Comparative Biographies of Warren Aston, Discoverer of Nahom

[_Bret Ripley]

His book is absolutely no different than any other scientific work or of scholarship I have read in all kinds of areas.

Well ... there it is.

[_sock puppet]

His book is absolutely no different than any other scientific work or of scholarship I have read in all kinds of areas.

Well ... there it is.

Nice touch, there, Bret. The Emperor of Austria, the one that picked Salieri over Mozart.

[_sr1030]

The Nahom supposed evidence for the Book of Mormon was absolutely debunked many years ago. I located maps that were available to any writer of the Book of Mormon and provided evidence that these maps were available. Warren Aston has yet to respond to this, only people like S Kent Brown who made a complete fool of himself by stating that it would be the responsibility of an accuser to show that Joseph Smith had access to these maps and also a book by Carsten Niebuhr. Why is this still being discussed? Do defenders of Joseph Smith still think we need to show that these materials were in the hands of Joseph Smith? What if we don't believe Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon?

sr

[_Maksutov]

The Nahom supposed evidence for the Book of Mormon was absolutely debunked many years ago. I located maps that were available to any writer of the Book of Mormon and provided evidence that these maps were available. Warren Aston has yet to respond to this, only people like S Kent Brown who made a complete fool of himself by stating that it would be the responsibility of an accuser to show that Joseph Smith had access to these maps and also a book by Carsten Niebuhr. Why is this still being discussed? Do defenders of Joseph Smith still think we need to show that these materials were in the hands of Joseph Smith? What if we don't believe Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon?

sr

Philip Jenkins on the "Nahom Follies":

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousben ... m-follies/

From the article:

I wasn’t planning to write this piece, but so many of the comments on my earlier Book of Mormon posts have raised a particular point, and I don’t want it to seem that by ignoring it, I am conceding its value. The story also says much about how an authentic academic find metastasizes into popular religious folklore – a lesson for mainstream Christians, Jews and Muslims no less than Mormons.

I have been focusing entirely on the historicity of the Book of Mormon in its New World context. Despite that explicit goal, I keep getting questions on the lines of “What about Nahom?” which for many apologists seems to be the ultimate validation that yes, indeed, there is something in the Smith mythos. Supposedly, this is a site where Lehi stopped in the general area of Arabia, “the place which was called Nahom,” and in modern times, a related name with a NHM-stem has been found inscribed on some altars discovered in the region, in modern Yemen. The Book therefore (seemingly) reports something that Joseph Smith could not have known in 1830! Meridian Magazine breathlessly reports “Finding the First Verifiable Book of Mormon Site.” This is, literally, the only case where anyone still seriously pretends that they have some kind of archaeological support for the Book of Mormon, though they should be embarrassed to do so. “Book of Mormon Archaeology” is no longer an oxymoron!

Of course there is no such link.

Pure coincidence offers a more than adequate explanation for the supposed parallel – which, as I will show, is not even that close. When you actually look at the vaunted clincher evidence about Nahom, and understand how tenuous the alleged connections are, your response should properly be: when you get there, there’s no “there” there.

[_sr1030]

Thank you,

http://pacumenispages.yuku.com/topic/10556#.V7jb8K33hLg


sr

[_Maksutov]

Thought this needed a bump with the Nahom discussions.

[_DonBradley]

Part of me almost envies Warren Aston. I don't believe extra-terrestrials have come to earth (though it's possible). I'm more skeptical than he is about the ability to trace a Lehi trail through Arabia. And, while I find crypto-zoology truly fascinating, I think that likely almost all the creatures it pursues are unreal.

But, man, what an adventure it would be to feel you were solidly on the trail of all these things.

Chris Smith and I once visited Gail Porritt, Sr. (recently deceased) and got to hold some engraved 'ancient American' stone records. They are from a set that scholars roundly dismiss as forgeries, and I didn't believe at all in its antiquity. Yet holding the stone in my hand made me feel some of the thrill one would feel if it were real. There was some involuntary suspension of disbelief, and it was a rush.

I don't truly envy Warren Aston, because that would require me to have a much lower standard of evidence and believe in a lot of things that probably ain't so. But to engage in similarly venturesome quests on a better evidentiary footing would be incredibly cool.

Don

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I'm poking around the Interwebs and can't find anything really definitive as far as a funded research team being sent to 'Nahom' by BYU or the Church. Anyone better than I with regard to internet-sleuthing find anything? I mean you have this by WPA:

http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/view ... text=byusq

But he kind of undoes himself immediately because on page 2 you have a bird's eye view of the Nihm mountains which shows just how impassable and inhospitable the area is... And then he points out repeatedly that NHM is NiHM or NeHeM or NeHhM, I don't know. Virtually all of his references are just other Mormon sources basically quoting other Mormon sources, and of course, himself.

I did see this in his source notes:

http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/view ... ntext=jbms

And it seems like it was a funded trip by BYU? I can't really tell, and unfortunately if you read the article they didn't find anything and there was quite a bit of confusion regarding what 'discoveries' they encountered (you'll just have to read the article; it's worth it).

- Doc

[_I have a question]

I don't truly envy Warren Aston, because that would require me to have a much lower standard of evidence and believe in a lot of things that probably ain't so. But to engage in similarly venturesome quests on a better evidentiary footing would be incredibly cool.

Don

Especially if you could fund it out of tithing donations, like Aston did.

[_Maksutov]

Bumping this thread since Aston is still out there producing "stuff".

Question: could Kiwi57 be Aston? If I recall correctly, he's a Kiwi. Don't know year of his birth...yet.

As the Nahom crapshow continues, it's important to remember Darth's research.