Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Royal Skousen on Alma 29:4 and "yea decreeth unto them decreed which are unalterable"

  

The 1837 edition accidentally omitted the parenthetical yea-clause, "yea decreeth unto them decreed which are unalterable." this clause was restored in the 1908 RLDS edition and in the 1981 LDS edition. Perhaps the 1837 typesetter was influenced by the phraseology earlier in this verse: "he granteth unto men according to their desires", thus leading him to set "he allotteth unto men according to their wills" (as noted in the previous discussion, the 1830 edition read men rather than the original man). The placement of the text in the 1830 edition (the copytext for the 1837 typesetter) facilitated the omission since the word according occurs at the end of the line and right below unto men in the preceding line:

 

Alma 29:4 (1830 typesetting, line for line; bolding added)

death or unto life; yea I know that he allotteth unto men, yea,

decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according

to their wills; whether it be unto salvation or unto destruc- (Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, 2202)