1 Nephi 8:27 Textual Variants

The original manuscript definitely reads up rather than at. The u was partially overwritten, which permitted it to be interpreted as an a. The p occurs at the end of the line and is somewhat distorted, but nonetheless the descender of the p is clearly visible.

The preposition up works much better than at. We expect some kind of object to directly follow the preposition at, but there is none here. On the other hand, the adverbial up needs no complement. Elsewhere there are 44 occurrences in the Book of Mormon of the phrasal verb “to come up”, but none of the hypothetical phrasal verb “to come at”. Moreover, Lehi’s dream continually refers to people coming and partaking of the fruit of the tree of life:

• 1 Nephi 8:11 I did go forth and partook of the fruit thereof
• 1 Nephi 8:15 that they should come unto me and partake of the fruit
• 1 Nephi 8:16 they did come unto me and partake of the fruit also
• 1 Nephi 8:17 that Laman and Lemuel should come and partake of the fruit also
• 1 Nephi 8:18 they would not come unto me and partake of the fruit
• 1 Nephi 8:24 they did come forth and partook of the fruit of the tree
• 1 Nephi 8:27 towards those which had came up and were partaking of the fruit
• 1 Nephi 8:30 they came forth and fell down and partook of the fruit of the tree

There are five examples of the phrasal verb “to come at” in the King James Bible; but in each case the meaning is ‘to approach’ and the at always takes a noun-phrase complement (such as “come not at your wives” in Exodus 19:15 and “and could not come at him for the press” in Luke 8:19).