A message from Daniel C. Peterson, Chairman and President of The Interpreter Foundation:
Speaking on behalf of the Interpreter Foundation, I can say that it’s a great honor and a privilege for the Foundation to host Volume 4 of Royal Skousen’s Book of Mormon Critical Text project (Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, or ATV) on its website.1 And it’s a personal pleasure to me that we’re in a position to do so.
Ideally, those who are seriously interested in the text and textual history of the Book of Mormon will obtain and use the printed version of Volume 4. But having this work easily accessible online will, in my judgment, be very helpful to both serious students and others.
I’ve long considered Professor Skousen’s project one of the most impressive scholarly undertakings in the history of the Restoration, and, given its subject matter alone, it’s plainly among the most significant.
Professor Skousen’s desire, in providing an online version of ATV, is for people to be familiar with the history of the changes and the various arguments for and against any given change, so that they can become responsible participants in the discussion that has surrounded his project. He has been a tireless, careful, and meticulous worker, and no change listed in ATV or in his Yale edition of The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text has been made on a whim.2 A few critics have claimed that some of his changes are indefensible and unjustified. That’s fine, but they need to show that, to argue for it, not just to declare it. His arguments are out there. They have been, for years. Heretofore, though, they’ve been fully accessible only via six large, printed volumes. But now they’re readily available online. So let the informed discussion begin!
Daniel C. Peterson
7 October 2014
2. Royal Skousen, ed., The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).
To view each book in the volume, click on the links below:
Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part One: 1 Nephi – 2 Nephi 10
Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part Two: 2 Nephi 11 – Mosiah 16
Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part Three: Mosiah 17 – Alma 20
Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part Four: Alma 21 – 55
Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part Five: Alma 56 – 3 Nephi 18
Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part Six: 3 Nephi 19 – Moroni 10
© 2014 Royal Skousen. All rights reserved.
