Alma 7:20–21 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
neither doth he vary from that which he hath said neither hath he a shadow of turning from the right to the left [or 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRT|nor S] from that which is right [or >% to 1|to ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] that which is wrong therefore his course is one eternal round [𝓢① NULL > 𝓢② & 1|And ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] he doth not dwell in unholy temples neither can filthiness [or 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRT|nor S] any thing which is unclean be received into the kingdom of God

In this passage, the 1953 RLDS edition edited two instances of or to nor. In both instances, the original or seems to be an explanatory or (meaning ‘in other words’). The or-phrase following “from the right to the left” thus explains that this metaphoric usage means “from that which is right to that which is wrong”. Similarly, the second or-phrase explains filthiness as “any thing which is unclean”. In these instances, or is not equivalent to nor: the two 1953 changes to nor make the following phrases contrastive rather than explanatory. One clear piece of evidence that the original manuscript itself read or rather than nor (at least in the first case) is the momentary scribal error that occurred when scribe 2 of 𝓟 initially wrote “or that which is wrong”. He would not have written or by mistake unless he had just read “or from that which is right”. In this instance, scribe 2 immediately caught his error, erased the or, and overwrote the erasure with to.

Also in this passage, scribe 2 of 𝓟 seems to have omitted an and before the clause “he doth not dwell in unholy temples”. Oliver Cowdery, when proofing 𝓟 against 𝓞, supplied the and by supralinearly inserting an ampersand. Since either reading, with or without the and, works, Oliver’s correction was probably not the result of editing on his part.

Summary: Maintain in Alma 7:20–21 the two original instances of or; the conjunction or is here used to provide explanation, not contrast; also maintain the connective and that Oliver Cowdery supplied when he proofed 𝓟 against 𝓞.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 3

References