Alma 32:28 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
yea it beginneth to enlighten my understanding yea [& 01|and ABCDEGHKPS| FIJLMNOQRT] it beginneth to be delicious to me

The 1852 LDS edition accidentally omitted the conjunction and here in Alma 32:28. Elsewhere in the text, there are 15 occurrences of “yea and it” and 19 of “yea it”. So either reading is possible. In this context, the use of the and is appropriate since earlier in the verse it reads “yea it beginneth to enlighten my understanding”, so the following “yea and it” adds to the list of the seed’s effects. In fact, the near identity of the preceding “yea it beginneth” may have been the reason the 1852 typesetter accidentally omitted the following and in this passage. For some other instances where the text has lost the and from yea and, see under 2 Nephi 25:5. For another example in which and was lost from “yea and it”, see under Jacob 2:6.

Summary: Restore the and here in Alma 32:28 (“yea and it beginneth to be delicious to me”); its loss from the LDS text (in 1852) seems to have been accidental.

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

References