Nephi uses the terms “up” and “down” in a consistent pattern. One notes that the movement from the Valley of Lemuel to Jerusalem is always “up” (1 Nephi 3:9, 3:23, 7:4, etc.) and the movement from Jerusalem to the Valley of Lemuel is always ”down” (see 1 Nephi 2:5, 7:2, 7:22, etc.). Because we know the topography of the Old World, we know that these terms are correct in reference to elevation. Can we assume that “up” and “down” refer always to elevation, even in the New World? I will assume as much. [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes]
Geographical [Theory Map] : 1 Nephi 3:9 Nephi Goes Up to Jerusalem After the Plates of Laban
“I Nephi and My Brethren Took Our Journey in the Wilderness to Go Up to the Land of Jerusalem”
Kelly Ogden writes that he and accompanying friends learned by walking the distance that between Jerusalem and the Red Sea is about 200 miles. He notes that some authors insert a figure of 150 miles or so, “as the crow flies,” but ancient Judahites were not crows and they didn’t fly, and it was 200 miles to the Red Sea! An agreeable pace for a group of people on camels would be between twenty and thirty miles a day. So the journey was a minimum of seven or eight days. Add to that the three days they traveled after reaching the Red Sea, and the figures are up to 260-290 miles in ten or eleven days. That is one direction only. The round-trip that the Lord and father Lehi were asking of the four sons was over 500 miles and at least three weeks through some of the most rugged terrain in the Near East! And they had no clue as to how they were going to obtain the plates. And we, having the advantage of “knowing the end from the beginning” are amazed to think ahead and realize that Lehi, soon after his sons returned from their first assignment, would command them to go back again! That is over a thousand miles and many weeks on those desolate tracts of land--and we have often looked down on Laman and Lemuel for being chronic complainers. [D. Kelly Ogden, “Answering the Lord’s Call,” in Studies in Scripture: Book of Mormon, Part 1, pp. 26-27]
“The Land of Jerusalem”
According to Hugh Nibley, when we speak of Jerusalem, it is important to notice Nephi’s preference for a non-Biblical expression, “the land of Jerusalem” (1 Nephi 3:9) in designating his homeland. While he and his brothers always regard ”the land of Jerusalem“ as their home, it is perfectly clear from a number of passages that ”the land of our father’s inheritance“ cannot possibly be within, or even very near, the city, even though Lehi had ”dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days“ (1 Nephi 1:4). The terms seem confused, but they correctly reflect actual conditions, for in the Amarna letters we read of ”the land of Jerusalem“ as an area larger than the city itself, and even learn in one instance that ”a city of the land of Jerusalem, Bet-Ninib, has been captured." It was the rule in Palestine and Syria, as the same letters show, for a large area around a city and all the inhabitants of that area to bear the name of the city… .
This arrangement deserves mention because many have pointed to the statement of Alma 7:10 that the Savior would be born “at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers,” as sure proof of fraud. It is rather the opposite, faithfully preserving the ancient terminology to describe a system which has only been recently rediscovered. [Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, F.A.R.M.S., pp. 6-7]
1 Nephi 3:9 The land of Jerusalem ([Illustration] The “land of Jerusalem” took in a much larger area than the city Jerusalem, including this place a few miles to the south at Bethlehem. [Scot and Maurine Proctor, Light from the Dust, p. 14]