Alma 22:30 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and it bordered [upon 1ABDEFIJLMNOPQRST|on CGHK] the land which they called Desolation

Here the 1840 edition replaced the preposition upon with on. The 1908 RLDS edition restored the correct upon to the RLDS text. Elsewhere the verb border can take various prepositions in its complement, including upon and on:

The two examples from Alma 31:3 show that upon can occur with the verb border. The 1840 change to on here in Alma 22:30 was probably influenced by the multiple occurrence of on in the preceding text: “all the northern parts of the land bordering on the wilderness … round about on the wilderness side on the north” (Alma 22:29). Mix-ups between on and upon have been quite frequent in the history of the text. For a list of examples, see under 1 Nephi 12:4. Generally speaking, the critical text will follow the earliest textual sources for each case of (up)on, thus upon here in Alma 22:30.

Summary: Retain the original preposition upon in Alma 22:30; the 1840 change to on was probably a typo resulting from the preceding use of “bordering on” in verse 29.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 4

References