Christ Born at Jerusalem

K. Douglas Bassett

Alma 21:1-2; Answers to Gospel Questions, Smith, 1:173-175; refer in this text to 1 Ne. 1:4

“It was the rule in Palestine and Syria from ancient times, … for a large area around a city and all the inhabitants of that area to bear the name of the city… . But this was quite unknown at the time the Book of Mormon was written… . One of the favorite points of attack on the Book of Mormon has been the statement in Alma 7:10 that the Saviour would be born ‘at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers.’ Here Jerusalem is not the city ‘in the land of our forefathers,’ it is the land. Christ was born in a village some six miles from the city of Jerusalem; it was not in the city, but it was in what we now know the ancients themselves designated as ‘the land of Jerusalem.’” (Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 1957 edition, pp. 85-86)

Latter-Day Commentary on the Book of Mormon

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