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The following comment comes courtesy of Professor S. Kent Brown of BYU. Since the other thread seems to have died, I will post it here:



May 30, 2003



NAHOM/NIHM/NHM TODAY

S. Kent Brown



The recent publication of inscriptions from three limestone altars found in the ancient temple of Baran in Marib, Yemen, demonstrates as firmly as possible by archaeological means the existence of the tribal name NHM in that part of Arabia in the seventhsixth centuries b.c., the general dates assigned to the carving of the altars by the excavators and other scholars (see the summaries by S. Kent Brown, The Place That was Called Nahom: New Light from Ancient Yemen, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8/1 (1999): 6668; and Warren P. Aston, Newly Found Altars from Nahom, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10/2 (2001): 5661). The first altar of three was noted by myself in the French catalogue written by scholars on ancient Yemen antiquities which is titled Ymen: au pays de la reine de Saba and was published by Flammarion, Paris, in 1997. (The exhibit of early Yemen artifacts, which the catalogue described, is currently showing in Madrid, Spain.) In the catalogues article Les temples de Marib written by Burkhard Vogt, the leader of the German team that has now finished excavating at the Baran Temple, a reader finds photographs of several artifacts, including an altar on p. 144 which Vogt dates to viie-vie sicles av. J.-C. (7th6th centuries b.c.) and whose dedicatory inscription he translates as follows: Biathar, son of Sawd, son of Nawn, the Nihmite, has consecrated to [the god] Almaqah (the person of) Friat. . . . The other two altars currently rest within the enclosure that surrounds the temple site just to the east of the modern town of Marib. Both altars have been photographed extensively by interested persons, including myself. It is these two altars that Warren Aston has published, taking account of the German preliminary report written by Burkhard Vogt and others, titled Arsh Bilqis Der Temple des Almaqah Baran in Marib that was published in German, English and Arabic in Sanaa, Yemen, in 2000.

It is important to emphasize that in the world of archaeology, written inscriptions are the evidence most sought after, for they often establish names and dates, key components for interpreting the past. The inscriptions on the three altars, all mentioning the NHM tribe, prove beyond doubt the existence of this name in the first half of the first millenium b.c.

Tribes, of course, have to live somewhere. It now seems plainly evident that the NHM tribe has resided in its current territory for millennia, that is, in the highlands east of the city of Sanaa, west of the city of Marib and along the south rim of the Wadi Jawf. That the name of the NHM tribe was given to this region in antiquity was suggested initially by Christian Robin in his study Les Hautes-Terres du Nord-Yemen avant lIslam I: Recherches sur la geographie tribale et religieuse de awl~n Qu~a et du pays de Hamd~n, published by the Nederlands historisch-archaeologisch Instituut in Istanbul (1982, pp. 27, 7274). This earlier observation is buttressed by the fact that the three altars dedicated by a member of the NHM tribe came to the Baran Temple in Marib during the seventh or sixth century b.c., forming clear indicators that tribal members were living not far from Marib, the capital of the Sabaean kingdom, and had fallen under its political and religious influences. In this light, one can safely conclude that, first, the tribal name and the territorial name have been joined for several millennia, from perhaps 1,000 b.c., and, second, the tribe was living then where it does nowadays. There is more.

Tied to this territorial and tribal name in Nephis narrative, which he spells as Nahom (see 1 Nephi 16:34), is his mention of an adjustment from the generally southward journey of his traveling party to an eastward direction through this part of Arabia.(see 1 Nephi 17:1). This adjustment, not incidentally, shows that Nephi and his party were following the incense trail that offered an infrastructure of wells and fodder to travelers and their animals. For, in fact, all roads turned east in the region of the NHM tribal territory, including the incense road and its shortcuts. Across the Ramlat Sabatayn desert, east of this tribal region and east of Marib, lay the city of Shabwah. By ancient Arabian law, it was to this city that all incense harvested in the highlands of southern Arabia was carried to be inventoried, weighed, and taxed, with gifts made to the temples at Shabwah (for ancient laws that governed the incense trade, see Nigel Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh: A Study of the Arabian Incense Trade [London: Longman Group Ltd., 1981], 16970, 181, 18384; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 12.32 [63]). After this process, the incense was loaded on camels and shipped toward the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian areas, traveling at first westward and then, after reaching the edges of the region of the NHM tribe, traveling northward to the city of Najran and beyond (these directions are exactly opposite from those that Nephi and his party were going). Even the shortcuts across the Ramlat Sabatayn desert ran generally eastwest. What is important for our purposes is the fact that the eastward turn of Nephis narrative does not show up in any known ancient source, including Pliny the Elders famous description of the incense-growing lands of Arabia. No one knew of this eastward turn in the incense trail except persons who had traveled it.

Another point may shed light on the length of time required by Nephis party to reach the area of NHM. The NHM tribal territory lies about 1,400 miles south of Jerusalem and about 1,150 miles south of their first camp (on the location of the first camp, consult George D. Potter, A New Candidate in Arabia for the Valley of Lemuel, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8/1 [1999]: 5463). In this connection, two observations are significant. (1) Nephi writes about the marriages of himself and his brothers at the first camp (see 1 Nephi 16:7) and later, after noting the arrival at Nahom, mentions the births of the first children from these marriages (see 1 Nephi 17:1). It seems apparent that within the first months of marriage two or more of the brides became pregnant and, after reaching Nahom, gave birth to their first children, thus setting a time parameter of a year or less for the trek from the first camp to the tribal territory of NHM. That Nephis party could have reached this area within a year is demonstrated by another account. (2) According to the ancient geographer Strabo (ca. 64 b.c. a.d. 19), in 25 b.c. a Roman military force under general Aelius Gallus marched through roughly the same territory, from just south of the Straits of Tiran in the Red Sea to the region of Marib, taking six months to do so. Because Gallus army became decimated by disease, he led his men back under forced march in two months to the coastal town where they began, Leuc Com, which is probably the modern town of Aynnah (see Strabo, Geography 16.4.2324; on Nabataean artifacts that point to the identification of Aynnah as ancient Leuc Com, consult Michael L. Ingraham et al., Saudi Arabian Comprehensive Survey Program: C. Preliminary Report on a Reconnaissance Survey of the Northwestern Province, ATLAL. The Journal of Saudi Arabian Archaeology 5 [1401 a.h. 1981 a.d.]: 5984, especially 7678). Thus, the plausibility that Nephis party could have reached the NHM territory in less than a year is high.

(Note: all of this material is reviewed in S. Kent Brown, New Light from Arabia on Lehis Trail, in Donald W. Parry et al., eds., Evidences and Echoes of the Book of Mormon [Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2002], 55125.)

Well, the dedication to "Almaqah" is certainly interesting.

Best wishes,
Mark

Mark: Well, the dedication to "Almaqah" is certainly interesting.

Why?

sr

Yemen Times, Oct 2001:

Tribal mediations succeeded last Thursday evening in getting the Chinese hostage, Mao Ding, 35, released. Tribal sources told YT that the release of Ding came after intensive mediations on part of sheikhs of the Nihm tribe.

www.yementimes.com/01/iss43/front.htm

Mark: The BoM name Alma (which was supposed to be a major
gaffe).

Supposedly being "a major gaffe" doesn't help the LDS cause in the least. It is in fact silly for LDS to refer to previous "anti's" that just happened to be wrong. The only thing you would do is prove their argument to be invalid. Who really cares? Proving an "attack" wrong does not prove anything to be right.

"Alma" was used as a semitic male name in Hadith writings. This could very well have been available to any potential writer of the BOM manuscript in the early 19th century in the U.S, including Solomon Spaulding. In fact there are other uses of supposedly unique BOM uses of some names in Hadith as well, such as "Sam". This could be used as evidence against the authenticity of BOM as well as used as evidence in favor. Basically the usage of the name is rendered neutral as far as evidence goes. It still appears to me that someone researched available materials in the early 19th century to fabricate the BOM story.

sr

Soho,

Kent passed along the following comment on the picture you posted here. I am forwarding it for your interest:

Dear Kevin,

The altar pictured at the messageboard comes from a photo in the
British
Museum publication "Queen of Sheba" two pages behind the altar that
first
drew my attention. That altar appears on p. 164 of the BM catalogue
whereas
the one on the messageboard appears on p. 166. But no translation of
the
dedicatory inscription with NHM appears in the English version. It did
appear in the French.

Kent

Mark: Boy howdy! All I said was that it was interesting.

And I was showing you why it was interesting.

Mark: BTW, who did that research?

I did.

Mark: Where was the research done?

Doesn't matter.

Mark: Comparing the names in Spaulding with names in BoM, what
conclusions can you come to?

I don't think one should conclude anything about the use of "Alma" in the BOM at this time. It certainly should not be considered as favorable evidence for the BOM.

sr