Alma 38:9 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and now my son I have told you this that ye [might 0|may 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] learn wisdom that ye may learn of me that there is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved / only in and through Christ

The original manuscript is extant here and reads might in “that ye might learn wisdom”. When Oliver Cowdery copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟, he mistakenly replaced might with may, undoubtedly because of the may in the following clause, “that ye may learn of me”. For a list of other cases where may and might have been mixed up in the history of the text, see under Jacob 5:13.

Summary: Restore might, the reading of the original manuscript in Alma 38:9: “that ye might learn wisdom”.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 4

References