Moroni 8:14 Textual Variants

Here in the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery started to write “in the bond of iniquity”, but he immediately corrected this to end up with “in the bonds of iniquity”. The level of ink flow for the inserted plural s agrees with the level of ink flow for the immediately following of, which is written inline; this change therefore appears to be an immediate correction. Very likely, the original manuscript, no longer extant here, read in the plural.

Elsewhere the Book of Mormon text always has the plural, either “bonds of iniquity” (four times) or “bands of iniquity” (one time):

• Mosiah 23:12
  • therefore ye were bound with the bands of iniquity
• Mosiah 23:13
  • and now as ye have been delivered by the power of God out of these bonds yea even out of the hands of king Noah and his people and also from the bonds of iniquity …
• Mosiah 27:29
  • my soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity
• Alma 41:11
  • all men that are in a state of nature
    —or I would say in a carnal state— are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity
• Mormon 8:31
  • for they are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity On the other hand, the King James Bible has the singular:
• Acts 8:23
  • for I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity

The language in Moroni 8:14 parallels this biblical passage (note the reference to “the gall of bitterness”), but then so do three of the other examples listed above (in Mosiah 27:29, Alma 41:11, and Mormon 8:31)—and they have the plural bonds. Thus the use of the plural bonds in Moroni 8:14 is consistent with all other Book of Mormon usage and contrary to the singular bond in Acts 8:23. The critical text will therefore accept the immediately corrected reading in 𝓟 for Moroni 8:14, the plural bonds. (For discussion of the competition between “bonds of iniquity” and “bands of iniquity”, see under Mosiah 23:12–13.)