Jacob 3:9 Textual Variants

Generally speaking, the current Book of Mormon text uses the plural skins to refer to the skin color of peoples:

• Jacob 3:5 and the cursing which hath come upon their skins
• Jacob 3:8 that their skins will be whiter than yours
• Alma 3:6 and the skins of the Lamanites were dark

There are two exceptions in the current text:

• 2 Nephi 5:21 the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them
• 3 Nephi 2:15 and their skin became white like unto the Nephites

The first of these two instances of skin is clearly singular since it is preceded by the indefinite article a. It is possible that the second one is an error. The original manuscript is no longer extant for 3 Nephi 2:15. But in 3 Nephi, both 𝓟 and the 1830 edition are firsthand copies of 𝓞, and for this verse both read “their skin”; thus the original manuscript probably read in the singular as skin. Counting the example here in Jacob 3:9, we appear to have three occurrences of the singular skin, of which one (“a skin” in 2 Nephi 5:21) is firm. Thus the singular skin is possible. For this reason, the critical text will restore the singular skin in Jacob 3:9, even though it could be an early transmission error for skins. The 1830 compositor’s decision to set “their skins” in verse 9 was not based on the original manuscript (which he did not examine here) but instead was based on the fact that the immediately preceding text used the plural “their skins” twice (in verses 5 and 8, cited above).

The Book of Mormon text has other examples of plural uses of skins, as in discussions about how the skin of more than one person might be injured:

• Alma 20:29
  • for behold they were naked and their skins were worn exceedingly because of being bound with strong cords
• Alma 44:18
  • their naked [skin > skins 0|skins 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] and their bare heads were exposed to the sharp swords of the Nephites

The second example provides independent evidence that Oliver Cowdery had problems with the plural s in skins. In the original manuscript for Alma 44:18, Oliver first wrote skin, then inserted an s after skin to form the plural. (There is no apparent difference in the level of ink flow for the inserted s, so the insertion probably occurred quite soon after writing skin.) This correction suggests that Oliver’s tendency was simply to write the singular skin —as all speakers of modern English would tend to do, even when the context applies to more than one individual.