2 Nephi 2:10 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
wherefore the ends of the law which the Holy One hath given unto the inflicting of the punishment which is affixed which punishment that is affixed is in opposition to that of the happiness which is affixed to answer the ends of the atonement

Paul Hoskisson (personal communication, 30 June 2004) has suggested a dittography in this passage, marked above in bold. The current reading produces a sentence fragment (discussed separately under 2 Nephi 2:10–11 in part 1); but if “which punishment that is affixed” is removed, Hoskisson points out, we get a completed sentence:

The problem with removing this proposed dittography is that it is not a full dittography. Note that there are two differences in the phraseology: the versus which, and which versus that. Moreover, the earliest extant text shows similar instances of repetitiveness, as in the following examples where the repetition has been eliminated in varying ways from the standard text:

All of these instances of repetitiveness were removed by Joseph Smith in his early editing for the 1837 edition; see under each passage for how Joseph specifically removed the repetition. But in most of his editing for the 1837 edition, Joseph left similar instances of repetitiveness unchanged, as here in 2 Nephi 2:10 and these two examples from 1 Nephi 13:

The critical text will accept the original repetitiveness in 2 Nephi 2:10 and elsewhere.

Summary: Maintain or restore, as the case may be, instances of clausal repetitiveness in the original text; such usage is quite common in the Book of Mormon text.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 1

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