3 Nephi 14:7 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
ask and it shall be given unto you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you

Matthew 7:7 (King James Bible) ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you

Here the Book of Mormon text has the preposition unto in “ask and it shall be given unto you”, but the corresponding King James sentence lacks the unto. On the other hand, later on in the passage, both the Book of Mormon and the King James text have the preposition unto (“knock and it shall be opened unto you”). For both sentences, the original Greek uses the same pronominal form in the dative (and without any preposition, of course). In other words, the Greek original shows parallelism in form, as does the Book of Mormon text. As discussed under 3 Nephi 12:19, the critical text will in each case follow the earliest Book of Mormon text with respect to the occurrence of unto. Thus here in 3 Nephi 14:7, the critical text will maintain the unto in “ask and it shall be given unto you”, the reading of both 𝓟 and the 1830 edition (𝓞 also probably read the same).

Summary: Maintain in 3 Nephi 14:7 the unto in “ask and it shall be given unto you”; the corresponding King James reading lacks the unto, but the critical text will follow the earliest Book of Mormon reading and thus maintain the unto that occurs in both 𝓟 and the 1830 edition.

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

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