Anachronisms in The Book of Mormon - Linguistic Anachronisms - "Christ" and "Messiah"

"Christ" and "Messiah"

The words "Christ" and "Messiah" are used several hundred times throughout the Book of Mormon. The first instance of the word "Christ" dates to between 559 and 545 BC. The first instance of the word "Messiah" dates to about 600 BC.

"Christ" is the English transliteration of the Greek word Χριστός (transliterated precisely as Christós); it is relatively synonymous with the Hebrew word rendered "Messiah" (Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ, Mashiaẖ Māšîăḥ). Both words have the meaning of "anointed," and are used in the Bible to refer to "the Anointed One". In Greek translations of the Old Testament (including the Septuagint), the word "Christ" is used for the Hebrew "Messiah", and in Hebrew translations of the New Testament, the word "Messiah" is used for the Greek "Christ". If you take any passage in the Bible that uses the word "Christ", you can substitute for it the word "Messiah" or "the Messiah" with no change in meaning (e.g. Matthew 1:1, 16, 18).

The Book of Mormon uses both terms throughout the book. In the vast majority of cases, it uses the terms in an identical manner as the Bible, where it doesn't matter which word is used:

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is (Christ/the Messiah), the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall" (Helaman 5:12).

"And after he had baptized (Christ/the Messiah) with water, he should behold and bear record that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of the world." (1 Nephi 10:10).

Apologists state that the original Reformed Egyptian text certainly used Hebrew forms of names and titles exclusively, but when translating Joseph Smith simply used whichever form of the name ("Christ" or "Messiah") was more appropriate in English.

The Book of Mormon occasionally uses the word "Christ" in a way that is not interchangeable with "Messiah". For example in 2 Nephi 10:3, the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob says an angel informed him that the name of the Messiah would be Christ:

"Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ—for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name—should come among the Jews" (2 Nephi 10:3)

The word "Messiah" was used frequently before this point, but here Jacob says the term "Christ" is a new term, and from this point on the word "Christ" is used almost exclusively in the Book of Mormon.

Richard Packham argues that the Greek word "Christ" in the Book of Mormon challenges the authenticity of the work since, Joseph Smith clearly stated that, "There was no Greek or Latin upon the plates from which I, through the grace of the Lord, translated the Book of Mormon."

Hugh Nibley postulated that the word "Messiah" could have been derived from Arabic rather than Hebrew, although Arabic is not mentioned as one of the languages in which the golden plates were written.