When Alma organized the original 7 churches in Zerahemla it is interesting to wonder what he did to separate them logically while keeping them unified doctrinally. It would make sense to me if he divided them based on where they lived and it is clear that he maintained unity by centralizing the teaching of the priests for all the churches. That leaves me wondering how large the churches were. Clearly they didn’t number one church for each priest because Alma’s group alone would have had 9 priests by the time they fled from the armies of Noah based on the record that he ordained 1 priest for every 50 people at that time. Now, years later, he might have altered that ratio but surely all those 9 priests were still around.
I personally believe that Alma based the size of churches off of the size of his group which was likely between 500 and 1000. I could easily see the land of Zerahemla with the people of Alma and the people of Limhi added being 7 times as large as the land of Helam had been.
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