Alma 19:7 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
therefore he went in to see the king according as the queen had desired [ 1ABCDEFGIJLMNOPQRST|of HK] him

The 1874 RLDS edition inserted the preposition of before the object of the verb desire. The 1908 RLDS edition restored the original reading by deleting the extra of. Either reading, with or without the of, is possible, as in the following pair of contrasting examples where the verb desire takes a that-clause as its complement:

The example here in Alma 19:7 involves an ellipted infinitive clause, as if the text read “the queen had desired him to see the king”. The critical text will maintain the original reading without the of before the him.

Summary: Maintain in Alma 19:7 the original reading without any of before the object him (“according as the queen had desired him”).

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

References