Mosiah 10:18 Textual Variants

The phrase “this many years” is unusual in modern English, although it is not impossible; normally, we expect the plural these instead of the singular this for the plural many years. Here in Mosiah 10:18, the number for the demonstrative modifier was changed in the 1920 LDS edition. Elsewhere, there is one passage that contains two occurrences of the more expected “these many years”:

• 1 Nephi 17:20–21
  • and we have wandered in the wilderness for these many years … behold these many years we have suffered in the wilderness

But interestingly, there is one more example in the earliest text of “this many years”:

• Ether 3:3
  • and for [this 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|these RT] many years we have been in the wilderness

And once more, the 1920 LDS edition made the change from this to these. The earliest text is evenly divided in its use of “this many years” and “these many years”.

The phraseology “this many years” can be found earlier in English, as in the following example from the online Oxford English Dictionary (see definition 7 under the noun stand ):

• Richard Flecknoe (1664)
  • We began before them, and if since they seem to have out-stript us, ’tis because our Stage ha’s stood at a stand this many years.

In addition, 30 examples of “this many years” can be found on Literature Online (available at ), with the citations clumping within two time periods: 18 citations from 1605 through 1717 and 12 more from 1815 through 1883. It is clear that there is nothing inappropriate about the use of the phrase “this many years”, despite its conflict in number. The critical text will therefore accept the use of “this many years” in the Book of Mormon text whenever it is supported by the earliest textual sources.