1 Nephi 8:1 Textual Variants

The earliest textual sources here have the plural fruits, which is unexpected in standard English. The 1840 edition replaced the plural with the singular fruit. Currently, the LDS text has the singular (introduced in the second printing of the 1852 edition, probably by reference to the 1840 edition). In the 1908 edition, the RLDS text restored the original plural by reference to the printer’s manuscript.

Elsewhere the Book of Mormon has a number of occurrences of the plural fruits, which suggests that the 1840 change in 1 Nephi 8:1 may have been accidental:

• 1 Nephi 15:36
  • and also from that tree of life whose fruit is most precious and most desirable of all other [ fruits 01ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRST|fruit J]
• 1 Nephi 18:6
  • we had prepared all things much fruits and meat from the wilderness
• Mosiah 9:9
  • and we began to till the ground yea even with all manner of seeds with seeds of corn and of wheat and of barley and with neas and with sheum and with seeds of all manner of fruits

Thus there is nothing wrong with the original plural fruits in 1 Nephi 8:1.