Moroni 6:3 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and none were received unto [ 1BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|the > NULL A] baptism save they took upon them the name of Christ having a determination to serve him [unto 1A|to BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] the end

Here in Moroni 6:3, the 1830 compositor initially set “unto the baptism”, perhaps because the following manuscript line, just underneath, reads “unto the end”. Later, in an in-press change, the compositor removed the extra the from “unto the baptism”, giving “and none were received unto baptism save they took upon them the name of Christ”.

In the 1837 edition, the preposition unto in the following phrase “unto the end” was accidentally changed to to. Elsewhere in the text, there are 18 other occurrences of “to the end” but also 4 of “unto the end” (here I exclude cases where end is postmodified). Thus either preposition is possible. The critical text will restore the original unto here in Moroni 6:3. For further examples of the tendency to replace unto with to in the 1837 edition, see under 3 Nephi 4:18.

Summary: Restore the preposition unto in Moroni 6:3 (“unto the end”) since the earliest textual source (the printer’s manuscript) reads unto.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 6

References