God probably won't allow us to find Nahom

[RevTestament]

4 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

What is the name of the region where you place Bountiful?  

Like most LDS scholars I place Bountiful in the Dhofar Region. That is the bountiful coast along the southern Indian Ocean coast. The reason has to do with the ocean currents. So it has been that way for thousands of years. There has been variation in the Arabian climate, but that region has always gotten extra humidity because of the summer currents flowing up from Africa and hitting the coast there. Around 4000 YBP, all of Arabia was greener than now as well as the Sahara. Due to the 2d precessional wobble of the earth's axis, the area goes through a 20,000 year cycle of monsoon wetness and desertification. Adding to the variation is the distance of the earth from the sun during summer months of the northern hemisphere. So 2600 years ago that area was mostly desertified and extra sand began to clog up the inlets which are now all covered with sand bars in Oman due to the winter northern winds bringing in sand from the central desert of Arabia. Yemen, however, still has some inlets which are open. However, that may be due to the help of man. I don't know. I think it has to do with the sand settling near the cliffs further inland.

However, I do not place Bountiful at Salalah. I believe the mountains are too far from the coast to be a match. Bountiful was a small place where they had access to wood to build a boat on the shore area. 

Edited September 20, 2017 by RevTestament

[Robert F. Smith]

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Hi Bob, good to visit again.

I also agree that the "nearly eastward" doesn't mean a straight line. Not that you necessarily assumed this, but just to be clear, the lines were not proposed directional routes, but simply were to demonstrate how as one goes further and further south, the "nearly" because less and less applicable. Could someone make an argument for 100 miles south of the current Nihm tribal grounds? Sure, but it won't be nearly as "nearly eastward" compared to a journey from the current Nihm tribal region. Let's say that the Nihm tribe was 100 miles south of its current location. I think that some LDS scholars would probably assume that it was indeed the Nahom mentioned in the text and the "nearly eastward" allowed for a much more east-northeast route. However, I think there would be far less consensus over the matter. It would seem like a bit of a stretch. If it were 100 miles north of the current tribal grounds, that would be a problem because of the harsh, impassible desert. One could propose that there was a southern detour before the long journey east, but again, it would be a bit of a stretch. A 100 miles east of current Nahom, and it would be weird that Nephi didn't mention the eastward turn already (it would have had to have been a fairly sharp turn because the norther desert wouldn't allow for a gradual south-easterly route. And obviously, 100 miles west we get to the Red Sea. 

I can countenance other locations within this wide swath being potentially valid according to a liberal interpretation of the text, but the further and further we get away from the Nihm tribal ground's current location, the more and more we have to stretch the meaning of the text to make a match. I'm not saying you were disagreeing with this. I'm just clarifying my point. The place where Nehem is actually located is about as good as it gets for a match with what the text says. 

 

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Edit in brackets: "but simply were to demonstrate how as one goes further and further south, the 'nearly' [becomes] less and less applicable.

I was emphasizing the lack of a straight line for Sam's benefit.  At the same time, I don't consider Nahom the point from which they turned nearly eastward, and I prefer to see Clan Lehi making its way along the north edge of the mountains, until going to the coast through a wadi -- as prompted by the Liahona.

[Robert F. Smith]

10 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Technically, I agree that many things that societies throughout the history of the world have considered supernatural, were really just accomplished through natural means and discoveries have explained those earlier phenomena through natural means.  Of course this makes sense if we consider that more advanced civilizations and technology could accomplish things that our current culture would describe as magic and would be indistinguishable.  

I'm using the term supernatural in a more traditional way in this case.  If a higher power were intervening to transmit this story of the ancient inhabitants in the America's to Joseph Smith, then I would have to completely re-orient my world view.  I just have seen no compelling evidence to suggest that either a deity of some kind or an advanced civilization has directly intervened in the affairs of humankind.  If that evidence did come forward, it would be paradigm shifting for me on multiple levels.  

I understand the traditional use of the term "supernatural" to refer to cases in which natural law is abrogated, which is a common assumption and basis for the normative Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition.  The problem is that such a notion is logically absurd and nonsensical, self-contradictory in fact.  Moreover, that is one of the primary reasons why normative Christianity is failing.  It just doesn't pass the smell test.  Mormonism, on the other hand, combines the notion of deity with naturally advanced beings.  So, although Mormons often think of miracles, they do so loosely, without considering the power of their naturalistic theology.

It is impossible, for example, for Joseph Smith to have translated the BofM.  He could only have read the text from some device to his scribes, just as Lehi could only follow the directions of the brass ball Liahona.  Neither could explain the function.  Nor did they need to.  Indeed, what is particularly vexing is the fact that the English translation of the BofM on the Original Manuscript is an Early Modern English translation, a version of English already extinct long before Joseph was born.  Just one Mormon enigma among many.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

12 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

And as far as I'm concerned, there are no good candidates for Bountiful outside of the Dhofar region.

According to some maps Salalah and Khor Rori are northeast of the region your arrows are pointing to. You can search Salalah on Google maps, use satellite. 

12 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

The top arrow is where Aston believes the eastward turn approximately took place.

Yes, to make the eastward turn fit better. Book of Mormon description doesn't tell us where the eastward turn happened.  

Still working on project. 

Edited September 21, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[SamuelTheLamanite]

18 hours ago, RevTestament said:

However, I do not place Bountiful at Salalah. I believe the mountains are too far from the coast to be a match. Bountiful was a small place where they had access to wood to build a boat on the shore area. 

Looking at the map above where exactly? 

[jkwilliams]

You have to admit that's a great mental image: God up in heaven looking down and finding ways to hide archaeological evidence. "You think you can find Nahom? Not on my watch!"

[SamuelTheLamanite]

22 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

If it were 100 miles north of the current tribal grounds, that would be a problem because of the harsh, impassible desert.

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? 

Edited September 21, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[SamuelTheLamanite]

23 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

The following image is from Google Earth. I made sure that the image was aligned to true north.

True north? there is no true north in Book of Mormon models of the New Word.  Why should we make an exception in the Old World? 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

12 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I was emphasizing the lack of a straight line for Sam's benefit.  

Thanks. Okay, before continuing with my project I need your help. So the root for Nehem is NHM,  what is root for Aaron? Is it simply RN? How do you write Aaron without vowels? I am confused. Thanks. 

Edited September 21, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[Robert F. Smith]

51 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Thanks. Okay, before continuing with my project I need your help. So the root for Nehem is NHM,  what is root for Aaron? Is it simply RN? How do you write Aaron without vowels? I am confused. Thanks. 

Hebrew ʼahărōn (Numbers 8:2-26, Deuteronomy 32:50, Micah 6:4) = LXX Greek aarōn.  Without vowels the consonants are 'hrn.  The initial tick at the beginning of the four consonants is a glottal stop called 'alef.

[Ryan Dahle]

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I was emphasizing the lack of a straight line for Sam's benefit.  At the same time, I don't consider Nahom the point from which they turned nearly eastward, and I prefer to see Clan Lehi making its way along the north edge of the mountains, until going to the coast through a wadi -- as prompted by the Liahona.

I suppose it is an exegetical matter. 1 Nephi 17:1 says "And it came to pass that we did again take our journey in the wilderness; and we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth." Its true they entered the wilderness after the mention of Nahom, but it says they traveled east "from that time forth"? What time? I think the best reading is from the time they entered the wilderness. It is exegetically inferior to assume Nephi meant some other time because he doesn't give another specific time or event that could serve as a viable antecedent. Thus, the timing of their departure itself seems to be the best interpretation for "from that time forth." One could argue that the "wilderness" is far removed from the area of Nahom, as if it was some sort of distinct and distant location, but I think that is also a strained interpretation. It seems like the wilderness is any place immediately outside of a concentrated populous. 

I'm ok if that isn't what the verse meant. It gives more logistical wiggle room in some ways. But I think it is a better interpretation to link the eastward journey directly with their departure from Nahom. 

 

12 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

According to some maps Salalah and Khor Rori are northeast of the region your arrows are pointing to. You can search Salalah on Google maps, use satellite. 

My arrows may have favored Khor Kharfot, but my actual explanation broadened acceptable candidates to anywhere in the Dhofar region, which Salalah and Khor Rori are in.

 

12 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

On 9/20/2017 at 9:26 AM, Ryan Dahle said:

The top arrow is where Aston believes the eastward turn approximately took place.

Yes, to make the eastward turn fit better. Book of Mormon description doesn't tell us where the eastward turn happened.

Like I said, I didn't necessarily agree with Aston, even though open to the possibility of the Nihm tribal area extending northward in antiquity. However, the current tribal grounds are only 50 miles southwest of Aston's proposed turn, and they are only 25 or 30 miles south from the eastern corridor that they would have needed to travel through anyways, using Aston's proposal. His northward proposal is really fairly inconsequential in how well a turn in this general area accords with "nearly eastward".

Do you deny that if the Nihm tribal region was, say, 100 miles south of its current location it would be far less of a "nearly eastward" course toward the Dhofar region? The word "nearly" means "very close to; almost" or simply "closely." In other words, there is room for deviation, but not a whole lot. Webster's 1828 says "Almost; within a little." Nephi could have said east-northeast just like he previously mentioned south-southeast, but he didn't. He said nearly eastward. The journey from the proposed site of the Valley of Lemuel is over a 1000 miles south-southeast. Yet the only NHM toponym in ancient Arabia happens to be within 75 mile or so radius of where it needs to be in order for the best possible interpretation of a "nearly eastward" journey toward the only possible location for Bountiful, which is the Dhofar region.

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

On 9/20/2017 at 10:26 AM, Ryan Dahle said:

If it were 100 miles north of the current tribal grounds, that would be a problem because of the harsh, impassible desert.

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? 

The text mentions God leading them through most fertile and more fertile areas via the liahona. If God gave them food and water through an otherwise impassable desert, 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. Is there some reason you are resorting to such suggestions in order to broaden the scope of where Nahom likely should be located according to the text?

 

1 hour ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

On 9/20/2017 at 9:26 AM, Ryan Dahle said:

The following image is from Google Earth. I made sure that the image was aligned to true north.

True north? there is no true north in Book of Mormon models of the New Word.  Why should we make an exception in the Old World? 

My point was just to demonstrate that my map wasn't skewed to my favor. Nephi discusses cardinal directions and uses designations such as south-southeast to describe their route by the borders of the Red Sea. That seems to coordinate perfectly with our modern understanding of true north. You could argue that Nephi had a different direction in mind for north, but I haven't seen that argument yet. And the debate is still ongoing for the Book of Mormon's descriptions of directions in the new world.

Samuel, one problem is that you can't actually limit the possible toponyms found in this region to correlations with names found in the Bible or the BofM. Some Book of Mormon names are from the Bible, but many of them aren't. Some of them are biblical sounding, and some aren't. As soon as you open up the possibility that Joseph Smith could have used any possible combination of three letters, then it significantly reduces the probability of him guessing a match with a toponym in this area, even if you combine it with the relative likelihood of him choosing a name derived from the Bible. In other words, even if you find 10 biblical sounding names in this area, you still have to account for the possibility that Joseph didn't use a biblical sounding name. For instance, Nephi called the waters of the sea next to Bountiful Irreantum. That is not a Biblical name, but it is the next named location after Nahom. Shazer, the location named before Nahom, is also not in the Bible, even though it is close to some Bible names. However, if you add everything that could possibly be "close" to the names that are in the Bible, then you will end up with a much much larger corpus of names, which in turn reduces the value of finding correlations with Arabian place names. 

I guess what I am saying is that there is a lot more work to be done than simply finding a bunch of Bible names, Bible-sounding names, Book of Mormon names, or Book of Mormon-sounding names in the region next to the modern Nihm tribe. The probability argument you are exploring is much more complicated than your current method accounts for. That in turn reduces the significance of your findings, whatever they may be.

[RevTestament]

3 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Looking at the map above where exactly? 

Khor Kharfot meets all the scriptural criterion. There is a neighboring valley just to the east which may as well. Here is a picture of it:

Edited September 21, 2017 by RevTestament

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I suppose it is an exegetical matter. 1 Nephi 17:1 says "And it came to pass that we did again take our journey in the wilderness; and we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth." Its true they entered the wilderness after the mention of Nahom, but it says they traveled east "from that time forth"? What time? I think the best reading is from the time they entered the wilderness. It is exegetically inferior to assume Nephi meant some other time because he doesn't give another specific time or event that could serve as a viable antecedent. Thus, the timing of their departure itself seems to be the best interpretation for "from that time forth." One could argue that the "wilderness" is far removed from the area of Nahom, as if it was some sort of distinct and distant location, but I think that is also a strained interpretation. It seems like the wilderness is any place immediately outside of a concentrated populous. 

I'm ok if that isn't what the verse meant. It gives more logistical wiggle room in some ways. But I think it is a better interpretation to link the eastward journey directly with their departure from Nahom. 

I see no reason to connect Nahom with the turn nearly eastward.  They are not that closely connected in the text.  Hence, we don't really know when or where they turned.  Even using their final destination is not indicative, since the site of Bountiful had to be reached by going south from their general direction of travel.

3 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

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

The text mentions God leading them through most fertile and more fertile areas via the liahona. If God gave them food and water through an otherwise impassable desert, 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. Is there some reason you are resorting to such suggestions in order to broaden the scope of where Nahom likely should be located according to the text?

Clan Lehi spent no time in any impassable desert.  Wilderness, yes, but not in desert.

3 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

My point was just to demonstrate that my map wasn't skewed to my favor. Nephi discusses cardinal directions and uses designations such as south-southeast to describe their route by the borders of the Red Sea. That seems to coordinate perfectly with our modern understanding of true north. You could argue that Nephi had a different direction in mind for north, but I haven't seen that argument yet. And the debate is still ongoing for the Book of Mormon's descriptions of directions in the new world.

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

These are the standard directions in Arabic usage, and they do not differ from the way Hebrew speakers oriented themselves:

[Ryan Dahle]

58 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I see no reason to connect Nahom with the turn nearly eastward.  They are not that closely connected in the text.  Hence, we don't really know when or where they turned.  Even using their final destination is not indicative, since the site of Bountiful had to be reached by going south from their general direction of travel.

Well, there is always room to read between the lines, but 1 Nephi 16:13 Nephi mentions them traveling in a south-southeast direction to get to Shazer. Then in verse 14 it says they traveled "the same direction" into the wilderness. And then after the broken bow incident Nephi mentions that "we did again take our journey, traveling nearly the same course as in the beginning" (v. 33). There is room to interpret otherwise, but it seems an awfully lot like they were traveling in the same south-southeast general direction for that entire portion of the journey. In the very same verse (v. 33), it mentions that they stopped to rest, and then the next verse reports the burial at Nahom. And then immediately after mentioning the departure from Nahom, it mentions traveling "nearly eastward" from that time forth. 

In other words directions are given immediately before and after the mention of Nahom. So Nahom and the eastward turn seem to be pretty closely connected to me. I'm fine with slight detours, in this area, just as I am throughout the entire trip. But I think it is pretty hard to argue that a major change in direction didn't take place close to Nahom. Did it take place after 50 miles of traveling mostly east before reaching Nahom? Did they have to travel 30 miles north out of the Nahom region before they could actually get going east? I have no idea, but my point is that somewhere in the general region of Nahom is where the major eastward turn took place. 

[Ryan Dahle]

1 minute ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Did it take place after 50 miles of traveling mostly east before reaching Nahom? 

I mean to say here, was the east turn 50 miles before the reached Nahom?

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Well, there is always room to read between the lines, but 1 Nephi 16:13 Nephi mentions them traveling in a south-southeast direction to get to Shazer. Then in verse 14 it says they traveled "the same direction" into the wilderness. And then after the broken bow incident Nephi mentions that "we did again take our journey, traveling nearly the same course as in the beginning" (v. 33). There is room to interpret otherwise, but it seems an awfully lot like they were traveling in the same south-southeast general direction for that entire portion of the journey. In the very same verse (v. 33), it mentions that they stopped to rest, and then the next verse reports the burial at Nahom.

All true enough, but not relevant to what you say next.

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

And then immediately after mentioning the departure from Nahom, it mentions traveling "nearly eastward" from that time forth. In other words directions are given immediately before and after the mention of Nahom.

There is in fact no immediate turn.  We get the turn only five or six verses later, which is more than an interlude in which some complaints are voiced.  We know from that set of verses that the complainers repented, and that the Lord provided food.  How much time was summed up in all of that?  We even encounter the phrase "it came to pass," which is a narrative marker of transition (16:39), and then another instance of that same marker (17:1) before the text mentions them continuing in the wilderness on a "nearly eastward" track (17:1).

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

So Nahom and the eastward turn seem to be pretty closely connected to me. I'm fine with slight detours, in this area, just as I am throughout the entire trip. But I think it is pretty hard to argue that a major change in direction didn't take place close to Nahom. Did it take place after 50 miles of traveling mostly east before reaching Nahom? Did they have to travel 30 miles north out of the Nahom region before they could actually get going east? I have no idea, but my point is that somewhere in the general region of Nahom is where the major eastward turn took place. 

Perhaps a change in direction took place near Nahom, but there is in fact no way to know that.  Nephi is only giving us a general picture, with very few specific stops and incidents along the way.  It is not a sitrep with topographic military accuracy.  We can only speculate on the details nearly 2600 years later, even if we believe that it all actually happened.

[wtrdog]

I seem to recall the nails on this NHM coffin being securely hammered some months back. OP seems to be lifting material from that discussion. See the "other" board for a thorough archive of the arguments. 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

12 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

My arrows may have favored Khor Kharfot, but my actual explanation broadened acceptable candidates to anywhere in the Dhofar region, which Salalah and Khor Rori are in.

Yes, but Salalah and Khor Rori are north east of the specific region your arrows point to. See Robert's map above. 

12 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

In other words, even if you find 10 biblical sounding names in this area, you still have to account for the possibility that Joseph didn't use a biblical sounding name. For instance, Nephi called the waters of the sea next to Bountiful Irreantum. That is not a Biblical name, but it is the next named location after Nahom.

About 42% of Book of Mormon names are also Biblical names. So you don't agree Nahom, Nehum, and Naham share a common ancestor root?   

12 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I guess what I am saying is that there is a lot more work to be done than simply finding a bunch of Bible names, Bible-sounding names, Book of Mormon names, or Book of Mormon-sounding names in the region next to the modern Nihm tribe. The probability argument you are exploring is much more complicated than your current method accounts for. That in turn reduces the significance of your findings, whatever they may be.

Okay. I am still working on it. It is going to take time. 

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Hebrew ʼahărōn (Numbers 8:2-26, Deuteronomy 32:50, Micah 6:4) = LXX Greek aarōn.  Without vowels the consonants are 'hrn.  The initial tick at the beginning of the four consonants is a glottal stop called 'alef.

Oh okay, makes more sense. Thank a lot! Will help me with my research. 

 

[SamuelTheLamanite]

On 9/17/2017 at 11:47 PM, nealr said:

OK, so here's the thing. A statement like this should be pretty testable. If thousands of inscriptions means it is a virtual guarantee for there to be a tribe or place name NHM, then we logically should be finding NHMs nearly everywhere thousands of inscriptions occur. But do we? Well, that's for you to prove, my friend. There are hundreds of thousands of inscriptions from Mesopotamia. By your logic, we should be able to find several different places or tribes called NHM in that corpus, so start digging. 

These are just some of the many factors that need to considered in trying to evaluate this whole probability thing. Someone better trained than I am in statistics could surely think of dozens more. I don't know what those probabilities would be. I would be very interested in seeing a responsible statistical study that tried to figure them out. But what I do know is that these kinds of mitigating factors begin to reduce the probability that this is all a coincidence. Eliminate? Of course not. The chance of coincidence is never eliminated. But it reduces that chance and I suspect it makes it fairly unlikely. How unlikely? Well, absent a serious statistical study with actual data, none of us really know, and so I honestly doubt trying to have an extended conversation about it is going to be the least bit productive.  

Okay, after re-reading your post I want to come back, and hopefully you do the same. First, I want to say I made a mistake saying "With thousands of inscriptions around Ba'ran you are almost guaranteed to find NHM and other tribes". What I should have said is you are almost guaranteed to find NHM in a rock because one can find a match in Old South Arabia inscription rocks for about half of all simple Old Testament names. I found 7 out of 10 with a small random sample in a database that is incomplete.  

If you put all the inscription rocks in a PDF your chances of finding a match for a given Old Testament name (a simple name) are not low. See Ramsey Theory.  Yes, it is more challenging find a match for Old South Arabia places, regions, cities, but it is not very improbable.  My goal is not to prove NHM is a coincidence, my only argument is that there is no need for crazy astronomical coincidences. It is reasonable to assume it is a coincidence, but it is impossible to prove it. You also have to remember that one can think of many aspects of the Book of Mormon, Nahom is one of many aspects.  

Now,  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? Like Cinepro says "it's misleading to only consider the probability of events after they occur". Ever heard of the Anthropic Principle Fallacy? 

Edited September 22, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[Ryan Dahle]

13 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

There is in fact no immediate turn.  We get the turn only five or six verses later, which is more than an interlude in which some complaints are voiced.  We know from that set of verses that the complainers repented, and that the Lord provided food.  How much time was summed up in all of that?  We even encounter the phrase "it came to pass," which is a narrative marker of transition (16:39), and then another instance of that same marker (17:1) before the text mentions them continuing in the wilderness on a "nearly eastward" track (17:1).

While it may be possible that Ishmael was buried some distance away from where  Nephi said they did "tarry for the space of a time,"  I think that would be weird because why would Nephi mention that they stopped, if it wasn't a segue into the Nahom episode. That seems the only good reason for Nephi to mention their encampment. Should we really think that Nephi told us they stopped at some random, unidentified place and that it had nothing to do with the death and burial in the next verse?  

It's also possible that the Lord blessed them with food after they took a long, unreported journey away from Nahom. But that  seems less likely than assuming that, just like the broken bow incident, the Lord led one or more of them to wild game in some nearby location. Or perhaps he helped them find a way to trade with the locals at Nahom. Who knows? It would seem weird, though, if they traveled some distance from Nahom to get their food. This is because of the way that Nephi resumes the travel narrative with "we did again take our journey in the wilderness."

In other words, there is a notable stop and an encampment and a burial at Nahom and complaining about the death and hunger and a report that they obtained food, all without any mention of traveling distances or directions. And then there is a notable resumption of the travel narrative with the phrase "from that time forth," with a new direction given. If they took some notable and yet undisclosed journey away from Nahom for an unspecified amount of time, then the reader can have no idea what "from that time forth" means.

While I agree it is possible that some undisclosed journey took place, I think the best interpretation of Nephi's account assumes that very little if any traveling was taking place between 1 Nephi 16:33-17:1. In any case, the best candidate for Nahom is in a location where traveling "nearly eastward" from its general region gets one to the Dhofar area.  

9 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

About 42% of Book of Mormon names are also Biblical names. So you don't agree Nahom, Nehum, and Naham share a common ancestor root?

It doesn't matter whether they share the same roots. Pretty much everyone agrees that there is zero evidence that Joseph had knowledge of ancient languages at the time of the translation. All that matters is similarities in sound, and especially in consonants.

From a non-believers perspective, Joseph Smith just made up all the names. Thus he, according to your calculation, had a 58% chance of using a name that wasn't in the Bible, and therefore that could have been any old combination of letters. Therefore, this probability factor needs to be added into the equation of him randomly choosing the name he did, for this place. Just because Nahom has the same NHM consonants as several Bible names doesn't change the fact that he could have chosen something else. In other words, whatever the chances of a biblical name showing up  around the Nahom region are, the overall likelihood of Joseph guessing a match needs to at least be reduced by just over half.

Here is an example. Wikipedia says that the Bible has about 2600 proper names. You could probably reduce that number a bit because some names that have different vowels, share the same consonants. Let's just throw a random number out there. Let's just say the Bible has 2300 proper names with distinctly different consonant patterns. And let's say that you find 20 toponyms in the Nihm tribal region that have valid correspondences to Bible names. That means that there is a .0086 percent chance that Joseph Smith's choice of a Bible name would match a bible name in this region. But then you need to account for the fact that Joseph only had a 42% chance of choosing a Bible name in the first place. So you times .0086 by .42 and you get .0036.  In other words the chances are less than 4/1000 or 1/250 that Joseph's chosen Bible name would match up with a name in the Nihm tribal region. Even if you reduced it down to 2000 distinct Bible names and amped it up to 50 Bible names in the Nihm region, you are still left with only a 1/100 chance of Joseph Smith getting a match. I doubt you are going to get very far with this unless there are a boatload of Bible names in this region during Lehi's day. 

One thing that is weird about your position, assuming you are the believing Latter-day Saint that you imply you are, is that you are acting like the choice of the name actually was random. Not so my friend. From a believer's perspective, the name correlates to an actual, revealed place name that can be appropriately be transliterated into English as Nahom. Thus, from a believers perspective, we really are only looking for NHM-related toponyms. And thus from a believer's perspective, it is much, much more likely that we could find the real Nahom, assuming a proposed NHM toponym nicely fits the logistics of the text, and is from the appropriate time. Thus for believers, the Nihm tribal grounds pose a very likely candidate for the real Nahom. God may not give us the information to conclusively prove this location is legitimate to non-believers, but it seems like he has already given us plenty of evidence to conclude it for ourselves. It is not a certainty, but is very likely to be the case, once one accepts the assumptions of a believing Latter-day Saint.  

[Ryan Dahle]

17 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We even encounter the phrase "it came to pass," which is a narrative marker of transition (16:39), and then another instance of that same marker (17:1) before the text mentions them continuing in the wilderness on a "nearly eastward" track (17:1).

It's true that "it came to pass" generally marks a transition, but it can be used for all sorts of transitions. In this case, it seems to notify the reader of a new development in the discussion--namely the Lord revealing his presence and entering into the dialogue. It doesn't seem to indicate any sort of significant development in time or travel. 

[thesometimesaint]

I think if we depend on God to keep knowledge from us. We are denying God.

[Robert F. Smith]

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1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

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

While I agree it is possible that some undisclosed journey took place, I think the best interpretation of Nephi's account assumes that very little if any traveling was taking place between 1 Nephi 16:33-17:1. In any case, the best candidate for Nahom is in a location where traveling "nearly eastward" from its general region gets one to the Dhofar area.

While you misstate my position here, the worse problem is that you are still trying to derive formal data from a military situation report, as though written by a trained intel operative.  Yet we have nothing like that in 1 Nephi.  One may engage in many sorts of reasonable suppositions, any one of which may be correct, but we really have no way of knowing which, if any, is correct.  What we have is an unsystematic set of recollections and impressions set down decades later -- put forth in a way, which may have no greater value for coherence than my own memories as a kid of the great trip our family took to Yellowstone back in 1952.  Remember the one about trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear?

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..........................................From a non-believers perspective, Joseph Smith just made up all the names.................................

One thing that is weird about your position, .....................................is that you are acting like the choice of the name actually was random. ............ From a believer's perspective, the name correlates to an actual, revealed place name that can be appropriately be transliterated into English as Nahom. Thus, from a believers perspective, we really are only looking for NHM-related toponyms. And thus from a believer's perspective, it is much, much more likely that we could find the real Nahom, assuming a proposed NHM toponym nicely fits the logistics of the text, and is from the appropriate time. Thus for believers, the Nihm tribal grounds pose a very likely candidate for the real Nahom. .............................. It is not a certainty, but is very likely to be the case, once one accepts the assumptions of a believing Latter-day Saint.  

One need not make believing or unbelieving assumptions about the text in order to test its application to real geography.  Biblical scholars, for example, could care less about one's belief's when considering the historical geography of the Bible.  Instead, they apply archeological and historical knowledge directly to each conundrum of identification for ancient toponyms.  No one cares about the personal beliefs of the late Yohanan Aharoni in evaluating his The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography, 2nd ed. (Westminster Press, 1979).  He does lay down a solid set of rules, however.   Compare this from p. 125,

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    Most sources permit the localization of a settlement in a general vicinity only and seldom provide us with more exact geographical details.  Of course there are instances when certain details about the town which aid in its identification are mentioned, but usually we are faced with lists of geographical names or incidental references to the place  in relation to some other matter without its location being accurately fixed.  Therefore, one must examine the source itself very carefully in order to extract what is possible, but no more  than that.  If this is a description of boundaries or of some particular road that requires a continuous geographical order or a list of towns that may be localized to some definite region, one still should  not expect a geographical arrangement that is perfectly clear and orderly.

He provides a plethora of examples for those not conversant with the field.

Instances such as Nahom cannot, in any case, be taken in isolation, but must instead be taken together with a host of other on-target indicators.  Take, for example, the Book of Mormon personal name Gidgiddoni, a Nephite commander of ten thousand (3 Nephi 3:18 - 4:26, 6:6).  We find that very name in Neo-Assyrian Gid-gi-da-a-n, Gid-gid-da-nu, etc. (SAA 1:152:6, r 9; 11:123 ii 13), with the long Assyrian ā here equivalent to Hebrew o.  That one was discovered by John Gee, “Right on Target: Gidgiddoni,” Ether’s Cave Blog, June 12, 2015, online at http://etherscave.blogspot.com/2015/06/right-on-target-gidgiddoni.html , and June 13, 2015, at http://blog.fairmormon.org/2015/06/13/right-on-target-gidgiddoni/  , citing The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1999), 1.2:422-423.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

5 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Thus he, according to your calculation, had a 58% chance of using a name that wasn't in the Bible, and therefore that could have been any old combination of letters.

Yes

5 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Therefore, this probability factor needs to be added into the equation of him randomly choosing the name he did, for this place. Just because Nahom has the same NHM consonants as several Bible names doesn't change the fact that he could have chttp://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_prizes.asphosen something else.

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. 

5 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Here is an example. Wikipedia says that the Bible has about 2600 proper names. You could probably reduce that number a bit because some names that have different vowels, share the same consonants. Let's just throw a random number out there. Let's just say the Bible has 2300 proper names with distinctly different consonant patterns. And let's say that you find 20 toponyms in the Nihm tribal region that have valid correspondences to Bible names. That means that there is a .0086 percent chance that Joseph Smith's choice of a Bible name would match a bible name in this region.

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 like Stephen Smoot claims in a video. 

There are many aspects about our Book of Mormon, Nahom is just one of them. Like Cinepro says "it's misleading to only consider the probability of events after they occur".    

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 match to be a coincidence please tell me why. How did you do figure out the odds?"

5 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Thus for believers, the Nihm tribal grounds pose a very likely candidate for the real Nahom. God may not give us the information to conclusively prove this location is legitimate to non-believers, but it seems like he has already given us plenty of evidence to conclude it for ourselves. It is not a certainty, but is very likely to be the case, once one accepts the assumptions of a believing Latter-day Saint.  

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. 

Edited September 22, 2017 by SamuelTheLamanite

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

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/

That's what I meant, I just forgot to move the decimal when writing the results quickly as a percentage. Sorry about the slip. Even though I understand basic principles of probability, math is definitely not my strong suit. However, I believe I did get the end results correct in fraction form , after accounting for the fact that you only have a 42% chance of a Biblical name in the first place, the results being 1/250 or 1 in 250 (for 2300 Biblical names, 20 corresponding names around the Nihm region, and a 42% chance of choosing a Bible name in the first place.

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). In this case you take ALL place names in this area, and then find what percentage they are of the total possible combinations (which seems like it is over 9000 with just three consonants). However, you also have to add in the possibility that he could have used a word with only 1, 2, 4, 5, or 6 consonants (past 6 consonants is quite unusual, so I stopped there). You would have to add the probability of those possibilities into the equation as well. I don't know how many known toponyms existed in this region around 600 BC, but it is probably not a huge number for a 100 square miles or so surrounding the Nihm region. In any case, you would have to somehow combine this aspect of the probability with the probability of Joseph getting a match with a Biblical sounding name. 

1 hour ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

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

First of all, I don't think anyone really knows what the probability of Joseph Smith guessing Nahom is. However, I think that there is more to Stephen's claim than simply calculating the probability of this name showing up in this place. To me the overall issue is about whether or not Joseph Smith simply made up a name for a fictional location in a fictional story, or if the name is an authentic location in a true travel account through the Arabian Peninsula.

I don't personally  place a lot of stock in the argument for the nearby burial grounds. It's a possibility, but it doesn't really affect the odds because there are ancient burial sites all over, and we don't really need to find an ancient burial site to assume that someone could have been buried in a general location. 

However, I do think the overall travel narrative makes it difficult to place Nahom outside of the Nihm region. I suggest reading Neal's "Text and History--Part 1: The Case for the Book of Mormon" which is an open letter to Jeremy Runnells. It gives a nice overview of how Nahom is situated as a key anchor in a set of mutually-dependent geo-spatial relationships that correspond well with real-world locations. 

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? I have reviewed this argument carefully, and I think it is very likely that a word play is intended here and that Joseph Smith would have had little chance of pulling this off randomly. I have no idea what chance that is, but I think at least less than 1/100. Of course, I haven't presented an argument here, I'm just saying the argument exists and it ties in to the overall believability of Nahom being an actual place reported by a Hebrew speaking author around 600 BC. 

So, in my view, the overall message of the video is that Nahom is a multi-facet evidence that is unlikely to have been made up by Joseph Smith. I don't know what the odds are, but when you combine all things that are going on with this evidence, the probability is very low that Joseph Smith put all of them in together by chance. And to be honest, most people don't know the various pieces of the puzzle well enough to really make an informed holistic judgement.

But by all means, keep searching for names.