Literature: Nephi uses an image familiar to the Old World Israelites but not necessarily to his second generation or to the local people who had joined his community. The strait path and narrow gate are associated with ancient walled cities. The wide main gates of a walled city would have led directly to the largest open space, a marketplace. But Jerusalem also had several smaller gates (postern gates) that gave the citizens easier access to the lands outside the walls. These gates were narrow so that they could be more easily defended. The image would convey to Nephi’s listeners that this mode of entrance into the kingdom did not accommodate the masses and that the passage had to be followed precisely to and from the gate. (See commentary accompanying 1 Nephi 8:19–20 for information on the variation between “straight” and “strait” in this context.)
Translation: The use of such imagery from the Old World may suggest that this particular wording is Joseph Smith’s contribution as translator from his familiarity with King James English. Nephi gave this sermon close to his life’s end, and a majority of his listeners would never have seen walled and gated cities. Mesoamerican cities may have had some fortifications, but they were not stone-walled cities like Jerusalem. (See commentary accompanying 3 Nephi 14:14.) The fortifications at Becán, for instance, consisted of a dirt wall likely surmounted by a wooden parapet. (Webster has suggested that this structure may date to the Late Preclassic, or 500 B.C.–A.D. 250.)