God probably won't allow us to find Nahom

[Glenn101]

7 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Please give me a source of an LDS scholar predicting Nahom to be north of Sanaa, or at least in a 100 mile radius. The 1950s quote doesn't tell us Nahom is few miles north of Sanaa.   Before LDS scholars noticed the Nihm tribes there was not much LDS scholarship on Nahom. 

Why? It is not relevant. Earlier theories are modified in the light of new data. Nibley was going on data he had available at the time. Subsequent information modified the theory.

The fact is, Nehem is there. It has been there for over 2500 years. Non-LDS archaeologists have tied the Nihm inscriptions to the Nihm tribe and the Nehem area. See nealr on page five and Ryan's quote on this page. All of your numbers are meaningless as I have already noted. What it boils down to is that you are saying if there is the slightest chance that something could be a coincidence then we must accept coincidence as the most likely case. What I am doing is looking at the most likely case, i.e. that the Book of Mormon narrative was written by a person that had traveled through the area.

Glenn

[SamuelTheLamanite]

23 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

The chance that a non-too-unlikely coincidence actually came up, somewhere in the Book, is not low at all.

Physics Guy, 

To help you with your conversation with Glenn he told me  "There would be nothing exceptional to find an ancient place name in Arabia that is mentioned in the Bible" and "It is hardly a coincidence that many Old Testament names appear on inscriptions in Old South Arabia"  

Edited October 19, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[SamuelTheLamanite]

Ryan,  we can also do 42/100 times 1/100 if you want, the result wouldn't change much.  See my response on the previous page.  Talk to you later.  

[Glenn101]

8 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

Whatever evidence Mormons may provide to try to establish the prophethood of Joseph Smith, it pokes a hole in their theory to point out a plausible way that the evidence we have could have been produced, without Smith being a prophet who had material dealings with angels.

But when one counters that it may well have been that Joseph produced the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God it makes a statement as valid as doe your may well have, might have, etc. because it offers just as much proof.

Glenn

[RevTestament]

8 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

Whatever evidence Mormons may provide to try to establish the prophethood of Joseph Smith, it pokes a hole in their theory to point out a plausible way that the evidence we have could have been produced, without Smith being a prophet who had material dealings with angels.

Exodus 7:10 ¶ And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent.

11 Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.

12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.

13 And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said.

On 10/18/2017 at 7:58 AM, Physics Guy said:

You still have to ask why Ishmael had to die at this point in the story, if the story was simply being made up. But I think there are reasons for this. The story needs the daughters of Ishmael to be wives for the sons of Lehi, but then keeping Ishmael around gives the story too many patriarchs. All the wives of Biblical figures leave their fathers to go off with their men; fathers-in-law play no part in the tropes. Ishmael has no place to stay behind in, except the desert, however, so he has to just die.

Just a point of order going back to our friend Moses. Moses received the priesthood from his father-in-law Jethro who certainly is not written out but after Moses finally leaves, his father-in-law shows back up, offers sacrifice to the Lord, and gives advice to Moses on how to order Israel. So to the extent that Moses is a foreshadowing of Yeshua, Jethro is a similitude of Heavenly Father who becomes Moses' father because Moses married his daughter, a similitude of the Church. Even if you don't agree with that, it seems Jethro does not follow your summation. 

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Ryan,  we can also do 42/100 times 1/100 if you want, the result wouldn't change much.  See my response on the previous page.  Talk to you later

I'm fine with that. Like I have said all along. I don't think we are going to find that many toponyms in this area with Bible matches. Even if we do, we still have to account for the other layers of the probability argument. I spent quite a bit of time several months ago looking at the wordplay surrounding Nahom. I may end up publishing the research in some form at some point, so I'm not too keen on sharing it at the moment. But at least for me, the chances of Joseph randomly including the themes and ideas he did around the name Nahom are highly unlikely to be coincidence. Probably less than 1 in 100. I would also say that all of the features at Khor Kharfort being in one place is also quite unlikely. It meets Aston's 12 features nicely, and because Khor Rori is not all that far away, I don't think having a second, less likely candidate in the same general area is a logistical problem. Let's just say guessing Bountiful is 1 in 50. I think those are closer to the real probabilities of each of these textual features surrounding Nahom. So for me, the Nahom convergences of evidences is more like 1/200 x 1/100 x 1/50. 

You probably disagree, but I probably know more (meaning I have simply read more and thought more) about the wordplay and about Bountiful than you. And because I'm not really interested in developing these arguments completely or citing all the relevant literature to support my assertions, we'll probably just have to agree to disagree. In my view, there are a handful of convergences that are far stronger than Nahom and much easier to argue for the LDS perspective. And there are dozens with about the same strength as Nahom. And there are hundreds that are less strong than Nahom, but still not without merit.

I believe these collective evidences aren't very convincing to most skeptics because, as Physics Guy suggested, most of them aren't going to take the time to actually research them. So they may see a 1 in 100 chance here or a 1 in 10 chance there, and simply write them off as expected coincidences in a book so large that makes so many historical claims/predictions.  But for those who grasp just how many evidences there are, how strong many of them are, and how interconnected some of them are, appeals to coincidence is an ineffective line of reasoning. 

[Physics Guy]

5 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

But when one counters that it may well have been that Joseph produced the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God it makes a statement as valid as doe your may well have, might have, etc. because it offers just as much proof.

Trying to convince a non-Mormon that Joseph Smith was a prophet who received plates from an angel is like trying to convict an accused of murder by witchcraft. The prosecution can lay out all the evidence that the victim suddenly collapsed and died with nobody near them, but if the defense attorney points out that the victim may well have just had a heart attack, then the case is over.

It doesn't help the prosecution to point out that the defense has not proven the heart attack, but merely suggested that a heart attack could have occurred. It doesn't help, either, though, for the prosecuation to point out that their unproven witchcraft theory is just as valid, as a possible explanation for sudden death, as the unproven heart attack theory, because both theories offer just as much proof, namely none. 

With such an unprecedent charge as murder by witchcraft, the prosecution has to show that no more plausible explanation for the evidence can even be offered. As soon as the defense attorney does offer a more plausible explanation, the witchcraft murder case fails. And no-one will sympathize with the prosecutors if they complain about how they were defeated by mere speculations without evidence. If they wanted to make their witchcraft charge stick, the burden was on them to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the cause of death was not a natural heart attack.

I do apologize for an analogy about both murder and magic. I do not mean to imply that Smith's acts were comparable to those, but only to emphasize the distinctions which seem to keep getting buried, between proof, possibility, and plausibility. A witchcraft murder case was the best illustration I could find for those issues; I would be happy to substitute a less emotionally loaded analogy, if one can be found.

For non-Mormons there is a presumption that people are not prophets until proven to be so beyond reasonable doubt. Mormons don't have to share that presumption, but they should understand it—and I think they should accept that it is reasonable, and not keep calling it foolish or lazy or arbitrary. Many non-Mormons do accept that prophets can in principle exist, but nobody believes that there have been more than a few major prophets in all of world history. On the other hand everyone, including Mormons, believes that there have been all too many clever frauds in world history. It is therefore only reasonable to assume that fraud is a priori a much more likely explanation than prophethood, any time the issue comes up.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Physics Guy

[Physics Guy]

4 hours ago, RevTestament said:

Moses received the priesthood from his father-in-law Jethro who certainly is not written out but after Moses finally leaves, his father-in-law shows back up, offers sacrifice to the Lord, and gives advice to Moses on how to order Israel. So to the extent that Moses is a foreshadowing of Yeshua, Jethro is a similitude of Heavenly Father who becomes Moses' father because Moses married his daughter, a similitude of the Church. Even if you don't agree with that, it seems Jethro does not follow your summation. 

I don't recall any mention in Exodus of Moses receiving any priesthood from Jethro, though Jethro himself is described as a priest. It is however true that Jethro briefly re-enters Moses's story for a congratulation scene, after Moses his son-in-law and former shepherd has made good. So I was wrong to say that Biblical fathers-in-law play no part. They play no part in any major action, but they may pop back up quickly in a chorus role.

There couldn't be much chance for Ishmael to re-enter the stage, though, because his sons-in-law were all going to America, and giving him his own later trip across the ocean would make his part too big. Anyway, whether he was ever mentioned again or not, he would still have to get off stage for a good while once his job of supplying wives was done, to let the patriarchal family of his sons-in-law have the limelight for the major scenes. He could hardly decide to stay alone in the desert, or even settle down with strangers in a coastal oasis, instead of following his daughters. The only option for him was to die.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Physics Guy

[Glenn101]

3 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I believe these collective evidences aren't very convincing to most skeptics because, as Physics Guy suggested, most of them aren't going to take the time to actually research them. So they may see a 1 in 100 chance here or a 1 in 10 chance there, and simply write them off as expected coincidences in a book so large that makes so many historical claims/predictions.  But for those who grasp just how many evidences there are, how strong many of them are, and how interconnected some of them are, appeals to coincidence is an ineffective line of reasoning. 

This leads me to a tangential question, is there any consensus as to the line where one would logically rule out coincidence? And is there really any way to accurately calculate the odds on anything that we are talking about? I would not how how to start. I do not really see Biblical names turning up in Arabia as place names as much of a coincidence since the peoples in the Bible and Arabia have a lot of common history. The Bible actually mentions several. Finding NHM as a place name in Arabia to me is not a big surprise in and of itself. The devil though is in the details. Not just the name, but the placement as it applies to the Book of Mormon narrative. The place and time, aligned with what we now know of the Dhofar region, etc. 

Should every unexplained happenstance be attributed to coincidence until proven otherwise? Is that the way people normally decide things?

Glenn

[Glenn101]

13 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

I certainly would take such a paper seriously, in the following kind of scenario.

Somebody has claimed experimental observations that would overthrow some basic law of nature; then somebody else points out that their observations could just as well be explained by quite ordinary effects which the first claimants overlooked. The second paper does not need to determine exactly what happened in the first paper's experiment. Merely pointing out the mundane alternatives is enough to invalidate the dramatic claims of the first paper, and so the second paper would be well received as good science that debunked the strong claims of the first paper, even though it consisted entirely of might-haves and may-well-haves.

If the authors of the first paper (or anyone else) could come back with airtight evidence that those mundane alternatives were not actually responsible for the strange effects reported in the first paper, then that airtight evidence could be published in an important third paper, and the investigation would go on. If such further airtight evidence does not appear, however, then the scientific case would be considered closed after that debunking second paper.

Scenarios like this happen frequently in science.

So, if a person or persons presented a paper about an experiment, complete with methodology and details, with some results that maybe caused a stir in the physics community, the first reaction would be to just say that the method may have done this thing wrong or that thing wrong and rest you case? Or would others who questioned the results use the same methodology to try to replicate the results?

Glenn

[RevTestament]

23 minutes ago, Physics Guy said:

I don't recall any mention in Exodus of Moses receiving any priesthood from Jethro, though Jethro himself is described as a priest. It is however true that Jethro briefly re-enters Moses's story for a congratulation scene, after Moses his son-in-law and former shepherd has made good. So I was wrong to say that Biblical fathers-in-law play no part. They play no part in any major action, but they may pop back up quickly in a chorus role.

It seems fairly apparent even from the Bible that Jethro held the priesthood down through the lineage of Midian, son of Abraham and Keturah. However, I concede the Bible is less than clear on this point, and I think it is Chronicles that calls Keturah his concubine - I think in an effort to deligitimize the priesthood from any line other than Isaac. However, that seems a guess by a scribe. It is doubtful that Keturah was a servant of Sarai like Hagar was. Keturah was probably a cousin of Sarai, and a full legal second wife - that is entitled to inheritance. The fact that Exodus clearly shows Jethro as being a legitimate priest seems to indicate that he legitimately held the priesthood as a full legal heir meaning that his grandmother Keturah was a legal wife. The Bible does not say that Moses received the priesthood from Jethro, but that is a very logical conclusion to draw, since it is Zipporah who insists that Moses circumcise their son. However, we learn this fact for sure from D&C rather than the Bible. However, it is also from the Bible we learn it is Jethro who gives Moses advice on how to organize Israel under the elders of Israel. It is highly doubtful that as slaves the Egyptians allowed the Hebrews to practice their priesthood, give sacrifices, etc. The Egyptians had a 10 day work week and would have ignored the Hebrew sabbaths at that point.

Quote

There couldn't be much chance for Ishmael to re-enter the stage, though, because his sons-in-law were all going to America, and giving him his own later trip across the ocean would make his part too big. Anyway, whether he was ever mentioned again or not, he would still have to get off stage for a good while once his job of supplying wives was done, to let the patriarchal family of his sons-in-law have the limelight for the major scenes. He could hardly decide to stay alone in the desert, or even settle down with strangers in a coastal oasis, instead of following his daughters. The only option for him was to die.

Lehi was father-in-law to the sons of Ishmael, and he stayed in the picture all the way to America, has visions, etc. I really don't understand the point you are trying to make. It just doesn't follow from anything.

[Glenn101]

3 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

For non-Mormons there is a presumption that people are not prophets until proven to be so beyond reasonable doubt. Mormons don't have to share that presumption, but they should understand it—and I think they should accept that it is reasonable, and not keep calling it foolish or lazy or arbitrary. Many non-Mormons do accept that prophets can in principle exist, but nobody believes that there have been more than a few major prophets in all of world history. On the other hand everyone, including Mormons, believes that there have been all too many clever frauds in world history. It is therefore only reasonable to assume that fraud is a priori a much more likely explanation than prophethood, any time the issue comes up.

Your murder by witch craft analogy falls short because an autopsy would have been performed to try to determine the cause of death. 

But I get your point. But I believe that a person looking at this without prior knowledge of the Book of Mormon would not have such consternation. Say a person was reading a book of historical fiction from the early 1800's which gave the same travel narrative as we find in the Book of Mormon. Being curious, the reader seeks out the information that we now have about Wadi Tayyib Al Ism, Nehem, the eastward turn of the Frankincense Trail, and the verdant Dhofar region of Oman and finds that a lot of that information was not known in the early 1800's. Do you believe that such a person would immediately conclude that the writer had made all of that up with some incredibly lucky hits, or maybe the curious reader would conclude that the writer had probably actually traveled that route?

Glenn

[SamuelTheLamanite]

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I'm fine with that. Like I have said all along. I don't think we are going to find that many toponyms in this area with Bible matches. Even if we do, we still have to account for the other layers of the probability argument.

It is true Ryan, but we also have to take into account that the NHM evidence doesn't fit very nicely because we have to make assumptions. For example we have to assume Nephi read the "H" as a soft h. Nephi reading a soft "H" is possible, but it is still an assumption. We also have to assume eastward is actually north east because both Salalah or Wadi Sayq are north east of Nihm. We assume NHM dates to the time of Lehi because there is no scientific dating for the NHM inscription rocks. I know some scholars date them to near the time of Lehi, but the dating was mostly just an educated guess. Or was the dating of the NHM rocks more than just an educated guess? We also have to assume Nephi was doing wordplay for Arabic Nahom, to my knowledge there is no evidence of ancient Hebrews doing wordplay for Arabic sites. 

 

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

. Let's just say guessing Bountiful is 1 in 50. I think those are closer to the real probabilities of each of these textual features surrounding Nahom. So for me, the Nahom convergences of evidences is more like 1/200 x 1/100 x 1/50. 

You probably disagree, but I probably know more (meaning I have simply read more and thought more) about the wordplay and about Bountiful than you.

Yes probably. So 1/200 x 1/100 x 1/50 is 1.0×10^(-4)%. It is true 1.0× 10^(-4)% may seem impressive, but still nowhere near comparable to winning the grand prize in a national lottery. Everyday people hit 1 in a million odds in something.  There are some people that hit a one in billion lucky benefit. To improve you NHM studies and give arguments  against the possibility of coincidence you nead the book Cinepro recommended. So we know very lucky hits happen, and we know no one predicted Nahom before the discovery of Nihm, please tell us how can you be so confident NHM is not a coincidence? Do you see nearly impossible odds?   

20 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

 The question of the historicity of the BofM should be approached like any other historical question --  without prior belief or disbelief -- and based on actual evidence, not mere guesswork.

True. What is my guesswork? 

Edited October 20, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

It is true Ryan, but we also have to take into account that the NHM evidence doesn't fit very nicely because we have to make assumptions. For example we have to assume Nephi read the "H" as a soft h. Nephi reading a soft "H" is possible, but it is still an assumption.

No one is assuming that Nephi "read" anything.  He and the rest of the Lehi Clan would rather hear the word spoken, and we do not know the vowels used at that early date.  What we do know is that the NHM with either -h- or -ḥ- (with a dot) is a closely related root in Hebrew -- with related meanings inside Hebrew.  It doesn't even matter what the Old South Arabic root might mean.  Moreover, biblical scholars regularly find those two forms of -h- to be so close that wordplay can and has been based on them.  The Book of Mormon is filled with obvious wordplays, as is true of ancient Hebrew and Egyptian writing generally. You reject that due to your prior disbelief in the Book of Mormon, which is unacceptable for scholarship (prior belief or disbelief is unscholarly).

History is like a puzzle, Sam, and scholars attempt to fit the puzzle pieces together as intelligently as possible.  Historians may differ about this or that interpretation of the evidence, but you prefer to just reject the evidence out of hand.

Quote

We also have to assume eastward is actually north east because both Salalah or Wadi Sayq are north east of Nihm. We assume NHM dates to the time of Lehi because there is no scientific dating for the NHM inscription rocks. I know some scholars date them to near the time of Lehi, but the dating was mostly just an educated guess. Or was the dating of the NHM rocks more than just an educated guess? We also have to assume Nephi was doing wordplay for Arabic Nahom, to my knowledge there is no evidence of ancient Hebrews doing wordplay for Arabic sites. 

The wordplay is in Hebrew, not Arabic.  No one in Clan Lehi even needs to know what the Arabic name means (whether tribal or vocational, or both).  They need only to hear the sounds.  Biblical puns play on the similarity of sound patterns, just as they do in English.  Clan Lehi is not suddenly going to reject punnng just because they are traveling.  Talk about assumptions!!

In any case, I provided you with numerous instances of puns in Arabic in an article by Manaar Munthir, but that meant nothing to you.

Quote

................................ we know very lucky hits happen, and we know no one predicted Nahom before the discovery of Nihm, please tell us how can you be so confident NHM is not a coincidence? Do you see nearly impossible odds?  

Of course lucky hits happen.  That is well known to ordinary people, and to statisticians.  For you, owing to your apriori disbelief, the odds just have to be "nearly impossible," and you are willing to ignore the preponderance of evidence in order to achieve that goal.

Quote

....... What is my guesswork? 

As usual, you failed to read your own words, which I had quoted and presented to you:

Quote

Sam said:

Now, we have take into account that most Biblical names in the Book of Mormon are Old Testament names, so let's just say all of them are.       

Now let's say there are 20 ancient toponyms near Nihm that date to Lehi. 20 of 2,000 (assume 2,000 Old Testament names) is 1%. So assuming 20 toponyms and 2,000 Old Testament names the probability of a lucky hit is 0.6%. ....................................

Both of these assumptions are false, and this goes along with all your other failed assumptions -- noted by both me and Ryan, and to which you do not deign to respond.  Your wild and irresponsible assumptions are supposed to represent what?

Edited October 20, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[Ryan Dahle]

13 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

It is true Ryan, but we also have to take into account that the NHM evidence doesn't fit very nicely because we have to make assumptions. For example we have to assume Nephi read the "H" as a soft h. Nephi reading a soft "H" is possible, but it is still an assumption. We also have to assume eastward is actually north east because both Salalah or Wadi Sayq are north east of Nihm. We assume NHM dates to the time of Lehi because there is no scientific dating for the NHM inscription rocks. I know some scholars date them to near the time of Lehi, but the dating was mostly just an educated guess. Or was the dating of the NHM rocks more than just an educated guess? We also have to assume Nephi was doing wordplay for Arabic Nahom, to my knowledge there is no evidence of ancient Hebrews doing wordplay for Arabic sites.

As Robert pointed out, it seems like you are misinformed on this topic. I believe we have already gone through the issue with dating. The date was established by non-LDS archeologists and is undisputed in the scholarly community. I'm not sure what you mean by "scientific dating," but if you mean radiocarbon dating then you are obviously right. Radiocarbon dating only works on things that were once alive, so no inscriptional data on stone could be dated that way. But the dating method used by the non-LDS archeologists seems very sound. I don't think there is any good reason to dispute it. 

Hebrew and the early Arabic languages are both Semitic, and so there is no reason to assume Nephi couldn't or wouldn't have noticed and utilized a potential wordplay. Also, the wordplay works for both nhm and nḥm, and it works in Hebrew and early Arabic for both of them. By this I mean that Nephi surrounded his mention of Nahom with ideas that relate to both words in both languages. What is the likelihood of that happening. How about Robert, with his expertise, randomly throws out a Hebrew root that is also shared in an early Arabic language from Lehi's day. Now, it is your job (assuming you don't know ancient Hebrew or Arabic) to surround that word with connotations for two potential variants of the root (assuming variants exist for the one Robert chooses) in both languages, while at the same time weaving those connotations into a coherent story. Also, with one of the variant connotations, you have to weave in narrative details that are thematically consistent with narrative details surrounding how one variant of this Hebrew root is used in the Bible. What are the chances of you being able to do this all at the same time? There are two more layers to the linguistic/literary argument here as well, but that is the research I referred to, and which I am not going to disclose at the moment. Add those to the mix, and the wordplay itself starts to seems like a very unlikely coincidence. 

13 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Yes probably. So 1/200 x 1/100 x 1/50 is 1.0×10^(-4)%. It is true 1.0× 10^(-4)% may seem impressive, but still nowhere near comparable to winning the grand prize in a national lottery. Everyday people hit 1 in a million odds in something.  There are some people that hit a one in billion lucky benefit. To improve you NHM studies and give arguments  against the possibility of coincidence you nead the book Cinepro recommended. So we know very lucky hits happen, and we know no one predicted Nahom before the discovery of Nihm, please tell us how can you be so confident NHM is not a coincidence? Do you see nearly impossible odds?

So I think what you are really saying is that the only reason that you or anyone else should accept Nahom as good archeological evidence is if it were categorically impossible for it to be otherwise. Nearly impossible just doesn't quite cut it for you. 1 in a million? Those odds seem greatly in favor of disbelief because, after all, 1 in a million odds happen all the time: every millionth time. I think this says it all:

Edited October 20, 2017 by Ryan Dahle

[CA Steve]

2 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

So I think what you are really saying is that the only reason that you or anyone else should accept Nahom as good archeological evidence is if it were categorically impossible for it to be otherwise. Nearly impossible just doesn't quite cut it for you. 1 in a million? Those odds seem greatly in favor of disbelief because, after all, 1 in a million odds happen all the time: every millionth time. I think this says it all:

 

Forgive me for interjecting in what has been a fascinating conversation. 

But I think the problem here is the Texas sharpshooter analogy being used to illustrate the odds is flawed and does not quite capture the whole story. In the Texas sharpshooter analogy, a person fires some rounds at a barn wall, then walks up and draws circles around the holes, declaring it evidence of his ability. A two step process beginning to end. What we have with NHM as evidence is much more complicated, a series of steps, if you will, which are required to get from Jerusalem to Nahom. These steps are being argued as increasing the difficulty or as diminishing the probability of Nahom as being strictly due to coincidence, but do they really?

In my view they don't and here is why. Instead of this being similar to the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, what we are really doing is playing a different version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon . In that game you start with Kevin Bacon and yourself and see if you can build a link of acquaintances between yourself and Bacon, given the amount of people each end of the chain knows, and the amount of people in between those ends,  it is almost always possible to construct the link. Likewise given we know the starting point of Lehi's Journey and where NHM is, all that is necessary is to construct a plausible route and time line in between them.

 

Is it possible that NHM is evidence? I suppose so, but certainly given the nature of how it is being constructed, it is not, in my opinion, the seemingly remote impossibility being argued by those who think it is.

Edited October 20, 2017 by CA Steve

[SamuelTheLamanite]

4 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

So I think what you are really saying is that the only reason that you or anyone else should accept Nahom as good archeological evidence is if it were categorically impossible for it to be otherwise. Nearly impossible just doesn't quite cut it for you. 1 in a million? Those odds seem greatly in favor of disbelief because, after all, 1 in a million odds happen all the time: every millionth time. I think this says it all:

For one in a million odds we have to make a lot of assumptions,  so it is controversial. One in a million would impress me (you still need to demonstrate it is one a million hit), but like Cinepro says, "it's misleading to only consider the probability of events after they occur". To convince your skeptics you would need more evidences.   The probability of your existence is one in a trillion. The probability of being a victim of both Las Vegas Shooting and California fires are probably like one in a billion, it did happen to someone.  Looking at one in a million hit after it happens won't prove much, you have to calculate and look at the odds before it happens.  Looking at something before it happens is the reason why no one can predict the next lottery winner. 

But don't get me wrong, a one in a million hit would still impress me regardless, so please demonstrate it. I will continue to reply tonight. 

[Glenn101]

2 hours ago, CA Steve said:

Likewise given we know the starting point of Lehi's Journey and where NHM is, all that is necessary is to construct a plausible route and time line in between them.

 

Is it possible that NHM is evidence? I suppose so, but certainly given the nature of how it is being constructed, it is not, in my opinion, the seemingly remote impossibility being argued by those who think it is.

The route was constructed before Professor Christensen made a possible connection on the Carsten Niebuhr map. Hugh Nibley constructed such a rout , complete with a map in 1950. Lynn and hope Hilton traced a possible route in the early 70's, before LDS researchers were aware of the map. The route they proposed deviated a bit from Nibley's prediction with the easterly turn being a bit further south. The verdant Dhofar area had come to light by that time, but the two most favored candidates for Bountiful were yet to be investigated.

Glenn.

[Ryan Dahle]

18 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

One in a million would impress me (you still need to demonstrate it is one a million hit), but like Cinepro says, "it's misleading to only consider the probability of events after they occur". To convince your skeptics you would need more evidences. 

The Book of Mormon text itself is what is doing the prediction. It says things about the ancient past, about geography, and in some cases about scientific phenomena that in many cases are unlikely and in some cases nearly impossible for someone in New York in 1829 to know about. Thus it made many predictions about the world and about the past before (not after) history, archeology, or science was developed enough to verify them. Whether scholars or anyone else recognize those predictions right away or not is a moot point. All your talk about whether Nibley or anyone else predicted where the locations in Arabia would likely be located before they were found is not that significant. What matters is that after thorough investigation of possible routes has been undertaken, that at least a plausible and at best a compelling picture of their journey begins to appear. All the predictions were made in 1829, before any of us started to look to verify them. 

Also, it seems that what it takes to convince a "skeptic" is relative to each skeptic. I don't think that the convergence of evidences surrounding Nahom is going to convince anyone who is prone to be dismissive of the Book of Mormon that it is historically ancient and authentic. This isn't because the evidence isn't good. It isn't because the likelihood of it being a coincidence is good. It is because the assumptions and worldview of skeptics are so prone to dismiss the conglomerate supernatural claims of the Restoration that no single piece of evidence will likely persuade them to give up their disbelief.

I look at skeptics of the Book of Mormon very much like Young Earth Creationists who don't want to believe in evolution or an ancient earth. No matter how good the converging lines of evidence are for evolution and a truly ancient earth/universe, ardent Young Earth Creationists will typically not be convinced. They are skeptical of this scientific theory from the outset because it conflicts with their assumptions about the fundamental truths of the universe. They come up with argument after argument for why they think the theory is flawed. After all it is built on sweeping and improvable assumptions, such as uniformitarianism. Show us the incontrovertable smoking gun piece of evidence, they say? Science can't do it. This is because the theory of evolution is made up of complicated, interlocking pieces of converging evidence that are built upon very good, but improvable assumptions. The Young Earth Creationist can always isolate, even the best evidences, and show how coincidences can happen and how the evidence is not sufficient to compel them to believe. Here is how one proponent of the standard evolutionary model put it:

"The strength of any theory comes not from a single measurement or a single confirmed prediction, but from the theory’s many predictions being confirmed by many independent tests, samples, and methods.  Often, attacks on evolutionary theory take the form of showing that some measurement technique is not infallible, or that some measurement technique depends on assumptions that could be wrong.  Examples, of course, include creationist criticisms of radiometric dating, which is a common technique for dating rocks.

When the creationist adds to these types of criticisms the charge that there are some things evolutionary theory cannot explain, it can seem to some that evolutionary theory is a weak, speculative hypothesis.  But as we will show below, scientific theories aren’t strong because the measurement techniques that confirm them are perfect, or because they have no open questions.  If this were the case, all science would be weak and speculative." (see https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjf-4nk-YHXAhUEj1QKHQk-DsUQFggmMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freethoughtdebater.org%2F&usg=AOvVaw1fQT4lDvir869xbgcEIdMh)

I don't think any of us can reliably quantify the probability of Joseph Smith guessing the name Nahom, while simultaneously implementing a believable wordplay for two nhm roots in two different ancient languages, and also guessing Nahom's relative distance and direction from Bountiful, which is another lucky 12 predictions in itself. I find the proposal that this is all a coincidence to be highly unlikely and in a practical, though not mathematical sense, "nearly impossible." Nearly impossible in the sense that an off balance, behind the back, 3/4 court buzzer beater shot in a basketball game is "nearly impossible." I'm sure a player who made such as shot could probably make it again if he or she tried it another several hundred or a thousand times, but that doesn't mean the sports commentator wouldn't be justified in calling the shot "nearly impossible" to make. It feels to me that you and Stephen probably have different ideas about what "nearly impossible" really means. Stephen didn't give some sort of quantifiable figure. His point is simply that the Nahom convergence is a highly unlikely coincidence. He didn't say the evidence would convince skeptics against their will. The final point of the video was simply that Nahom counts as legitimate evidence. And unless you have some good reason, other than resorting to coincidence, for why it isn't good evidence, then I think the conversation is pretty much going nowhere. And from what I can tell, you don't seem to know enough about the other aspects of the evidence (world play, logistical correlations, Bountiful) to really bring up salient arguments to undermine their credibility. 

You said, "To convince your skeptics you would need more evidences." I agree with that, but to be convinced, skeptics of the Book of Mormon actually have to carefully look at all the  evidences, just like those skeptical of evolution actually have to spend some time to exhaustively understand the various lines of scientific research that support it. It also wouldn't hurt if they thoroughly read the critiques of their own theory written by credible scientists. Of course, even then, those who are absolutely committed to Young Earth Creationism will likely still choose to see the scientific evidences as a series of coincidences that don't disprove their own beliefs. After all, there are thousands of well-developed scientific theories with interlocking pieces of evidence. Some of them, despite how convincing they may seem, are likely to be wrong. It doesn't matter what evidences is being proposed, you can always find some way to situate it as a coincidence that doesn't compel you to believe.

And from the LDS apologist's perspective, that is fine. We don't want people to believe because of the evidence alone. We only hope that, at least for some people, good evidence leads them to seek for spiritual experiences that not only help further convince them to believe, but lead them to transform their lives in a way that brings them more peace and happiness.  

 

 

[thesometimesaint]

On 10/19/2017 at 12:55 PM, Physics Guy said:

Trying to convince a non-Mormon that Joseph Smith was a prophet who received plates from an angel is like trying to convict an accused of murder by witchcraft. The prosecution can lay out all the evidence that the victim suddenly collapsed and died with nobody near them, but if the defense attorney points out that the victim may well have just had a heart attack, then the case is over.

It doesn't help the prosecution to point out that the defense has not proven the heart attack, but merely suggested that a heart attack could have occurred. It doesn't help, either, though, for the prosecuation to point out that their unproven witchcraft theory is just as valid, as a possible explanation for sudden death, as the unproven heart attack theory, because both theories offer just as much proof, namely none. 

With such an unprecedent charge as murder by witchcraft, the prosecution has to show that no more plausible explanation for the evidence can even be offered. As soon as the defense attorney does offer a more plausible explanation, the witchcraft murder case fails. And no-one will sympathize with the prosecutors if they complain about how they were defeated by mere speculations without evidence. If they wanted to make their witchcraft charge stick, the burden was on them to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the cause of death was not a natural heart attack.

I do apologize for an analogy about both murder and magic. I do not mean to imply that Smith's acts were comparable to those, but only to emphasize the distinctions which seem to keep getting buried, between proof, possibility, and plausibility. A witchcraft murder case was the best illustration I could find for those issues; I would be happy to substitute a less emotionally loaded analogy, if one can be found.

For non-Mormons there is a presumption that people are not prophets until proven to be so beyond reasonable doubt. Mormons don't have to share that presumption, but they should understand it—and I think they should accept that it is reasonable, and not keep calling it foolish or lazy or arbitrary. Many non-Mormons do accept that prophets can in principle exist, but nobody believes that there have been more than a few major prophets in all of world history. On the other hand everyone, including Mormons, believes that there have been all too many clever frauds in world history. It is therefore only reasonable to assume that fraud is a priori a much more likely explanation than prophethood, any time the issue comes up.

It is a bit more complex than that. Theists use a presumption that there is one or more Gods and that there were/are prophet(s) of that/those God(s). Atheists use a presumption there is no God or prophets, and any claim to such is a fraud. Agnostics don't know either way. While scientists can believe or not believe as they choose they must be limited to methodological materialism when doing science.  I don't see that as a reasonable assumption at all, given the presumptions.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

The Book of Mormon text itself is what is doing the prediction. It says things about the ancient past, about geography, and in some cases about scientific phenomena that in many cases are unlikely and in some cases nearly impossible for someone in New York in 1829 to know about. Thus it made many predictions about the world and about the past before (not after) history, archeology, or science was developed enough to verify them. Whether scholars or anyone else recognize those predictions right away or not is a moot point. All your talk about whether Nibley or anyone else predicted where the locations in Arabia would likely be located before they were found is not that significant. What matters is that after thorough investigation of possible routes has been undertaken, that at least a plausible and at best a compelling picture of their journey begins to appear. All the predictions were made in 1829, before any of us started to look to verify them. 

Book of Mormon text doesn't predict we should expect to find a Nihm tribe or NHM inscription rocks in Yemen, no one did, not even Smith himself. We humans have biases, for example we assume the Universe was made for us because it is so improbable. What are your thoughts on the book Cinepro recommends? Have you had the chance to read the reviews?

We humans are very good in finding meaningless connections, it is how our brain works. In science you make predictions to protect yourself from your own bias. Predictions are a powerful way to confirm your theory , and it is something that ancient history field rarely does. 

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Also, it seems that what it takes to convince a "skeptic" is relative to each skeptic. I don't think that the convergence of evidences surrounding Nahom is going to convince anyone who is prone to be dismissive of the Book of Mormon that it is historically ancient and authentic.

Sure, I was talking in general. It is true many won't believe in something they don't want to believe in no matter what, especially when they have strong feelings or opinions about something. However,  with good evidences you should be able to convince at least some. Is there a reason to believe the scholarly community would dismiss your good evidences? Do you feel the scholarly community would be in denial? Why?  

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I don't think any of us can reliably quantify the probability of Joseph Smith guessing the name Nahom, while simultaneously implementing a believable wordplay for two nhm roots in two different ancient languages, and also guessing Nahom's relative distance and direction from Bountiful, which is another lucky 12 predictions in itself. 

In all honesty I don't see wordplay for Nahom in the book of Mormon, shouldn't we expect for the daughters of Ishmael to cry for the death of their father?  Back in the thread I mentioned Nehor as an ancient area in Arabia, Robert told me nhr means river. Guess what happened next? I found Nehor and "river" in the same Book of Mormon verse.   Tell you what. Why don't we ask a non-mormon scholar if he sees wordplay for Nahom in the Book of Mormon? 

I don't understand why Bountiful is a prediction Ryan. Bountiful (Khor Rori or Salalah) is northeast of Nihm, so the location itself is not a lucky hit. As for timber, "fruits", honey shouldn't we expect to find some in a forest next to the sea? In the Book of Mormon there had to be a place full of trees next to the sea to make a ship because you can't make it in the middle of the desert. As for "hills" you find them everywhere in Arabia, and the Dhofar region is huge.You are doing the equivalent of a self-fulling prophecy Ryan, self-fulling prophecies are not impressive. Your examples are not impressing me so far.        

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

. And unless you have some good reason, other than resorting to coincidence, for why it isn't good evidence, then I think the conversation is pretty much going nowhere. And from what I can tell, you don't seem to know enough about the other aspects of the evidence (world play, logistical correlations, Bountiful) to really bring up salient arguments to undermine their credibility. 

I think you are underestimating my argument, but that is okay. So, is there any evidence of ancient Isralites don't wordplay for an Arabic site? What exactly does Bountiful have that you can't find anywhere else?  

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

hus it made many predictions about the world and about the past before (not after) history, archeology, or science

Please help me understand something. When the scriptures mention something that contradicts what is known about the world, both Christian and LDS defenders say it is not literal such as the Genesis story for example. When Book of Mormon says "horses and chariots" defenders argue "we must still deal with the question of what the original text might have meant the animal and conveyance that Joseph translated as "horse" and "chariot" to be".  It seems Ryan, that you are cherry picking the predictions. If not, please help me understand why

On 10/19/2017 at 9:56 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

As usual, you failed to read your own words, which I had quoted and presented to you:

Me and Ryan are making some assumptions to calculate probabilities. If you know how many Old Testament names are in the Book of Mormon please let us know. If you know how many ancient tononyms near Nihm match Biblical names let us know too.

Edited October 22, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Book of Mormon text doesn't predict we should expect to find a Nihm tribe or NHM inscription rocks in Yemen, no one did, not even Smith himself. We humans have biases, for example we assume the Universe was made for us because it is so improbable. ..................................................

Both your examples here are false, Sam.  Humans do not generally assume any such thing about the universe -- that is an observation by scientists only.  As to Nahom and NihmNHM, you clearly do not know what a prediction is.

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

In all honesty I don't see wordplay for Nahom in the book of Mormon, shouldn't we expect for the daughters of Ishmael to cry for the death of their father?  Back in the thread I mentioned Nehor as an ancient area in Arabia, Robert told me nhr means river. Guess what happened next? I found Nehor and "river" in the same Book of Mormon verse.   Tell you what. Why don't we ask a non-mormon scholar if he sees wordplay for Nahom in the Book of Mormon? 

Good idea.  However, I already provided plenty of sources on wordplay in Hebrew, Arabic, and the ancient Near East, and that meant nothing to you.  Only someone who is dishonest uses the phrase "in all honesty," Sam.

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I don't understand why Bountiful is a prediction Ryan. Bountiful (Khor Rori or Salalah) is northeast of Nihm, so the location itself is not a lucky hit. As for timber, "fruits", honey shouldn't we expect to find some in a forest next to the sea? In the Book of Mormon there had to be a place full of trees next to the sea to make a ship because you can't make it in the middle of the desert. As for "hills" you find them everywhere in Arabia, and the Dhofar region is huge.You are doing the equivalent of a self-fulling prophecy Ryan, self-fulling prophecies are not impressive. Your examples are not impressing me so far.

They are not impressive because you don't want them to be.  So you misstate the facts in order to find fault.  You don't want the geographical predictions in the text to be predictions, so you simply deny them in the same fashion that a thief caught red-handed will frequently deny that he stole the items he was caught on camera stealing.  Even RT avoided that, and, when I caught him at it, he sometimes admitted his fault.  You seem to have no shame, Sam.  You ought to at least be willing to admit that you are wrong when it is factually demonstrated to you.

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

I think you are underestimating my argument, but that is okay. So, is there any evidence of ancient Isralites don't wordplay for an Arabic site? What exactly does Bountiful have that you can't find anywhere else?  

Please help me understand something. When the scriptures mention something that contradicts what is known about the world, both Christian and LDS defenders say it is not literal such as the Genesis story for example. When Book of Mormon says "horses and chariots" defenders argue "we must still deal with the question of what the original text might have meant the animal and conveyance that Joseph translated as "horse" and "chariot" to be".  It seems Ryan, that you are cherry picking the predictions. If not, please help me understand why

While it is true that yokels frequently read the Genesis Creation & Garden stories as historical narrative accounts, no scholar does so.  You seem to have no idea why that might be, possibly because you have never spent time in high school or college courses reading serious literature and analyzing it.  The childish notion about literature (including the Bible) is that one has only to read it, and it will provide instant understanding to the reader, no serious reflection required.  The same for serious historical scholarship;  The fundamentalist evangelical imagines that no serious study is required.  Instead, one can instantly know what is being described and how it can be evaluated.  The same applies to brain surgery -- no study required, just do it and everything will turn out alright.  

When a scholar reads any text claiming to be ancient, he has only to compare the claims made within the text to measure them against reality.  His multifaceted results will tell him whether in fact the book is a forgery (pseudepigraphon)  or is authentic.  Such scholarship can also tell whether individual claims in a text are authentic.  I gave you a prime example in a cuneiform text by a scribe of Nebuchadrezzar II in verifying the exact date of the end of the reign of the king of Judah, and thus the actual first year of the reign of King Zedekiah -- that king's replacement (things which Joseph Smith could not know).  You did not deign to respond, even though such a chronological date is crucial in establishing a precise Book of Mormon chronology -- a synchronism which can make or break a book's authenticity, but which turns out to be a fulfillment of the internal prediction made by the BofM text that it must be both coherent and systematic -- if authentic.

Instead of examining the broad range of such fulfilled predictions, you atomistically cherry pick one item and adopt an unscholarly set of assumptions about it in order to dismiss it.  You do precisely what no biblical scholar would ever do in examining the biblical text:  You automatically assume the worst in order to find fault, without ever being even-handed.  Secular scholarship demands fairness and the facing of actual evidence, without throwing up all manner of absurd obstacles.  For example, you deny everything that scholars know of wordplay as a straw man obstacle, where an actual scholar would admit up front that there is nothing odd or unaccountable about the suggestion of wordplay on the mourning of Ishmael's daughters with Nahom.  You are thus unable to fairly weigh and balance the various claims being made about Nahom.  Indeed, your comments indicate that all of biblical scholarship is suddenly untenable.

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Me and Ryan are making some assumptions to calculate probabilities. If you know how many Old Testament names are in the Book of Mormon please let us know. If you know how many ancient tononyms near Nihm match Biblical names let us know too.

If you want to know how many of the Book of Mormon names are biblical names, you can consult the most reliable source of analysis:  https://onoma.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main_Page .  The analytic chart at https://onoma.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Chart can also be helpful.  Your notion that biblical names matching ancient toponyms near Nihm is significant in some way is clearly delusional.  It is completely irrelevant.

[Ryan Dahle]

Samuel,

As much as I would love to now explore every detail for the wordplay and for Bountiful and to respond to every possible objection for their being good evidence, I don't really have the time or interest to do so. And as for the other questions, I have a feeling that no matter what I or anyone else says, you will remain unimpressed. And because I don't really have any desire to try and convince you of something you don't want to believe in, I'm not planning on continuing to post on this thread. Best wishes.

- Ryan

[SamuelTheLamanite]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

They are not impressive because you don't want them to be.  So you misstate the facts in order to find fault.  You don't want the geographical predictions in the text to be predictions

Both Khofot and Khor Rori seem to be north east. 

Even with Ryan's adjustment it still looks north east. 

 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

They are not impressive because you don't want them to be.  So you misstate the facts in order to find fault.  You don't want the geographical predictions in the text to be predictions,

Looking at the maps above Bountiful seems to be north east of Nahom, like Nahom seems to be south east of Jerusalem. So you can argue going "east" doesn't have to be a straight line, but then why would Nephi use south east?    

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

While it is true that yokels frequently read the Genesis Creation & Garden stories as historical narrative accounts, no scholar does so.  You seem to have no idea why that might be, possibly because you have never spent time in high school or college courses reading serious literature and analyzing it. 

What makes a Biblical passage literal and what makes it a metaphor?  Anyway,  you are missing the point Robert, I told Ryan he was cherry picking the predictions.