Alma 46:24 Textual Variants

There has been considerable variation in the Book of Mormon text regarding the double genitive (that is, noun phrases of the form “X of Y’s”). Sometimes the earliest text reads “X of Y’s”, and sometimes it reads “X of Y”.

For this passage, the earliest text reads “this remnant of garment of my son’s” (the original reading in 𝓞) and “a remnant of the seed of my son” (the reading in 𝓟 since 𝓞 is not extant here). For the first case, 𝓞 actually reads Sons, but this stands for the singular possessive son’s rather than the plural sons (the son here is Joseph of Egypt). Oliver Cowdery initially copied this as Son into 𝓟, but then virtually immediately he inserted the possessive s inline (there is no change in the level of ink flow for the correcting s). Oliver typically wrote possessive noun forms without any apostrophe (see the discussion for the phrase “three days’ journey” under the 1 Nephi preface in part 1 of volume 4). In most cases, the 1830 compositor was able to correctly interpret such cases of final s as possessives. But here in Alma 46:24, the compositor set sons without any apostrophe. Later, when Oliver was proofing the 1830 sheet (the 22nd signature) against 𝓞, he made a correction in pencil to the Sons in 𝓞. But it is not clear what Oliver intended here. He made a rather long vertical pencil stroke through the final s in Sons that can be interpreted as an attempt to either delete the plural s or to add an apostrophe. But whatever Oliver intended here, it was never implemented in the 1830 edition itself since it reads sons, which is what the compositor’s copytext (the printer’s manuscript) read.

For the second case, “a remnant of the seed of my son”, 𝓞 is not extant but 𝓟 reads Son, which the 1830 compositor set as son. Unlike the preceding case of sons, there seems to have been no difficulty with this instance of son during the early transmission of the text, from dictation to the 1830 typesetting.

For all subsequent editions, there has been considerable variation. Not only have there been switches from “X of Y’s” to “X of Y” and vice versa, there has also been mutual influence (or even contamination) between the two original instances of son’s /son. The following chart summarizes the changes the text has undergone here, with shifts set in bold:

The plural sons does not work at all, but it has been difficult to eradicate the plural reading from the text. The critical text will follow the earliest textual sources here, son’s in the first case (by interpreting the Sons in 𝓞 as a possessive singular) and son in the second case.

Elsewhere the manuscripts show considerable variation between the two possibilities, “X of Y” and “X of Y’s”. Since either reading is theoretically possible, the critical text will in each case follow the earliest textual sources in deciding whether the Y should take the possessive s or not. Here I list all the other cases of textual variation involving the double genitive, with an asterisk indicating each case of original “X of Y’s”, the double genitive form:

• Alma 19:16 (“a vision of her father”)
  • on account of a remarkable vision of her [ fathers >% father 1|father ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST]
• Alma 46:33 (“the hands of Moroni”)
  • and the remainder were delivered up into the hands of [Moronis >% Moroni 0|Moroni 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST]
• Alma 55:4 (“a descendant of Laman’s”)
  • that perhaps he might find a man which was a descendant of [Lamman > Lamam > Lamans 0|Laman 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] among them
• Alma 62:6 (“that of Parhoron’s”)
  • and uniting his forces with that of [Pahorons 1|Pahoran ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] they became exceeding strong
• Helaman 1:25 (“this march of Coriantumr’s”)
  • this march of [Coriantumrs 01|Coriantumr ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] through the center of the land
• 3 Nephi 4:8 (“the army of Giddianhi”)
  • when they saw the appearance of the army of [Giddianhis > Giddianhi 1|Giddianhi ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST]

Except for here in Alma 46:24, the printed editions have uniformly favored the form “X of Y” instead of “X of Y’s”. But the earliest textual sources support the possessive form for Y in four cases, namely, the three listed above with asterisks as well as the first instance in Alma 46:24 (“this remnant of garment of my son’s”). It is quite clear that Oliver Cowdery tended to accidentally add the possessive s (in half of the above six cases, the ones not marked with an asterisk), so we need to consider the possibility that the possessive s in the three other cases, the ones marked with an asterisk, as well as the one here in Alma 46:24 (“the remnant of garment of my son’s”), may be accidental. See under each of those passages for the specific analysis.

There are no other phrases in the text that are similar to the first case of the genitive in Alma 46:24 (“the remnant of garment of my son’s”), so it is difficult to tell whether son’s here is a mistake for son. On the other hand, there is some evidence to support the use of the singular son in the second case of the genitive in Alma 46:24 (“a remnant of the seed of my son”), namely, in 2 Nephi 1:32: “the Lord hath consecrated this land for the security of thy seed with the seed of my son”. As with other possible cases of the double genitive in the Book of Mormon, the critical text will accept in Alma 46:24 the earliest reading in the manuscripts, thus the double genitive in the first instance but not in the second:

• Alma 46:24 (earliest extant reading)
  • even as this remnant of garment of my son’s hath been preserved so shall a remnant of the seed of my son be preserved by the hand of God

One final question here deals with the phrase “this remnant of garment of my son’s”, namely, the lack of a determiner for the word garment. Alison Coutts has suggested (personal communication) that in the original text this phrase read “this remnant of the garment of my son’s”, especially since earlier in this verse the text refers to “a part of the remnant of the coat of Joseph”. Moreover, all other instances in the text of singular garment have a determiner, either a (five times) or his (three times). The three instances of “ his garment” are all found nearby, including one at the end of verse 24: “even as the remnant of his garment”. In other words, everywhere else the word garment functions as a count noun; thus one could argue that there should be some determiner for garment in “this remnant of garment of my son’s”. Despite these arguments, we can find evidence in English for garment as a noncount or mass noun, as in the phrase “this piece of garment” (similar to “this remnant of garment”), taken from in an article on the history of the T-shirt:

• John Gibb (2006)
  • this piece of garment allowed the skin to breathe and provided a cooling sensation when worn

The usage here is parallel to “this piece of clothing” (a phrase also used by Gibb in his online article). The critical text will therefore maintain in Alma 46:24 the use of garment without any determiner in “this remnant of garment of my son’s”