wala!, Joseph nailed it. I have not seen any evidence that he knew of the two areas that had shagrila like qualities.
From Roman times until Joseph's times the southern parts of the Arabian peninsula were known as Arabia Felix. Here's why according to the Arabia Felix wiki:
Felix has the meanings of both "fecund, fertile" and "happy, fortunate, blessed", this area being the best irrigated of the Arabian peninsula.
Short Definition
felix, fruitful, productive
fēlix, īcis (abl. felici, except Cic. Or. 48, 159; and as nom. prop., v. II. B. 2. infra), adj. [from root feo, fevo, to bear, produce, Gr. φύω; cf.: fio, femina; whence fetus, fecundus, femina, fenus], fruit-bearing, fruitful, fertile, productive. source
Predicting a blessed, fertile and bountiful area anywhere along the coasts of Yemen and Oman wouldn't have been very difficult for someone with a latin dictionary.
So finding a wadi that happens to be east of the Arabian peninsula is laughable as evidence, especially when it doesn't support the claim the Lehi party built tools and boats there in a manner they were taught by God. Claiming they were engaging trade to resolve this? Really?
The local tribes that the Lehites may have traded with at Bountiful are not specifically named in the Book of Mormon, but based on historical and archaeological evidence, we can make some educated guesses about who they might have been.
One possibility is that the Lehites may have traded with the Sabaeans, a powerful trading nation that controlled much of southern Arabia during the time period in question. The Sabaeans were known for their expertise in seafaring and shipbuilding, and they had extensive trade networks throughout the region.
Another possibility is that the Lehites may have traded with the Minaeans, another Arabian tribe that was active in trade and commerce during this period. The Minaeans were known for their metalworking skills and their trade in precious metals, which could have been of interest to the Lehites.
Of course, it's also possible that the Lehites traded with smaller, less well-known tribes in the region.
*Pi A.I. inquiry.
Regards,
MG
You're sacrificing the books credibility (it describes the Lehi party as having traveled through the wilderness and makes zero mention of trade or even encounters with others) in order to grab hold of a tenuous linguistic claim. The NHM:Nahom connection exists purely in apologetic minds as an invention of Mormons. It is not anthropologic or archaeologically supported. The argument for trade is required because the conditions described in 1 Nephi are only partially met, and the ones met are generic descriptions of an oasis in the desert.
The NHM argument is more damaging to the Book of Mormon than supportive.
The reddit thread has been shared here before, multiple times I believe. Key points:
Four phenomes in Arabic are rendered as "H" in English and the one on the altar is not the correct one for NHM = Nehem. The phenom rendered as "M" is also incorrect for Nehem.
There is a barrier mountain range between the altar and the coast, so it would be impossible for the Lehi party to turn east at that location. They would have needed to travel over 140 miles of extreme terrain to make an eastern turn from the altar to the wadi.
Nehem is a large mountainous area, and the altar is not in the area with that name.
The descriptions of the Lehi party's movements do not match with the terrain features of one assumes the NHM inscription location is where Ishmael is buried, how they would have got there, and how they would then go towards the wadi claimed to be Bountiful.
If God wanted them to build ships using trade then there are actual locations where that would have been possible, just not following the directions or using the location of the NHM inscription as a fixed point.
The claims around NHM grossly misrepresent that nature of the area in the mopologetic presentations of the evidence.
Predicting a blessed, fertile and bountiful area anywhere along the coasts of Yemen and Oman wouldn't have been very difficult for someone with a latin dictionary.
So finding a wadi that happens to be east of the Arabian peninsula is laughable as evidence, especially when it doesn't support the claim the Lehi party built tools and boats there in a manner they were taught by God. Claiming they were engaging trade to resolve this? Really?
The local tribes that the Lehites may have traded with at Bountiful are not specifically named in the Book of Mormon, but based on historical and archaeological evidence, we can make some educated guesses about who they might have been.
One possibility is that the Lehites may have traded with the Sabaeans, a powerful trading nation that controlled much of southern Arabia during the time period in question. The Sabaeans were known for their expertise in seafaring and shipbuilding, and they had extensive trade networks throughout the region.
Another possibility is that the Lehites may have traded with the Minaeans, another Arabian tribe that was active in trade and commerce during this period. The Minaeans were known for their metalworking skills and their trade in precious metals, which could have been of interest to the Lehites.
Of course, it's also possible that the Lehites traded with smaller, less well-known tribes in the region.
*Pi A.I. inquiry.
Regards,
MG
This is an excellent example of how A.I. generated answers can be so very, very wrong.
MG, can you explain how you checked these A.I. answers and confirmed they were appropriate to the discussion at hand? For example, what kinds of 'ships' did the Sabeans build? And when? And where? And how did that information correspond with the Book of Mormon commentary?
Also what exact question did you ask A.I.? For some reason, you didn't include that.
Following up on my comment re how A.I. can be so very wrong, I did this experiment.
I copied the first paragraph of mg's A.I. generated response,
The local tribes that the Lehites may have traded with at Bountiful are not specifically named in the Book of Mormon, but based on historical and archaeological evidence, we can make some educated guesses about who they might have been.
And inserted it into Google search. The first response was this:
A.I. Overview:
Based on historical and archaeological evidence, the local tribes that the Lehites (from the Book of Mormon) might have traded with at Bountiful, Utah, are most likely to have been the Fremont culture people; specifically, the groups inhabiting the Great Basin region around the time of the supposed Lehite arrival, which would include the "Bountiful Phase" Fremont people who occupied the area near the Salt Lake Valley.
That illustrates perfectly the uselessness of mg's approach of simply posting A.I. in conversations here, instead of responding with his own opinions or study.
A.I. at this level is simply trying to produce a text that relates to the prompt text in a way suggested by the very large quantity of other texts it has been trained on. It is important to realise that the notions of true or false are completely irrelevant here.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
