To read more from Jeff, visit Arise From the Dust. 

A critic recently asked me a tough question: what’s the single most impressive piece of evidence for the Book of Mormon? Based on prior statements from this critic, he certainly wasn’t looking for evidence that might change his life and open his mind, but was looking for a way to make his life easier by simplifying his job of attacking the Book of Mormon. So he wasn’t looking for evidence to sincerely consider, but for evidence to vigorously dismiss. I can understand the frustration of critics who feel like dismissing the Book of Mormon is frustrating given the increasingly long lists of evidences that defenders of the sacred record can offer these days, complicated by the steady stream of discoveries being published at Interpreter and Book of Mormon Central. So instead of trying to tackle so many issues, there’s a need to just identify the one best target, focus efforts there, and declare ultimate victory, for if the single best evidence for the Book of Mormon can be readily refuted, there’s no need to engage other issues, right?

Focusing on one “single best” piece of evidence is not a valid way to find truth, but can be a great way to attack it. Even if looking at intellectual evidence were all that were required to determine the truthfulness and divinity of the Book of Mormon, exclusively considering just the “single best” leaves out the vast majority of relevant evidence, and one person’s view of what’s “best” may be subjective, transitory, and flawed. That person’s choice on any given day might be something that isn’t all that solid. In science, in court cases, and in all intellectual pursuits, evidence is something that needs to be considered collectively. Imagine the fun a corrupt court could have with the “one best”  rule: “The court hereby requires the counsel for the defense to just pick your one best witness, and then only focus on your one best argument — you have up to five minutes — before we reach the decision to execute the defendant.”

Nevertheless, realizing that some people might be willing to consider the evidence and might really want to understand more, what evidence is most important and impressive? I chose to make some comments regarding what may be among the single best evidences for the plausibility of the Book of Mormon as an ancient text, written on gold plates, giving an account that begins in Jerusalem and describes a migration of a small Hebrew group to the New World, and ultimately giving us an ancient record that bears witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ.  Here are the slightly-updated thoughts I offered:

The River Laman, Shazer, and Bountiful are hard geographical details that one can view on Google Earth and for which detailed information and photos are available.All these details converge in an interesting way at Nahom, where Ishmael was buried. Search for Nahom or Arabia at InterpreterFoundation.org and Book of Mormon Central or read Warren Aston’s book, Lehi and Sariah in Arabia. Here we have a place accessible from the River Laman and Shazer by traveling a general south-southeastern route, and remarkably, one can then turn due east from Nahom (as Lehi’s group does, heading “nearly east” after the burial) and wander into a wadi with no impassable barriers that would bring the group to a rare fertile spot offering a miraculously appropriate candidate for Bountiful. The place where Nahom needs to be, given the locations of Bountiful and the the River Laman + Shazer, just happens to be in or near the tribal lands of the ancient Nihm tribe, whose name in ancient Southeast Arabic is NHM and has been transliterated in several modern maps as Nehem. One recent modern map, for example, lists NEHEM as an “ancient burial site” (but of course, there are burial sites all over populated regions — but much of Yemen and Arabia is unpopulated, so having an ancient burial site in the Nehem region is not completely trivial evidence).For those who wonder if the NHM tribe even existed in Lehi’s day and need something more than geographical evidence, we have the icing on the cake of hard archaeological evidence dating to the 7th or 8th century BC in the form of votive altars donated to the nearby temple at Marib (about 70 miles away from modern Nihm tribal lands) by a prominent member of the NHM tribe, and other inscriptions thereafter showing continuity of the NHM tribe in that general region. There was a NHM tribe in the area in Lehi’s day. (As another minor aside, we also have hard archaeological evidence showing that there was at least one man named Ishmael, apparently a foreigner and possibly a Hebrew, who was buried in the Nihm region around the 6th century BC: see “An Ishmael Buried Near Nahom“. That doesn’t mean it was our Ishmael in the Book of Mormon, but it certainly contributes to the plausibility of the account.)

So contrary to what is commonly said, the Arabian Peninsula evidence is far more than just a random NHM name that we found and tried contrive a story to make it count as evidence. If the River Laman and the place Bountiful are considered and the directions of travel given in the text are considered, then the Book of Mormon would seem to require that the ancient place Nahom be near northern Yemen, not just anywhere in the Arabian Peninsula. That there was an ancient Nehem/Nihm tribe in that region, backed with archaeological evidence showing their existence there in Lehi’s day, in just the right place where one can turn east after long southern travel and then avoid the Great Empty Quarter and another impassable dessert to the south, but travel nearly due east unimpeded (though water would be more scarce, but not impossibly so — indeed, the text indicates that this was an especially difficult part of the journey) and then reach the miraculous place Bountiful, exactly as the text describes, must be understood as more than a trivial factoid, more than creative adjusting of the narrative to make random trivia seem impressive.So for me, if someone says what’s the most interesting hard, tangible evidence for the Book of Mormon, I would say it is the complex of evidences from the Arabian Peninsula with four pillars, each worthy of much study: the River Laman in the Valley of Lemuel, the place Shazer, the place that was called Nahom where Ishmael was buried, and the place nearly due east of Nahom, Bountiful. Efforts to deny its significance fail, IMO. See “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Map: Part 1 of 2″ and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Map: Part 2 of 2.”

8. Much more! Others might point to many other factors, such as the volcanic ash evidence related to the volcanic activity apparently described in the Book of Mormon, or the evidence that the language of the dictated text, based on the scholarship of Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack, clearly shows that Joseph was dictating language that is not simply a mashup of KJV language or his own dialect, but language with a strong Early Modern English flavor that is distinct and often slight earlier than the English of the KJV Bible. This is a complex and controversial issue, but one based on hard data with strong implications that Joseph Smith is not the author. Which of the many issues offered as evidence for the origins of the Book of Mormon are “the one best” issue to focus will depend on the student and what assumptions he or she bring to the table about what is most relevant. I’d suggest that those interested look at Item #1 above and after gaining an overview of the text, then explore some of the many issues raised at Book of Mormon Central, Interpreter, FAIR, and other websites.

Thanks to Jeff for highlighting some of the strongest logical evidences of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Of course the strongest and most impresive is the witness of the Holy Spirit, but for those unwilling to humble themselves yet and ask God if it's true, these are good building blocks to construct a jumping-off point for that leap of faith. I provided some of these and other evidences in the Meridian article published in January of 2020 called "10 Things the Devil Does Not Want You to Know About the Book of Mormon". To find it, just type the first few words of that title into the search box at the top of the Meridian Magazine main page.

Very interesting! I hope to be able to read some of the sources cited.

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