On NAHOM / NHM
Chairman, Department of Ancient Studies, BYU
Nephi wrote that his father-in-law, Ishmael, was buried at Nahom. LDS authors have suggested that Nahom might have been a site in Yemen called Nehem or NHM. Recently a critic attacked this argument. Professor Brown response to this attack in the following insightful discussion: We thank S. Kent Brown for his permission allowing the Nephi Project to post his discussion.
Some
of the main issues, it seems to me, are as follows:
•
The existence of the name NHM in south Arabia
The existence of the name NHM (tribal or otherwise) has been attested in
the West since Carsten Niebuhr published his two studies (a) Reisebeschreibung
nach Arabien und den umliegenden Ländern which appeared in one volume in
1772, and (b) Beschreibung von Arabien, a three-volume work on his
ill-fated expedition to Arabia (these three volumes appeared successively in
1774, 1778 and 1837). In 1792 Robert Heron published a two-volume translation of
Niebuhr’s first work titled Niebuhr’s Travels through Arabia and Other
Countries in the East. This translation was published again in 1799. The
Arabic-speaking world, of course, could appeal to the description of the Arabian
peninsula by geographers such as Al-Hamd~n§
whose work bore the title in Arabic Sifat Jaz§rat
al-‘Arab (Al-Hamd~n§ was born about A.D. 893/AH.
280). The parts of Al-Hamd~n§’s
geographical writings which survived to modern times became available in the
west through the efforts of D. H. Müller in the late 1880s. Al-Hamd~n§ spent a period of time in the
territory of the NHM tribe and thus knew it well, writing of it frequently. But
whether Joseph Smith knew of this tribal region is very problematic (see below).
A German archaeological team has uncovered in recent years at least two
finely-carved incense altars donated to the temple of Bar’~n
in ancient Marib by members of the NHM tribe. Each of the altars bears a
dedicatory inscription by the donor. The excavators date one of these altars to
the seventh–sixth centuries B.C., the era when the narrative of First Nephi
says that the family passed through Arabia. I have published a short piece on
one of the two altars in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies (8/1
[1999]: 66-68).
An important matter has to do with whether the ancient name of the NHM
tribe was tied to a geographical place of the same name. The Book of Mormon
makes this matter an issue by speaking of “the place that was called
Nahom” (1 Ne. 16:34). Naturally, a person reasonably assumes that, if the
majority of the NHM tribe dwelt in a certain area, they would have had a
“place” for themselves that bore their tribal name. And outsiders would have
known it. But if, say, the NHM people were a wandering tribe that was always
moving, even in a regular, seasonal pattern between customary pasturing areas,
then one would expect that the names they conferred on places may not have been
known to people outside the tribe. (See Charles Doughty, Travels in Arabia
Deserta, Two Volumes in One [New York, 1936], 1:88, for multiple names of
places, one conferred by local people and another conferred by travelers.) But
the work of Christian Robin both on ancient tribal names that are noted in
inscriptions, and on the relationship of these names to geographical places,
indicates that the tribal name NHM (and others) has remained basically in the
same place since it first appeared in inscriptions in the first millennium B.C.
(Les Hautes-Terres du Nord-Yemen avant l’Islam I: Recherches sur la
geographie tribale et religieuse de awl~n Qu~‘a
et du pays de Hamd~n
[Istanbul: Nederlands historisch-archaeologisch Instituut, 1982], 27, 72-74).
In this light, one can be reasonably certain from ancient sources that a
place called NHM existed in south Arabia at a very early date, very possibly by
600 B.C. Further, on the basis of the two iron age altars found at Marib
confirming the existence of the tribal name of NHM, which was known heretofore
only from the much later Arab sources, my view is that one can trust the Arab
writers (e.g, Al-Hamd~n§)
when they say that the NHM people and their territory (that is, their place)
were by then very old and well established.
•
Meaning of NHM in Hebrew
Since Nahom is one of the few place-names that appears in Nephi’s
travel narrative, and since other place names in Nephi’s narrative carry
meanings which Lehi and/or other party members conferred on them (e.g., Valley
of Lemuel, River of Laman, Bountiful, Irreantum), it seems that a person is
justified in exploring the meaning of the name Nahom in Nephi’s language
(Hebrew) in its context, even though the name (in whatever form it may have
existed in a local dialect) predates the arrival of the party. (The passive
voice “was called” in 1 Ne. 16:34 indicates its preexisting character.) The
only exception, it seems, is the name Shazer, whose meaning to members of
Lehi’s party is not spelled out (1 Ne. 16:13).
•
Proposed link between NHM in south Arabia and Nahom of Nephi’s narrative
For those who believe that
Nephi’s narrative is authentically ancient, the possibility of a connection
between the area of the NHM tribe in south Arabia and the Nahom of Nephi’s
narrative is credible. For those who do not believe that the narrative of First
Nephi authentically goes back to a record written in the early sixth century
B.C., any proposed link will lack merit. It is a matter, in my view, of one’s
beginning assumptions. Since I believe that the account of First Nephi is
authentic and offers a snapshot of life in ancient Arabia, I accept the
likelihood of a tie between the area of the NHM tribe and Nephi’s Nahom. My
reasons are spelled out in the short article in the Journal of Book of Mormon
Studies (8/1 [1999]) and I stand on what I wrote on that occasion.
•
Ease of access to maps/books on Arabia that mention NHM
Several issues face a researcher who seeks to learn the availability of
books and maps to the young Joseph Smith which might possibly have influenced
his views of ancient Arabia. (A) There is the broad question of the influence of
such resources on frontier families in the northeastern United States in the
early 19th century. It seems to me that this sort of matter is
extremely difficult to measure unless a researcher has access to a wide range of
personal journals and the like which note both the individuals’ interests in
far-flung places like Arabia and the kinds of books that these people consulted.
(B) A more narrow question has to do with works that might have influenced young
Joseph Smith. Because within the preserved sources that deal with his youth
there is precious little to indicate that works other than the Bible influenced
his thinking, a researcher faces a challenging task.
This latter task consists of answering at least two questions. (1) Was
Joseph Smith inclined to be bookish? That is, was he a person who read when he
had the chance to read? By his own account, he said that he was “unacquainted
with men and things” and was “doomed to the necessity of obtaining a scanty
maintenance by his daily labor” (Joseph Smith–History 1:8, 23). In another
source, Joseph Smith wrote similarly that because “it required the exertions
of all that were able to render any assistance for the support of the Family
therefore we were deprived of the bennifit of an education suffice it to say I
was mearly instructid in reading writing and the ground rules of Arithmatic
which constuted my whole literary acquirements” (D. C. Jessee, Editor, Papers
of Joseph Smith [1989], vol. 1, p. 5). A second accounting comes from his
mother who wrote that her son Joseph was “much less inclined to the perusal of
books than any of the rest of our children.” I understand her statement to
mean that Joseph was not a person who read much (History of Joseph Smith by
His Mother Lucy Mack Smith, Edited by P. Nibley [1958], p. 82). Such
notations from Joseph Smith and from his mother, who knew him best in his youth,
point away from a view that the young Joseph was a person with an intense
curiosity which he satisfied by appealing to books.
(2) The other question concerns the ease of access to written sources in,
say, a local library. A student assistant and I have gone through all of the
works known to have been in the collection of the Manchester Public Library
before 1830, a resource that would have been available to Joseph Smith in his
teens and later. None of the works in that collection which claim to deal with
the ancient Near East would have given him good information on ancient Arabia.
And in our review we spotted nothing that bears a familiar ring in the narrative
of First Nephi. The only other library resource that young Joseph could possibly
have drawn on was that of Dartmouth College. As most are aware, the Smith family
lived in Lebanon, New Hampshire, from 1811 to late in 1813, before moving back
to Vermont. The home where the Smith family lived in Lebanon was just down the
road from Dartmouth College. There are two problems that a researcher must
surmount in determining whether Joseph Smith during these years might possibly
have put his hands on works such as Robert Heron’s English translation of
Carsten Niebuhr’s description of Arabia, or Jean-Baptiste D’Anville’s map
titled Orbis Veteribus Notus, or even an English translation of Pliny’s
Natural History, or Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire, all of which dealt with ancient Arabia in one way or
another. (1) The first concerns the dates of the acquisition of these works by
Dartmouth’s library, or by any other major library in the United States. In
the case of Robert Heron’s two-volume translation of Niebuhr’s work that was
published in1792, the acquisition date at the Dartmouth library is 1937, more
than 140 years after it appeared in print. An example from a second library
leads to a similar point. The Library of Congress only acquired the 1792
two-volume set in 1951. Hence, it is clear that, in the case of Dartmouth
College, this work was not available in its library when the Smith family lived
in the town of Lebanon, New Hampshire. Thus, in my mind, one cannot draw
conclusions about any influence of such a work on young Joseph Smith. (We also
bear in mind that Joseph Smith was only 5 years old when his family moved to
Lebanon, New Hampshire, and had not yet reached his eighth birthday when his
family moved to Vermont.) (2) Even if — hypothetically — such resources were
available in the Dartmouth library before 1810 or so, a researcher would have to
determine when young Joseph Smith could possibly have spent enough time there to
glean information about ancient Arabia. One will recall that Joseph Smith became
seriously ill in Lebanon early in the year of 1813, after turning seven years
old, and was unable to function normally for several months following the
surgical removal of bone from his leg. In light of the above, a researcher would
have to make a case for Joseph Smith actively reading and gleaning when he was
the age of a typical first or second grader, while taking into account that
these were the periods when, if he were well enough, his father needed him for
the work on the farm that the family had leased in Lebanon. In this light, it
seems impossible to sustain a hypothesis that any library resource which dealt
with Arabia, and particularly with NHM, influenced the very young Joseph Smith,
or was even consulted by him. That works which dealt with Arabia in one way or
another may have available in libraries in the then United States is possible.
But demonstrating that Joseph Smith ever visited such institutions, or even knew
of libraries that owned these works, lies beyond what the modern researcher can
show.
In a similar vein, to hypothesize that Joseph Smith had access to a
private library which contained works on ancient Arabia is impossible to
sustain.
(3) Another issue relates to the above. It concerns the approach or
method that one adopts when dealing with similarities that appear in written
materials, whether any connection is apparent or not between writings. In the
case before us, if a researcher wants to argue that Joseph Smith had gained
access to written materials on Arabia, such as the initial pages of chapter 50
of Edward Gibbon’s work on the fall of the Roman Empire, the researcher must
be willing to go beyond the question of apparent, superficial similarities. In
Gibbon’s case, he depended chiefly on Classical sources for his portrait of
Arabia. Both Gibbon and his sources (e.g., Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny the
Elder) are interested in certain questions that attach to their historical and
cultural situations. For example, Diodorus focused on the aromatic plants that
Arabians cultivated (II. 49; III.46). One of Pliny’s main interests was such
plants (Natural History XII.24, 29-41). Following these sources, Gibbon
also wrote about this subject. But the narrative of First Nephi makes no
connection to this dimension of Arabia that is featured prominently by
Gibbon’s sources. In my view, if a person wants to show connections, one also
has to explain the areas of disconnection in order to make a sound case. In my
reading, the dissimilarities substantially outweigh the similarities when one
begins to compare First Nephi and the Classical sources which have informed
studies of the modern era.
•
Link of NHM with eastward turn
There is another piece that one should add to the NHM issue. It concerns
Nephi’s note that “we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth,”
following events at Nahom (1 Ne. 17:1). This geographical notice is one of the
few in Nephi’s narrative and invites examination. One observes that northwest
of Marib, the ancient capital of the Sabaean kingdom of south Arabia, almost all
roads turn east, veering from the general north-south direction of the incense
trail. Moreover, the eastward bend occurs in the general area inhabited by the
NHM tribe. (I add parenthetically that I assume that Lehi’s party had been
following or shadowing the incense trail because wells were located at more or
less regular intervals along the route. This view would fit most naturally with
the observation in the Book of Mormon that Lehi’s party traveled in a
generally south-southeast direction, an observation which matches the direction
of the incense trail [see 1 Ne. 16:13-14, 33].)
An important question is whether Joseph Smith could have learned about
this eastward turn in the main incense trail. As far as I have been able to
discover, no written source, Classical or contemporary, mentions it. It is my
view, therefore, that only a person who had traveled either near or along the
trail would know that it turned eastward in this area. To be sure, the longest
leg of the incense trail ran basically north-south along the highland (eastern)
side of the Al-Sar~t mountains of western Arabia
(actually, from the north, the trail held in a south-southeast direction, as
Nephi says). But after passing south of Najran (modern Ukhdãd,
Saudi Arabia), both the main trail and several shortcuts turned eastward, all
leading to Shabwah, then the chief staging center for caravans in south Arabia.
One spur of the trail continued farther southward to Aden. But the traffic along
this section was very much less than that which went to and from Shabwah. The
main trail and its spurs ran eastward, matching Nephi’s description, because
wells were there and because Shabwah controlled the finest incense of Arabia
that was coming westward from Oman. This general area is the only place along
the incense trail where traffic ran east-west. Hence, until other evidence
surfaces, I conclude that neither Joseph Smith nor anyone else in his society
knew about this turn in the incense trail which the narrative of First Nephi
features. (Incidentally, for maps that show the eastward spurs of the trail that
led to Shabwah, see Pierre Robert Baduel [ed.], L’Arabie antique de
Karib’îl à Mahomet: Nouvelles données sur l’histoire des Arabes grâce
aux inscriptions. La Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée, no. 61
[1991-3], map 1; and Nigel Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh [London: Longman
Group Ltd., 1981], 167, 192.)
•
Further discussion
For those who wish to read further on matters related to the journey of
Lehi and Sariah, I ask for patience until my article appears in a FARMS
publication scheduled to be released later this year (2001).
February 23, 2001