Alma 56 ᔢ Alma 56:1 And now it came to pass in the commencement of the thirtieth year of the reign of the judges [in 01ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|on RT] the second day [on 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|of > on 1|in RT] the first month . The earliest text (in © and ® as well as in all the early editions) reads “in the second day on the first month”, which the editors for the 1920 LDS edition emended to “on the second day in the first month”, consistent with what we expect in English and also generally consistent with usage else- where in the Book of Mormon text. It is quite possible that the original manuscript is in error, that somehow the two prepositions in and on got mixed up early on in the transmission of the text. On the other hand, there is some evidence in the Book of Mormon text for the use of in for days and on for months. To begin with, there is one other example of “in the Xth day” in the earliest text: 3 Nephi 8:5 (in edited to on in the 1920 LDS edition) in the thirty and fourth year in the first month [in 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|on RT] the fourth day of the month there arose a great storm © is not extant here, but since ® and the 1830 edition are firsthand copies of © here and both read in, most likely © also read in. One could argue, though, that this in in 3 Nephi 8:5 was the result of the preceding two occurrences of in: “in the thirty and fourth year in the first month”. Otherwise, the Book of Mormon has “on the Xth day”, but there are only four examples: 1 Nephi 18:14 on the fourth day which we had been driven back Alma 14:23 on the twelfth day in the tenth month in the tenth year Alma 16:1 on the fifth day of the second month Alma 49:1 on the tenth day of the month We can view these meager statistics (two versus four) as allowing variation between “on the Xth day” and “in the Xth day” in the Book of Mormon text. Also note that the King James Bible has the same kind of variation, with 54 occurrences of “in the Xth day” and 131 of “on the Xth day” (plus 10 of “upon the Xth day”). For example, Exodus 12:3 reads “in the tenth day of this month”. The critical text will therefore restore the original occurrence of “in the Xth day” in Alma 56:1 (“in the second day”) as well as in 3 Nephi 8:5 (“in the fourth day”). There is no evidence for “on the Yth month” in the King James Bible, but there is some evi- dence for its use elsewhere in the Book of Mormon. Later on in this chapter of Alma, we have this example for which on is extant in ©: analysis of textual variants of the book of mormon [ 2717 ] Alma 56 Alma 56:42 (on edited to of in the 1920 LDS edition) and it was in the morning of the third day [on 01ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|of RT] the seventh month The use of of here for on is similar to the momentary change Oliver Cowdery made in Alma 56:1 when he copied the text from © into ®; there he initially wrote “in the second day of the first month”, but then virtually immediately he corrected the of to on, the reading in © (there is no di›erence in ink flow for the crossout of the of and the supralinear insertion of the on). There are no other instances in the Book of Mormon of “on the Yth month”, only six examples of “in the Yth month” and three examples of “of the Yth month”: Alma 14:23 on the twelfth day in the tenth month in the tenth year Alma 16:1 on the fifth day of the second month Alma 16:1 until the fifth day of the second month Alma 49:1 in the eleventh month of the nineteenth year Alma 52:1 on the first morning of the first month Alma 56:27 in the second month of this year 3 Nephi 4:7 in the sixth month 3 Nephi 4:11 in this the sixth month 3 Nephi 8:5 in the thirty and fourth year in the first month There is one other case of on with month which has not been edited to in: 3 Nephi 3:8 but if ye will not do this I swear unto you with an oath that on the morrow month I will command that my armies shall come down against you Here we have on rather than in. The original manuscript is not extant for this particular preposi- tion, but both ® and the 1830 edition read on, which means that © most likely also read on since in 3 Nephi both ® and the 1830 edition are firsthand copies of ©. It could be argued that on is used here because of the frequency of the archaic phrase “on the morrow” in the Book of Mormon (37 times). In fact, everywhere else in the text morrow means ‘on the next day’; only here in 3 Nephi 3:8 does it mean simply ‘next’. The Oxford English Dictionary does not list this generalized meaning for morrow, although it gives morrow day, meaning ‘the next day’, with citations beginning in Middle English. We have various examples on Literature Online <lion.chadwyck.com> of morrow day from Early Modern English up into the 1800s (accidentals here regularized): Rheims Bible (1582) the morrow day shall be careful for itself Thomas Fenne (1590) before the morrow day William Wyrley (1592) the morrow day when blushing sun did rise Henry Lok (1597) if he the morrow day shall see John Keats (1819) until the morrow day According to <www.google.com>, there are infrequent examples in current English of morrow month, but apparently only in artificial, archaic-sounding language (such as “Good tide hammer, we’ll see you brightly in morrow month!” and “We shall reminisce come the morrow month”). [ 2718 ] analysis of textual variants of the book of mormon Alma 56 More generally, there is the occasional example in earlier English of “on the Yth month”, as in this one from Literature Online (spelling regularized but not punctuation or capitalization): William Sherlock (1685) As for the Passover, let our Reconciler consider again whether the observation of it on the second month by those who were unclean, or in a journey on the first month, was a violation of what God had prescribed, when God himself had expressly prescribed it. The critical text will therefore restore the original prepositions in Alma 56:1, Alma 56:42, and 3 Nephi 8:5. Although “in the Xth day” and “on the Yth month” are strange for modern English, the original text seems to have had an occasional example of such usage. Summary: Restore the preposition in for the phrase “in the Xth day” and the preposition on for the phrase “on the Yth month” wherever they occur in the earliest extant text: in Alma 56:1 (“in the second day on the first month”), in Alma 56:42 (“in the morning of the third day on the seventh month”), and in 3 Nephi 8:5 (“in the fourth day of the month”). ᔢ Alma 56:3 now ye have known that these were [a desendant 01|a descendant ABCDEPS|descendants FGHIJKLMNOQRT] of Laman As discussed under 1 Nephi 6:2, the original text had four examples of the phrase “a descendant of X” in reference to a plural subject, as here in Alma 56:3 (“these were a descendant of Laman”). These four examples have all been edited to “descendants of X”, but the critical text will restore the original singular usage. ᔢ Alma 56:5 therefore it [supficeth 0|supposeth 1ABDEPS|su¤ceth CGHIJKLMNOQRT| supposeth > su¤ceth F] me that I tell you that two thousand of these young men hath taken their weapons of war and would that I should be their leader © is extant for this part of the text and reads supficeth, Oliver Cowdery’s miswriting of su¤ceth. Three other times in the manuscripts Oliver miswrote › as pf: Alma 56:8 (su›er as supfer twice in ©) but I would not [supfer 0|su›er 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] them that they should break this covenant which they had made supposing that God would strengthen us insomuch that we should not [supfer 0|su›er 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] more because of the fulfilling the oath which they had taken analysis of textual variants of the book of mormon [ 2719 ] Alma 56 Moroni 7:6 (pro¤teth as propfiteth in ®) except he shall do it with real intent it [propfiteth 1|profiteth ABCEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|pro¤teth D] him nothing Regarding the last example, Oliver Cowdery sometimes spelled profit with two f ’s, as pro¤t, which would then make the miswriting propfit possible: Alma 58:5 but behold this did not [pro¤t 0|profit 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] us but little Moroni 7:9 yea and it [pro¤teth 1|profiteth ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] him nothing Moroni 10:8 and they are given by the manifestations of the Spirit of God unto men to [pro¤t 1|profit ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] them The problem with the miswriting supfiseth here in Alma 56:5 is that it led Oliver Cowdery to misread that word as supposeth when he copied the text from © into ®. The 1830 edition followed this secondary reading, as did the second edition (1837) and the first two British editions (1841 and 1849).