Mosiah 3:4 Textual Variants

Oliver Cowdery initially wrote also may; then almost immediately he corrected the word order to may also by crossing out the original also and supralinearly inserting it after the modal may (there is no difference in the level of ink flow). The original manuscript undoubtedly read may also. For a list of examples where the placement of also has varied in the history of the text, see under 2 Nephi 21:13.

Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, there are three occurrences of may also and one of also may:

• Alma 5:62 that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life
• Alma 13:13 that ye may also enter into that rest
• Alma 60:24 and that we may also recover the remainder of our possessions
• Ether 12:9 wherefore ye may also have hope

Theoretically, the also in each of these cases could refer to the following main verb, which would mean that there is a contrast with some preceding but different verb. But in fact, the also actually refers in each case to the immediately preceding subject pronoun. For each passage, the preceding text refers to some different individual(s) for which the same verb (or a semantically equivalent verb) is stated or, in one case, implied:

• Mosiah 3:4
  • for the Lord hath heard thy prayers and hath judged of thy righteousness and hath sent me to declare unto thee that thou mayest rejoice and that thou mayest declare unto thy people that they may also be filled with joy
• Alma 5:62
  • I speak by way of command unto you that belong to the church and unto those which do not belong to the church I speak by way of invitation saying come and be baptized unto repentance that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life
    [By implication, church members are partakers of the fruit of the tree of life.]
• Alma 13:12–13
  • and there were many—an exceeding great many—
    which were made pure and entered into the rest of the Lord their God
    and now my brethren I would that ye should humble yourselves before God and bring forth fruit meet for repentance that ye may also enter into that rest
• Alma 60:24
  • and now except ye do repent of that which ye have done and begin to be up and doing and send forth food and men unto us and also unto Helaman that he may support those parts of our country which he hath retained
    and that we may also recover the remainder of our possessions in these parts [Here the original retained means ‘recovered’; the word possessions refers to “the lands of their possessions” (see Alma 58:3).]
• Ether 12:8–9
  • but because of the faith of men he has shewn himself unto the world and glorified the name of the Father and prepared a way that thereby others might be partakers of the heavenly gift that they might hope for those things which they have not seen wherefore ye may also have hope

These examples show that the placement of also either before or after the modal verb may does not crucially determine whether the also refers to the preceding subject or to the following verb. Furthermore, since either order is possible, we let the earliest textual sources determine the placement of the also.