Alma 30:47 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
but behold it is better that thy soul should be lost than that thou [shouldst 01AIJLMNOPQRST|shouldest BCDEFGHK] be the means of bringing many souls down to destruction

The 1837 edition replaced the one-syllable shouldst with the two-syllable shouldest, but this form has not persisted in the text: the LDS text reverted to the original shouldst in 1879, the RLDS text in 1908. (For a nearby example where the 1837 edition made this same change but with wouldst, see under Alma 30:55.) As discussed under 1 Nephi 20:5, the critical text will maintain in each case of should(e)st the reading found in the earliest textual sources, thus shouldst here in Alma 30:47.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 4

References