Alma 9:25 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
for the kingdom of heaven is [at >% nigh 1|nigh ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] at hand

Scribe 2 here started to write “the kingdom of heaven is at hand”, but after writing the a and part of the t, he erased the incomplete at, overwrote it with an n, and continued writing inline igh, the rest of the word nigh. Obviously, 𝓞 read “nigh at hand”. The expression “to be at hand” occurs fairly often in the text (12 times), but in almost as many cases at hand is modified adverbially (9 times):

In each case, the critical text will follow the earliest extant reading, thus “nigh at hand” in Alma 9:25.

Summary: Maintain the use of nigh before at hand in Alma 9:25, in accord with scribe 2’s immediate correction in 𝓟.

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

References