Scribe 3 of 𝓞 wrote bare for the present-tense bear and the past-tense bare (both are pronounced as /ber/ in modern English). Often, however, scribe 3’s a looks like an o, as here with bare, with the result that Oliver Cowdery copied the verb as bore into 𝓟. The simple past-tense form bore is, of course, what we expect in modern English, while bare is the archaic simple past-tense form. In the King James Bible, only bare is found for the simple past-tense form of the verb bear.
Evidence that scribe 3’s a can look like an o is abundant. In the transcript of 𝓞 (see line 17 on page 16 of 𝓞), the word is transcribed as b[a|o]re. On the very next line (line 18), the word tasted is found, yet in the actual manuscript the a is written more like an o, but tasted was not transcribed as tosted since clearly that was not what scribe 3 intended. In the same manner, scribe 3’s o’s often look like a’s. See, for instance, the o in the thou that immediately follows tasted (also on line 18): the word looks more like thau than thou.
Except for the case of bare here in 1 Nephi 11:7, scribe 3’s other occurrences of bare (standing for either bear or bare) are clearly written with an a vowel and are therefore transcribed as simply bare:
There are three other occurrences of bore in the current LDS edition (although in the RLDS text, the first of these maintains the earlier bare):
In all other cases where the simple past-tense form is expected, the textual evidence firmly supports bare rather than bore. First, there are four clear cases where the verb of the original text must be interpreted as the past-tense form bare:
Second, there are 11 other cases where the context requires a past-tense interpretation, and in each of these cases the scribal evidence argues once more for bare rather than bore. (These specific examples are discussed in this volume under the following: the three-witness statement, 1 Nephi 11:32, 1 Nephi 13:24, 1 Nephi 14:29, Enos 1:20, 3 Nephi 17:21, and 3 Nephi 18:37.) In all, there are 15 cases in favor of bare. This predominance of evidence argues that the unclear b[a|o]re here in 1 Nephi 11:7 should be interpreted as bare (“the tree which bare the fruit”).
For further discussion, see each of the three other cases of bore (Mosiah 14:12, Alma 1:25, and Alma 53:13) as well as the complete discussion of bare versus bore under past tense in volume 3. Also see bear in volume 3 regarding this question as well as the problem of how to interpret the tense for the spellings bear and bare.
Summary: The most probable reading for scribe 3’s b[a|o]re in 1 Nephi 11:7 is the archaic past-tense form bare, although the modern form bore is also possible.