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; and thus he had also built a stronghold to retain his prisoners.
(Alma 53:6)
Translation: Verse 6 comments that “the city of Mulek, . . . was
one of the strongest holds of the Lamanites in the land of Nephi.” But Mulek is
obviously in Zarahemla, not Nephi. Daniel Ludlow proposes “three possible explanations
. . . : (1) perhaps this land is being called ‘the land of Nephi’ by the Lamanites
because they now possess it as they also possess the land of Nephi in the
south. (2) The Nephites could have a ‘land of Nephi’ in the north, although
such a land has not been mentioned before and is not mentioned later. (3) The
phrase ‘in the land of Nephi’ might be used to identify those particular Lamanites
mentioned in the verse and to differentiates them from the Lamanites living on
other parts of the country.” (Daniel H. Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of
the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976], 236)
Obviously, this is simply an error. Mulek is in the land of the
Nephites, not the “land of Nephi.” I read it as Joseph’s slip, not Mormon’s. If
it had been Mormon’s, he might have meant to write: “the city of Mulek, which
was one of the strongest holds of the Lamanites in the land of the Nephites.”
But Mormon would have been unlikely to make the mistake of interchanging
Nephite territory and the land of Nephi. “Nephite” is not typically how Mormon
referred to lands under Nephite control. The internal reference to the
political entity holding this land is “the land of Zarahemla.” Mormon uses “Nephite”
to designate a group of people, but not to refer to the land. Thus, this
mistake would be a difficult one for Mormon, but an easy one for Joseph, who
was much less aware of these geo-political nuances. (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness:
Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. [Salt
Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 4:683)
