Mormon 9:10–11 Textual Variants

The question here in this passage is whether the noun God /god should be capitalized. Basically, the LDS text has ended up capitalizing the word when the reference is to the true God (or to what God is like)—in cases 3 and 4—but leaving the word uncapitalized when it refers to a false god (or to what God is not like)—in cases 1 and 2. The 1908 RLDS edition changed God to god in the third case, while the 1902 LDS missionary edition capitalized all four instances of God /god.

Usage elsewhere in the text supports the capitalization of God in the third case (the only one where the current LDS and RLDS texts differ). In both of the following cases, there is no textual variation in the capitalization of God in the phrase “a God of miracles”:

• 2 Nephi 27:23
  • for behold I am God and I am a God of miracles
• 2 Nephi 28:6
  • if they shall say there is a miracle wrought by the hand of the Lord believe it not for this day he is not a God of miracles

In the last example, the phrase “a God of miracles” occurs in a negative sentence. In addition, the pronoun he refers to the Lord, and the Lord is, of course, a God of miracles, even if someone thinks he isn’t. Obviously, the reference in 2 Nephi 28:6 is to the true God. The problem in Mormon 9:10 is that the reference is to a false god who isn’t a God of miracles (and who is definitely not the God of miracles). However, there is only one God of miracles, so one could argue that the oblique referent in the negative relative clause is to the actual God of miracles. Given this possibility, the critical text will retain the capitalized God in Mormon 9:10 (thus the mixture in capitalization for “a god which is not a God of miracles”). In other words, the critical text will follow the distinction laid out in the LDS text for this passage. Later passages in this chapter of Mormon continue to make this distinction:

• Mormon 9:15
  • and now O all ye that have imagined up unto yourselves a [God 1L|god ABCDEFGHIJKMNOPQRST] which can do no miracles I would ask of you have all these things passed of which I have spoken has the end come yet behold I say unto you nay and God has not ceased to be a God of miracles
• Mormon 9:19
  • and if there was miracles wrought then why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable being and behold I say unto you he changeth not if so he would cease to be God and he ceaseth not to be God and is a God of miracles

Note, however, that in Mormon 9:15 the 1902 LDS edition continued to use the capitalized God (thus “a God which can do no miracles”). For further discussion of the use of capitalization when referring to deity, see under 3 Nephi 3:2.