BYU Studies article review #1

In the latest BYU Studies, Warren Aston gives an update on scholarly research on connections between the name of the Book of Mormon burial place for Ishmael, Nahom (1 Ne. 16:34), and the name of a tribe and area in Yemen in the SW corner of the Arabian peninsula (NHM, Nihm, Nahm, Nehm, Nehem) and also meanings of the Arabic/Hebrew rootword (“A History of NaHoM”, BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 51 No. 2, 2012, pp.79-98). Understand that vowels were not present in the Arabian/Hebrew languages, so that all the words above were essentially the same (NHM). Evidence from archaeological findings and from historical records has now accumulated that this name for an important tribe and the area in which they lived or controlled (Nihm) is known today and has existed for up to 4000 years in this same location. Three altars unearthed at an archaeological excavation of the Ba’ran temple site in Yemem, dated to about 750 BC, contain the tribal name of NHM and constitute, in the words of Terryl Givens “the first actual archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon” and “the most impressive find to date corroborating Book of Mormon historicity.”

Adding to the significance of this area, adjacent to modern Nihm is the largest known burial site on the Arabian peninsula, with burials dating back 4000 years, and could well have been where Ishmael was buried. Due east is a narrow band of plateaus that constitute the only route of travel possible to reach the only fertile area on the 1000 miles of ocean coastline, a small region on the coast of Oman which is fed by monsoon rains. On both sides of this route eastward from Nihm are impassable deserts of shifting, waterless dunes. The fit of these geographic features with the route of travel of Lehi’s party described in the Book of Mormon is uncanny.

Finally, Semitic language roots for the word NHM seems consistent with the Nephite story and its connection with a place for burial, linking to such meanings as “to comfort, console, a soft
moan” and “to roar, complain, suffer from hunger.”