1 Nephi 4:8–9 Textual Variants

Scribe 2 of 𝓞 originally wrote down “and when I came to him and found that it was Laban and beheld his sword and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof”. One possibility is that scribe 2 actually wrote down the correct text, which we can syntactically configure as a Hebraism:

and when I came to him and found that it was Laban and beheld his sword
and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof

Here we have an initial when-clause containing three conjoined predicates followed by a main clause but with an intervening conjunction, and. The original text of the Book of Mormon has a good number of Hebraistic examples of a subordinate clause followed by a main clause with a very non-English use of and intervening between the two clauses. One striking example of such a Hebraism is the if-and construction. (See, for instance, 1 Nephi 17:50; or for a complete list, see under hebraisms in volume 3.) Besides the if-and examples, there are also examples of when - clauses that have the intervening and before the main clause. In the following list, the Hebrew-like and is marked with an arrow. Unlike the if-and examples, only some of the when-and examples have been edited out of the text:

• Alma 8:13 (1830 editing)
  •   now when the people had said this and had withstood all his words
      and reviled him and spit upon him
      and caused that he should be cast out of their city
    → [and 1| ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] he departed thence
      and took his journey towards the city which was called Aaron
• Alma 32:38 (Joseph Smith’s editing for the 1837 edition)
  •   and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it
    → [& 0|& >js NULL 1|and A| BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST]
      because it hath no root it withereth away
• Helaman 5:43 (1920 editing)
  •   and it came to pass that when they cast their eyes about
      and saw that the cloud of darkness was dispersed from overshadowing them
    → [& 1|and ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS| RT] behold they saw that
      they were encircled about—yea every soul—by a pillar of fire
• 3 Nephi 8:19 (original and retained)
  •   and it came to pass that
      when the thunderings and the lightnings and the storm and the tempest
      and the quakings of the earth did cease
      —for behold they did last for about the space of three hours
      and it was said by some that the time was greater
      nevertheless all these great and terrible things were done
      in about the space of three hours—
    → and then behold there was darkness upon the face of the land
• 3 Nephi 12:1 (original and retained)
  •   and it came to pass that
      when Jesus had spake these words unto Nephi
      and to those which had been called
      —now the number of them
      which had been called and received power and authority to baptize
      were twelve—
    → and behold he stretched forth his hand unto the multitude
      and cried unto them saying …
• 3 Nephi 23:8 (1830 editing; and supplied by Oliver Cowdery while proofing 𝓟 against 𝓞)
  •   and when Nephi had brought forth the records and laid them before him
    → [𝓢① NULL > 𝓢② & 1| ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST]
      he cast his eyes upon them and saith …
• Mormon 6:11 (original and retained)
  •   and when they had gone through and hewn down all my people
      save it were twenty and four of us—among whom was my son Moroni—
    → and we having survived the dead of our people did behold on the morrow …
• Ether 15:15 (John Gilbert’s editing for the 1830 edition)
  •   and it came to pass that when they were all gathered together
      every one to the army which he would
      with their wives and their children
      both men women and children being armed with weapons of war
      having shields and breastplates and headplates
      and being clothed after the manner of war
    → [& >jg NULL 1| ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] they did march forth
      one against another to battle

In most of these examples, the when-clause is long and complex, with several conjoined or parenthetical clauses. The proposed example of when-and here in 1 Nephi 4:8–9 seems to be fairly simple: its conjoined predicates are all short, like the examples in Alma 32:38 and 3 Nephi 23:8.

But one serious drawback to this proposed when-clause is that it includes completely new narrative information (namely, “and found that it was Laban and beheld his sword”). When we look at other narrative when-clauses, we find that the significant new information comes in the main clause, not in the when-clause. (See the examples listed above as well as the example in Alma 47:27 discussed later in this analysis.) These examples suggest that the original text in 1 Nephi 4:8–9 is probably not a Hebraistic when-and construction.

So if scribe 2’s original sentence is unacceptable, what about the two manuscript corrections? The first change occurred when scribe 2 later corrected the initial manuscript reading by overwriting the ampersand before the verb found with the pronoun I (“I found that it was Laban”). The resulting I, written with heavier ink flow, is considerably larger than normal and extends into the margin of the manuscript.

Yet even with this editing by scribe 2, the resulting text is still awkward. So this continuing difficulty led to the second change: when Oliver Cowdery copied the text into 𝓟, he added the pronoun I before the verb beheld (“and I beheld his sword”). Elsewhere, we have one other case where scribe 2 of 𝓞 temporarily omitted the subject pronoun I:

• 1 Nephi 14:28
  • [& 01|And ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] behold [NULL >– I 0|I 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] Nephi am forbidden that I should write the remainder of the things which I saw

In this instance, scribe 2 caught his error and inserted the I supralinearly (but with considerably weaker ink flow).

One final possibility in 1 Nephi 4:8–9 is that scribe 2 actually overwrote the wrong &. Perhaps the intended text was “and when I came to him and found that it was Laban / I beheld his sword and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof”. The only problem with this interpretation is that the resulting syntax implies that the reader already knows that the person lying in the street is Laban. As already noted, using a when-clause in this way seems wholly inappropriate to the narrative. Comparable usage elsewhere in the text works because the reader already knows what has happened:

• Alma 47:27
  • and when they had come to the spot and found the king lying in his gore Amalickiah pretended to be wroth and said …

In this passage the reader already knows that Amalickiah’s servant has killed the Lamanite king.

Oliver Cowdery’s insertion of the pronoun I in 𝓟 is probably correct since the earlier text (“I found that it was Laban and beheld his sword”) oddly conjoins beheld with found rather than with the most recent verb was. Elsewhere in the text, whenever we have a sentence with the pasttense form found followed by a that-clause, the only possible conjoined clause is another that-clause:

• Mosiah 21:24
  • but when he found that they were not but that they were his brethren and had come from the land of Zarahemla he was filled with exceeding great joy
• Alma 31:12
  • now when they had came into the land behold to their astonishment they found that the Zoramites had built synagogues and that they did gather themselves together on one day of the week

Thus the evidence all suggests that the current reading for 1 Nephi 4:8–9 is probably the correct one, despite its contorted textual history.