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Question: Did Joseph Smith have access to materials related to Nahom at Allegheny College?
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Questions
The critical website MormonThink.com offers the following:
This FAIR Link mentions Niebuhr's and d'Anville's books. It also says that neither were at Dartmouth when Joseph was a boy, nor were they available in Manchester, New York in the lending library.
Now for the rest of the story. Allegheny College in Meadville Pennsylvania is about 50 miles from Harmony. Its library began through donations from private individuals. In 1824, Thomas Jefferson wrote that he hoped his University of Virginia could someday possess the richness of Allegheny's library.
In the Allegheny's collection were both books that apologists claim were not available to Joseph Smith. Here is an 1823 catalog:
D'Anville's book on ancient geography is on page 18
Niebuhr is on page 44
Both books were fifty miles away from where the translation was being done.
Answer
FairMormon has acknowledged that two books were available at Allegheny College in Meadville Pennsylvania containing maps which showed the location of Nahom (alternatively spelled Nihm or Nehem). We concluded that even though these books were present, that they were not located close enough to Harmony Township for Joseph to have utilized them. MormonThink, however, appears to have utilized a faulty Google search to assert that these books were located close enough to where Joseph Smith lived for him to have used them. MormonThink attempts to refute FairMormon's argument on their "Book of Mormon Problems" page.
MormonThink states: "Now for the rest of the story. Allegheny College in Meadville Pennsylvania is about 50 miles from Harmony. ...In the Allegheny's collection were both books that apologists claim were not available to Joseph Smith."
Indeed, if one simply types "Harmony, Pennsylvania" into Google Maps, it does indicate that the town of "Harmony" is located approximately 50 miles from Allegheny College in Meadville. However, MormonThink gets it wrong.
Now, for the rest of the "rest of the story." There are THREE Harmony Townships located in Pennsylvania, and the one MormonThink is referring to is not the correct one. Harmony Township, Forest County, Pennsylvania is located 50 miles from Allegheny College, however, this is not the Harmony Township in which Joseph Smith lived. The second possibility is Harmony Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, which is located 86 miles from Allegheny College. But this isn't the location at which Joseph Smith lived either. Finally, we have Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. This is where Joseph Smith lived and translated the Book of Mormon. The Harmony Township in which Joseph lived is located 320 miles from Allegheny College. This is easily confirmed by typing "Harmony Township, Susquehanna, PA" into Google Maps. FairMormon therefore stands by its assertion that Allegheny College was too far from Harmony Township for Joseph to have seen the name "Nahom" on one of the maps located there.
For more information on this error, see Neal Rappleye and Stephen O. Smoot , "Book of Mormon Minimalists and the NHM Inscriptions: A Response to Dan Vogel," Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 8 (2014): 157-185. http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/book-of-mormon-minimalists-and-the-nhm-inscriptions-a-response-to-dan-vogel/