Alma 61:17 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and we will go [NULL > speedily 1|speedily ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] against those dissenters in the strength of our God

The original manuscript is not extant here. In the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “go against those dissenters”; then he supralinearly inserted speedily without any change in the level of ink flow. He was undoubtedly restoring the reading in 𝓞 since either reading works and there would have been no need to emend the text here. Parhoron used the word speedily earlier in his epistle: “therefore come unto me speedily with a few of your men” (Alma 61:15). Apparently he wished to emphasize the need to act speedily, just as Moroni in his epistle had emphasized the need for speedy action, although more as a threat to Parhoron.

Thus speedily is quite appropriate in Parhoron’s reply to Moroni.

Summary: Accept in Alma 61:17 the corrected reading in 𝓟, “and we will go speedily against those dissenters”; Parhoron seems to emphasize the word speedily in his reply to Moroni, although Moroni had used the word more to threaten Parhoron.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 5

References