Helaman 15:7 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
yea the prophecies of the holy prophets which are written which leadeth them to faith [on 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRST|in N] the Lord

The Book of Mormon text has examples of both “faith on someone” and “faith in someone”; in fact, in every case that someone is the Lord. Yet the text is almost totally systematic in its choice of on or in in terms of the specific words used to refer to the Lord:

faith in X (36 times)

Christ 14 times

him 9 times

me 5 times

God 4 times

the Holy One of Israel 1 time

Jesus Christ 1 time

my Well Beloved 1 time

the Lamb of God 1 time

faith on X (13 times)

the Lord Jesus Christ 6 times

the Lord 5 times

the Son of God 1 time

the Lamb of God 1 time

The only case where there is actual variation is with “the Lamb of God”, with one instance of “faith in the Lamb of God” (1 Nephi 12:10) and one of “faith on the Lamb of God” (Alma 7:14). But for the specific phrase the Lord, the text strongly supports on, not in (5 to 0); thus the original reading here in Helaman 15:7 is completely appropriate.

There is more choice when comparing the phrases “faith in something” and “faith on something”. For discussion of variation in the preposition for those cases of “faith in/on his name”, see under Moroni 7:38 (where the original text read “faith in his name” but the 1874 RLDS edition changed the preposition to on).

Summary: Maintain in Helaman 15:7 the original use of on in the phrase “faith on the Lord”; elsewhere the text systematically supports the preposition on, not in, for the specific phrase the Lord.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 5

References