In the spirit of Mormon Prophecy, I would like to predict...

[_Sethbag]

That Barack Obama will win 332 votes in the electoral college to Mitt Romney's 206.

[_Sethbag]

BULLSEYE!

How could I have known?

[_beastie]

lol

[_RayAgostini]

Be careful of premature arrogance, and conveniently overlooking internal evidences.

A pair of critics wrote, "It would be easy to make up hundreds of 'new names' by simply changing a few letters on names that are already known or by making different combinations with parts of names. . . . If he used a list of Bible names and a little imagination, it would have been very easy to have produced the 'new names' found in the Book of Mormon."16

Critics of the Book of Mormon have been reluctant to grant the historical complexity of Book of Mormon names, even when faced with evidence supporting their authenticity. One man, after writing a series of inflammatory letters designed to elicit negative comments about LDS scriptures from prominent Near Eastern scholars, received a response from William F. Albright of Johns Hopkins University, who expressed doubts that Joseph Smith could have learned Egyptian from any early nineteenth century sources. Explaining that he was a Protestant and hence not a believer in the Book of Mormon, he observed, "It is all the more surprising that there are two Egyptian names, Paanch[i] and Pahor[an] which appear in the Book of Mormon in close connection with a reference to the original language being 'Reformed Egyptian.'" Puzzled at the existence of such names in an obscure book published by Joseph Smith in 1830, Albright vaguely suggested that the young Mormon leader was some kind of "religious genius."17

Incensed by this response, the critic wrote to another scholar in England. Without mentioning Albright by name, he complained of "another scholar who is renowned in ancient Semitic studies" who "though a Protestant, he writes of the Book of Mormon like it had authentic Egyptian-Hebrew support. He even offered me what he said were two good Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon— Paanchi and Pahoran. . . . Certainly he would know Joseph Smith didn't understand Egyptian, but why would he leave an impression that Joseph Smith was on the right track?"18

The names described in this article deal a serious blow to critics of the Book of Mormon. Found in both the Book of Mormon and ancient inscriptions, these names are Hebrew in origin, as one would expect for people who emigrated from ancient Jerusalem. Except where noted, these names are not known from the Bible.

Book of Mormon Names Attested in Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions.

[_Sethbag]

Ray, you're so impressed with those two names that kinda-sorta look like Egyptian names if you add a letter or two.

What's kind of interesting to me is that the Book of Mormon doesn't even claim to be written in Egyptian language, or to contain Egyptian content, or to be written about Egyptian people. It claims to be written in Hebrew language, but represented using Egyptian characters. Where would these names come from then?

I can't even think of a plausible connection between Pacumeni and Paanchi in the Book of Mormon and some supposed Egyptian connection. by the way Paanchi and Pacumeni are mentioned in the Book of Helaman, with a time frame of 52-50 BC, or around 550 years after the Lehite crossing.

My objections become particularly apropos if you imagined something like LGT theory with a miniscule Lehite population being absorbed into a pre-existing Native American population.