[Another in the series of “Responding to Bumper Stickers,” or “Long Answers to Short Questions,” in which I try to give a Latter-day Saint response to a question or claim commonly lobbed against us on X.]
Like the “At Jerusalem” objection, this one is rather silly — it’s a nitpicky accusation that the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible in some small matter of wording. But it does come up from a certain brand of Christian who believes that if the Bible is inerrant, it must be inerrant even down to the tiniest inconsequential details, and I did run into this one in the wild just a couple of weeks ago, so…
The objection centers on a couple of Book of Mormon verses, specifically in the Book of Alma, taking place roughly 72 B.C.
…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—
For thus were all the true believers of Christ, who belonged to the church of God, called by those who did not belong to the church.
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. (Alma 46:13-15)
So what’s the objection?
Well, Acts 11:26 (roughly 44A.D.) says:
…And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.
“Aha! The Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible!”
.
.
.
…Really? Really?
The Book of Mormon presents itself as a translation, from a variation of Hebrew with Egyptian elements, separated from the land of Israel by the time of the Book of Alma quote for over 500 years. No proponent of the Book of Mormon is claiming that they used either English, or the Greek word Christianos from which “Christians” is translated in Acts. Heck, no one is claiming that, in all the Book of Mormon prophecies of Jesus Christ, they were using the Greek-derived “Christ” (from Christos), rather than something derived from the Hebrew equivalent Mashiach (from which we get the word “Messiah”). Why would this side-note in Acts mean that no one in the history of the world had ever been called anything which could have been translated into “Christian” in English?
I mean, Christians of all stripes believe that the Old Testament contained many prophecies of the Christ or Messiah (Isaiah gets special mention). Daniel uses the word Mashiach twice. Would that mean that anyone in Israel who was called (or called himself) a “Messiah-believer” would similarly contradict Acts?
I tried to explain some of this to the objector, but the response was pretty much, “Nope, the Bible says that was the first time, therefore it’s the first time EVER because the Bible says so.”
I finally got fed up (yes, that happens from time to time), answered that “The Bible also says bats are birds,” and muted him because life’s too short.
(Although now I have to wonder what his response would have been…)