Arabia Felix and Nephi's Bountiful, part 1

A reader pointed out the following:

Nephi recorded details of his journey from Jerusalem to the southern coast of Saudi Arabia. There, he and his brothers built a ship which carried them to the New World. While scholars don’t agree on the exact location of Nephi’s ship-building enterprise, multiple clues indicate that this event occurred along the coast of the Arabian Sea in what is now Oman and Yemen.

While not part of their Empire, the Romans called this area Arabia Felix. The literal translation is "fertile Arabia"... Nephi described his arrival in this location, “And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish.”

From Wikpedia:

The term "Fertile Arabia" is a translation of the Latin "Arabia felix". Felix means "fecund, fertile" but also "happy, fortunate, blessed." Arabia Felix was one of three regions into which the Romans divided the Arabian peninsula: Arabia Deserta, Arabia Felix, and Arabia Petraea. The Greeks and the Romans called Yemen Arabia Felix.

A little more detail on this topic in part 2, coming soon.

1 Nephi 2:4

A subtle detail can be found in verse 4:

4 And it came to pass that he departed into the wilderness. And he left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his precious things, and took nothing with him, save it were his family, and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness.

Lehi's house and the land of his inheritance were not the same thing.

Alma 10:3 states Lehi was from Manassah, which was one of the northern tribes who lost their land in 720 BC and later regained access to it on heritage grounds. His house was in Jerusalem, where some displaced Israelites had taken up residence after the loss of the northern kingdom. This becomes more clear in 1 Nephi 3:16, when Nephi and his brothers "go down" from Jerusalem (elevation 2474') to the land of their inheritance to collect riches in an effort to purchase the plates from Laban.

1 Nephi 1:4

From verse 4:

... in that same year there came many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent, or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.

The Lachish Letters are a collection of potsherd writings discovered in the 1930's that date very tightly back to this time in Jerusalem's history, They seem to verify the notion that prophets were speaking out about a pending destruction and that this was not well received, as Hugh Nibley argues in this 1981 Ensign article.