Alma 41:13 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
good for that which is good righteous for that which [ 0|is 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] righteous just for that which is just merciful for that which is merciful

𝓞 is extant here, and it reads Hebraistically for the second of four examples of “which (is) ”—that is, without the linking verb is. The odds are that the original text had the is in the second case and that Oliver Cowdery accidentally omitted it when he took down Joseph Smith’s dictation for Alma 41:13. The Hebraistic omission of the linking verb in the Book of Mormon appears to be restricted to biblical quotes in the text. For discussion, see under 2 Nephi 15:25; also see under hebraisms in volume 3.

Accidental omissions of is elsewhere in the text can lead to these Hebrew-like readings. Another example for which Oliver Cowdery is the one responsible for the omission, albeit only momentarily, can be found in Ether 2:15, where Oliver initially wrote in 𝓟 “and this my thoughts upon the land which I shall give you for your inheritance”; virtually immediately, he caught his error and supralinearly inserted the is after this. (In his editing for the 1837 edition, Joseph Smith grammatically emended the is to are.) In this case, it is quite possible that the preceding this, which ends in is, led Oliver to initially omit the linking verb is. For an example where scribe 2 of 𝓟 omitted the linking verb is, see under Alma 11:44; for an example where the 1830 typesetter made this error, see under 3 Nephi 12:35. Thus there are a few occasional omissions of the linking verb is, but these all appear to be errors except for those found in quotations from Isaiah. The critical text will assume as much here in Alma 41:13 and maintain the is that Oliver supplied when he copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟.

Summary: Maintain in Alma 41:13 the linking verb is for all four instances of “which is ”; the one case where the is is missing in 𝓞 (“righteous for that which righteous”) appears to be simply an early scribal error on Oliver Cowdery’s part.

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

References