Nahom: Evidence for the Book of Mormon Found in Yemen?

Recently, the LDS church has claimed a stone was found in Yemen which confirmed an event in the Book of Mormon, because it bore the inscription “NHM” which, according to LDS apologists, corresponded to the Book of Mormon place name “Nahom”. This inscription was subsequently presented as airtight evidence for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, and missionaries will often refer to this stone in their discussions. A closer look at the evidence, however, reveals that in actual fact nothing whatsoever of LDS belief has been substantiated by the “NHM” find.

Efforts at confirming Mormonism is all about finding any scrap of information that might somehow be stretched to suport the fabricated events, geography etc in the Book of Mormon. You’ll find this stretch whenever they try to present evidence of an archaeological or scientific nature. The error is called the fallacy of irrelevant proof, and the “NHM” inscription is a good example thereof.

(Essentially the fallacy of irrelevant proof is akin to seeking to prove someone is a doctor by asking them the color of blood. If they say “red” should this be taken as proof they are a doctor? Of course not. Yet this is the type of logic being expounded by LDS apologists who tout the “NHM” find as some sort of “evidence” for the Book of Mormon.)

 

The NHM altar find as an evidence for the antiquity of the Book of Mormon.
1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon details the trek of Lehi and his family through Arabia before travelling to America by boat. One place name mentioned in this book, “Nahom” has been identified by Mormons by an inscription bearing the letters “NHM” in Oman. This, they say, is concrete geographical evidence for the Book of Mormon. But is it?

According to the Book of Mormon account, Lehi and his companions travelled “”south-southeast” (1 Nephi 16:13), roughly parallel to the Red Sea or near its borders (1 Nephi 2:5; 16:14), until they reached Nahom (1 Nephi 16:34), where Ishmael was buried.

This is the evidence we have to examine, specifically the allegedly “verified place name” of Nahom. But what is noticeable from the outset is the absence of any other place names, and in fact, the generalness of the whole description. Can we really call finding a stone with “NHM” as plausible evidence for a story which is so general as to be unprovable? Contrast this with the Biblical accounts of place names, for which copious and irrefutable geographical, archaeological and historical evidence has been uncovered: the Lehi story is simply that, a story, and without real evidence, we should not be fooled into believing a word of it.

Next, we shall go on to cover the specific problems with positively identifiying the “NHM” inscription with the placename Nahom.

 

Refutation of the identification of the inscription “NHM” with the Book of Mormon placename “Nahom”

Several of the ideas below came from the ZLMB discussion board

1. The “match proves nothing since it’s not really a match”

Hebrew doesn’t have vowels, so the Hebrew name NHM (nun-chet-men) could be transliterated to Nahom. But since we don’t know what vowels were supposed to be used, any other vowel permutation is equally likely: Nahum, Niham, Noham, Nuhim, Nuham and so on (25 different combinations are possible in fact, 30 if the second vowel is left out completely). So to appeal to the inscripton “NHM” as proving the location “Nahom” is really unfounded. In any case, this is not the first time LDS explorers have tried to match a location with the place Nahom. If it is so easy to locate, why the continued list of contenders? After all, in Biblical geography, we know there is one Jericho (located), one Babylon (located), one Nazareth (located), and so on. Mormons can’t even positively locate one supposed town from the Book of Mormon.

2. The only existing pronunciation for NHM is NOT nahom!

To make matters worse for the LDS apologists, the only evidence we have for the correct vowel-substitution/pronunciation of NHM is the extant pronunciation: “Nihm”. Furthermore, it is extemely unlikely a tribal place name changed its pronunciation. Remember the inscription is most probably a tribal name, not merely a location. Are we to suppose the pronunciation was changed from Nahom to Nihm? This is an assumption that we simply cannot make without forcing the evidence.

3. What about the “but ‘nahom’ means to be sorry and the altar was found near a cemetery” claim?

nahom: a Hebrew word (Strong’s 5162) which means “to be sorry, to console oneself, to repent, to regret, to comfort or to be comforted.”

According to this argument, the correct name of “NHM” must be “Nahom” because the place is found near a cemetery and the word “nahom” means “to be sorry”.

There are a number of problems with this suggestion. For one thing, if the consonants “NHM” are pronounced as written, it should be pronounced with the H as hard, not soft (this is what we find in “nahom” to be sorry”). So the sound would be like “ch” as in Scottish “loch” and we should expect to read of a Book of Mormon placename of “Nachom, not “Nahom.” The Book of Mormon placename doesn’t fit the Hebrew word “to be sorry”.

In any case, why should we expect this tribe to call itself after an ancient cemetery? The presence of an cemetery nearby is irrelevant, as most, if not all, other tribes had cemeteries too.

4. What of the claim that the proposed location for “Bountiful” pinpoints Nahom?

Several locations with names somewhat like “Nahom” are to be found in the Arabian paninsula. Given the fact that Arabia is a Semitic-language area bordering the lands of the Bible, this should come as no surprise. The work of the Hiltons and others in finding these locations only serves to show the imprecision of the Book of Mormon description. After all, if the detail is so good, why the to propose several candidate sites? This is clearly not the case with Biblical archaeology, which, as has been shown, has one location for Jericho, one location for other Old Testament towns, cities, rivers, and mountains. Not so with the Book of Mormon. Why not? The simple fact of the matter is, the Book of Mormon description is general enough to be worthless. The location of Nahom is nothing more than shooting arrows, then drawing the target.

5. NHM too populated for a sneaky trek.

Lehi and his family had been commanded by God not to light fires. Why would this commandment be given? There would have to be a good reason, as they could not cook their meat, and would thereby violate the Torah. Was it supposed to be a secretive trek? If so, why would they go to the populated location of NHM? This doesn’t make sense.

6. Ishmael irrelevance:

Lindsay mentions that Ishmael, one of the companions of Lehi on the trip, died at Nahom, and that there was “considerable mourning at Nahom.” Why would the NHM tribe name themselves after a passing-through traveler who died there centuries later? This likewise makes no sense.

7. Grammatical issue:

Even if it were derived from “NHM”, the word “Nahom” cannot be shown to be an independent word. In other words, it could be the case that the placename was “Nah” and the -om part is merely a suffix. This point further militates against an identification of “NHM” with a placename called “Nahom.”

In the message board discussion referenced above, David Wright notes an error on the part of LDS apologist John Tvedtnes. Tvedtnes, inhis article “Hebrew Names in the Book of Mormon,” associates Nahom with Hebrew n-kh-m, but errs when he suggests that Nehhem in Yemen is the same root. Nehhem has a soft “h” but NHM has a hard “h” as in Scottish “loch” as we saw earlier. Since the two roots (n-h ans n-ch) differ, there is no point in making an association between them, and in fact it is wrong to do so.

8. Book of Mormon derivation of words: no fixed method, all have separarte origins. Inexplicable.

Another point to consider is the inconsistent and uncheckable etymology of Book of Mormon words. How is “Nahom” explicable in terms of the general etymology of Book of Mormon placenames? As noted in the comments on the board links above, there are a number of curious Book of Mormon place names whose derivations are given. Examples include: “Irreantum” = “many waters” (1 Ne. 17:5), “Rabbanah” = “powerful or great king” (Alma 18:13), “Rameumptom” = “the holy stand” (Alma 31:21), “Liahona” = “a compass” (Alma 37:38), “deseret” = “a honey bee” (Ether 2:3), “Ripliancum” = “large, or to exceed all” (Ether 15:8). The point of the matter is, do these words have Old World roots? Do they have further derivatives in New World usage? One would expect the they should have, but nothing to support this expectation has been forthcoming. Instead, LDS scholars provide separate theories for each Book of Mormon place name. In contrast, when studying the Bible, the place names are derived from Hebrew or a local dialect. Again we see that the Book of Mormon cannot stand up to professional linguistic analysis.

This inability to withstand professional scrutiny simply isn’t good enough. It is clear the Book of Mormon place names can’t establish any sort of validity through etymological or linguistical analysis. And there is a very good reason for this. The book is a phoney.

9. Exodus 15:22-27 indicates the existence of oases in the desert. Smith would have known this. Bountiful is the oasis mentioned in 1 Nephi 17:5. The fact that Smith mentions an oasis in the Book of Mormon therefore proves nothing.

 

Conclusion

The Nahom case provides evidence, not of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, but of the willingness of LDS scholars to look anywhere in their despair to find a shred of validation for their erroneous beliefs. The “NHM” inscription is the most important piece of geographical “evidence” Mormons have for their claims. The refutation of this inscription in regard to the Book of Mormon placename “Nahom” shows once again that there is no archaeological suppport from Mormonism, and no amount of appealing to “plausibility” will alter that fact. As mentioned at the top of this article, the “NHM” find is a classic example of the fallacy of irrelevant proof.