2 Nephi 20:10 Textual Variants

Isaiah 10:10 (King James Bible) and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria

Here in 2 Nephi 20:10, the printer’s manuscript as originally written lacked its verb. The original reading of the printer’s manuscript was so incomprehensible (“whose graven images them of Jerusalem and of Samaria”) that the 1830 compositor was forced to consult his King James Bible in order to supply the missing “did excel”. He supralinearly inserted the words with heavier ink flow, using the same black ink that he had been using to add punctuation marks for surrounding pages of 𝓟. A similar example of where the compositor may have consulted his King James Bible is found in 2 Nephi 17:23; there he replaced an impossible that with the King James at (see the discussion under 2 Nephi 17:23). Normally, the 1830 compositor set the words he found in the manuscript without checking his Bible. Note, for instance, the individual word differences listed above in the immediately preceding discussion of “my hand hath founded the kingdoms of the idols”. As long as his copy-text read reasonably well enough, the 1830 compositor set the text as it read in 𝓟.

David Calabro points out (personal communication) that in the original Hebrew there is no verb excel and thus one could argue that the missing did excel in the earliest Book of Mormon text is a literal (and very awkward) Hebraistic translation and is not directly dependent on the King James text (since in that biblical translation the verb phrase did excel was not set in italics). As explained by Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor on page 265 of An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990), the Hebrew here in Isaiah 10:10 uses a comparative construction for which the adjective is left unstated and must be supplied. Thus they translate the Hebrew of this passage as “their images were more than those of Jerusalem [and Samaria]”, where the comparative more is supplied. A similar translation is found in the Revised Standard Version (dating from 1952): “whose graven images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria”; here the comparative is greater. We even find a parallel translation in the Geneva Bible (dating from 1560): “seeing their idols were above Jerusalem and above Samaria”. The Geneva Bible, like the King James Bible, used italics to represent translated words not found in the original Hebrew or Greek. Thus the past-tense verb form were was correctly set in italics, but the King James Bible neglected to set did excel in italics. Thus one could view the earliest Book of Mormon reading as a literal Hebraistic form of the King James text.

Even so, this earliest reading without did excel is simply too awkward to accept as the original text. Unfortunately, the original manuscript is not extant here. Even without that source, it is much more reasonable to assume that the verb phrase did excel was accidentally omitted during the early transmission of the text, probably when Oliver Cowdery copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟.