Alma 22:34 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
therefore the Lamanites could have no more possessions only in the land of Nephi [ 0|NULL >jg , 1|, ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] and the wilderness round about

As discussed under Alma 12:9, there should be a comma placed before the word only in Alma 22:34 since here the word has the now-archaic meaning ‘except’. Moreover, since the text is saying that the Lamanites’ only possessions were in the land of Nephi and in the surrounding wilderness, there should be no comma after “in the land of Nephi”. Thus the entire sentence should read in the standard text as follows: “Therefore the Lamanites could have no more possessions, only in the land of Nephi and the wilderness round about.”

Summary: In Alma 22:34 a comma should be placed before the word only since its meaning is ‘except’; at the same time, the 1830 comma after “only in the land of Nephi” should be removed since the scope of the only includes the following “and the wilderness round about”.

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

References