Alma 5:62 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
that ye also may be partakers of the [𝓢① spirit > 𝓢② fruit 1|fruit ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] of the tree of life

Scribe 2 of 𝓟 wrote “partakers of the spirit”, an obvious error given that the following words are “of the tree of life”. Oliver Cowdery, when he proofed 𝓟 against 𝓞, replaced spirit with fruit, the undoubted reading in 𝓞. Note that there is some visual similarity between the two words fruit and spirit. Perhaps scribe 2 expected “partakers of the spirit”, yet elsewhere the Book of Mormon text refers only to “partaking of fruit” (23 times), never to “partaking of the spirit”.

Summary: Accept in Alma 5:62 Oliver Cowdery’s correction of spirit to fruit, which is obviously the appropriate reading for the following “of the tree of life”.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 3

References