I Have Refined And Chosen Thee in the Furnace of Affliction

Alan C. Miner

In 1 Nephi 20:10 there is a discrepancy between the King James Version and the Book of Mormon. Isaiah 48:10 of the King James Version reads, "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. The King James Version phrase "but not with silver" is not found in the Book of Mormon. Victor Ludlow comments that this phrase disrupts the flow of the verse so badly that many commentators have said that its "meaning is obscure," that it has "defeated all commentators up to the present," and that it was probably "altered by a scribe who took the meaning to be 'I have not sold thee for money.'" . . . Perhaps this verse is an example of a "gloss," an addition made by a later scribe in order to clarify the verse as he understood it. If so, the gloss was assuredly written after 600 B.C. when the Brass Plates of Laban were taken from Jerusalem, because the phrase is not quoted in the Book of Mormon version of this verse. [Victor L. Ludlow, Isaiah: Prophet, Seer, and Poet, p. 404]

Step by Step Through the Book of Mormon: A Cultural Commentary

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