Mosiah 11:3 Textual Variants

Ross Geddes (personal communication, 7 February 2006) suggests that there might have been an original of before their iron that was accidentally omitted during the early transmission of the text (either as the scribe took down Joseph Smith’s dictation or as Oliver Cowdery copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟). All other passages with conjuncts involving specific metals besides gold and silver consistently repeat the preposition of:

• 1 Nephi 18:25 both of gold and of silver and of copper
• 2 Nephi 5:15 and of iron and of copper and of brass and of steel and of gold and of silver
• Mosiah 8:10 and they are of brass and of copper
• Mosiah 11:8 of gold and of silver and of iron and of brass and of ziff and of copper Mosiah 11:10 and of copper and of brass
• Ether 10:23 of gold and of silver and of iron and of copper

Obviously, there could have been an of before their iron originally in Mosiah 11:3, thus “and a fifth part of their ziff and of their copper and of their brass and of their iron”.

More generally, however, there is evidence that a preposition is not always repeated for conjuncts of metals. For instance, the of is not always repeated for conjuncts of gold and silver, as explained under Helaman 6:31. Moreover, when the preposition is in, for instance, there is no repetition of the preposition for the industrial metals listed in Jarom 1:8: “and also in iron and copper and brass and steel”. Thus the conjunctive “and of their brass and their iron” is possible. The critical text will therefore accept the earliest reading in Mosiah 11:3—that is, without a repeated of before their iron, even though it is quite possible that the original text had the of there.

Mosiah 11:10, page 1269, line –5

The words kingman and kingmen are spelled without a hyphen in the critical text. Here the spelling king-men is an error and should be replaced by kingmen.

Mosiah 12:22, page 1296

It is also worth noting the unusual RLDS variation for the word watchmen in this verse. The 1892 RLDS edition changed the plural form to the singular watchman, probably accidentally; the 1908 RLDS edition seems to have inadvertently followed the 1892 reading (given that the copytext for the 1908 edition was the 1892 edition). Finally, in the 1953 RLDS edition the correct watchmen (also the reading in Isaiah 52:8) was restored to the RLDS text.