Alma 12:17 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and then is the time that they shall be chained down to an everlasting destruction according to the power and captivity of Satan [NULL >jg he 1|he ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] having subjected them according to his will

In preparing the printer’s manuscript for typesetting, the 1830 compositor, John Gilbert, supralinearly inserted in pencil the subject pronoun he before the dependent having-clause, probably because he did not want the reader to misinterpret the preceding pronoun they as the subject for having; obviously, the intended meaning is that Satan was the one subjecting those who had spiritually died. We have evidence that scribe 2 of 𝓟 occasionally omitted the subject pronoun he; for a list, see under Alma 11:2. So it is quite possible that Gilbert’s emendation represents the original text.

Although the he is helpful in Alma 12:17, the question is whether the he is necessary (if so, there must have been an early loss of the subject pronoun). There are examples elsewhere in the text of present-participial clauses that refer to nearby nonsubject words rather than to more distant subject noun phrases, as in the following examples:

The earliest text in Alma 12:17 is therefore possible. Consequently, the critical text will restore the earliest reading: “according to the power and captivity of Satan / having subjected them according to his will”.

Summary: Restore in Alma 12:17 the earliest reading, “according to the power and captivity of Satan / having subjected them according to his will”; the 1830 typesetter supplied the subject pronoun he, but this emendation was unnecessary since elsewhere the text allows such usage.

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

References