Note: if anyone knows how to contact the fellow from the youtube video below, let him know I am willing to debate him on Sola Scriptura. ScripturalMormonismATgmailDOTcom = my email address
I have been coming across this video quite a bit on youtube:
The Haunting Reality of Joseph Smith's False Prophecies
I was thinking of writing a review of this, but after watching, it is just a copy and paste of The Bible vs. Joseph Smith. My friend Stephen Smoot wrote a review over a decade ago:
Stephen O. Smoot, “Joel Kramer vs. the Bible and Joseph Smith” (a review of Joseph Smith vs. the Bible which I helped research)
For more, including examples of unfulfilled prophecies from biblical prophets and resources on exegesis of Deut 18, see:
Resources on Joseph Smith's Prophecies
However, let us address Alma
7:10, which shows how inept this fellow is.
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. (Alma 7:10)
In the Ancient Near East,
and in the biblical texts, the chief city ruled over not just the land of the
city itself, but also the land surrounding it. For instance, in Joshua, we
frequently read of "cities with their villages" (e.g., Joshua 15:36).
In some cases, a known city is named and is said to have other cities, towns,
or villages under its dominion. Thus, we read of "Heshon and all her
cities" (Joshua 13:17), "Ekron with her towns and her villages"
(Joshua 15:45), "Megiddo and her towns" (Joshua 17:11), and
"Ashdod with her towns and her villages" (Joshua 15:47).
The concept of the “land of
Jerusalem” is something that is found from Qumran. In 4QApocryphon of Jeremiahc (4Q385b)
we read of:
1 […] Blank 2 [… and] Jeremiah the prophet [went] from
before yhwh, 3 [… the] exiles who were brought into exile from the land of
Jerusalem (מארץ ירושלים) and were led . . . (Florentino García Martínez and
Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition [Leiden:
Brill, 1999], 773)
Tablet 290 of the Amarna
tablets, pre-dating Micah, Isaiah, and the Book of Mormon (they date to the
14th c. B.C.E.), refers to "a town belonging to Jerusalem,
Bit-NIN.URTA," that is, Bethlehem (Moran, trans. The Amarna Letters
[Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992], 334). Previous translations,
such as that of William Foxwell Albright read "land of Jerusalem" and
"Beit Lahmi.”
Bob Becking in his
commentary on Micah noted that:
It has been suggested that the topographical
name Bethlehem already occurs in the Amarna correspondence (fourteenth century
BCE). Cazelles (ABD 1, 712) suggested that Bit-NIN.URTA,
“house of Ninurta,” in EA 290:16 could be read at Bit-Laḫama. The
topographical name refers to “a town belonging to Jerusalem” (EA 290:14-16),
but the identification is uncertain. Koch has suggested that the toponym be
read as Bit-Ba’al and understands it as referring to Baalah/Kiriath-Jearim and
hence, not to Bethlehem. In 2012, a bulla was uncovered in
Jerusalem with the following probable reading: “In the seventh [(year) /
Be’]thlehem / [to the kin]g” (Reich 2012; see De Moor 2020, 247). It is
difficult to draw any conclusion on the basis of this Iron Age bulla. The
reading “Bethlehem” for [. . .]ytlḥm is far from certain. In
addition, the inscription does not have the literary structure of a fiscal
bulla (contra Reich 2012). The conclusion that the city of Bethlehem had to pay
some kind of tax to the court in Jerusalem in the eighty to seventh centuries
BCE goes beyond the evidence (contra Reich 2012; De Moor 2020, 247). (Bob
Becking, Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary [AYB 24I; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023], 184,
emphasis in bold added--Note that, while Becking does not believe that
believe Bethlehem is in view in the EA 290 from Amarna, he does believe that
the place is “a town belonging to Jerusalem,” and identifies Bit-NIN.URTA
refers to Kiriath-Jearim. This town is not 5km away from Jerusalem, as is
Bethlehem, but 18km away(!) If Becking is correct, it shows
that “belonging to Jerusalem” (cf. “land of Jerusalem” in the Book of Mormon)
covers a wide geographical net, which would include Bethlehem (cf. Alma 7:10).
It should be noted that
ancient Jewish interpretations of Psalm 87 (interpreted in the Aramaic
Midrashim and other texts to be Messianic) 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 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 (Christadelphian; PhD Durham) in his commentary on “Trito-Isaiah”
noted that:
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)
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). (Andrew Perry, Isaiah
58-66 [Lulu Books], 206-7)
In the same work, Perry, commenting on the setting of the birth of this
Messianic figure being “Zion,” noted that:
This does not the
child was born in Jerusalem; it could have been a nearby village (cf. Mic 5:2).
(Ibid., 206 n. 3)
Finally, it should be noted that there is no Restorationist (LDS; RLDS;
Bickertonite, etc) commentator on the Book of Mormon who has ever understood as
Alma 7:10 “correcting” the Gospel of Luke and teaching that Jesus was actually
born in the city of Jerusalem.
Seth has never studied the issues, and this one example is par for the course
of his videos.
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