Today I started to read the Penguin Classic, The Book of Mormon. This is a new addition to the Penguin Classics, and was published in 2008.

It is a copy of the 1840 edition which was the last of three revisions edited by Joseph Smith. He died in 1844. This was his final edit to correct grammatical errors and words that he felt were copied incorrectly. There were hundreds of different 1830 copies around, but Penguin chose this 1840 edition because they wanted it to be closest to what Joseph Smith translated.

Of interest is the one word change from the 1830 editions to the 1840.  Joseph changed one word for better clarification.

One word that had a big impact.

In 2 Nephi he writes bout the Lamanites that had repented and come to accept Christ–

“And their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes: and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and delightsome people.”  

In the 1840 edition Joseph changed “white” to “pure” which he must have done to clarify that people of lighter complexion were not more righteous than those of darker complexion.

LDS editors , until 1981, used an 1830 edition which had the word “white.” Since 1981, the text has read as Joseph had originally intended.

Words often have different meanings at different times in history. I still remember watching TV where white cowboy hats versus black cowboy hats were just the good guys versus the bad guys.

Or words like “cool” and “sweet” can also mean, “nice,” “thumbs-up,” “beautiful,”  “wonderful,”  but not “cold” and “sugary.”

And “scales”–what did that mean in 1840?

Funny that the church took so long to correct what Joseph had so long ago made more clear.