Alma 11:17–19 Textual Variants

Somehow the 1830 typesetter switched the order of these two sentences, placing the specific statement regarding the antion of gold after the summarizing statement “now this is their number according to their reckoning”. The fact that both sentences begin with now probably played a role in causing this confusion. Both the original and printer’s manuscripts support the original order. Obviously, the statement regarding the antion of gold belongs with the preceding statements that specify the values for all the other monetary units (found in verses 7 through 17). In accord with the reading in 𝓟, the 1908 RLDS edition restored the original order of the sentences to the RLDS text. Restoring the correct order to the LDS text will require switching the verse numbers: verse 18 will become verse 19 and vice versa (the corresponding verse numbers for the current RLDS text are 62 and 63 and are, of course, in the right order).

In this passage the 1830 typesetter also misspelled shiblons as shublons. This error was first corrected in the 1840 edition and later in the 1920 LDS edition. (See the following discussion under Alma 11:19.) In general, it was very difficult for the scribes and the 1830 typesetter to correctly transmit the unfamiliar names for the monetary units. We have textual variation for shilum, shiblon, senine, seon, amnor, ezrum, and onti; and for two of these, ezrum and shilum, all the printed editions have read incorrectly, as ezrom and shiblum:

ezrum, not ezrom (ezrom is due to confusion with Zeezrom)
shilum, not shiblum (the extra b is due to confusion with shiblon)

We should also note the consistency in the endings for these names:

four names end in -um: shilum, senum, shum, and ezrum
three names end in -on: shiblon, antion, and seon

This consistency gives further support for the original spellings ezrum and seon.

Verses 7–17, 19 define a set of exchange rates between the various units. Besides using precious metals of gold and silver for exchange, the Nephites set rates for grains (although barley is the only grain specifically mentioned):

In the text proper, the gold and silver units are referred to as pieces, not coins: “now these are the names of the different pieces of their gold and of their silver according to their value” (Alma 11:4). Here in Alma 11, there is no specific evidence for a coin system (that is, minted pieces of precious metal, with images or writing, perhaps the stipulated weight, on the pieces). The noncanonical chapter summary for Alma 11 has traditionally referred to these monetary units as coins or coinage:

The use of the word coin was also used in the primitive tables of contents (referred to as “reference(s)” or “index”) that were added to copies of some of the early Book of Mormon editions (which had no versification system and thus needed some kind of help in finding passages):

The word coin, of course, claims more than what the text actually says. Interestingly, the 1981 chapter summary has been changed in the recently published Doubleday edition of the Book of Mormon (2004) to read “The Nephite monetary system set forth” (the text for this edition was provided by the LDS Church).