Moroni 10:21–22 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
neither can ye be saved in the kingdom of God if ye have not faith neither can ye if ye have [not >% no 1|no ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] hope and if ye have no hope / ye must needs be in despair

Here the text shows some variation between “have not X” and “have no X”, where X is a noun. In the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery started to write “if ye have not hope”, but then he immediately erased the t at the end of not to give “if ye have no hope”. He probably wrote the not because of the not in the immediately preceding “if ye have not faith”. The immediacy of the correction argues that no before hope was quite likely the reading of the original manuscript, especially since the very next if- clause reads “and if ye have no hope”.

Ether 12, Moroni 7, and Moroni 10 all deal with having faith, hope, and charity. From these examples we see that we consistently get not before faith and charity but no before hope, providing the main verb is have:

Ultimately, there seems to be no grammatical or semantic reason for having not before charity and faith but no before hope; either should work in theory. Interestingly, in Paul’s epistles in the King James Bible we get these same results: not before charity and faith but no before hope, providing the main verb is have:

There is, however, one case of “have no faith” in the New Testament, but not in Paul’s epistles (namely, in Mark 4:40: “how is it that ye have no faith”).

Summary: Maintain in Moroni 10:21–22 the two instances of “have no hope”, even though we otherwise get “have not charity” and “have not faith” in the text.

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

References