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Am I missing something? Jesus was born in Bethlehem according to the Bible and history, but why does Alma 7:10 claim that Jesus was born in Jerusalem. Has anyone else ever noticed this? Yes, this is one of the old “classics.” I’m going to show my ignorance on this topic but I recall hearing something along the lines of it actually helps authenticate the BoM because Lehi from 600bc wouldn’t have known the name Bethlehem. Someone else can explain it better.
The explanation I heard is that Bethlehem was close enough to Jerusalem to be considered part of Jerusalem. It’s an interesting question. Was Joseph so incompetent that he couldn’t even get the most basic detail of Christian history right. The critical response usually goes:
“In Alma 7:10, the plagiarizing, inept (add adjectives here) author of the BoM makes a colossal blunder when he “slips,” and names “Jerusalem” as the birthplace of Jesus, rather than Bethlehem”The main reply from the apologists is that the verse describes the “Jerusalem area” not the city of Jerusalem: “at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers…”
I live in Asia, I was born in a small town near London. No-one outside England has heard of it, so I usually just tell people here that I’m from London. They know that city and it’s close enough. Sometimes I say ‘near London’ if I want to be more accurate. But I never say the name of the small town because it would be pointless.
Equally, Alma is recording a speech he had given to a group of people on the other side of the world to Israel. They would probably have never heard of Bethlehem. The name Jerusalem on the other hand was firmly in their traditions, culture and heritage.
So Alma is giving a prophesy to his listening audience of Christ’s birth as: He will be born in the land/area of Jerusalem. In other words Jesus will be born where our ancestors came from.
There have been several articles written on how ‘the land of…’ is a phrase in both the Bible and Book of Mormon (the land of Zarahemla is the area around the city of Zarahemla).
If you’re into reading FARMS/NAMI stuff (I believe it has its place, while recognising their biased starting point), there an article summarising the defence of this issue here:
http://mimobile.byu.edu/?m=5&table=transcripts&id=37 You raise a fair question which, for me, has a fair answer.
Or even a FAIR answer:
Quote:…the Book of Mormon makes a distinction here between a city and the land associated with a city. It does this elsewhere as well:
– the land (Alma 2:15) and city(Alma 6:1) of Zarahemla;
– the land and city of Nephi (Alma 47:20).
This is consistent with the usage of the ancient Middle East. El Amarna letter #287 reports that “a town of the land of Jerusalem, Bit-Lahmi [Bethlehem] by name, a town belonging to the king, has gone over to the side of the people of Keilah.”
http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Anachronisms/Biblical/Jerusalem_vs_Bethlehem The early books talk of “the land of Jerusalem”. Likewise, I lived in a suburb of Cincinnati for years, but we often told people we lived in Cincinnati. I was raised 20 miles south of Provo and 60 miles south of SLC, but I often told people in college that was born and raised “in the Salt Lake City area” – and I often tell people I lived in Boston while I attended college there, even though I lived in Medford, Sommerville and Woburn (and actually attended college in Cambridge). If someone is speaking to a group of people who have never been to the region being described, it is totally natural for them to use a nearby, well-known city as an approximate substitute. Joseph knew that Jesus was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem, so there is no logical reason for him to have written Jerusalem if it meant within the actual city limits.
This is one case where I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with the passage in question, and I actually believe it bolsters authenticity more than it decreases authenticity (or, at least, is completely neutral). In other words, I would expect a record like the Book of Mormon claims to be to reference Jerusalem in that way.
And I once heard a theory that the wise men were from the Book of Mormon peoples and didn’t know of Bethlehem and that’s why they showed up in Jerusalem first. 
Really though, this has never troubled me. If Joseph Smith was smart enough or well-read enough to invent the book of Mormon then he must’ve known where Jesus was born–at least in my mind. So either he was ignorant like the church seems to teach and was inspired to write it or he was probably as puzzled as we are about why Alma says Jerusalem.
I go with the last explanation, personally.
…although maybe he was smart and conniving enough to put it in there so we’d buy his ignorance claims. Hm?
I’m not much for conspiracy theories though…
Bethlehem is under twenty milles from Jerusalem. These days, it’s not a suburb but it’s certainly an easy commute (think Long Island or Beverly Hills)… at least on the days that this Palestinian hotspot is not rioting or being attacked by the IDF. Either way, it’s internal consistency. The BoM is full of Greek style city states such as Zarahemla. Such places still exist – Panama, Luxembourg, Lesotho, Singapore, Hong Kong, Andorra, Tunisia, Kuwait, Dubai, the Gambia… seven of these are named after their capital city.
Hong Kong proper is actually quite small, and is an island in the south. The land of Hong Kong on the other hand includes Kowloon – the north side of the harbor and heavily populated where the airport was, numerous small islands where the airport is now, and the New Territories including Shiatin, a separate town, where the race course is. All of this is bigger than the Land of Jerusalem.
Thanks everyone for your responses! I’m trying to understand/frame things for myself and I appreciate the explanations. Thanks again! No problem. There are serious BoM issues, but I think that there are also issues like this, the adieu canard and the change of Jnr. (or Jr.?) to Jun. on the title page which have been blown out of proportion by certain critics of the BoM. [Edit to add: sorry I realize that might read as a personal dig AG, it’s not. I’m thinking of evangelical anti-Mormon tracts I’ve read.] Bigger problems IMHO include apparent use of the KJV and certain more serious textual alteration. While I struggle with these Jerusalem is not an issue for me.
This one is easy for me because when I refer to Sandy, Murray, and other cities, I called them “Salt Lake.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_separatum_(Jerusalem) Quote:Corpus separatum (Latin for “separated body”) is a term used in the 1948 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine to describe a plan for internationalizing Jerusalem and conferring upon the city a special status due to its shared religious importance.
History United Nations Partition Plan for PalestineAccording to this plan, contained in U.N. General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947, the internationally administered zone would include
Jerusalem in its 1947 municipal boundaries “plus surrounding villages and towns, the most eastern of which shall be Abu Dis ; the most southern, Bethlehem ; the most western Ein Karem (including also the built-up area of Motsa); and the most northern Shu’fat.”(Part III ( 
) The special status for the city was because “of its association with three world religions”.It was to be “under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations” The administering body would be the United Nations Trusteeship Council, one of the five UN “Charter” organs. (Part III (A))
Quote:Jerusalem became a unified municipality. The present municipal boundaries of Jerusalem are not the same as those of the corpus separatum set out in the Partition Plan, and do not include Bethlehem.
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Westbankjan06-jerusalem-etzion.jpg [/img] Another nice neutral non-LDS source; http://m.crosswalk.com/blogs/dr-ray-pritchard/six-miles-from-jesus-11624244.html Quote:One of the most important events took place six miles from Jerusalem. Two thousand years ago there was not much there. Bethlehem was indeed a “little town” as described in the familiar Christmas carol by Phillips Brooks. Although well-known as the birthplace of King David, the town itself was home to perhaps 200 permanent residents. Because it was close to Jerusalem, we can assume that the various inns and guesthouses were full of pilgrims making their way to and from Jerusalem and on their way to various ancestral hometowns to pay the census tax required by Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1-3). Just hold this thought in your mind.
Jerusalem and Bethlehem were next-door neighbors, the first a large city and the second a tiny hamlet that would not normally be a major destination. Bethlehem in that day was a place you stayed on your way to the big city. You spent the night in Bethlehem and the next day you walked six miles to Jerusalem. Six miles. That’s not very far.
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