Does anyone have a NHM explainer handy by chance?

[jfro18]

Someone is telling me that NHM i a bullseye along with a video from PoGP central that shows "bullseyes" that Joseph Smith got in Nephi about "ancient Arabia."

I thought someone had posted on here a nice write-up about the problems with NHM/Nahom, but I can't find it in the searches.

It's very possible I'm imagining that it was here, but I thought it was and I'm tired and rundown from work so who knows.

[Corsair]

Joseph Smith Didn't Understand How Language Works and it Shows: Prt. 3 Nahom

There are more, but this is a fairly recent summary of one of the problems encountered by a non-LDS linguist looking over the explanations for NHM. In short, there are 5 different ways to pronounce the "H" in NHM if you are an archaic Arab speaker and FairMormon is confident that theirs is the right one.

The further problem is how this is a lame bullseye that could simply be a coincidence. Even if it was correct, this does not erase a hundred other anachronisms that each would cast doubt on historicity. The believers can have their NHM and chiasmus party while exactly zero non-LDS Mesoamerican or Middle Eastern archaeologists have the slightest interest in the Book of Mormon.

[jfro18]

The further problem is how this is a lame bullseye that could simply be a coincidence. Even if it was correct, this does not erase a hundred other anachronisms that each would cast doubt on historicity. The believers can have their NHM and chiasmus party while exactly zero non-LDS Mesoamerican or Middle Eastern archaeologists have the slightest interest in the Book of Mormon.

Thank you!

This above was my initial response - that if you want to take NHM as a bullseye, you can do that, but if you're going to take it as a "hit" you still have to explain the hundreds of misses before you can proclaim, as this person did, "How could Joseph have known."

It's not something I'm going to get into a huge back and forth over because honestly I just don't care enough to argue with I think Brian Hales and a group he's working with(?) to debunk the 'antis,' but I figured I'd reply once more and call it a day.

[1smartdodog]

I use to shoot archery in competition. One arrow out of six in the bullseye did not get me anything. To win they all had to hit the bullseye. Anything kess was failure.


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[Hagoth]

I like to stack NHM up alongside the Moroni/Comore problem. People are quick to insist that is merely coincidence and I would agree that it might be, but how much more likely that three letters in an inscription are at least as much of a coincidence as the occurrence of two names that are linked contextually, and which refer directly to Joseph Smith's fascinations with treasure digging and Captain Kid? Moroni: a person associated with a geological feature named Cumorah. Moroni: a settlement of people associated with geological feature named Comore. Which of these is a more likely coincidence? I'm offering you the option to call it a draw, Mr. Amateur Apologist.

[moksha]

Here is some NHM research from a few years back: https://newordermormon.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=633

[John Hamer]

There's no such thing as a bulls-eye — that's not how scholarship works. The Book of Mormon is fully consistent with its composition timeframe, c. 1829-30. The anachronisms make an ancient origin impossible. So "NHM" has zero explanatory value.

One of the Books of the Bible is "Nahum" — the Bible is the source of Joseph Smith's connections to the ancient Semitic world. As a location in Lehi's journey, Nahom is totally irrelevant. It doesn't even rise to the level of coincidence. It's not noteworthy.

[Palerider]

I use to shoot archery in competition. One arrow out of six in the bullseye did not get me anything. To win they all had to hit the bullseye. Anything kess was failure.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Great analogy.

[Red Ryder]

Ya’ll saying it’s like this?

[Apologeticsislying]

There's no such thing as a bulls-eye — that's not how scholarship works. The Book of Mormon is fully consistent with its composition timeframe, c. 1829-30. The anachronisms make an ancient origin impossible. So "NHM" has zero explanatory value.

One of the Books of the Bible is "Nahum" — the Bible is the source of Joseph Smith's connections to the ancient Semitic world. As a location in Lehi's journey, Nahom is totally irrelevant. It doesn't even rise to the level of coincidence. It's not noteworthy.

THIS!

[Yobispo]

Between Hagoth's point about Comoros and Hamer's point about Nahum, NHM can be dismissed out of hand. If it is a "hit" because of it's similarity to the BoM text, then so are Comoros and Nahum, both of which prove the fraud. Can't have it both ways, but of course, apologists need to have it both ways.

[Hagoth]

Another bullseye that is often pointed out in conjunction with NHM is the eastward turn. How could Joseph have known they would have to turn east at that part of their journey?

Even a simple Bible map from in the 19th century would show you that North takes you back to Jerusalem, West drops you in the Red Sea, and South puts you in the Arabian Sea. Hmm, so which direction shall we have our heroes go?

[moksha]

One of the Books of the Bible is "Nahum" — the Bible is the source of Joseph Smith's connections to the ancient Semitic world. As a location in Lehi's journey, Nahom is totally irrelevant. It doesn't even rise to the level of coincidence. It's not noteworthy.

John, where do the Comoros Islands and its capital Moroni fall on the scale of something and nothing?

[blazerb]

There's no such thing as a bulls-eye — that's not how scholarship works. The Book of Mormon is fully consistent with its composition timeframe, c. 1829-30. The anachronisms make an ancient origin impossible. So "NHM" has zero explanatory value.

One of the Books of the Bible is "Nahum" — the Bible is the source of Joseph Smith's connections to the ancient Semitic world. As a location in Lehi's journey, Nahom is totally irrelevant. It doesn't even rise to the level of coincidence. It's not noteworthy.

This is great. I would bet that there were Bible commentaries that said "Nahum" means "comforter." I assume that Wikipedia has that correct.

[slavereeno]

There's no such thing as a bulls-eye — that's not how scholarship works. The Book of Mormon is fully consistent with its composition timeframe, c. 1829-30. The anachronisms make an ancient origin impossible. So "NHM" has zero explanatory value.

One of the Books of the Bible is "Nahum" — the Bible is the source of Joseph Smith's connections to the ancient Semitic world. As a location in Lehi's journey, Nahom is totally irrelevant. It doesn't even rise to the level of coincidence. It's not noteworthy.

Another +1 for this answer.

MormonThink has a pretty good write-up as well
http://www.mormonthink.com/book-of-morm ... .htm#nahom

[Hagoth]

FAIR says: "Long after the 1830 publication of the Book of Mormon, maps of Arabia continued to show the eastern coastline and interior as unknown, unexplored territory."

This simply isn't true. Maps from at least as early as the 16th century show the Arabian peninsula as heavily populated and with large flowing rivers, as in this 1570 map by Abraham Ortelius. Here we see the east coast, where Bountiful would have been located:

ArabiaRivers1570AbrahamOrtelius01.jpg (174.26 KiB) Viewed 8110 times

Equally interesting is the West coast, where apologists say it would have been outrageous for someone in Joseph Smith's time to have proposed running rivers. Tell me what you think:

ArabiaRivers1570AbrahamOrtelius02.jpg (164.42 KiB) Viewed 8110 times

I don't know if Joseph Smith had access to maps by way of his library or school, but if he did he would have expected Arabia to have running rivers and "bountiful" locations along the coastlines. But even if he didn't see any maps it would not have been unreasonable for him to suppose that the coasts would have river valleys, trees, etc. In other words, there was absolutely nothing in Joseph Smith's experience or environment that would dissuade him from putting a river and a fertile valley in his description of the Arabian Peninsula. Since geography was one of the major subjects taught in school at that time it is not unlikely that Joseph might have been familiar with maps of far flung places. Maybe even Moroni/Camora?

Are the apologists simply unaware of this or are they being intentionally misleading? I dunno.

ETA: also, if Joseph was riffing on old maps he might have seen in the library, Nehem was a place that appeared on maps of Arabia at least as far back as the 18th century, as seen in the popular 1794 D'Anville map (notice there is also a river):

[slavereeno]

ETA: also, if Joseph was riffing on old maps he might have seen in the library, Nehem was a place that appeared on maps of Arabia at least as far back as the 18th century, as seen in the popular 1794 D'Anville map (notice there is also a river):

This is Gold, nice research Hagoth.

[Hagoth]

ETA: also, if Joseph was riffing on old maps he might have seen in the library, Nehem was a place that appeared on maps of Arabia at least as far back as the 18th century, as seen in the popular 1794 D'Anville map (notice there is also a river):

This is Gold, nice research Hagoth.

I think even more interesting than the idea that Joseph coild have been riffing on a map he might have seen is the verification that NHM most likely spells Nehem, not Nahom and Joseph, and the simolarity of the words is coincdental. At LEAST as coincidental as Moroni/Camore.

[jfro18]

Nice work on the maps, Hagoth!

I'm really glad I asked this question - this thread is a great resource of info for this issue, and I never replied back yet which I need to remember to do later.

[John Hamer]

John, where do the Comoros Islands and its capital Moroni fall on the scale of something and nothing?

Here's a scale of "Takes" on the Book of Mormon. Moroni, Comoros Islands, falls somewhere between Meaningless Coincidence and Trivia. It's possible that Joseph Smith saw a map and got it from there, especially if it relates to a Captain Kidd story he was partial too — but it can't be proved and it's ultimately irrelevant trivia.

BookOfMormonTakesSpectrum.jpg (124.14 KiB) Viewed 8038 times