Book of Mormon Evidence in Arabia: Beyond Nahom
When LDS scholars publish evidence for the Book of Mormon, critics are quick to say something along the lines of, “Oh, that was just a lucky guess by Joseph Smith,” or “We shouldn’t underestimate the genius of Joseph.”
I take issue with these excuses for Book of Mormon evidence.
Early in the Book of Mormon, Lehi and his caravan are traveling through the Arabian desert in 600 BC. Along the way, Ishmael, the patriarch of one of the families, dies. Nephi (the narrator) then tells us that they buried him “in a place which was called Nahom”.
It’s important to note that every other place that is named along their journey is named by the travelers themselves. However, this case it is unique in that it says, “which was called Nahom,” implying that it was a place already named before they arrived.
What’s the point?
Judging by the travel directions and distances indicated by Nephi, we know the area where “Nahom” should be found in the Arabian Peninsula. And, in fact, archeologist have found a place called Nahom in the exact place and time period where the Book of Mormon says it should be found. What’s more, Nahom was a location along a trade route where travelers would bring their dead for burial — exactly what Nephi says they did with Ishmael.
Critics dismiss this by claiming that Joseph Smith (in 1829, as a 24-year-old farm hand living in the rural United States) fabricated this story by looking at intricate maps of the Arabian Peninsula.
The problems with this excuse are three fold:
First: The only maps that had the name Nahom on them were high-end European maps that Joseph likely never saw. Critics have tried to prove otherwise, but to no avail.
Second: This excuse doesn’t deal with the fact that Ishmael was buried there — a remarkable coincidence since it was a well-established trade-route burial location in 600 BC. This fact was unknown to archeologists until relatively recently — and definitely unknown to Joseph Smith in the 1800s.
Third: This excuse just can’t seem to explain why neither Joseph Smith nor any of his contemporaries ever once used Nahom as evidence for the Book of Mormon. If Joseph supposedly went through all the trouble to find obscure maps all to supposedly make the Book of Mormon seem more true, why did he never cash in on all that hard work? Why didn’t he flaunt all this stuff as evidence? There’s no evidence that Joseph ever once said the word “Nahom” besides the one time when he translated the Book of Mormon.
“But I heard than Nahom isn’t a specific place, but rather a vast region that covers 2,000 square miles! So, to call Nahom a place is incorrect!”
Two-thousand square miles sounds “vast”, but it’s not. For example, 50 miles X 40 miles = 2,000 square miles. Lehi and his family could have crossed through the region in a little over two days if they were on foot — faster if on camel back. So yeah, Nahom is a “place” just like the tiny state of Connecticut is a place. (Actually, Connecticut is a much bigger place at over 5,500 square miles).
And here’s the thing…
It’s not just Nahom.
Evidence that Lehi and his caravan were actually traveling in the Arabian Peninsula in 600 BC goes way beyond Nahom.
One such example is the place on the shore they called “Bountiful”. Nephi says exactly when in their journey the stopped traveling south and started heading east. After heading east, they eventually arrived at the ocean and called the costal location Bountiful. Nephi describes Bountiful as a location with fruit, ore, a mountain, a sea side cliff and enough wood to build a ship. What place in the Arabian Peninsula sounds like this?? Not any place that was known outside of Arabia in the 1800s.
However, over a century after the Book of Mormon was published, knowledge of a place that perfectly matches Nephi’s description of Bountiful was discovered on the coast of the Arabian Peninsula — in the exact location that Nephi describes.
I mean, check this out. Not exactly typical Arabia:
Still, critics try to argue this away — claiming that Joseph must have done extensive research somewhere to come up with all these correct details. (He must have been pretty amazing to research things that nobody in western civilization knew yet.)
A thorough rebuttal to these criticisms (and discussion of additional evidence) can be found here: http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/joseph-and-the-amazing-technicolor-dream-map-part-1-of-2/
And here: http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/joseph-and-the-amazing-technicolor-dream-map-part-2-of-2/
It blows my mind that critics actually think that Joseph went around doing extensive research (beyond what many scholars of his day were doing) all to supposedly fabricate the Book of Mormon.
And then for no one to even consider the word Nahom in the Book of Mormon until 1979? Or for no one outside of Arabia to know about these luscious coastal locations for decades?
If Joseph had such a “vibrant imagination”, as critics claim, why would he go through all the supposed effort to travel hundreds of miles to university libraries to look up a single name? This strains credulity.
They seem to forget that Joseph, according to those who were closest to him, did not even like reading. And according to his wife, he couldn’t even write coherent sentences. He literally had the education of a third grader.
And critics think that Joseph spent countless hours over a period of several years researching Nahom, Bountiful and all of the other evidences for the Book of Mormon from imaginary maps and dozens of obscure books? And then Joseph turns around and never once points people’s attention to those evidences?
Don’t even get me started on all the internal linguistic evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon…. Or the fact that Joseph translated the Book of Mormon (over 500 pages) in broad daylight and in clear view of many people (there was no curtain) with no manuscript in front of him in just over two months.
In Joseph’s day, a lot of people were starting their own churches and garnering huge followings without doing much more than preaching with charisma. If Joseph wanted to “con a bunch of people out of their money,” as critics claim, he sure did it the absolute worst/hardest way possible — especially considering the fact that he consistently put his own life and reputation on the line. He never lived the life of a rich man and often lived in very subpar conditions.
Critics are grasping at straws in the case of the Arabian Peninsula, and there’s only one explanation. They want the Book of Mormon to be wrong. No, they need the Book of Mormon to be wrong. Their paradigm simply cannot allow for the Book of Mormon to be true. They will come up with elaborate, unfounded excuses for everything the Book of Mormon get’s right — no matter how unlikely or ridiculous.
The Book of Mormon is true. I don’t believe it just because of all the evidence for it; I know it’s true because I’ve had powerful spiritual experiences when praying about it. Evidence is just that — evidence, not proof. But it does is make room for a spiritual witness, and that’s what really matters.
