1 Nephi 12:6 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and he came down and [he 0| 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] shewed himself unto them

The second and joins two sentences rather than two predicates. Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, there are 20 occurrences of the verb come followed by a one-word adverbial (namely, down, forth, up, or forward ) that is then conjoined by the conjunction and to a following clause or full predicate. And in each of these other instances, we have only the predicate following the and; that is, elsewhere a pronominal form of the subject is never repeated when the verb is come (thus “an angel came down and stood before me” in 1 Nephi 11:14). Consequently, the original wording in 1 Nephi 12:6 (where two sentences are joined rather than two predicates) seems out of place and may explain why Oliver Cowdery omitted the second he when he copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟.

When we consider other verbs besides come, we discover that there are a good many cases of a short sentence conjoined to a following sentence where the pronominal form of the subject occurs in both sentences, just as in the original manuscript for 1 Nephi 12:6. Here are some examples involving the subject pronouns he and they:

All of these examples have the conjunction and at the beginning of the initial sentence, just as in 1 Nephi 12:6. So the reading of the original manuscript in 1 Nephi 12:6 (“and he came down and he shewed himself unto them”) is quite acceptable.

Summary: Restore the subject pronoun he in the second conjoined sentence in “and he came down and he shewed himself unto them”.

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

References