FAIR

Julianne Dehlin Hatton

Faith and Reason 33: Ancient Shipbuilding

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supportingthe Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

As the Lehites travelled to southern Arabia they would have passed several seaports where ships could be observed. Only recently have historians become aware that centuries before Lehi’s day, Oman [on Arabia’s southern coast] was the forefront of Arab sea exploration and trade, building ships that operated to Africa, India and China.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt.  He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 32: Bountiful

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith

By Michael R. Ash

After a long journey that probably took several years, the Lehites finally came to Bountiful –a land of “much fruit and also wild honey” (1 Nephi 17:5) Here they camped and built a ship for the final leg of their journey to the Americas. According to the Book of Mormon, Bountiful was a fertile place with vegetation, shipbuilding timber, flint deposits for making tools, and a nearby mount where Nephi’s brothers nearly threw Nephi into the sea.

Located precisely where we would expect to find Bountiful is the Arabian site of Khor Kharfor –the most naturally fertile location on the Arabian coast. There are fresh water springs, timber trees up to forty feet in circumference, wild honey, and small game animals. Until recently there was a sheltered sea inlet from where one could launch a raft (it is now closed by a sand bar). Towering on the west side of the bay is a mount where Nephi could have prayed, and 120-foot cliffs where Nephi’s brothers could have threatened to throw off their younger brother.

Geologists have recently found nearby iron deposits and forms of flint from which Nephi could have fashioned tools. All the items necessary to meet the description of Bountiful is found on the Dohfar coast just as described in the Book of Mormon.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt.  He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 31: Raw Meat in the Book of Mormon

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

After turning east at Nahom and continuing their journey to Bountiful, we read that the Lehites suffered many afflictions and had to live on “raw meat” because they were not to make fire frequently (1 Nephi 17:12). Early critics found this strange because little was known about ancient Arabia when they made this charge. According the Near Eastern archaeologist Dr. Jeffery Chadwick, the Lehites probably didn’t make much fire because of the lack of firewood and kindling and because they probably travelled in the cool of the night and rested during the day when no fires for visibility were needed. Dr. Hugh Nibley wrote that many desert travelers ate goat and sheep kidney raw –with a bit of salt. Others ate entire slices of flesh raw, or scorched it quickly over a small fire. In either Nibley or Chadwick’s scenario, the actions of the Lehites and their eating of “raw meat” are consistent with what we now know about ancient Arabian travelers.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt.  He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 30: Nahom

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Nahom

Image of Nahom from The New Era

From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

 In 1 Nephi chapter 7, not long after their departure into the wilderness, Nephi and his brothers return to Jerusalem to bring Ishmael and his daughters (which later become the wives of Lehi’s sons). In chapter 16 Ishmael died during their journey through the Arabian Peninsula and in verse 34 we read that Ishmael was buried “in the place that was called Nahom.” Ancient Hebrew did not use vowels, so NHM could have been translated with the use of various vowel sounds including Nahom as found in the Book of Mormon.

In the late twentieth century, a non-LDS German archaeological team was excavating an ancient temple in southern Arabia when they discovered the inscription of a man belonging to the tribe of NHM. A few years later, two more altars from the same excavation were also found to contain the tribal inscription of NHM. Since this area had been utilized for more than 2500 years (and was actively used during the days of Lehi,) non-LDS scholars have suggested that—in typical Near Eastern Fashion—NHM was not only a tribal name, but the name of a territory in which this tribe lived. This becomes even more interesting when we recognize that NHM was the largest burial site in all of ancient Arabia, and starting in around 600 BC (the same time that the Lehites fled Jerusalem,) anyone could be buried there.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt.  He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.