Mormon 7:7 Textual Variants

Here Joseph Smith changed the singular is to the plural are in his editing for the 1837 edition. Interestingly, this is the only instance in his editing where he made this grammatical emendation. In three other instances referring to the trinity, Joseph retained the expression “which is one (Eternal) God”:

• three-witness statement and the honor be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost which is one God
• 2 Nephi 31:21
  • and now behold this is the doctrine of Christ and the only and true doctrine of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which is one God without end
• Alma 11:44
  • and all shall be brought and be raigned before the bar of Christ the Son and God the Father and the Holy Spirit which [is 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|NULL >jg is 1] one Eternal God

Note that in Alma 11:44 scribe 2 of 𝓟 omitted the is (𝓞 is extant here and has the is ). The 1830 compositor, John Gilbert, prior to setting the type, supralinearly inserted (in light penciling) the is in 𝓟.

The inconsistency of the editing here in Mormon 7:7 suggests that one should not read too much theological motivation into the one case where Joseph Smith made the change to are. He seems to have just been correcting the grammar at that late point in his editing.