Alma 55:33 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
it was expedient for Moroni to make preparations to attackt the city Morionton for behold the Lamanites had by their labors fortified the city [ 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRT|of S] Morionton

Here we have two examples of “the city Morionton”, that is, without the of. The original manuscript is not extant for either of these two cases, although there isn’t much room for an of in either case except by supralinear insertion. The printer’s manuscript for these two instances of “the city (of ) Morionton” lacks the of. In the second case, the 1953 RLDS edition inserted the of, but not in the first case, which implies that the intrusive of in the second case is a typo.

There are no more instances of “the city Morionton” in the text, but there are two occurrences of “the city of Morionton” (in Alma 51:26 and Alma 59:5). In both of those passages, we have a series of cities conjoined together, each of which has the structure “the city of X”. As discussed under Alma 47:31, we let the earliest textual sources determine the correct reading for each instance of “the city (of ) X”. The critical text will therefore maintain the two instances of “the city Morionton” here in Alma 55:33 as well as the two instances of “the city of Morionton” elsewhere in the text.

Summary: Retain both instances of “the city Morionton” in Alma 55:33, the reading of the earliest extant text (here the printer’s manuscript).

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

References