Enos 1:20 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
they became wild and ferocious and a bloodthirsty people full of idolatry and filthiness feeding upon beasts of prey dwelling in tents and wandering about in the wilderness with a short skin [girted 1PS|girded A|girdle BCDEFGHIJKLMNOQRT] about their loins

The spelling girted (found in the current RLDS edition for this verse and in the manuscripts generally) is nonstandard since the main verb is gird and the past tense is girded, as here in the 1830 edition and elsewhere for eight other passages (in both the LDS and RLDS texts).

The introduction of girdle in the 1837 edition for Enos 1:20 appears to be a typo. This change was not marked by Joseph Smith in his editing of the printer’s manuscript for the 1837 edition. The error may have been influenced by the familiar language in the Gospels that refers to the clothing of John the Baptist:

Note that the second of these biblical citations, like Enos 1:20, refers to “a skin”.

Excluding six occurrences in Isaiah quotations, the word girdle appears only once in the original Book of Mormon text, and in that instance it also occurs with the verb gird:

The usage in this particular instance has parallels in the King James Bible:

The first of these biblical parallels is particularly close to the language of Mosiah 10:8, especially with the reference to a leather girdle in both cases. In Mosiah 10:8, the verb used is gird, which is what we find whenever the text refers to something being girded about one’s loins:

Summary: In accord with the reading of the earliest textual sources, restore girded in place of girdle in Enos 1:20 (“with a short skin girded about their loins”).

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 2

References