More from Andrew on Nahom

[_aussieguy55]

Ryan DahleJuly 6, 2017 at 11:22 AM
Hi Andrew,

You wrote: "From what I can tell just based on quick searches, there are hundreds of instances of "NHM" found all over Arabia, in Yemen, in Saudi Arabia, in the northern parts of Yemen like Al Jawf, and also in the southern mountains like Al Bayda. As well as in the mountains to the southeast like Raymah and Dhamar. All over Saudi Arabia in the north, south, east, and west. This name is found literally everywhere, and in a whole bunch of different languages, Sabaic, Minaic, Hadramitic, etc. It’s a common name."

I'm struggling to verify this assertion using the websites that you provided. Can you give several specific examples (provided with the website's search process that you used to get them). I tried to find a way to access all nhm-related names in all regions, but I wasn't having success. I'm wondering if I am just using the search engine incorrectly.
Reply

Ryan DahleJuly 6, 2017 at 12:04 PM
For instance, on the general CORPUS OF SOUTH ARABIAN INSCRIPTIONS web page there is a tool called "word lists" that basically lets the viewer search for any word that shows up in the various corpora in the South Arabian data base. I only found two instances of nhm in this data base, and neither was designated as a toponym.

Here is the web page: http://dasi.humnet.unipi.it/index.php?i ... subgroup=8

I checked the Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia
and the Corpus of Nabataean Inscriptions and they had no instances of nhm. How did you quickly find the "hundreds of instances [of nhm] all over Arabia" that you reported?




AndrewJuly 6, 2017 at 4:36 PM
Hi Ryan,

You need to run character combination searches thinking about the sound combinations in arabic that might get conflated with an "NHM" transliteration in english. You can also just generally list certain things alphabetically and scroll through and tally results that way.

I didn't spend much time on this. Initially I started tallying hits and it was getting big pretty fast so I just abandoned it at that point. I called it "hundreds" but didn't add it up to a specific number. It's certainly in that realm though. One search came back with 37 results if I remember right, from just one combination in a certain area.

As an example of what I'm talking about see the footnotes in Warren's "A History of NaHoM" paper. It reads, "The tribal name (as nhmyn) is found in the National Museum of Yemen; see item YM 11748 under 'Minuscule Texts.'"

Warren's papers repeatedly engage in this. Actually, it's sort of the central theme in all these NHM arguments. His paper in Journal of Arabian Studies for instance makes a big deal of connecting the "ha" in Arabic with the "Ha" in Hebrew, which is a different character/sound.

This whole debate is one of connecting the character/sound in one language with another... making some kind of convoluted journey through Hebrew, Sabaic, Arabic, French, German, and English. You've got 18th century maps with transliterations in one language, 19th century Book of Mormon with "nahom" in english, ancient-preislamic Sabean ruins, and so on.

And actually, we should add the Arabic Book of Mormon to this discussion as well. I already did earlier, but here's yet another aspect of this to consider.

The toponym "Nehem" or "Nihm" in modern Yemen is نهم (nihm)

The word "nahom" in the Arabic Book of Mormon is ناحوم (naaHuooma)

These two words are worlds apart. Entirely different character for "h," like a "p" instead of a "t". And the introduction of additional characters (alif, waw) in addition to the unwritten vowels.




AndrewJuly 6, 2017 at 4:37 PM
In my opinion this is extremely relevant to the discussion. The church's own inspired translation of the Book of Mormon back to its original semitic roots is strongly at odds with these apologetic arguments.

When I was in the MTC for 12 weeks learning Japanese I heard numerous stories from general authorities about the inspired translation process of the scriptures into other languages. These stories came from general authorities, apostles, actual language experts who had been involved in the translation themselves. More times than I can remember I was told that I would get special insights into the meaning of scriptures by studying them in a second language other than English. I was told that in some cases the meaning of certain verses carried over better in these other languages, or having two approaches to the verse would get me a kind of "second witness" and help me understand the true original (pre-English) meaning better.

One story I was told was about the translation of the Book of Abraham into Japanese. And the person who told this story was a Japanese man who witnessed it first-hand. So he said. The way the story went is that the translators, which included this man, were confused about the word "estate" in Abraham 3. Very famous verse, I'm sure you're familiar with it. Well the translators weren't sure what word to use and they had been leaning towards the word "ie" for house. They went to the First Presidency with their problem. When they did so, again how the story was told to me by this man, they did not present the FP with a list of word options to choose from. They simply explained they didn't know what word to use. The FP, none of whom spoke Japanese of course, came back with an answer telling them specifically what word in Japanese to use, "kurai," which was a word the translators hadn't even considered as an option. And I was told this was common. This happened countless times in many languages. Translators would appeal to FP, and they'd come back with a specific word in a language they didn't know. Pretty sweet. This was a wild story for me, obviously, but the punch line of it all was the special meaning of this word "kurai." It doesn't mean "house" or anything like that, but it means "rank" like a position in a military structure. And boy did that put a whole new spin on the meaning of this verse, which was the point of the story being told to us, an example of how we can learn things from the scriptures in other languages.

:)




AndrewJuly 6, 2017 at 4:37 PM
Going back to your comment.

Let me be clear that I am not making the argument that all these different variations of "NHM" are plausibly connected to one another. If you've followed my comments you know that early on I said the opposite of this. This is one of the points I'm making, that the apologetic NHM arguments are linguistically fallacious. So in searching through the databases, I'm not going to look for just one specific variation, the one apologists want me to find, playing by their rules I'm going to search for any and all "NHM" variations.

You also asked about an "NHM" toponym in the database. You may have misunderstood me there. I didn't spend much time, so perhaps there is one to find, but I did not find any NHM toponyms in the database. Not one. Which is something I specifically said in my previous comment. This is one of the central themes in the NHM argument, that the altar inscription proves the existence of an NHM toponym in ancient arabia. It does not. Experts disagree and do not recognize such a toponym in the area. And no offense to Warren, but he and his conjecture don't count as an expert reference. The only historical recognition of such a toponym appears in the 18th century or so in these various maps that get cited... vs 6th+ century BCE ruins several languages removed. That's a big gap.

Not only does the apologetic argument make a huge leap by claiming the existence of a NHM toponym, but it claims that this toponym included the vast area of Marib. That Marib was actually called Nahom. LOL!

for what it's worth, in the background I have started corresponding with some very notable non-LDS scholars at big-name universities about this. Experts in ancient Arabic, Hebrew, Sabaic, Yemeni dialect, ancient arabian history, and so forth. Thus far they completely agree with me, find these NHM arguments absurd and very unlikely in terms of probabilities.

Also noteworthy, practically all of these people become immediately turned off and withdraw from the discussion once they learn that it has ties to Mormonism and a religious debate. ROFL! And for that reason I'm not going to directly quote anybody. Understandably they don't want their name showing up in google searches related to this stuff. I can't blame them at all.

My reason for reaching out to these people is both a sanity check and also I'm exploring the feasibility of putting together a paper that rebuts some of this nonsense in a more official way. Don't hold me to that though. But I have gotten referred to some good reference material that I may grab at the library when time allows. At a minimum if anything interesting comes up I'll be sure to share.




Ryan DahleJuly 6, 2017 at 5:37 PM
Andrew,

I think if you could demonstrate that the there was another NHM tribe that existed in antiquity in Arabia and that of these NHM variations that you discovered (none of which you specified), at least one of them could arguably be considered as an ancient toponym, then maybe you would have a better argument. Also, it would be nice to see the list of variations that you consider to be legitimate alternatives. If you don't want to provide them, that is ok. But you made the claim, and I am curious to see what specific words you think are just as linguistically valid.

You write, "Experts disagree and do not recognize such a toponym in the area." Is there an expert that has explicitly argued against NHM as an ancient toponym in this area? If so, it would be interesting to see a quote or two. Moreover, do you have a good reason why we should assume the Nihm tribal area wasn't a place name in antiquity, as it is today? Is Aston's method of tracing this tribe into antiquity and linking it to their current general location somehow methodologically unsound? And is there a good reason why the Nihm tribal grounds couldn't have extended farther in antiquity than they do today, as Aston carefully proposed.

I think that your argument really relies on demonstrating that Aston's and others' assumptions are unfounded or poorly developed. Yet so far it seems like you aren't actually dealing with the rationale for their assumptions.





AndrewJuly 6, 2017 at 7:41 PM
Ryan, here is an example search. Just one "nhm" combination out of numerous, in just one region, and just one ancient language.

http://imgur.com/a/nDKDQ

Not to be rude, but why are you asking me to do your work for you?

Holy Ghost points out that thousands of inscriptions can be found in Yemen.

Neal, and quite embarrassingly, then says "Absent some rigorous documentation, I am not sure there are 'thousands' of inscriptions in Yemen."

Holy Ghost then drops a link to one (of many) such databases documenting thousands of inscriptions in Yemen.

To which Neal, again embarrassingly, replies, "Cool! Thanks for sharing that database, I was not aware of it."

This database literally comes up within the first couple of hits on google for "pre-islamic inscriptions arabia." And now you're asking me to help you search through the databases?

SMH

You said, "if ... at least one of them could arguably be considered as an ancient toponym, then maybe you would have a better argument."

I am not following your logic. You, in the collective sense of you all, have not presented evidence of the ancient "Nahom" toponym anywhere on planet earth. Why would I need to provide an alternative toponym to disprove something you have failed to substantiate in the first place? Show me a single historical writing that refers to Marib as Nahom. For that matter, show me a single historical writing that refers to any actual physical place called Nahom.

As to the rest of your comment I believe these are all points I have previously addressed. A few quick responses though.

You say, "Is there an expert that has explicitly argued against NHM as an ancient toponym in this area?"

First, define "this area." See previous comments.

Next, to your question, yes. As I said that is a discussion which is still happening, so I'm not going to quote anybody. But the responses I've gotten thus far unanimously concur that the sufficient scholarly standard has not been met. And there is dispute over the etymology of the modern word.

A reasonable counter-question is to ask if you can cite any experts that agree with these claims? Not ufologists or some other LDS/BYU pseudoacademic apologist. Can you show me a notable expert with a credible body of research under their belt, someone like Dionisius A. Agius, who will go on record to support one or any of the NHM claims? And it's important to break those claims down precisely as it's a jumbled mess right now.

Show me such an expert who says, yes, there was an NHM toponym in ancient times. Yes, it extended into Marib. Yes, if some group of Israelites had traveled the ancient spice route, it is completely reasonable that they could have stopped in Marib and transliterated it as "Nahom" in English.





AndrewJuly 6, 2017 at 7:42 PM
It gets tiring having to repeat, but correlation does not equal causation, burden of proof, etc. Many people have commented on this thread explaining in a variety of ways how you guys are talking major league smack while playing tee ball. It's embarrassing. You have a small number of extremely low probability correlations and present them as being high probability, significant, and causal.

Even if they are significant, you haven't done enough work to make the claim that they are. All you have is a hypothesis. Show me the math. Show me the data being fed into the model. What are your controls? Where is the alternative correlative analysis? Do you have the first clue what I'm talking about? I'm assuming not since you're asking me how to operate google on your behalf. I've raised a lot of points that challenge your arguments, not a one of which has been addressed. It's just deer and headlights.

Neal says, “Sorry, but I am just not going to waste my time trying to meet a burden of proof that is literally impossible, and never asked of anyone else in the field, ever.”

You mean like running a google search on pre-islamic inscriptions in Arabia? Talk about “literally impossible” standards. ROFL!!

The way I’m reading this is that to you “proof” is any possibility greater than zero. I don’t dispute a possibility greater than zero for NHM. But, I’d say the same thing about UFOs and mermaids.

There is a difference between “possible” and “probable.”

I repeat. I am not disputing that altars bearing NHM inscription were found. I also am not saying that the NHM on the ancient altars "cannot" be linked to the NHM in modern Arabic. They could be linked. What I'm saying, is that you have failed to demonstrate such a link, that "could be" and "are" are two different things. And that is only the tip of the iceberg as far as your problems go. The vast majority of the NHM apologetic is based on 100% pure conjecture, a.k.a. fiction, which even Warren admits to in his paper.

Warren concludes by saying, "While this remains a reconstructed and theoretical history, none of its components are disputed...a plausible story of a corner of early southern Arabia...the possible earlier link of the name to the large-scale construction of burial tombs in the Neolithic era remains conjectural."

Well, certain components are in fact disputed. See my comments. But nevertheless, Warren presents very little in terms of actual facts and then proceeds to weave this intricate story that to him sounds plausible. Fiction laid on top of a very low-resolution body of evidence, no matter how cute and plausible it sounds, isn't evidence of anything except the depths of human imagination