Alma 8:20 Textual Variants

Here the earliest textual sources read “thou will”, which was changed to the standard biblical “thou wilt” in the 1841 British edition. The LDS text has retained this corrected reading, but the RLDS text has maintained the nonstandard “thou will”. Here we may have an early error in the transmission of the text. In 48 cases the text has an invariant reading for the standard “thou wilt”, but in 5 cases “thou wilt” has been replaced with “thou will” in at least one printed edition:

• 1 Nephi 1:14 (error first in the 1905 LDS edition)
  • thou [wilt 1ABCDEFGHIJKLNPRST|will MOQ] not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish
• Alma 20:22 (error in the 1849 LDS edition)
  • behold I will smite thee except thou [wilt 1ABCDFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|will E] grant unto me that my brethren may be cast out of prison
• Alma 20:24 (error in the 1841 British edition)
  • if thou [wilt 1ABCEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|will D] grant that my brethren may be cast out of prison
• Alma 32:17 (error in the 1840 edition)
  • if thou [wilt 01ABDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|will C] show unto us a sign from heaven
• Helaman 9:20 (error first in the 1837 edition)
  • if thou [wilt 1AHIJKLMNOPQRST|will BCDEFG] tell us

Thus the manuscript occurrence of will in Alma 8:20 may very well represent an early error in the transmission of the text.

Nonetheless, there are two instances of “thou will” in Alma 22:16 that are in the original text, it would appear. In that passage, there are three verbs in two if-clauses that consistently read in the subjunctive in the earliest extant reading (the printer’s manuscript): “if thou will bow down before God / yea if thou repent of all thy sins and will bow down before God”. See Alma 22:16 for discussion of these instances of “thou will”. More generally, as discussed under Mosiah 12:11, there is evidence that the original text contained a few instances of indicative “thou shall” in addition to the standard “thou shalt”. Thus the critical text will allow instances of “thou will” whenever the earliest textual evidence supports such a nonstandard reading. For a complete discussion of “thou will” and “thou shall”, see under infl al endings in volume 3.

The online Oxford English Dictionary gives 39 instances of thou will and 337 of thou wilt (accessed on 28 November 2005); thus we get will rather than wilt about 10 percent of the time. Wycliffe’s New Testament, dating from 1388, consistently has “thou will” instead of “thou wilt”, as in these examples (accidentals ignored):

• Matthew 8:2 if thou will / thou may make me clean
• Matthew 15:28 be it done to thee as thou will
• Mark 6:22 ask thou of me what thou will

For the citations, see pages 16, 36, and 84 in The Wycliffe New Testament (1388), edited by W. R. Cooper (London: The British Library, 2002). Also compare these results with those of “thou shall” as discussed under Mosiah 12:11.