Difference between revisions of "Question: Did Joseph Smith get the word Nahom from the Biblical names Naham (1 Chron. 4:19), Nehum (Ne. 7:7) and Nahum (Na. 1:1)?"

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Questions

== Critics claim Joseph Smith got the word Nahom, from the Biblical names Naham (1 Chron. 4:19), Nehum (Ne. 7:7) and Nahum (Na. 1:1)

Critics claim that Nahom is just a coincidence

Source(s) of the criticism

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, [[../CriticalSources|click here]]

Answer

==

One might not be surprised to find a similar name to Nahom, in the Bible, especially because their are hundreds of names, much of the Bible was written in Hebrew, and it was written in the middle east.

All details in the Book of Mormon point to a specific location and time period. Nahom, can't fit nowhere else in the world.

Detailed Analysis

==  ^{[needs work]}
However, the word Nahom is not found in the Bible. Lehi named several places during his trip, so the only place that we can expected to find in Arabia, is Nahom. Nahom is the only place mentioned, which was not named by Lehi.

Just because the names look similar, it does not mean that Joseph Smith got the name Nahom, from the Bible. If Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon (which he didn't), there are hundreds of other names in the Bible that Joseph Smith could have chosen from, how would he know which name was the right one? The chances that he got lucky are extremely low. Why couldn't Joseph Smith have chosen another Biblical name like Micah, Haggai, and literally hundreds more, instead? Certainly, NHM doesn't fit with Micha, Haggai, and so forth.

Joseph Smith couldn't have known that Nahom was the right name, that would beautifully fit other details about Arabia, as described in the Book of Mormon. Examples:

• When Lehi and his party began the journey, they were near the Red Sea

"And he came down by the borders near the shore of the Red Sea; and he traveled in the wilderness in the borders which are nearer the Red Sea"(1 Nephi 2:5)

• Lehi and his party traveled southeast before reaching Nahom

1 Nephi 16:13 "And it came to pass that we traveled for the space of four days, nearly a south-southeast direction, and we did pitch our tents again; and we did call the name of the place Shazer. "and we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth" (1 Nephi 16:13)

• Lehi and his party travel eastward after reaching Nahom

"1 And it came to pass that we did again take our journey in the wilderness; and we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth. And we did travel and wade through much affliction in the wilderness; and our women did bear children in the wilderness." (1 Nephi 17:1)

• Bountiful is exactly eastward of Nahom, there is no other region in Arabia that can be called Bountiful

• The valley of Lemuel

For more information:

Book of Mormon geography—Old World—Nahom

Joseph Smith most likely didn't know that there were no vowels in Hebrew, during the translation period of the Book of Mormon. If he decided to choose Naham, Nehum, and Nahum, why did Joseph Smith have to write Nahom, and not words like Naam, or Ehum, or ahum or Nahajham? Certainly NHM wouldn't fit one of these names. Why did he write Nahom and not Najan, or Mahom?