Mosiah 4:5–6 Textual Variants

Oliver Cowdery initially wrote worthlessness, then deleted the nominalizing ending -ness. However, the 1840 edition restored the reading worthlessness. Since we know that Joseph Smith used the original manuscript to restore a few readings for that edition, it is possible that 𝓞 read worthlessness here. Nonetheless, Oliver Cowdery’s crossout in 𝓟 of the -ness ending appears to have been virtually immediate (the level of ink flow is unchanged). Oliver’s writing of worthlessness may have simply been a copying error prompted by the preceding nothingness. In fact, the appearance of worthlessness in the 1840 edition could also be attributed to a similar error by the 1840 typesetter. This 1840 reading was maintained in the RLDS textual tradition until the third RLDS edition in 1908 (which restored worthless, the corrected reading in 𝓟).

The reading with worthlessness is strange in terms of coordination since it allows the pronominal adjective your to appear before the first and second conjunctive noun phrases (“your nothingness” and “your worthlessness”) but not before the third noun phrase (“and fallen state”). Book of Mormon coordinate structures usually have a determiner before only the first of several conjuncts or before each of the conjuncts. Under the reading worthless, there are only two conjuncts (“your nothingness” and “your worthless and fallen state”), with the result that your precedes both of the conjuncts (as expected).

Expressions with two adjectives conjoined before the noun state (like “your worthless and fallen state”) are found elsewhere in the text (especially in the book of Mosiah). Virtually all of them do not repeat the determiner (or the preposition), just like the corrected reading in 𝓟 for Mosiah 4:5:

• 2 Nephi 25:17 from their lost and fallen state
• Mosiah 2:41 on the blessed and happy state
• Mosiah 16:4 from their lost and fallen state
• Mosiah 25:11 of their sinful and polluted state
• Mosiah 26:4 in their carnal and sinful state
• Mosiah 27:25 from their carnal and fallen state
• Alma 26:17 from our awful sinful and polluted state

These examples, all without repetition of the determiner (or the preposition), support the corrected reading in Mosiah 4:5 (“your worthless and fallen state”). It should be noted that the only example with repetition repeats not only the determiner but also the preposition:

• 1 Nephi 10:6 in a lost and in a fallen state

The critical text will accept the corrected reading “your worthless and fallen state” in 𝓟.