Why did Smith say "At Jerusalem" instead of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus when he was supposedly delivering the true word of God from the Holy Spirit?
Obviously because he was not delivering a true revelation of God.
God ties things up for us. He is the God of all history. His word is forever. He would never make such a drastic error -- with all its Old and New Testament implications of such an error. Jerusalem is quite a big difference from the little town of Bethlehem.
Towns and villages which surrounded larger demographic or political centers were regarded in ancient times as belonging to those larger centers. For a major city center such as Jerusalem to be called not only a city but also a land was standard practice.
El Amarna letter #287, an ancient Near Eastern text, mentions the “land of Jerusalem” several times. And—like Alma—the ancient writer of El Amarna letter #290 even refers to Bethlehem as part of the land of Jerusalem: In this letter is recorded the complaint of Abdu-Kheba of Jerusalem to Pharaoh Akhenaton that “the land of the king went over to the Apiru people. But now even a town of the land of Jerusalem, Bit-Lahmi [Bethlehem] by name, a town belonging to the king, has gone over to the side of the people of Keilah.” Hebron, almost twenty miles south of Bethlehem, was also considered part of the “land of Jerusalem.”
The Book of Mormon is internally consistent in using the wording “the land of Jerusalem” to refer to the place from which Lehi and his family had left, where the Savior would appear as a mortal, and to which the people of Judah would eventually return.
Alma stated that Jesus would be born of Mary not in Jerusalem, but at Jerusalem. Dictionary definitions of at include the words close by and near. Certainly “at Jerusalem” could be interpreted “near Jerusalem.”
Remember Alma had 3 audiences when he (allegedly) said this. First was those people who would be reading it now, after its translation. To this group, saying Jerusalem instead of Bethlehem doesn't make much sense, considering our acquaintance with Bethlehem specifically. The second and third audiences, however, were very different. These were those he was addressing at the time, and those who were descendants and may have read it before the record was ultimately hidden. These groups (especially the former) were aware of their history and where they came from, which was the area of Jerusalem. To talk to them about Bethlehem would not have made any sense.
Frankly, this passage seems to strengthen the question of legitimacy because Smith would have written it for the modern audience, and he certainly knew where Christ was born. If he was translating it directly, however, it made a lot more sense for Alma to have referred to a location (the area around Jerusalem) that his immediate audience would have recognized.
I'm not sure why I went through all this trouble, because mormon bashers will ask the questions but not really want the answers, kind of like the websites that have been posted that were created with the sole intention of slandering the mormon church.
No, first, because the phrase "At Jerusalem" is a Hebraism which means the land and areas surrounding.
Second, because Alma is addressing people who have never been to Israel, have lived for hundreds of years knowing nothing about Israel except as the land their forefathers came from. If Alma or the Lord were to say to them Bethlehem, they'd say: Where's that. If He said "at Jerusalem," they'd say "oh, yes, the heart of the land of our fathers.
The fact that Joseph Smith used the phrase at Jerusalem instead of Bethlehem is actually an evidence in favor of the book being divine in origin. It's exactly the opposite of what you would expect in a forgery.
The tone of your posts makes it quite clear you have a vested interested in rejecting the Book of Mormon (whatever it is), so there's no point in continuing the conversation.