Alma 29:3 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
for I had ought to be content with the things [with which > which 0|which 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRST|with N] the Lord hath allotted unto me

Here in 𝓞 and in the 1906 LDS edition, we see the accidental influence of the with that occurs in the immediately preceding prepositional phrase, “with the things”. Oliver Cowdery initially wrote the relative clause as “with which the Lord hath allotted unto me”, which doesn’t sound impossible, but it is wrong; virtually immediately Oliver crossed out the intrusive with (there is no apparent difference in the level of ink flow for the crossout). In the 1906 edition, the compositor accidentally misread which as with, thus setting “with the things with the Lord hath allotted unto me”, an impossible reading. Obviously, the corrected reading in 𝓞 is the original reading here.

Summary: Maintain in Alma 29:3 the relative clause as “which the Lord hath allotted unto me” (that is, without any with).

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

References