahom.  Just because many ancient places in Yemen match many Biblical names doesn't mean they are directly related. For example brk toponym is not directly related to Old Testament warrior barak. Both may share the same root, but are not directly related.  

16 hours ago, MDalby said:

  Sam is not willing to be reasonable in this discussion.   

I am not being reasonable, but Nhmyn was not necessarily a tribe in Lehi's time. 

[Robert F. Smith]

27 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

The evidence is not so good, Robert told me "One can translate "Nihmite" or "stone-cutter" for that same designation. It isn't clear which should be used." So it is possible that Nhmyn was not a tribe in Lehi's time. Please notice that Nhmyn and Nihm are not necessarily the same.  

I am not being reasonable, but Nhmyn was not necessarily a tribe in Lehi's time. 

The -yn ending on nhmyn is merely a collective or plural ending for NHM, which can be taken as a tribal identification.

27 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

NHM is a Biblical name, and NHM is not necessarily Lehi's Nahom.  Just because many ancient places in Yemen match many Biblical names doesn't mean they are directly related. For example brk toponym is not directly related to Old Testament warrior barak. Both may share the same root, but are not directly related.  

If the Lehites had made a stop at a place called Barak, then the local occurrence of the OSA brk toponym would be relevant.  Since they didn't, therefore it isn't of any significance.  You haven't thought the problem through to its conclusion, Sam.