1 Nephi 5:21 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and we had obtained the [record 01ABCDEGHKPS|records FIJLMNOQRT] which the Lord had commanded us and searched them and found that they were desirable yea even of great worth unto us

The earliest textual sources have the singular record, but the context uses the plural pronouns they and them to refer to this record. (The plural pronoun is also found in the following verse: “wherefore it was wisdom in the Lord that we should carry them with us”). This repeated plural usage suggests that perhaps the singular record is a scribal error for the plural records. As noted under 1 Nephi 4:5, scribe 3 of 𝓞 tended to accidentally drop the plural s, so perhaps this is one more example of that tendency. For the 1852 LDS edition, record was emended to records, and the LDS text has followed this plural reading ever since.

There is specific evidence that the Book of Mormon scribes had problems choosing between record and records:

We note here that Oliver Cowdery made mistakes in both directions, while scribe 2 of 𝓟 tended to write the plural when the singular is intended. For further discussion, see each specific passage.

Despite the evidence for scribal error, there is opposing evidence that the text itself can switch between the singular and plural when referring to “the record(s)”. In particular, the writer may switch to a plural pronoun after referring to “the record” since that record would have been written on plates. (Of course, the text always refers to plates in the plural, never to an individual plate.) In the following examples, one passage uses the singular pronoun it to refer to a plural records, but the other three passages use the plural pronoun they or them to refer to a singular record:

Part of the shifting in usage may also derive from the semantics of the word record. Often the singular record is used in a collective sense, while the plural records is used to refer to physical plates. The text sometimes switches from one to the other within the same passage, as in the instance when Jesus asked Nephi to get the Nephite record(s):

This passage involves some textual variation. See the discussion under 3 Nephi 23:7.

Summary: Since it is possible to switch between record and records within the same passage, it is probably best to follow the earliest textual sources in 1 Nephi 5:21 and restore the original singular (“we had obtained the record”); nonetheless, there is considerable evidence that Book of Mormon scribes had difficulty in choosing between record and records.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 1

References