Mosiah 13:32 Textual Variants

Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “through the redeemer of God”; soon thereafter he crossed out redeemer and supralinearly inserted redemption (the level of ink flow is unchanged). Obviously, redemption is correct. Elsewhere, for each case of “redeemer of X”, the meaning is always that ‘X is redeemed’:

• 1 Nephi 10:5 this Redeemer of the world
• 1 Nephi 11:27 the Redeemer of the world
• 1 Nephi 21:7 the Redeemer of Israel
• Alma 28:8 the Redeemer of all men

Clearly “redeemer of God” would be wrong in Mosiah 13:32: the text is not talking about how God could be redeemed but instead about how mankind would be redeemed, as explained in the following verse:

• Mosiah 13:33
  • for behold did not Moses prophesy unto them concerning the coming of the Messiah and that God should redeem his people

On the other hand, the X in the phrase “redemption of X” can act semantically as either subject or object for the verb redeem:

X as subject (‘X redeems’)

• The Words of Mormon 1:8 the redemption of Christ
• Mosiah 13:32 the redemption of God
• Mosiah 18:13 the redemption of Christ
• Alma 5:15 the redemption of him who created you
• Alma 15:8 the redemption of Christ

X as object (‘X is redeemed’)

• 1 Nephi 1:19 the redemption of the world
• Mosiah 18:2 the redemption of the people
• Alma 42:26 the redemption of men
• Mormon 7:7 the redemption of the world
• Mormon 9:12 the redemption of man
• Mormon 9:13 the redemption of man