stemelbow wrote:honorentheos wrote:Remember Stem - evidence is best used as a knife, not a bandage. You want to place Lehi in this area at that time? Fine. The fact Joseph Smith did not include the actual city name but instead made use of a transliteration of a biblical name that has a root meaning "grief" for Christ's sake, did not recognize there was a major trade route in that area, or not maintain an attested pronunciation for those three letters seems to strengthen the case that he, as a 19th century author, wrote this part of the Book of Mormon.
That is perhaps the screwiest explanation I've seen. So that Nahom is written in the Book of Mormon somehow strengthens the case that the Book of Mormon came from the 19th century all because NHM couldn't become Nahom some thousands of years ago to a non-local people? Whatever. And you wish to complain about me not wanting to take discussing this issue seriously?
...
My goodness...this has nothing to do with some tour. It has nothing to do with whether some LDS take this piece of evidence too far. this is absurd.
Stem -
I will try and make this as simple as I can.
Accepting that the three alters that bear the inscription "NHM" are evidence of Lehi's party being real and passing through that area creates a logical contradiction based on the internal evidence of the Book of Mormon contrasted with the known external archaeological evidence from that area.
Internal Evidence:- The Book of Mormon tells us that Lehi's party traveled through the wilderness
- The Book of Mormon tells us that the Lord guided Lehi's family through the most fertile parts of the land along the Red Sea
- The Book of Mormon tells us that Lehi's party were subsistence hunters and gatherers along this route and primarily named places as they discovered them
- When the Book of Mormon brings us to a place that is "called" something, the name it gives is "Nahom"
What the NHM alters would mean if we accept that they are evidence of the route Lehi's party traveled (External Archaeological Evidence):- The incense road/silk road followed the same route. Cities and stopping places where there was water (the most fertile parts) are positioned about 25 miles apart along this route.
- There were cities or known oasis along this route that were named.
- The place where the alters were found had a name that was not Nahom or Nihm. It was a city with a large ancient dam. The dam fed a series of canals, of which a writer from the period said, "To walk in marib is to walk in the shade". It's kind of glaring to suggest that Lehi/Nephi would call this place by a name unattested to in any other source.
In effect, they got the name of the place wrong, they got the name of the tribe wrong (unless you are LDS there is no reason, whatsoever, to claim it says anything about Nehom. None.), and they got the context wrong if that was the route Lehi would have traveled.
So why does that matter? Because, as DCP himself points out, to a 19th century author like Joseph Smith the arabian peninsula would have been a wilderness where guys like Nephi and Lehi would be wandering in the desert relying on the Lord for food and to be guided to the "most fertile parts". In effect, the apologists want us to believe that NHM shows that Joseph Smith was unaware of the context when he got the name right and the potential "bountiful" site in a reasonable location in relation to this so the narrative couldn't be the product of the 19th century.
Only - he didn't get anything right from a 600 BC perspective for someone following that route and arriving in the location where the three alters were found.
What Joseph Smith DID give us is a parody of the exodus account, describing the wanderings of Israel in the desert. He got it wrong because he was using a biblical source to recreate a story from the Bible casting new characters in the roles of Moses/Aaron and the complaining Israelites.
The person selling NHM to people makes money on tours. He profits from people buying this BS because as long as people can imagine they are following in Lehi's footsteps they are feeling the spirit.
It's a scam, stem. It doesn't exclude 19th century authorship and to take it seriously is to require that one develop a comprehensive theory from whole cloth that accounts for all of the misses that are not in the narrative. Given all the problems that Book of Mormon faces here in the new world, I'm not sure this is wise to add to this burden even more.
It's a dangerous claim to lay your name to, stem. Frankly, I fail to see why this doesn't cause any Mormon to drop it as evidence like it was a Paul Dunn autographed baseball. The little meaning a person can garner from it causes more problems than it solves.
But I'm curious what you think it signifies? Seriously, what theory of Book of Mormon authorship do you honestly feel it benefits the most? That a real person from the 600s BC wrote that piece? Why? Really. Why does this seem more reasonable to you because a guy who markets LDS tours trumpets the finding of three alters in an ancient city temple to a pagan god with the letters NHM on them that have a modern attestation that they mean Nihm (which the tour guide acknowledges in his article) that was along a highly traveled trade route?