2 Nephi 10:23 Textual Variants

Jacob’s discourse is split into two separate parts, given on separate days (originally chapters V–VI and chapter VII, now 2 Nephi 6–9 and 2 Nephi 10 in the LDS text). At the end of the first part, Jacob explains that “on the morrow I will declare unto you the remainder of my words” (2 Nephi 9:54). Then near the end of the second part of this discourse (in 2 Nephi 10:23), Jacob suddenly refers to “this way of everlasting death” (according to the reading in 𝓟). But his discussion of the everlasting spiritual death came in the first part of his discourse (in 2 Nephi 9:15–19) and on the previous day; thus his use of this when referring to the way of everlasting death here in 2 Nephi 10:23 seems out of place. This difficulty undoubtedly motivated the 1830 typesetter to change the this to the. And we should also note the resulting parallelism in the 1830 typesetter’s emendation: “the way of everlasting death and the way of eternal life”; the parallelism is clearly weakened by the conjoining of “this way” with “the way”. Jacob’s language elsewhere in this discourse shows a high degree of parallelism, as in the following example that also deals with death and eternal life:

• 2 Nephi 9:39
  • to be carnally minded is death and to be spiritually minded is life eternal

We do not have the original manuscript for 2 Nephi 10:23, but it is possible that the original text actually read the. This kind of error (of this replacing the) is typical of Oliver Cowdery’s manuscript work, as exemplified by the following examples:

• Alma 50:28 (this corrected to the by erasure in 𝓞)
  • [this >% the 0|the 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] people of Morionton
• Alma 52:10 (this corrected to the by erasure in 𝓞)
  • that quarter of [this >% the 0|the 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] land
• Alma 56:17 (the in 𝓞 miscopied as this in 𝓟)
  • [the 0|this 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] little force which I brought with me
• Helaman 13:15 (this corrected to the in 𝓟 without change in the level of ink flow)
  • [this > the 1|the ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] city of Gideon

In three cases Oliver caught his error and immediately corrected it, but in one case (in Alma 56:17) he didn’t. Thus it is very possible here in 2 Nephi 10:23 that Oliver could have also miscopied an original “the way of everlasting death” in 𝓞 as “this way of everlasting death” in 𝓟.

It should also be noted that nowhere else in the text do we get the demonstratives this or that as the determiner for way. Of course, there are many examples with the as the determiner for way (79 times in the earliest textual sources). In particular, we also have the as the determiner for way in two passages that contrast the way of life and the way of death:

• 3 Nephi 14:13–14 (identical to Matthew 7:13–14)
  • enter ye in at the strait gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it
• 3 Nephi 27:33
  • enter ye in at the strait gate for strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it but wide is the gate and broad the way which leads to death and many there be that traveleth therein until the night cometh wherein no man can work

The first passage directly quotes from the Sermon on the Mount and uses the word destruction instead of death. But the second passage is more paraphrastic and specifically associates the words life and death with the way.

Overall, the emendation made by the 1830 compositor seems to be appropriate on several counts, especially since scribal evidence shows that Oliver Cowdery sometimes accidentally wrote this in place of the.