Mosiah 29:32 Textual Variants

There are six occurrences of inequality in the current Book of Mormon text, although in the earliest sources (the manuscripts) the word consistently reads as unequality, here in Mosiah 29:32 and in each of the five other places:

• Alma 4:11–12
  • Alma seeing the wickedness of the church and seeing also that the example of the church began to lead those who were unbelievers on from one piece of iniquity to another thus bringing on the destruction of the people yea seeing great [unequality 1|inequality ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] among the people some lifting themselves up with their pride / despising others turning their backs upon the needy and the naked …
• Alma 4:15
  • and now it came to pass that Alma having seen the afflictions of the humble followers of God and the persecutions which was heaped upon them by the remainder of his people and seeing all their [unequality 1|inequality ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] he began to be very sorrowful
• Alma 16:16
  • and there was no [unequality 1|inequality ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] among them for the Lord did pour out his Spirit on all the face of the land for to prepare the minds of the children of men or to prepare their hearts to receive the word which should be taught among them at the time of his coming
• Alma 28:13
  • and thus we see how great the [unequality 01|inequality ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] of man is because of sin and transgression and the power of the devil which comes by the cunning plans which he hath devised to ensnare the hearts of men
• 3 Nephi 6:13–14
  • some were lifted up in pride and others were exceeding humble some did return railing for railing while others would receive railing and persecution and all manner of afflictions and would not turn and revile again but were humble and penitent before God and thus there became a great [unequality 1|inequality ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] in all the land insomuch that the church began to be broken up

We notice also that all three scribes in 𝓟 (Oliver Cowdery, scribe 2, and Hyrum Smith) wrote unequality rather than inequality. (Hyrum wrote the one here in Mosiah 29:32, scribe 2 the two occurrences in Alma 4, and Oliver Cowdery the remaining three instances, including one that is extant in 𝓞.) The 1830 typesetter replaced all these instances of unequality with the standard inequality.

Earlier English tolerated both inequality and unequality, just as it did the corresponding adjectives inequal and unequal (see under each of these words in the Oxford English Dictionary). Nowadays we have only the inconsistently formed pair inequality and unequal in standard English, but earlier the other two also existed. The OED lists citations for inequal ‘unequal’ that date from 1386 to 1831. The nonstandard unequality has maintained itself longer, with citations in the OED from 1541 through 1973. Numerous examples of unequality can be found in today’s English, as in the title for an essay available for purchase on the Internet: “Unequality Towards Women” (found 5 August 2005 on ). The critical text will assume that the manuscript use of unequality is intended and represents the original text, although there is some possibility that Joseph Smith or his scribes consistently replaced inequality with unequality.

One may wonder if any of the Book of Mormon instances of unequality (or inequality) might be an error for the orthographically and phonetically similar iniquity. Yet the larger context for each of these six instances of unequality /inequality refers to some division among the people. Here in Mosiah 29:32 the division is between the king and the people he rules, as described in the preceding two verses:

• Mosiah 29:30–31
  • and I commanded you to do these things and that ye have no king that if these people commit sins and iniquities they shall be answered upon their own heads for behold I say unto you the sins of many people have been caused by the iniquities of their kings therefore their iniquities are answered upon the heads of their kings

Elsewhere the division described by the word unequality /inequality refers to varying degrees of righteousness or wickedness among the people.

It should also be noted that none of the manuscript examples of unequality have ever been accidentally written as iniquity. And when we consider the numerous occurrences of the word iniquity in the text (a total of 226, including the plural iniquities), there is not one case where the scribe (or a typesetter, for that matter) has accidentally changed iniquity to inequality (or iniquities to inequalities).