The term "Christians"
appears in the Book of Mormon one century before the birth of Jesus:
And he fastened on his head-plate, and his
breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins; and he
took the pole, which had on the end thereof his rent coat, (and he called it
the title of liberty) and he bowed himself to the earth, and he prayed mightily
unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren, so long as
there should a band of Christians
remain to possess the land . . . And those who did belong to the church were
faithful; yea, all those who were true believers in Christ took upon them,
gladly, the name of Christ, or Christians
as they were called, because of their belief in Christ who should come. And
therefore, at this time, Moroni prayed that the cause of the Christians, and the freedom of the land
might be favored. (Alma 46:13, 15-16)
And thus he was preparing to support their
liberty, their lands, their wives, and their children, and their peace, and
that they might live unto the Lord their God, and that they might maintain that
which was called by their enemies the cause of Christians. (Alma 48:10)
Some critics
of the Book of Mormon have argued that this is an anachronism as, they charge,
the followers of Jesus were not called "Christians" until Acts 11:26,
after the ascension of Jesus and well over a century after the date of these
Book of Mormon texts:
And when he had found
him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass that a whole year they
assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples
were called Christians first in Antioch. (Acts 11:26)
There are a
number of problems with this argument. Firstly, the Book of Mormon purports to
be a translation into English of an ancient text; it stands to reason that the
language from which it was translated is not the same it was translated into.
The Nephites may have called themselves something akin to “Messiah followers”
(e.g., Meshihim, from Messiah) that Joseph Smith translated as “Christian,” the
best word in his vocabulary to denote such. Furthermore, Luke’s comment refers
to when the Greek term Χριστιανος was used of the fledgling Church—the Nephites did not write or
speak in Greek.
Let me quote
two previous LDS apologetic responses.
"Acts 11:26 says: ‘The disciples were called Christians first
in Antioch.' (KJ) But Alma 46:15,
purportedly describing events in 73 B.C.E., has Christians in America before
Christ ever came to earth" (p. 25).
Were we to
say that the Templars were organized in Germany and settled in the Holy Land in
the late 19th century, you might try to correct us by saying that the Templars
were organized in the year 1118 by Hugh de Payen and participated in a Crusade
to the Holy Land in the years that followed.
Actually, both statements are correct, for we would be referring to two
different Christian groups that called themselves "Templars." Since Luke, who wrote the Acts of the
Apostles, didn't know about the followers of Christ in the New World, he would
naturally assume that the term "Christian" was first used in Antioch
in his own day. In the same way, many history books credit Columbus with having
discovered America, though there is now abundant evidence for the Vikings
having visited North America five hundred years earlier. If one acknowledges that prophets such as
Isaiah (e.g., Isaiah 53) foresaw the coming of Christ, there should be no
problem in having a people living a few decades before his birth and who looked
forward to his arrival calling themselves "Christians." Since the term "Christians" is from
the Greek word that gave us "Christ," it would not, of course, have
been used by the Nephites. They may have called themselves Meshihim, from the
Hebrew Messiah. All we can say for certain is that the anglicized form
"Christians" was used in the English translation to represent
whatever term the Nephites used.
There is no contradiction, when one considers
the facts. The events of the Book of Mormon occurred in the Americas at about
73 BC; the events of Acts somewhere between AD 40 and 50. Since Luke did not
live in the Americas during the year 73 BC, it is obvious that he would not
have been aware of these prior events, separated by more than 100 years and by
the Atlantic Ocean. His not being aware of this historical event, would account
for his use of the word first at Acts 11:26.
Further, the Book of Mormon is a translation
of an ancient text. Since Joseph Smith used the vocabulary available to him,
what other word could he have used to properly convey the sense of a text that
spoke of followers of the Messiah?
“Christian”
in the Book of Mormon is clearly not an
anachronism and/or a contradiction between the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
For more
articles addressing Greek names and words in the Book of Mormon, see: