Is there a complete list of the textual variants in the different editions of the Book of Mormon up until now? I’d assume most of these are spelling and grammatical errors, there weren’t larger passages removed, were there?
One Response to “Is there a complete list of the textual variants in the diff…”
Webmaster
2009-12-14 06:12:54
The original Book of Mormon manuscript.
Hey Matt,
You're right that the vast majority of the changes made to the Book of Mormon text have been minor corrections in spelling and grammar. For example, in 1 Nephi 7:1, the word "meet" was spelled "mete." I'm a bad speller myself, so it brings me great joy to know that Joseph Smith and his scribes were lousy spellers too. I heard Albert Einstein was also a terrible speller. I'm just saying.
I've also read that the original Book of Mormon manuscript had far more Hebraisms than the current version. For example, apparently the original manuscript had even more "and it came to pass" phrases. These were removed because they were judged too wordy, but the phrase does correspond well with the Hebrew word "hâyâh," which occurs 1,114 times in the Hebrew Bible. Ironically, this kind of wordiness actually constitutes strong support for the Book of Mormon as a bona fide ancient Semitic text.
Some other changes don't really have any significant theological consequences. For example, in the current Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 12:18 reads "a great and a terrible gulf divideth them; yea, even the word of the justice of the Eternal God." In the original manuscript, the word "word" was actually "sword." The printer accidentally dropped the "s," but it doesn't much change the meaning of the text.
The few meaningful changes were made by Joseph Smith himself prior to his death to clarify, not alter, the meaning of the original text.
For example, in 1 Nephi 11 and 13, references to God and the Eternal Father were changed to refer to the Son of God and the Son of the Eternal Father. The Son is also God and in an important sense is also our Father (i.e. divine investiture), so the clarification was needed.
In 2 Nephi 30:6, the phrase "pure and delightsome" was originally "white and delightsome." Joseph Smith made the change for the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon, probably to avoid confusion related to race. Throughout the Book of Mormon, the color white is used as a metaphor for purity (see, for example, Alma 32:42, Alma 5:24, Alma 13:12, and Mormon 9:6). In 2 Nephi 30:6, however, using the phrase "white and delightsome" could be misinterpreted; some might think "white" referred to the race, not the color. "Pure and delightsome" is much less ambiguous.
Mormon, an ancient American prophet, compiled the records of his people into the Book of Mormon.
In Mosiah 21:28 and Ether 4:1, the name Benjamin was changed to Mosiah. A first-person version of the relevant story is found in Mosiah 8:13-14, where the king in question is referred to nonspecifically as "a man that can translate the records" and "the king of the people who are in the land of Zarahemla is the man that is commanded to do these things." It's only in the third-person versions of the story in Mosiah 21 and Ether 4 that the king in question was originally referred to as Benjamin. Some think Mormon and Moroni, when summarizing the story, incorrectly assumed that the "man" spoken of in Mosiah 8 was Benjamin, when in fact it may have been Mosiah.
Thirty-five words at the end of Alma 32:30 were actually missing from the first printed version of the Book of Mormon. When it was discovered that the words were present in the original manuscript, they were added back in 1981.
Finally, the phrase "or out of the waters of baptism" was added to 1 Nephi 20:1. It seems to be a prophetic commentary that Joseph added and was probably not present in the original Nephite record.
It's interesting to note that far more changes have been made to the Bible than have been made to the Book of Mormon.
You're right that the vast majority of the changes made to the Book of Mormon text have been minor corrections in spelling and grammar. For example, in 1 Nephi 7:1, the word "meet" was spelled "mete." I'm a bad speller myself, so it brings me great joy to know that Joseph Smith and his scribes were lousy spellers too. I heard Albert Einstein was also a terrible speller. I'm just saying.
I've also read that the original Book of Mormon manuscript had far more Hebraisms than the current version. For example, apparently the original manuscript had even more "and it came to pass" phrases. These were removed because they were judged too wordy, but the phrase does correspond well with the Hebrew word "hâyâh," which occurs 1,114 times in the Hebrew Bible. Ironically, this kind of wordiness actually constitutes strong support for the Book of Mormon as a bona fide ancient Semitic text.
Some other changes don't really have any significant theological consequences. For example, in the current Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 12:18 reads "a great and a terrible gulf divideth them; yea, even the word of the justice of the Eternal God." In the original manuscript, the word "word" was actually "sword." The printer accidentally dropped the "s," but it doesn't much change the meaning of the text.
The few meaningful changes were made by Joseph Smith himself prior to his death to clarify, not alter, the meaning of the original text.
For example, in 1 Nephi 11 and 13, references to God and the Eternal Father were changed to refer to the Son of God and the Son of the Eternal Father. The Son is also God and in an important sense is also our Father (i.e. divine investiture), so the clarification was needed.
In 2 Nephi 30:6, the phrase "pure and delightsome" was originally "white and delightsome." Joseph Smith made the change for the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon, probably to avoid confusion related to race. Throughout the Book of Mormon, the color white is used as a metaphor for purity (see, for example, Alma 32:42, Alma 5:24, Alma 13:12, and Mormon 9:6). In 2 Nephi 30:6, however, using the phrase "white and delightsome" could be misinterpreted; some might think "white" referred to the race, not the color. "Pure and delightsome" is much less ambiguous.
Thirty-five words at the end of Alma 32:30 were actually missing from the first printed version of the Book of Mormon. When it was discovered that the words were present in the original manuscript, they were added back in 1981.
Finally, the phrase "or out of the waters of baptism" was added to 1 Nephi 20:1. It seems to be a prophetic commentary that Joseph added and was probably not present in the original Nephite record.
It's interesting to note that far more changes have been made to the Bible than have been made to the Book of Mormon.