Alma 17:8 Textual Variants

Here in Alma 17:8, Oliver Cowdery added in pencil, not ink, the postmodifying phrase of God after “the word”. Evidence suggests that whenever we get a correction in 𝓟 in pencil, that editing appears to have occurred in the print shop and without reference to the original manuscript (a list of examples is found under Alma 10:28). As discussed under 2 Nephi 4:13–14, the text of the Book of Mormon frequently refers to the word of God or the word of the Lord as simply “the word”. When the verb is preach (as here in Alma 17:8), the text is otherwise nearly equally divided between “to preach the word” and “to preach the word of God”, with 17 occurrences of the first and 18 of the second (there are no instances of “to preach the word of the Lord”). And for every one of the other cases of “to preach the word (of God)”, the phrase has been invariant in the history of the text. So one might ask, why was of God added here in Alma 17:8? One possibility is that elsewhere in this chapter there are cases of only “the word of God”, never of just “the word”:

• Alma 17 preface  which rejected their rights to the kingdom for the word of God
• Alma 17:2  that they might know the word of God
• Alma 17:4  and they had been teaching the word of God
• Alma 17:12  to declare unto them the word of God
• Alma 17:14  for they had undertaken to preach the word of God
• Alma 17:17  according to the word and power of God
• Alma 17:18  having imparted the word of God unto them

And in one of these cases, Oliver omitted the phrase of God when he initially wrote the text in 𝓟, but virtually immediately he made the correction to “the word of God” by supralinearly inserting of God (in this case there is no change in the level of ink flow):

• Alma 17:12
  • and it came to pass that the hearts of the sons of Mosiah and also those which were with them took courage to go forth unto the Lamanites to declare unto them the word [NULL > of God 1|of God ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST]

The two corrections to “the word of God” (in verses 8 and 12) appear on the same page of 𝓟 (page 211), where the penciled-in of God (for Alma 17:8) is found at the end of line 16 while the virtually immediately corrected of God (in Alma 17:12) is found near the middle of line 31. One reasonable hypothesis is that while in the print shop, Oliver noticed on line 31 the correction of “the word” to “the word of God” and therefore decided that the occurrence of “the word” at the end of line 16 was also an error and should have of God added to it as well.

Given the secondary nature of penciled-in corrections in 𝓟 (and 𝓞, for that matter), the critical text will reject the intrusive of God that Oliver Cowdery added to “the word” in Alma 17:8. On the other hand, the virtually immediate correction in Alma 17:12 will be accepted.