Helaman 13:33 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and then they would not have become slippery that we should [lose 1ABCGIJKLMNOPQRST|loose DEFH] them

Here we have a typo in the 1841 British edition, the replacement of the correct lose with loose. This error remained in the LDS text for the next two editions (1849 and 1852), probably because one can think of these riches as slippery and loose (although there is no textual support for collocations in the Book of Mormon of slippery and loose). Of course, the expression “that we should loose them” doesn’t really work here since these people are not loosening their riches (that is, making them loose). The critical text will maintain lose here in Helaman 13:33.

Interestingly, the first RLDS edition (1874) also has the reading loose. The text of that edition derives from the 1840 edition and the 1858 Wright edition, not the 1852 LDS edition. But the numbered paragraphs found in the 1852 LDS edition (the first primitive verse system) were adopted into the 1874 RLDS edition. It is theoretically possible that the loose of the 1874 RLDS edition derives from the 1852 LDS edition, but more likely this particular instance of loose in the 1874 RLDS edition was an independent typo.

Oliver Cowdery frequently spelled lose as loose in the manuscripts. All four extant occurrences in 𝓞 read loose rather than lose, of which three out of four are in Oliver’s hand. Out of 20 instances of lose in 𝓟 (all in Oliver’s hand), two are spelled loose while one was initially spelled loose but then corrected to lose. Besides here in Helaman 13:33, the spelling loose for lose also occurs one other place in the printed history, namely, once more in the 1841 British edition: “and perhaps thou wouldst loose thy soul” (Alma 20:18); in this passage, 𝓟 and all the other editions read “and perhaps thou wouldst lose thy soul”.

Summary: Maintain in Helaman 13:33 the verb lose, the reading of all the earliest sources, rather than loose, especially since it really doesn’t make sense to say that these people were loosening their riches.

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

References