I wasn’t planning to write this piece, but so many of the comments on my earlier Book of Mormon posts have raised a particular point, and I don’t want it to seem that by ignoring it, I am conceding its value. The story also says much about how an authentic academic find metastasizes into popular religious folklore – a lesson for mainstream Christians, Jews and Muslims no less than Mormons.
I have been focusing entirely on the historicity of the Book of Mormon in its New World context. Despite that explicit goal, I keep getting questions on the lines of “What about Nahom?” which for many apologists seems to be the ultimate validation that yes, indeed, there is something in the Smith mythos. Supposedly, this is a site where Lehi stopped in the general area of Arabia, “the place which was called Nahom,” and in modern times, a related name with a NHM-stem has been found inscribed on some altars discovered in the region, in modern Yemen. The Book therefore (seemingly) reports something that Joseph Smith could not have known in 1830! Meridian Magazine breathlessly reports “Finding the First Verifiable Book of Mormon Site.” This is, literally, the only case where anyone still seriously pretends that they have some kind of archaeological support for the Book of Mormon, though they should be embarrassed to do so. “Book of Mormon Archaeology” is no longer an oxymoron!
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