Noham, That’s Not History (Nor Geography, Cartography, or Logic): More on the Recent Attacks on NHM

As mentioned in my previous post about the significance of Nahom, in a recent presentation at an ex-Mormon conference, a man who says he is “addicted to truth” made the claim that his searching had revealed that among 3-letter consonant groupings for place names, NHM was one of the most common.  So common that you could find it almost anywhere you looked, making the occurrence of Nahom/Nehem/NHM in the Book of Mormon to be “lacking in significance.” As a reminder, here is the transcript of his comments on this topic:

We have NHM in Germany, Austria, Iran, Zimbabwe, Angola, Israel, Canada, and basically everywhere you look you can find those 3 letters. I’m sure there’s a dozen companies named NHM that all around the world as well. Basically, if it was QXP, that would be more significant because those are more rare across the languages of the world. But NHM happened to be some of the most common letters. So the significance of NHM is lacking.

This was said while displaying a slide entitled “Significance of NHM” with the following list of direct hits:

  • Noham, Germany
  • Noham, Austria
  • Nohom, Iran
  • Nhime, Angola
  • Nahum, Israel
  • Anhim, Canada
  • Nhaem, Vietnam
  • Enham, United Kingdom
  • Nahme, Bulgaria
  • Nahoma, Namibia
  • Nhamuai, Mozambique
  • Nhime, Guinea-Bissau
  • Nahma, Michigan
  • Nahimha, Tanzania
  • Naham, Israel

Apart from completing missing, or completely obfuscating, the real point about Nahom being confirmed as an ancient burial place in exactly the location required for Book of Mormon plausibility, Johnson’s misdirection about whether Nahom/NHM is a novel name in its own right raises further interesting questions upon closer examination. We have already pointed out (citing Warren Aston) that Nahom/NHM is an exceedingly rare name in the Arabian Peninsula, which is relevant to the debate. What is not relevant to the debate is whether related NHM placenames also occur on other lands. But Johnson’s intriguing tactics on this point may be relevant to understanding his approach to data when he makes other supposedly objective, data-based claims on Book of Mormon authorship.

Something about that list of NHM names bothered me as soon as I saw it. I’ve traveled to a few parts of the world and have looked at many maps and many names, and just didn’t recollect ever noticing any of these places before. Would these have been obvious clues rendering NHM-based place names fairly obvious for a 19th-century plagiarizer and conman (per Chris Johnson’s views of Joseph)? Granted, the whole premise of his argument is blatantly misguided—the key issue is that Nahom, common name or not, is rare in Arabia and is placed at exactly the right spot, reachable from Jerusalem by heading south-southeast, and within a few miles of the only place along the ancient incense trails where one can turn due east, as Nephi’s group does, and survive to reach the coast. Add to that the massive significance that Nahom, the place where Ishmael was buried, turns out to be an ancient burial place in the Arabian Peninsula and a bonus for having the NHM name attested to have been in that place in the 7th century B.C. (Lehi’s day) by ancient altars from the tribe of Nihm that were recently discovered. Add to that the amazing fact that going nearly due east from Nahom doesn’t just get one to the coast, but to a remarkable candidate or two for the place Bountiful as described in the First Nephi 16 and 17. These are stunning finds of massive significance, regardless of how often NHM names are used in other parts of the world. Whether Africa, Germany, and North America are sprinkled with NHM names or not doesn’t detract from the value of the Arabian Peninsula evidences for Book of Mormon plausibility. 

But for the moment, let’s accept Johnson’s premise that the significance of finding Nahom is somehow related to how common NHM names are anywhere in the world as, perhaps, inspiration for Joseph’s plagiarism, and then explore the significance, if any, of his list. It turns out that there are some possible serious gaps in his argument about NHM being so common. I may be missing something, so let me know if I have erred in my searching, which is entirely possible. Here’s what my searching reveals about these places:

Noham (Germany and Austria): There is nothing for Noham in Wikipedia. Google finds nothing for Noham, Austria. There are hints of something for Noham, Germany.  But not much can be found until searching is done for Nöham.

Then we find this on the German Wikipedia at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nöham_(Dietersburg):

Nöham ist ein Pfarrdorf in der Gemeinde Dietersburg und war bis zur Zusammenlegung mit Dietersburg am 1. April 1971 eine eigenständige Gemeinde. Nöham liegt an der Staatsstraße 2112 zwischen Pfarrkirchen und Arnstorf und hat etwa 500 Einwohner.

This states that Nöham is a parish village with about 500 inhabitants. If it’s almost invisible to the modern world today, I don’t think it could have served as some kind of inspiration to Joseph Smith.

Nohom, Iran: Finding something on this place is much easier than it was for Noham. Something relevant shows up right away in Google: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nohom, where we read this:

Nohom (Persian: نهم‎) is a village in Sarfaryab Rural District, Sarfaryab District, Charam County, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 186, in 39 families.

Not even big enough to be a parish village, I fear, little Nohom has a  population in 2006 of just 186 people. Any chance it was there in 1830? Known to Joseph?

Nhema, Zimbabwe: A Google search for Nhema, Zimbabwe reveals Nhema is a last name, but I see no easy-to-find evidence of a noteworthy place name. When I search for “Nhema city Zimbabwe” I find a link a questionable  claiming it is a place name: http://itouchmap.com/?c=zi&UF=10648647&UN=11361339&DG=PPL

This link has a map which points to an empty spot with no name east of Harare. Sorry, I’m not yet convinced that this is a notable place name in Zimbabwe. And even if it were, how could Joseph have known?

Update on Nhema, Feb. 10, 2016: Google Maps cannot find anything for Nhema, Zimbabwe, but offers a suggestion for “Nhema Close, Harare, Zimbabwe,” which reveals that Nhema Close is the name of a street in the eastern suburbs of Harare, as shown below. It’s not even a major street, just a short stretch of about 150 meters, and apparently a rather recently named modern street. If it takes this level of granularity to find examples of NHM names, it’s hard to believe that they are extremely common and insignificant.

 

Nhime, Angola: No such place shows up in Wikipedia. But a Google search shows that at least some weather services recognize the name, and a site called Wikimapia has an entry that tags it with “beach, village.” See http://wikimapia.org/13602991/Nhime-Angola-Provincia-de-Benguela. Google maps also shows a beach called Nhime in Angola. So this one exists. That’s progress. But significant? Knowable or useful to Joseph Smith? Unlikely. (Also see http://www.gazetteering.com/africa/angola/provincia-do-kwanza-sul/3346935-nhime.html.)

Nahum, Israel: The most interesting entry on Johnson’s list, in my opinion. This is promising because one could argue that Joseph might have recognized Nahom was a valid place name based on the occurrence of Nahum as a place in Israel. But as I mentioned in my initial post on the significance of Nahom, this argument also has a touch of weakness. Again, blame it on Wikipedia: Wikipedia’s article on Sde Nahum, Israel explains that it is a modern kibbutz founded in 1937. Population around 550. Not likely an influence for the Book of Mormon. What about Nehama, Israel? Wikipedia doesn’t seem aware of it, so it must not exist, I suppose. But there is an Israeli “Comfort Girls” band called Habanot Nechama. Is that the link? Or what about Nahma, Michigan? Another 500-person township. Founded 1881. Probably not an inspiration for Nahom.

Anhim, Canada: This is particularly puzzling. Where did Johnson come up with this one? Wikipedia hasn’t heard of it. Google Maps doesn’t seem to have it, and asks if maybe I meant Anaheim. Maybe I did. More on that later. Turning to Google search for Anhim, Canada, the only indication I can see of a possible place of that name — apart from my own previous blog post at Mormanity mentioning Johnson’s list – is a Google books result for River Palace that appears to mention Anhim, Canada. But when I go to that book, the apparent mention of Anhim, Canada is in fact, a rotated caption that says “Library and Archives, Canada”. Apparently the 90-degree rotation of small text was misread by Google. So strange. So again, we have another place on Johnson’s list that doesn’t appear to exist.

Nehama, Israel: Another potentially interesting item. I’m not sure it exists as a place name, though. Google’s top return for this term is the previously mentioned “Comfort Girls” band of Israel, Habanot Nechama. Not quite a hit for NHM. And not quite a place, but maybe a destination for modern music fans. I fear they came along too late to attract any farm boy groupies from upstate New York. A nice try, but alas, this one brings no comfort to Johnson’s argument.

Nhaem, Vietnam: Another place that puzzles me. Apart from the obvious question about whether transliterated Vietnamese place names were available for Joseph Smith to pluck as needed for his feverish and grueling work of plagiarizing a few words here, a few there, over and over to gradually string verses together, one also has to ask just where this place is and whether it is “significant”? There’s no Wikipedia page for any place named Nhaem (though a Wikipedia page for the obscure commune of Lvae in Cambodia shows that the commune includes 12 villages, one of which is named Doun Nhaem). But wait, there may be a place of this name with Vietnamese connections: Google’s top hit in my search is a Yelp entry for the Nha Em Restaurant and Bar in Vietnam – wait, my mistake, it’s a Vietnamese restaurant in San Jose, California. Ok, something physical exists for this one—an actual two-word place name—but this bar was probably not around in Joseph Smith’s day. The Cambodia listing, missed by Johnson, doesn’t exactly impress either and may not have been there in Joseph’s day. This one looks like a pretty wide miss at the moment.

Enham, United Kingdom: Now we’re talking. Folks, I’m happy to report that there is an actual place with a population and a history for this location. There’s not much information about it, but enough to show that Enham, England, known as Knight’s Enham until recently, actually exists, though the name today is not Enham but Enham Alamein. It was there in Joseph’s day. It is fair to list this one to show how common NHM is among the inhabitants of the earth, 804 of whom live in this sprouting metropolis. Yes, Enham Alamein is a small parish with a population of 804 according to a German website, CityPopulation.de. The population may have been smaller in Joseph’s day, but at least I think there were people there. The English 1841 Census shows 102 results for a search of people living in anything containing “Enham” in the place name. Rather small, in my opinion. Somehow I’m not sure that this would be the kind of thing that would rise to the attention of New York farmers. Perhaps we can add a colorful new link to the Solomon Spaulding theory to bring information about the obscure village Knight’s Enham to Joseph. But pending further creative work, it’s hard to see how this demonstrates NHM names are wildly common. Shouldn’t we be able to find some significant places likely to be known to Joseph given that we have such a common grouping of letters to work with?

Nahme, Bulgaria: Google doesn’t seem to find anything for this place.

Nahoma, Namibia: Ditto. Google recommends I search for Nujoma, Namibia instead. I’m not falling for that one.

Nhamuai, Mozambique: Google results don’t look promising, except that ITouchMap.com says there is a place of that name. But the map result that comes up looks like a blank spot in the hills without roads or obvious population. Strange.

Nhama, Angola: Wikipedia hasn’t heard of it. There are some weather sites listing it, and one place puts it on the map, but it looks like a rather uninhabited spot of jungle.

Nhime, Guinea-Bissau: Some weather sites show up in Google, but the closest thing to an indication of a real place name that I see is a page at GoMapper.com saying “Nhime is a place with a very small population in the state/region of Oio, Guinea-Bissau which is located in the continent/region of Africa.” Yawn.

Nahma, Michigan: Finally! A real place. One significant enough that Wikipedia actually recognizes its existence. Whew, just in time. What does Wikipedia have to say about this important place, close enough to Joseph Smith that perhaps word of its prominent and common name could have come to him for inspiration in writing the Book of Mormon? Let’s see:

Nahma Township is a civil township of Delta County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 499 at the 2000 census. Nahma was established in 1881 by the Bay De Noquet Lumber Company as the base for its upper Michigan lumbering operations.

Hmm. Tiny, obscure (no offense, dear Nahmians), and non-existent prior to 1881.  Do I sense a pattern here?

Nahimha, Tanzania: Wikipedia hasn’t heard of it. But something must be there because some Islamic sites list prayer times. I finally found this at Chinci.com:

Nahimha is a tidal creek(s) in the country of Tanzania with an average elevation of 3 feet above sea level. The location is sparsely populated with 36 people per mile2 . The nearest town larger than 50,000 inhabitants takes about 2:12 hour by local transportation.

An estimated 4.14% of the children below 5 years old are underweight.

A tidal creek, eh? I can see Joseph going for that, if only he had some way of knowing. This may be a real place, but it is tiny, obscure, and probably of no value to Johnson’s argument—which was a bit unfair in the first place since the consonants here are NHMH, not NHM. When it comes to arguments drawing upon Nahimha, it’s not just the children that are underweight.

Naham, Israel: Wikipedia reveals this was founded in 1950 and today has a population a little over 450. Not a hit. 

It’s not just that a few of these names can be questioned due to minor oversights in scholarship and fact checking. Every one can be regarded as “lacking significance” and most appear to be bogus. The proffered list of NHM names is utterly worthless as evidence that NHM names are “among the most common” or that Joseph Smith could easily come up with the NHM root for a place name based on Johnson’s cornucopia of NHM hits. It looks like a rare and somewhat obscure root, even beyond the borders of Arabia, and even when one is willing to stretch it our with triple value endings and vowel prefixes.

A possibly glaring oversight in Johnson’s list is the omission of Anaheim, California, which would represent the most notable city for his PPT slide and the only one with a population bigger than an obscure farm village. Perhaps Johnson realized that many listeners might see through the Mickey Mouse nature of that argument, knowing that Anaheim wasn’t founded until after Joseph Smith’s day. One peek at Wikipedia’s entry for Anaheim would expose the weakness in that argument: “The city of Anaheim was founded in 1857 by 50 German-Americans. . . .” Schade! Too late to make Nahom trivial. But wait, surely the German-sounding name must be some ancient place name from Germany, right? Wikipedia brings further trouble here:

Anaheim’s name is a blend of “Ana”, after the nearby Santa Ana River, and “heim”, a common German language place name compound originally meaning “home”.

Ach du liebe! This must be why Johnson had to say auf widersehen to that argument. But Anaheim as an illustration of the insignificance of NHM is arguably no less viable than any of the other examples Johnson offers.

Does Johnson’s list of NHM names expose the insignificance of an interesting piece of Book of Mormon evidence, and help us better understand how easily Joseph Smith could have come up with an NHM-based placed name in the Arabian Peninsula? As Hugh Nibley might have said, “Noham, that’s not history.” It’s also not geography or cartography. Frankly, I find the arguments against Nahom to be lacking in significance.

Update, Dec. 23, 2013: Kudos to Mark Butler for identifying another interesting hit that was missed by Johnson: Niihima, Japan, which, according to Wikipedia, has over 100,000 people. Finally, a notable spot! Unfortunately, Wikipedia also gives this troublesome fact: “Niihama was founded on November 3, 1937.” Too late for Joseph Smith, but not too late for anti-Mormon fun. The NHM list would really have been much better and even more entertaining if Niihima had been included, along with Anaheim.

Say, do any of you know of other NHM place names that should have been on the list?

Author: Jeff Lindsay

21 thoughts on “Noham, That’s Not History (Nor Geography, Cartography, or Logic): More on the Recent Attacks on NHM

  1. He forgot Niihama, Japan. It's a city of over 100,000–just what kind of critic is he if he can't manage to sneak this one in??

  2. Thanks for doing this. I failed to see the significance of Johnson's NHM theory. And your research confirms there is no significance to what Johnson claims. Critics always complain the LDS people are dupes, follow blindly and won't look at both sides of an issue. Well, the critics and their supporters fail to see that they do exactly what they criticize faithful LDS people of doing. I would bet that not a single Johnson supporter bothered to look into the NHM names like you did. And why would they. The critics believe they are right so there is no need to look into any information another LDS critic presents. After all, the critics know the "real truth".

  3. This is too good. I would really like to hear what Mr. Johnson would say about the information on NHM in every country you presented here Jeff.
    @ Mark Butler – good one.

  4. Mark, I was excited by your excellent find of Niihima. But once again, Wiki spoils the fun by pointing out that "Niihama was founded on November 3, 1937."

    The strange and puzzling LACK of notable NHM place names in Joseph Smith's day is almost looking like some kind of conspiracy theory to keep that name uncommon, even though N and H and M are individually rather common letters. Basically everywhere you look you CAN'T find those 3 letters in 1830 associated with any kind of meaningful location that could have inspired Joseph Smith.

  5. I have read the posts a few times now and I am really confused. Statistical insignificance and plagiarism are 2 very distinct and separate concepts. What does demonstrating insignificance have to do with plagiarism? They are so orthogonal they are almost mutually exclusive. To suggest a supposed connection is so random that the connection is only imagined is to suggest no plagiarism. Then again plagiarism retorts are one of Mormanity's favorite strawmen.

  6. I can't speak for Mr Johnson, but I doubt he was implying that Joseph Smith knew about and was influenced by any particular settlement (in the way he almost certainly knew about Mesoamerican civilisations, which were very much a 'hot topic' in the 19th century). No, the point is that NHM is such a common set of consonants worldwide that if he made up a Biblical sounding name (as he clearly enjoyed doing), a name that happened to contain these 3 letters would look 'remarkably' similar to towns and villages scattered over the world–Arabia, Transylvania or Timbuktoo.
    –Tony Phillips

  7. Tony, if NHM is such a common set of consonants worldwide, why does almost every example Johnson can scrape up fall apart? Being "common" is only a reasonable argument of they were common in Joseph's day, and almost none of the examples provided support that point. Do you have any more examples to offer?

    Regarding Mesoamerica, most people in the U.S. were thoroughly surprised in the early 1840s when reports were widely published and discussed about Mesoamerican civilization (John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, 1841). Of course some had seen it before, including some of the Spanish invaders. But this was not common knowledge before the Book of Mormon came out. See http://www.jefflindsay.com/bme11.shtml and http://www.jefflindsay.com/bme18.shtml for more details.

  8. So that's it? All of the other usages of 'NHM' are dismissed outright because they don't fit the BOM model? So the BOM is proof that the BOM is true?

    Such outstanding intellectual work there Jeff. Remind me again why the church is hemorrhaging members if this is all you offer for them to hold onto.

    What about faith? What about testimony?

    Please stop trying to convince people intellectually. There is nothing there to hold onto!

  9. what are you talking about? The Nahom issue is one that comes with detailed geographical and even archaeological evidence confirming the existence of an ancient place in Arabia due west of another unusual but now surprisingly plausible site all right where the Book of Mormon says they should be. So far there are no other known occurrences of NHM in the Arabian Penninsula. But Nephi gives details that take you there and altars from his era confirm a tribe of that name was in that region as well. The fact that NHM consonants have been used in some obscure or minor locations outside of Arabia, mostly long after 1830, has no bearing at all on the evidence for plausibility of the account in 1st Nephi.

  10. I am still confused on this one. “Being ‘common’ is only a reasonable argument of they were common in Joseph's day” Why? People randomly making up place names in the last 100+ years came up with those same 3 constants, just as Johnson argues JS did (not plagiarism as you confusingly claim Johnson claimed). And why do they have to be geographical locations. Nahum is in the bible, his tomb is thought to be in Iraq, dating to before the time in question ……

  11. Anyways, your protests led me to watch the hour and half video for myself. Thank you. Johnson thoroughly debunks your plagiarism strawmen. Johnson never, never claimed NHM was inspiration for Joseph’s plagiarism as you claim here: “let’s accept Johnson’s premise that the significance of finding Nahom is somehow related to how common NHM names are anywhere in the world as, perhaps, inspiration for Joseph’s plagiarism” In the land I come from passing someone else work off as your own (ala cut and paste) is plagiarism. I do not know of a special term for passing one’s own work off as some else’s, but that appears to be what critics such as Johnson claim (see his Urantia example). Why do you keep calling this plagiarism?

    I have heard the Star Wars influence analogy before, but Johnson presented it to show that influence is not plagiarism. I thought the video was going to have a lot of NHM discussion. In truth it had very little. In his brief discussion of NHM he appears to concede it is probably only evidence claim that appears reasonable. Per your transcript “So NHM, for me, that’s probably the biggest evidence.” The fact that everyone universally declares that this is the strongest in favor evidence says it all. If true, there should be much stronger evidence than this, which was the essence of Johnson argument. Your constant rejection of things like the Late War as random parallels due to noise is the only evidence one needs against NHM.

    He was presenting the understanding that some sort of baseline needs to be created in such analysis. A baseline in the NHM case is needed to determine if parallels are genuine parallels or just noise. In the video he does not appear to suggest some sort of baseline is possible with NHM, only that other examples were much stronger and later turned out to be noise. He did this well with the Anthon 1827 book and its parallels and convincingly shows the audience how the connection is much greater the NHM connection and then goes on to prove that that connection is statistically insignificant. Basically he agrees with you that many supposed influences were just random parallels and was later surprised to find influences that no one had ever considered before.

    After watching the video I now understand why you are so upset. Johnson did such a good job you had to zero in one little gnat of contention and deliberately missing the whole camel.

    The retort you link (G. Bruce Schaalje) gives some ground breaking statements. The BoM is indeed product of Joseph Smith’s time period (just as critics have claimed) because JS mind was involved in the translation process somehow, though he does not exactly how and to what degree. Even JS himself did not necessarily know this because he himself appeared to be belief that a retranslation of the lost 116 pages should be identical to the first translation. The only statistical sleight of hand here is the apologist reconstructing their arguments so that statistics can never test them, aka conceding. The hilarious part is they are conceding a statistical game that apologist themselves started with word print studies. Now suddenly word print studies offer little.

    The Heaven’s Gate suicide cult analogy to receive truth was spot on, not at all inappropriate as you claim. It may make you uncomfortable because you do not have a retort for it and ergo deserve the descriptor of “low”. It is a matter of fact (not opinion) that the analogy was identical to the Mormon methodology for epistemology, right down to being verklempt in feeling the truth. Yes, members of the audience snickered (not Johnson) at the Holland video clip, but I was shocked at how much ill emotion was coming out of Holland. I do not think I have ever seen a Mormon leader express some much anger towards intellectual analysis. The growing emotions appear to be a reaction to losing the debate.

  12. I'll clarify this statement: "But for the moment, let’s accept Johnson’s premise that the significance of finding Nahom is somehow related to how common NHM names are anywhere in the world as, perhaps, inspiration for Joseph’s plagiarism, and then explore the significance, if any, of his list. "

    Johnson's discussion as a whole is aimed at showing that the Book of Mormon is not an ancient work but is the fabrication of Joseph Smith because it allegedly draws upon modern sources. His discussion of NHM is an aside, really, aimed at dismissing what he views as the strongest evidence for Mormonism before delivering what he feels is strong evidence against the Book of Mormon. He does not say specifically that Joseph "plagiarized" the word Nahom but is arguing that in this work of plagiarism / borrowing of modern sources, the evidence related to NHM "is lacking in significance" because NHM is allegedly so common, occurring almost anywhere you look.

    His argument on NHM is unclear. In in the context of arguing that Joseph relied upon things in his environment to create a work of plagiarism, his argument would seem to fit logically if his point is that Joseph somehow drew upon the abundance of NHM names in his world and was inspired by an NHM name he had encountered, whether conscious plagiarism or not. I think this uncertainty is why I put the "perhaps" in the statement "as, perhaps, inspiration for Joseph’s plagiarism". Is Johnson implying that NHM words known to Joseph were somehow inspiration he relied on for a part of his work of plagiarism? If the argument is that NHM names in our day and not necessarily Joseph's day are common, then it's very hard to see how this can be relevant. If NHM names were RARE in Joseph's day, and he managed to peg the precise location of one of these rare place names, then how does a handful of other NHM names coming out long after his day have any bearing on the significance of his work? He seems to recognize the silliness of pointing to purely modern NHM creations by leaving off the most famous and largest NHM name of all, Anaheim, California, which is a modern name created from two other names, Ana and Heim. But then did he just fail to do the additional though more difficult research of tracking down the origins of the other names that he adds to his list, somewhat ill-advisedly in my opinion? It's part of why his argument is confusing.

    But again, what really makes his argument muddled is that he entirely misses the point of NHM in the Book of Mormon. And whether it is abundant or not in any language of the world, it is exceedingly rare in the Arabian Peninsula, which is the place the Book of Mormon requires us to look.

  13. Who said word print studies suddenly over little? Carefully done studies can be meaningful. But we can't learn much from a statistical test that fails when applied to well known authors with well known sources (see McGuire's expose of the fallacies of Johnson's statistical tools).

  14. Yep, you completely missed Johnson's point. I don't believe he used the word plagiarized or plagarism once. He clearly demonstrated that his belief that JS authored the BoM like Lucas authored Star Wars. As long as you recalcitrantly use the word plagiarized/plagiarism I will use the word mistranslated to describe your opinion of the BoM.

    nhm, Arabian pen. etc were all regarding stat. significance. numerology or Johnson/Kennedy parallels something the length of BoM should have a number of such coincidental examples. Your own statements regarding camorah, etc indicate this.
    http://www.snopes.com/history/american/lincoln-kennedy.asp

    I read McGuire, Schaalje, and your cancer analogy. I could not find any of them addressing what johnson declares new, stylistic drift, and single authorship of BoM. johnson weighted closeness is not a binary positive or negative discussion. Like I discussed on this blog years ago discussing principle of falsifiabilty apologist will use multiple authorship as proof and dismiss single authorship as voice of the translator as Schaalje implies.

    The fascinating part about mcGuire/Schaalje is their focus on Late War when the real power of johnson was the discovery First Book of Napoleon and single authorship discussion.

  15. Mormanity – But seriously, why do you bear such hostile feelings towards people such as Johnson? It's monotonous.

  16. Yes, but the fact that we find an NHM that is a historical burial ground from ancient times and on the part of the route that Lehi would have taken that is after "the more fertile parts" but before they reach the sea "Irreantum" is much more proof than simply "finding a common set of letters".

  17. It has been over two years. Neither Mormanity nor Daniel Peterson nor Fairmormon have been capable of addressing stylistic drift and single authorship of the BoM. They have not been able to dismiss stylistic as voice of the translator. Until they do, this what we have.

  18. I didn’t know this post existed until it was linked from your most recent one about Nahom/NHM not just being a tribe, but a place. I just wanted to say, I laughed out loud when I saw the title. Hilariously well done!

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