Moroni 8:11 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and their little children need no repentance neither baptism behold baptism is unto repentance to the fulfilling the commandments unto the remission of sins

This passage is somewhat difficult to parse. One cannot be sure how “unto the remission of sins” fits in. Is the text saying that “baptism is unto repentance … unto the remission of sins”, or is it referring to “the fulfilling the commandments unto the remission of sins”? Mark Williams (personal communication, 17 May 2004) points out that a later verse in the chapter supports the second, more difficult, interpretation here in verse 11:

In other words, there is a direct link between “fulfilling the commandments” and “remission of sins”. The critical text will show this connection in Moroni 8:11 by placing “fulfilling the commandments” and “remission of sins” on the same line of text and without any intervening punctuation:

There is another passage that can be interpreted as using a similar instance of “fulfilling X unto Y”:

Summary: In Moroni 8:11 the phrase “unto the remission of sins” should probably be interpreted as part of the gerundive phrase “to the fulfilling the commandments”; the passage in Moroni 8:25 provides semantic support for this connection.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 6

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