Christ Born In The Land Of Jerusalem vs. Christ Born In The City Of Jerusalem.

[Anakin7]

 I have an LDS critic from The Iglesia Ni Cristo church on Facebook who states the The Original Copy of The Book of Mormon for Alma 7:10 says Christ Jesus was born in "The City of Jerusalem" not "The Land of Jerusalem" in its 1st edition but because Joseph Smith got called for this by critic's he changed it to "The Land of Jerusalem".  Is this claim Empty, Null, Void of Truth. Any links I can provide him ?. Thank you in advance.

[JustAnAustralian]

Based on Skousen's analysis of textual variants, https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/atv/p3/ land was the original in Alma 7:10. Though not in the phrasing the critic used. Perhaps they were thinking of a different verse?

 

 

Edited March 31, 2024 by JustAnAustralian

[Anakin7]

On 3/30/2024 at 8:56 PM, JustAnAustralian said:

Based on Skousen's analysis of textual variants, https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/atv/p3/ land was the original in Alma 7:10. Though not in the phrasing the critic used. Perhaps they were thinking of a different verse?

 

 

    Thank you.

 

[JAHS]

As a side note. Bethlehem being in the land of Jerusalem is consistent with how locations of cities were identified in the Book of Mormon. Many times smaller cities were identified as being within a land area::
"And it came to pass that Amalickiah marched with his armies to the land of Nephi, to the city of Nephi, which was the chief city."(Alma 47:20)
"And it came to pass that Moroni had thus gained a victory over one of the greatest of the armies of the Lamanites, and had obtained possession of the city of Mulek, which was one of the strongest holds of the Lamanites in the land of Nephi; (Alma 53:6)
 

[Pyreaux]

With the village of Bethlehem next to Jerusalem (5 miles) could be correctly called a providence or suburb of the Land or City-State of Jerusalem. The territory of the city was dictated not by a wall, but typically things like position of archers and how far arrows can reach, far beyond the wall.

Hugh Nibley showed in 1957 that one of the Amarna letters, written in the 13th century B.C. and discovered in 1887, recounted the capture of "a city of the land of Jerusalem, Bet-Ninib" (The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley: Volume 6 in An Approach to the Book of Mormon]).

The wording used to say Jesus was to be born, "at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers" (Alma 7:10) not "in" Jerusalem is similar wording about the land Lehi dwelt. He had “dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days” (1 Nephi 1:4) but clearly not "in the city of" Jerusalem, all his precious possessions were retrieved by Nephi via a walk outside the walls of the city, "down", to get them. Lehi may have lived in Bethlehem. 

Edited April 1, 2024 by Pyreaux

[manol]

deleted

Edited April 1, 2024 by manol

[teddyaware]

On 3/30/2024 at 11:27 PM, Anakin7 said:

 I have an LDS critic from The Iglesia Ni Cristo church on Facebook who states the The Original Copy of The Book of Mormon for Alma 7:10 says Christ Jesus was born in "The City of Jerusalem" not "The Land of Jerusalem" in its 1st edition but because Joseph Smith got called for this by critic's he changed it to "The Land of Jerusalem".  Is this claim Empty, Null, Void of Truth. Any links I can provide him ?. Thank you in advance.

Why in the world would Joseph Smith get called out by critics for calling Jerusalem a city? Isn’t the usual complaint that the Book of Mormon refers to Jerusalem as a land?

[Calm]

8 hours ago, teddyaware said:

Why in the world would Joseph Smith get called out by critics for calling Jerusalem a city? Isn’t the usual complaint that the Book of Mormon refers to Jerusalem as a land?

Because Jesus was born in Bethelhem, not Jerusalem.

[ZealouslyStriving]

So we are supposed to believe that Joseph was such a a genius that he wrote the Book of Mormon, but so uninformed that he didn't know Jesus was born in Bethlehem?

[Tacenda]

6 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

So we are supposed to believe that Joseph was such a a genius that he wrote the Book of Mormon, but so uninformed that he didn't know Jesus was born in Bethlehem?

Just an error, like the thousands of errors in the BoM that have been corrected. https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/understanding-the-process-of-publishing-the-book-of-mormon#:~:text=Almost 4%2C000 editing corrections have,mistakes in the transcription process.

Edited April 2, 2024 by Tacenda

[Calm]

15 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

So we are supposed to believe that Joseph was such a a genius that he wrote the Book of Mormon, but so uninformed that he didn't know Jesus was born in Bethlehem?

It means in their view that it slipped by him because he was making it up, which it wouldn’t have if it had been someone who actually experienced it.

[russianwolfe]

On 4/2/2024 at 12:54 PM, Calm said:

It means in their view that it slipped by him because he was making it up, which it wouldn’t have if it had been someone who actually experienced it.

So, it got by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery when Joseph was dictating it. Then, it got by Oliver Cowdery once again when he copied it for the Printers Manuscript. Then it got by Hyrum Smith (proofchecker for the printed page). Seems a lot of people let it get by without any attempt to correct it.

[InCognitus]

On 3/30/2024 at 9:27 PM, Anakin7 said:

 I have an LDS critic from The Iglesia Ni Cristo church on Facebook who states the The Original Copy of The Book of Mormon for Alma 7:10 says Christ Jesus was born in "The City of Jerusalem" not "The Land of Jerusalem" in its 1st edition but because Joseph Smith got called for this by critic's he changed it to "The Land of Jerusalem".  Is this claim Empty, Null, Void of Truth. Any links I can provide him ?. Thank you in advance.

You can always just show him the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon.  Alma 7:10 is on page 240 in the middle of the page:  https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/book-of-mormon-1830/246

Or you can go even further and show him the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon.  It's on page 186 of this online version, and you'll need to type 186 into the page indicator at the top left corner of the viewer in order to access that page (the page numbers aren't included in the link):  https://bookofmormon.online/fax/printer

This was always one of my favorite criticisms against the Book of Mormon since it actually boomerangs back and helps demonstrate that the Book of Mormon comes from an ancient setting. 

For example, this page from the book, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, by Robert H. Eisenman and Michael Wise, ( https://archive.org/details/TheDeadSeaScrollsUncoveredEisenmanWise1992/page/n55/mode/2up ) shows the following translation: 

Translation:  "Column 1 Fragment 1(1)... Jeremiah the Prophet before the Lord (2)[... wh]o were taken captive from the land of Jerusalem, and they went..."

And the commentary about this fragment is interesting, it states:  "Another interesting reference is to 'the land of Jerusalem' in Line 2 of Fragment 1. This greatly enhances the sense of historicity of the whole, since Judah or 'Yehud' (the name of the area on coins from the Persian period) by this time consisted of little more than Jerusalem and its immediate environs."

Here's another web page from the same book:   https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/scrolls_deadsea/uncovered/uncovered02.htm#9. Pseudo-Jeremiah

Then there's the "Bethlehem Bulla", an inscribed seal that was found in an archaeological dig on the eastern slope of the city of Jerusalem a little over a decade ago linking Bethlehem to Jerusalem, and is apparently the first Hebrew epigraphical find to mention Bethlehem as a place name.   The bulla is dated within the eighth-seventh centuries BCE.   See:  Reich, Ronny. “A Fiscal Bulla from the City of David, Jerusalem.” Israel Exploration Journal 62, no. 2 (2012): 200–205. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43855625.

You can search for "Bethlehem Bulla" and find several popular news articles on the find, such as this one:   https://phys.org/news/2012-05-ancient-bethlehem-unearthed-jerusalem.html

A couple of excerpts from the above article:  "The tiny clay seal's existence and age provide vivid evidence that Bethlehem was not just the name of a fabled biblical town, but also a bustling place of trade linked to the nearby city of Jerusalem, archaeologists said."  And, "The stamp, also known as 'fiscal bulla,' was likely used to seal an administrative tax document, sent from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, the seat of Jewish power at the time."

[Nevo]

4 hours ago, InCognitus said:

This was always one of my favorite criticisms against the Book of Mormon since it actually boomerangs back and helps demonstrate that the Book of Mormon comes from an ancient setting. 

Unless Jesus was born in Nazareth.

Quote

While Jesus' birth in Bethlehem cannot be positively ruled out (one can rarely "prove a negative" in ancient history), we must accept the fact that the predominant view in the Gospels and Acts is that Jesus came from Nazareth and—apart from Chapters 1–2 of Matthew and Luke—only from Nazareth. The somewhat contorted or suspect ways in which Matthew and Luke reconcile the dominant Nazareth tradition with the special Bethlehem tradition of their Infancy Narratives may indicate that Jesus' birth at Bethlehem is to be taken not as a historical fact but as a theologoumenon, i.e., as a theological affirmation (e.g., Jesus is the true Son of David, the prophesied royal Messiah) put into the form of an apparently historical narrative. One must admit, though, that on this point certitude is not to be had.

— John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 1, The Roots of the Problem and the Person (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 216.

 

[InCognitus]

8 minutes ago, Nevo said:

Unless Jesus was born in Nazareth.

 

Or Bethlehem of Galilee, that's another theory (but just a theory).  I guess that's another good reason to have the Book of Mormon account.

[teddyaware]

On 4/2/2024 at 1:50 AM, Calm said:

Because Jesus was born in Bethelhem, not Jerusalem.

It’s so perfectly obvious to me that the expressions “the land of Jerusalem” “at Jerusalem” are referring to Jerusalem and its nearby surrounding suburbs that I think this controversy is hardheaded and ridiculous. If the Book of Mormon had said Jesus would be born ‘in the city of Jerusalem’ the critics might have a legitimate point of debate, but as it stands only those who are either lacking in intelligence, ignorant or willfully blind would press the issue. In fact, the usage of the expression “at Jerusalem” is prima facie evidence that the Book of Mormon doesn’t mean the Lord was going to necessarily be born specifically in the city of Jerusalem because the definition of the word “at” is most definitely not interchangeable with the word “in.” Here are the 4 primary definitions of the word “at” from the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

1) In or near the area occupied by. 2) In or near the location of. 3) In or near the position of. 4) To or toward the direction or location of.

This should end the controversy, but will it? No! 

[Anakin7]

On 4/7/2024 at 11:13 AM, InCognitus said:

You can always just show him the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon.  Alma 7:10 is on page 240 in the middle of the page:  https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/book-of-mormon-1830/246

Or you can go even further and show him the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon.  It's on page 186 of this online version, and you'll need to type 186 into the page indicator at the top left corner of the viewer in order to access that page (the page numbers aren't included in the link):  https://bookofmormon.online/fax/printer

This was always one of my favorite criticisms against the Book of Mormon since it actually boomerangs back and helps demonstrate that the Book of Mormon comes from an ancient setting. 

For example, this page from the book, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, by Robert H. Eisenman and Michael Wise, ( https://archive.org/details/TheDeadSeaScrollsUncoveredEisenmanWise1992/page/n55/mode/2up ) shows the following translation: 

Translation:  "Column 1 Fragment 1(1)... Jeremiah the Prophet before the Lord (2)[... wh]o were taken captive from the land of Jerusalem, and they went..."

And the commentary about this fragment is interesting, it states:  "Another interesting reference is to 'the land of Jerusalem' in Line 2 of Fragment 1. This greatly enhances the sense of historicity of the whole, since Judah or 'Yehud' (the name of the area on coins from the Persian period) by this time consisted of little more than Jerusalem and its immediate environs."

Here's another web page from the same book:   https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/scrolls_deadsea/uncovered/uncovered02.htm#9. Pseudo-Jeremiah

Then there's the "Bethlehem Bulla", an inscribed seal that was found in an archaeological dig on the eastern slope of the city of Jerusalem a little over a decade ago linking Bethlehem to Jerusalem, and is apparently the first Hebrew epigraphical find to mention Bethlehem as a place name.   The bulla is dated within the eighth-seventh centuries BCE.   See:  Reich, Ronny. “A Fiscal Bulla from the City of David, Jerusalem.” Israel Exploration Journal 62, no. 2 (2012): 200–205. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43855625.

You can search for "Bethlehem Bulla" and find several popular news articles on the find, such as this one:   https://phys.org/news/2012-05-ancient-bethlehem-unearthed-jerusalem.html

A couple of excerpts from the above article:  "The tiny clay seal's existence and age provide vivid evidence that Bethlehem was not just the name of a fabled biblical town, but also a bustling place of trade linked to the nearby city of Jerusalem, archaeologists said."  And, "The stamp, also known as 'fiscal bulla,' was likely used to seal an administrative tax document, sent from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, the seat of Jewish power at the time."

Thank you, My Brother, In Christ Jesus.