Mosiah 12:36 Textual Variants

Exodus 20:4 (King James Bible)thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath

Here in Mosiah 12:36 we have one substantive textual variant—namely, the extra the in the phrase “in the heaven above”. This the is not found in the corresponding King James passage in Exodus 20 (“in heaven above”); perhaps in Mosiah 12:36 the was added under the influence of the the in the following parallel relative clause (“which is in the earth beneath”). In fact, the corresponding Masoretic Hebrew text has a full a vowel (rather than a schwa vowel) assigned to the prefix b ‘in’ for the words corresponding to heaven and earth, thus showing that the Masoretes interpreted the original consonantal text for these two prepositional phrases as having the definite article. Thus one could argue that the Book of Mormon text for Mosiah 12:36 more consistently represents the Masoretic Hebrew, at least as far as the definite article is concerned. But it should also be noted that in the Hebrew the word for heaven is in the plural. This means one cannot argue that the earliest text for Mosiah 12:36 literally represents the original Hebrew; if it did, this prepositional phrase should read “in the heavens above”. Interestingly, the Book of Mormon does have one example of this very language (that is, with the definite article the and the plural heavens):

• 2 Nephi 29:7
  • I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath

Another factor to consider here is that the definite article the is not found when this part of Exodus 20:4 is repeated in the next chapter of Mosiah:

• Mosiah 13:12
  • thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of things which is in heaven above or which is in the earth beneath

The two Mosiah passages also vary with respect to each other in minor ways (noted below in bold):

So the original extra the in Mosiah 12:36 may simply represent one more instance of the inherent variation found in Book of Mormon citations from the Bible.

In any event, the article the in Mosiah 12:36 was deleted in the 1837 edition, with the result that this passage more fully agreed with the King James reading for Exodus 20:4 (as well as with Mosiah 13:12). But the remaining differences between the two Mosiah citations and Exodus 20:4 suggest that this 1837 emendation may have been unintentionally introduced.

If we consider every example in the earliest Book of Mormon text of “in (the) heaven(s)” conjoined with a following “in (the) earth”, we find considerable variation:

• 2 Nephi 29:7 I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath
• Jacob 7:14 he hath power both in heaven and in earth
• Mosiah 4:9 he created all things both in heaven and in earth
• Mosiah 4:9 he hath all wisdom and all power both in heaven and in earth
• Mosiah 5:15 him who created all things in heaven and in earth
• Mosiah 12:36 any thing in the heaven above or things which is in the earth beneath
• Mosiah 13:12 things which is in heaven above or which is in the earth beneath
• Alma 18:28 God created all things which is in heaven and in the earth
• Alma 22:10 and he created all things both in heaven and in earth
• Helaman 8:24 both things in heaven and all things which are in earth

In the last example, the 1830 typesetter added the definite article the before earth, thus showing a tendency to add the definite article to conjuncts involving heaven and earth. (See the discussion under Helaman 8:24; for a list of passages where the has been accidentally added before heaven, see under 1 Nephi 12:6.) But the important point here is that the earliest text—and the current text—shows variation, as given in the following statistical summary for the earliest text:

In fact, we get strikingly proportional statistics for this construction in the King James Bible:

All of this variation suggests that in the Book of Mormon text we should accept in each case the earliest textual reading for conjuncts of “in (the) heaven(s)” and “in (the) earth”. The critical text will therefore accept the earliest reading in Mosiah 12:36 (“any thing in the heaven above or things which is in the earth beneath”).