Responding to the (very lame) argument from a Muslim apologist that Jesus could not have died by crucifixion as such would contradict Luke 13:33 where Jesus said that "it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem" (NRSV), Reformed apologist and long-standing anti-Mormon, James R. White said:
Jerusalem could be a city; Jerusalem could be an area; Jerusalem could be a part of Judea. There's all sorts of different ways in which this takes place. By the way, that's found not only in the New Testament but the Old Testament language as well. (1:04:16 mark)
Funnily enough, this is the approach that many LDS apologists and scholars take to the Alma 7:10 and “land of Jerusalem” non-issue many ignorant critics of the Church bring up. On this, see:
John A. Tvedtnes, Alma 7:10. Jesus Born in Jerusalem or Bethlehem?
Daniel C. Peterson, Matthew Roper, and William J. Hamblin, On Alma 7:10 and the Birthplace of Jesus Christ
James Stutz's Response to Rocky Hulse's attempt to critique the above article by Peterson et al.
In 2011, I had an e-mail exchange with the late Doug Harris on Alma 7:10. To see how critics are unable to respond to LDS apologetics and scholarship on this issue, you should enjoy reading this exchange.
Interestingly, on the Gospel of Luke again, other Evangelicals have taken a similar approach to both James White and LDS apologists. I. Howard Marshall, a leading Protestant expert on the Gospel of Luke, wrote the following:
In the OT the ‘city of David’ is the hill of Zion in Jerusalem (2 Sa. 5:7, 9; et al.), but in the NT the description is applied to Bethlehem (2:11); Burger, 136, claims that the appellation is due to Luke and is erroneous; cf., however, Jn. 7:42. Bethlehem was about 4 ½ miles from Jerusalem and 90 miles from Nazareth. Its name was popularly taken to mean ‘house of bread’. (The suggestion that it means ‘house of (the god) Lakhmu’ (Schürman, I, 102 n. 30) is to be rejected (D.F. Payne, NBD, 144) ). But the significance lies not in its name but in its being the place where David was brought up and where, according to Mi. 5:2 (cf. SB I, 82f) the Messiah would be born. Thus the attentive reader is prepared for the birth of a child to a descendant of David in the city of David. (I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke [The New International Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1978], 105)
Again, such mirrors many comments by LDS apologists vis-à-vis the “land of Jerusalem” (Alma 7:10) question. Furthermore, such jives well with ancient Jewish interpretations of Psa 87 (understood in the Aramaic Midrashim and other texts to be Messianic) which places "Bethlehem" in Jerusalem; to quote one commentator:
The text, [Psalm 87] with midrashim to be found in the Targum, the LXX, Midrash on Psalms, and elsewhere has its major fascinations, but the important idea for us is that when God writes down the peoples, i.e. makes a census of the world, this man, or Man will be born there, i.e. in Jerusalem, the ritual limits of which, as Passover practice showed, included Bethlehem. (John Duncan Martin Derrett, Light on the Narratives of The Narratives of the Nativity, Novum Testamentum, vol. 17, (1975), 86.
In Isa 66:7-8, a Messianic text, we read:
Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be before at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
The setting of this verse is that of Jerusalem, as seen in verse 6 (emphasis added):
A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense for his enemies.
Andrew Perry, a Christadelphian, in his commentary, Isaiah 58-66 (Lulu Books), pp.206-7 noted that (emphasis in original):
The man-child is delivered before the “travail” of Zion, which is an evident figure for the Assyrian invasion and particularly the blockade of Jerusalem. Zion (feminine) was delivered of a male before she was in labour . . . The best link is with the prophecy of the Rod of Jesse (Isa 11:1) who is predicted to “come forth” and be a “standard” for the people (Isa 11:10; 59:21).
In the same work (p. 206 n. 3) Perry, commenting on the setting of the birth of this Messianic figure being Zion, notes that, “This does not mean the child was born in Jerusalem; it could have been a nearby village (cf. Mic 5:2).”
If Evangelical and Catholic critics of the Book of Mormon wish to attack Alma 7:10 in the Book of Mormon, they will have to, if they wish to be consistent, attack the inspiration of various biblical (both OT and NT) texts, too.
