Tag: criticism
Nahom/NHM: Only a Tribe, Not a Place?
Discoveries from the Arabian Peninsula supporting the existence of a place called Nahom (see 1 Nephi 16:34) have been criticized for only showing that the NHM tribal name existed in ancient Yemen, not a place with that name. The claim is made that tribal names in Yemen were not used as place names, so it makes no sense to think that anyone could have encountered “the place which was called Nahom.” Contrary to such claims, there are multiple examples from antiquity of Yemeni tribal names being associated with places and a recognition from some scholars of Yemen that tribal names can be equated with places. The archaeological evidence of the NHM/Nihm tribal name on ancient altars from Marib makes it entirely plausible that a place called NHM did actually exist in Nephi’s day in a place consistent with the Book of Mormon record.
David and the Psalms in the Book of Mormon: Weakness or Strength?
Overview A 2016 graduate thesis from Kyle Beshears at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, “Davidic References in the Book of Mormon as Evidence Against its Historicity,” proposes an intriguing new…
Publication on the Reynolds Arcade as the Great and Spacious Building in Lehi’s Tree of Life Vision
My recent exploration of Rick Grunder’s genuinely creative theories for the alleged fabrication of Lehi’s tree of life vision ended up in a more formal article for The Interpreter, just…
Burying Nahom
A couple of recent blog posts from skeptics have once again announced that Nahom in the Arabian Peninsula, the alleged soul shred of evidence for the Book of Mormon, the…
Update on Early Modern English in the Book of Mormon: One Potential Test to Identify the Possible Influence of New England Dialect on the Dictated Text
Executive Summary: I remain impressed with the detailed, data-rich work of Carmack and Skousen regarding Early Modern English (EModE) influence in the original text of the Book of Mormon. However,…
Getting Nuclear with Doubt: Lessons from a Sixth-Grade Nerd
When I was in sixth grade, our teacher taught a science section on the nature of the atom. In our classroom we had a physical model with some wooden balls…
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…
The Church Under Condemnation: Tips for Those Tempted to Condemn Church Leaders
Apostasy often begins with attacking Church leaders. This is easy to do, and frankly, there are plenty of targets to go after and many reasons one can find to be…
Review: Day of Defense by Scott Thormaehlen
Scott Thormaehlen’s new book, Day of Defense: Positive Talking Points for the Latter Days (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 2013) aims to help readers deal with misunderstandings and accusations regarding LDS…
Dealing with Our Personal Dissent
For many Latter-day Saints, there will be times when we disagree with a Church leader or even with a Church policy. First, we must understand that this is natural and…