Alma 56:40 Textual Variants

Here at the beginning of this verse, the original manuscript reads “to the right nor to the left”, but then 𝓞 switches to “to the right or to the left” in the following independent clause. When copying into the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote the or as nor but then crossed out the n, thus restoring the reading of 𝓞. This initial nor in 𝓟 was undoubtedly due to the fact that he had just copied “to the right nor to the left” at the beginning of the verse. The editors for the 1920 LDS edition decided to edit the text here in Alma 56:40 so that both occurrences of “to the right (n)or to the left” would read nor.

Either nor or or is used to combine conjuncts in a negative context, as in two other examples where right and left are conjoined:

• Alma 24:23 neither would they turn aside to the right hand or to the left
• Alma 56:37 they did not turn to the right nor to the left

Note that if the preceding negative is neither, we get or; but if the preceding negative is not, we get nor. This is precisely what we get in Alma 56:40: “they durst not turn to the right nor to the left … neither would I turn to the right or to the left”. Interestingly, the or in Alma 24:23 was left unchanged in the 1920 LDS edition. It turns out that the original text does not systematically support neither-or and not-nor. As one might suspect, there are also examples of not-or and neithernor, as in the following examples that have never been edited:

• Alma 55:19 he did not delight in murder or bloodshed
• Helaman 1:31 neither on the north nor on the south

For each instance of negative coordination, the critical text will follow the earliest textual sources, thus “they durst not turn to the right nor to the left … neither would I turn to the right or to the left” here in Alma 56:40. For a complete discussion regarding cases of variation involving negative words, see under negation in volume 3.