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Hi Kevin,
You seemed pretty sure the birthplace of Jesus Christ was not
Jerusalem. Here is a well-researched, scholarly article done by FARMS.
The crux is, "Jerusalem" per se in ancient times included other nearby
villages and towns.
Bethlehem is less than thirty miles from the main city, so was considered
to be in the land area known as the Land of Jerusalem, much like Midvale
Utah is often referred to as a Salt Lake City suburb. I used to live in
Midvale, but when people asked where I was from, I often said Salt Lake
City. Sometimes we do get a little presumptuous, but that's OK, we
understand. Funny how it often is that when we know a little, we get the
big-head and think we know it all, huh? (:>)
Please note the passage in the Book of Mormon again--this time I will
quote the entire passage: Alma 7:10
"And behold, He shall be born of Mary, AT JERUSALEM, WHICH IS THE LAND OF
OUR FOREFATHERS, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, WHO
SHALL BE OVERSHADOWED AND CONCEIVE BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST, and
bring forth a Son, yea, even the Son of God.
The passage does not say Jerusalem is a city, but a LAND--the LAND of
our forefathers.
Blaine
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY SEARCH
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Jesus' Birthplace and the Phrase "Land of Jerusalem"
Jesus' Birthplace and the Phrase "Land of Jerusalem"
The Book of Mormon teaches that Jesus Christ would be born in the land of
Jerusalem (see Alma 7:10), whereas the Bible records that his birth took
place in Bethlehem (see Matthew 2:1). As it turns out, both references
are accurate, and the former is indicative of the Book of Mormon's
authenticity.
Reflecting a well-established biblical pattern, the Book of Mormon uses
the name Jerusalem to refer to the city and the land surrounding it
(which would include the city of Bethlehem) and to the regions that were
governed and protected by those in control of the city. As will be shown,
it is significant that in the Book of Mormon passage noted above, Alma
claimed not that Jesus would be born in the city of Jerusalem but that he
would be born "at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers."
Throughout the Book of Mormon the terms city and land are used
interchangeably. We read, for instance, that Lehi dwelt "at Jerusalem in
all his days" (1 Nephi 1:4), yet we know that he did not live in the city
of Jerusalem. Consider the following account: Once in the wilderness, the
sons of Lehi returned to the "land of Jerusalem" (1 Nephi 3:9) intent on
acquiring a scriptural record known as the plates of brass, in Laban's
possession. Laman was chosen to visit Laban in his home in the city of
Jerusalem. When this first attempt at obtaining the plates of brass
failed, the sons of Lehi "went down to the land of [their] inheritance"
(1 Nephi 3:22) to gather up their wealth. They then "went up again" to
the city of Jerusalem (1 Nephi 3:23) and offered to buy the plates from
Laban, who rejected their offer and ordered his servants to slay them.
Having fled from Laban's home, Nephi and his brothers later returned to
"the walls of Jerusalem," and then Nephi "crept into the city and went
forth towards the house of Laban" (1 Nephi 4:4, 5) in another attempt to
secure the plates. Thus it is evident that Lehi did not live in the city
of Jerusalem, but somewhere nearby in the "land of Jerusalem," a phrase
that occurs more than forty times in the Book of Mormon.
Other examples from the Book of Mormon in which cities and the
surrounding lands are given the same name abound. There is a city of
Nephi and a land of Nephi (see Alma 47:20), as well as a city of
Zarahemla (see Alma 6:1) and a land of Zarahemla (see Alma 2:15), to name
a few. This naming pattern is especially clear in Alma 50:14, where we
read of the construction of a new locale: "They called the name of the
city, or the land, Nephihah." This pattern followed by the Nephites (and
by the Lamanites when they became sedentary) was clearly borrowed from
the Old World.
In ancient Israel the "fenced" (walled) cities were places of refuge for
farmers in surrounding villages (see, for example, Leviticus 25:31; 1
Samuel 6:18; Ezekiel 38:11). In times of war the peasants could flee to
the protection of the city walls, where arms were stored for defense.
According to the Bible, those in authority in the cities also controlled
the nearby lands. Thus we read of "the king of Ai, and his people, and
his city, and his land" (Joshua 8:1) and of the city of Hebron with its
suburbs, fields, and villages (see 1 Chronicles 6:55�56). Because of such
closely related terminology, Tappuah is called a land in Joshua 17:8 but
is also correctly referred to as a city in Joshua 16:8�9, and Jeremiah
prophesied that Jerusalem would become "a land not inhabited" (Jeremiah
6:8; compare 15:5�7).
The principle by which, in biblical usage, the name Jerusalem could be
used to denote both the city and the surrounding land is further
reflected in references to Samaria, the capital city of the northern
kingdom of Israel. In the Old Testament the term Samaria is also used to
denote the surrounding regions (the "cities of Samaria") that were under
the political control of the state (see 1 Kings 13:32; 2 Kings 17:24, 26;
23:19). Although the phrase "land of Jerusalem" is not found in the
Bible, it appears in one of the newly published fragments from the Dead
Sea Scrolls attributed to the prophet Jeremiah (a contemporary of Lehi).
This text (4Q385) speaks of "Jeremiah the Prophet before the Lord" and
"the land of Jerusalem."1
The Mesha, or Moabite, stela of the ninth century B.C. provides
contemporary archaeological evidence for the interchangeability of the
terms city and land. Reporting the rebellion of Mesha, king of Moab,
against Israel, this text lists a number of "lands" that are known from
the Bible to be cities. Internal evidence also implies that they are
cities, because Mesha noted that he had "built" these lands.
Clay tablets written in the fourteenth century B.C. and found in 1887 at
El-Amarna in Egypt use the term land for Canaanite sites known to have
been ancient cities. For example, one text (El-Amarna 289) speaks of the
"town of Rubutu," and another (El-Amarna 290) mentions the "land of
Rubutu." The first of these also speaks of the "land of Shechem" and the
"land of the town of Gath-carmel" (both ancient cities) and says of
Jerusalem, "this land belongs to the king." A third text (El-Amarna 287)
mentions the "lands" of Gezer, Ashkelon, and Jerusalem. Most impressive,
however, is a passage from El-Amarna 290 that speaks of "a town of the
land of Jerusalem" named B�t-Lahmi, which is the Canaanite equivalent of
the Hebrew name rendered "Beth-lehem" in English Bibles.2 Thus even in
ancient times the city of Bethlehem was itself considered to be part of
the "land of Jerusalem."
In light of such evidence, we can conclude that Lehi's descendants in the
New World followed authentic Old World custom in denominating each land
by the name of the principal city in that land. This kind of linguistic
detail lends further evidence to the authenticity and antiquity of the
Book of Mormon.
This Research Report was prepared by the FARMS Research Department and is
based on the latest available scholarly research. It is subject to
revision as more information on the subject becomes available. The views
expressed herein do not necessarily represent the position of FARMS,
Brigham Young University, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.
Report last updated August 2000
Recommended Readings
Peterson, Daniel C., William J. Hamblin, and Matthew Roper. "On Alma 7:10
and the Birthplace of Jesus Christ." FARMS Preliminary Report, 1995.
Smith, Robert F. "The Land of Jerusalem: The Place of Jesus' Birth." In
Reexploring the Book of Mormon, edited by John W. Welch, 170�72. Salt
Lake City: Deseret and FARMS, 1992.
Thomasson, Gordon C. "Revisiting the Land of Jerusalem." In Pressing
Forward with the Book of Mormon: The FARMS Updates of the 1990s, edited
by John W. Welch and Melvin J. Thorne, 139�41. Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1999.
Tvedtnes, John A. "Cities and Lands in the Book of Mormon." Journal of
Book of Mormon Studies 4/2 (1995): 147�50.
Historical Perspective
LDS scholar Hugh Nibley was the first to report on the appearance of the
phrase "land of Jerusalem" in the Amarna letters, which were discovered
in the late nineteenth century (see his Lehi in the Desert; The World of
the Jaredites; There Were Jaredites [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and
FARMS, 1988], 6�7; and An Approach to the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988], 101�2).
In 1964 Professor Sidney B. Sperry, a Book of Mormon scholar, observed
that the site of Bethlehem (settled later than Jerusalem) was likely
considered a part of Jerusalem's political jurisdiction (see his The
Problems of the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1964],
131�36). These key points of Nibley and Sperry have been abundantly
discussed in publications by subsequent scholars.
The recent discovery of a Dead Sea Scroll fragment attributed to Jeremiah
(cited earlier in this report), who was a contemporary of Lehi, is
further vindication of the use of the phrase "land of Jerusalem" in the
Book of Mormon.
Notes
1. Robert H. Eisenmann and Michael Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered
(Shaftesbury, England: Element, 1992), 57�58.
2. See James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to
the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 488�89;
emphasis added.
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ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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