Book of Mormon Evidence: Nahom

“A Place Which Was Called Nahom”

Throughout their journey in Arabia, Lehi and his family typically named the various places they stopped at, with one exception (see 1 Nephi 2:8–10; 16:6, 13; 17:5). Nephi mentioned that his father-in-law, Ishmael, “was buried in the place which was called Nahom” (1 Nephi 16:34). The wording of this passage suggests that Lehi’s family did not personally give the name “Nahom” to this location and that it existed before their arrival. This opens up the possibility of Nahom (or a variant of the name) being mentioned—and therefore verified—in other historical sources and records.

Lehi’s family arrived at Nahom after taking a long south-southeast journey roughly parallel to the Red Sea, which makes up Arabia’s western coastline (1 Nephi 16:13–14, 33). When they left Nahom, they went “nearly eastward” from that point, eventually arriving in a “bountiful” land on the coast, with an abundance of fruit, honey, wildlife, ore for making tools, and access to timber for shipbuilding.¹ These textual details point to Nahom being located in the southwest corner of Arabia, in the area where the ancient trade routes moving southward end and begin to trend eastward.² The Nihm region, in Yemen, matches closely with these details.

The Location of Nihm

The Nihm region is the homeland of the Nihm tribe, located about 30 miles northeast of Sana’a, generally west of Marib, along the southern border of the Wadi Jawf. The tribal territory covers about 5000 square kilometers (about 1931 square miles).³ Early maps from the 18th–19th centuries include the region (usually spelled Nehem or Nehhm) and indicate that it may have been slightly larger at that time.⁴ Sources from the early Islamic period indicate that the Nihm tribe has been in this same general location since before the rise of Islam, although their exact territorial boundaries have fluctuated over time.⁵ Throughout much of its documented history, the region itself (in addition to the tribe who occupied it) has been known by the Nihm name.⁶

Historically, this location has held a strategic position along the major roads between Sana’a, Ma’rib, and the Jawf.⁷ Likewise, in antiquity, the major trade routes from the north led into the Wadi Jawf and passed through or near the present-day Nihm region toward Ma’rib and the major incense-growing regions to the east.⁸ Importantly, this mirrors the trajectory of Lehi’s travels both to and from Nahom.

The Names Nihm and Nahom

Nephi, who was a Hebrew author, wrote his account in an Egyptian script. Ancient Egyptian and Hebrew, along with most other ancient Near Eastern languages, did not include vowels when written. As such, the name Nahom would have simply been written as NHM on Nephi’s metal plates. Likewise, when written in Hebrew, the tribal-regional name Nihm is simply written as NHM.⁹ When rendering this name in English, various sources spell it as Nahm, Naham, Nehem, Nehm, Nihim, and several other variants.¹⁰ Thus, the Book of Mormon’s Nahom could reasonably be just another variant spelling of this same name.

In the languages of ancient South Arabia, nhm refers to a form of stone masonry.¹¹ In Hebrew and other Semitic languages, the roots nhm and nḥm refer to mourning, repentance, hunger, complaining, and consolation.¹² Nephi’s description of the events that took place at Nahom emphasizes these same themes (1 Nephi 16:34–39), suggesting he was engaging in wordplay on the foreign name Nahom due to its similarity with thematically relevant words in his own language.¹³

NHM Names in South Arabian Inscriptions

In recent years, several ancient South Arabian inscriptions have come to light referring to nhmyn, usually translated as “Nihmite.” Latter-day Saint scholars have specifically highlighted three altars bearing an inscription from a man named “Bi’athtar, son of Sawdum, son of Naw’um, the Nihmite.”¹⁴ These altars were initially dated to the 6th–7th century BC, but later analysis pushed them back to the 7th–8th century BC (likely before or during Lehi’s lifetime).¹⁵ In addition, at least four more inscriptions are known to refer to “Nihmites,” dating from the 6th century BC to the 3rd century AD.¹⁶

In South Arabian inscriptional studies, scholars generally consider nhmyn a term indicating that a person is from a tribe or region called NHM, and they usually associate it with the Nihm tribe and its territory. For example, one scholar said that Bi’athtar “comes from the Nihm region, west of Mārib.”¹⁷ Another scholar included NHM, which he equated with present-day Nihm, on a map of ancient toponyms referenced in a collection of texts because of a reference to nhmyn in the collection.¹⁸ Such inscriptions provide evidence that the Nihm tribe and region existed at the time Lehi’s family were traveling through the area.

Burial Grounds

Near the Nihm region lies the largest known ancient cemetery in all of Arabia, which was in use from 3000 BC to 1000 AD.¹⁹ Another large burial ground with thousands of ancient burial mounds was found on the eastern edge of a valley within the Nihm region (called Wadi Nihm).²⁰ And several other ancient burial grounds have been found in the general vicinity of Nihm.²¹ Many of these cemeteries lie near the major roads followed by ancient caravans, affording travelers the opportunity to bury their dead.²² Thus, Lehi’s family could have given Ishmael a proper burial in the Nihm region.

Eastward to Dhofar

As previously mentioned, the main ancient trade routes turned eastward at the Wadi Jawf, in the vicinity of Nihm.²³ This was the only area where nearly direct eastward travel was possible.²⁴ Eventually, travelling in a generally eastward direction, one arrives in the Dhofar region, a verdant area where two inlets, Khor Kharfot and Khor Rori, have been proposed as plausible candidates for Bountiful.²⁵ This is consistent with the Book of Mormon’s account of traveling “nearly eastward” from Nahom and arriving in Bountiful (1 Nephi 17:5).²⁶

Conclusion

Based on multiple lines of evidence, the Nihm region in Yemen correlates well with the place called “Nahom” in the Book of Mormon. Both are located near where a travel route going generally south-southeast parallel to the Red Sea turns eastward. Both are nearly due west of “bountiful” lands. And both names, when written in ancient Semitic scripts, are identical: NHM. No other ancient NHM toponym has been documented in all of Arabia, and archaeology confirms that the NHM name in this region goes back to Lehi’s time.²⁷

Few of the details needed to make this correlation were available and accessible in Joseph Smith’s time. Although some rare and hard-to-find maps included the name Nehem or Nehhm on them, these would not have been readily available to Joseph Smith.²⁸ Moreover, no source known from Joseph Smith’s time included details about the trade routes’ eastward turn in the vicinity of Nihm, the accessibility of burial sites near the Nihm region, the inscriptions documenting the existence of the Nihm in Lehi’s day, or that the Dhofar region to the east complies with all the features presented in Nephi’s description of Bountiful.²⁹

In light of all these converging details, Terryl Givens believed the NHM inscriptions “constitute the first actual archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon.”³⁰ As one researcher summarized:

When all the pieces are brought together—the name, the location, the antiquity attested in several inscriptions, the “bountiful” inlet and the turn eastward—it creates a compelling context for this portion of Nephi’s account in southern Arabia, which in turn can build faith that the Book of Mormon is an authentic historical document.³¹