At the beginning of the Book of Mormon, Lehi had to bury his dear friend Ishmael. The Book of Mormon account of these events reads in part as follows:

And it came to pass that Ishmael died, and was buried in the place which was called Nahom. And it came to pass that the daughters of Ishmael did mourn exceedingly, because of the loss of their father, and because of their afflictions in the wilderness (1 Nephi 16:33–34)

For many years, critics of the Book of Mormon have repeatedly claimed that there is no direct archaeological evidence to corroborate its self-affirmed historicity. However, with Nahom, this criticism has been thoroughly-refuted.

Writing for Oxford University Press, Latter-day Saint scholar Terryl Givens relates the following:

In 1978, an eighteenth-century map was noticed indicating a place named “Nehhm” in [the region where Lehi is believed to have buried Ishmael], but it was not until the early 1990s that ancient evidence of that name’s authenticity surfaced. In that era, a German archaeology team discovered a carved altar a few dozen miles east of modern San’a in Yemen, inscribed with a reference to the tribe of Nihm, and another with a like inscription has since been found in that area. Found in the very area where Nephi’s record locates Nahom, these altars may thus be said to constitute the first actual archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon.²¹ 

In addition to the inscriptions on the altars and the discovery of the altars where Nephi says they would be, a few other pieces of data bolster Nahom’s status as a premier evidence for the Book of Mormon’s historical authenticity.

First, as noted by Givens, “[t]he Arabic root NHM means ‘to sigh or moan,’ and the related Hebrew Nahum means ‘comfort[.]’”²² The Book of Mormon account states that the daughters of Ishmael “did mourn exceedingly” over Ishmael’s death. As noted by writers at Evidence Central, “[t]he use of wordplay or puns in relation to proper names is common and widespread in ancient Near Eastern literature, including Hebrew texts.”²³ It is likely that, with the name “Nahom” and the description of mourning, Nephi is engaging in similar wordplay.

Second, a funerary stela (or gravestone) with the name “Ishmael,” dating to the approximate time of Ishmael’s life, has been discovered near the Nihm region where the altars are located. The author who discovered the stela notes that there is no way to definitively state that this is the Ishmael of the Book of Mormon, but that circumstantial evidence suggests it actually could be Ishmael.²⁴

Finally, the Book of Mormon relates that, after being in Nahom, Lehi and his company traveled “​​nearly eastward from that time forth” (1 Nephi 17:1). After “many years, yea, even eight years in the wilderness” they “​​did come to the land which [they] called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey” (1 Nephi 17:4–5). Amazingly, there are at least two geographic candidates in southeast Arabia that substantially match the descriptions that Nephi gave about Bountiful in the Book of Mormon.²⁵

In short, scholars have now (1) located altars with the Semitic equivalent of the name “Nahom” on them in (2) the place where Nephi tells us that they were located and these altars have been (3) dated to the time that the Book of Mormon describes Nephi and Lehi living. Near that region, there has (4) been a funerary stela located with the name Ishmael on it that (5) dates to the time of Ishmael’s life. The Book of Mormon (6) engages in an ancient form of wordplay on the name Nahom consistent with the tradition of biblical and other Hebrew authors. Finally, turning east, there is (7) another location that matches Nephi’s descriptions in the Book of Mormon and correlates with the location of Nahom relative to Nephi’s descriptions. Critics have raised several objections to Nahom as an evidence for the Book of Mormon, but all of them have been responded to soundly.²⁶

These seven data points converge to make Nahom a truly premier piece of Book of Mormon evidence. It certainly is possible that Joseph Smith could have gotten a lucky guess with this evidence, but the 7 converging data points make this possibility highly unlikely.