Alma 60:7 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
can [ you 1ABCDEFGHIJKMNOPQRST|ye L] think to sit upon your thrones in a state of thoughtless stupor

Once more we have the issue of ye versus you as subject pronoun. In this instance, the 1902 LDS missionary edition introduced the biblically styled ye, but this pronominal form was not transmitted into any subsequent LDS edition since the 1902 edition never served as a copytext. Normally, the Book of Mormon text has ye as the subject pronoun form, but you does occur, although considerably less frequently (see the discussion under Mosiah 4:14 and, more generally, under ye in volume 3).

Here in Alma 60:7 the original manuscript is not extant for the subject of can, so an error from ye to you could have occurred in copying from 𝓞 into 𝓟. Elsewhere in the text, there are 21 occurrences of can ye but 3 more of can you, including one nearby in Alma 60:32: “behold can you suppose that the Lord will spare you”. 𝓞 is not extant for that example either. Nonetheless, you does occur as a subject pronoun in the original text (although relatively infrequently), so it will be retained here in Alma 60:7 (and in Alma 60:32). In each instance, we let the earliest textual sources determine the correct form, ye or you.

Summary: Maintain in Alma 60:7 you as the subject pronoun, the reading of 𝓟 (here the earliest extant source).

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 5

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