1 Nephi 13:22–23 Textual Variants

Here we see two examples of Oliver Cowdery’s tendency, when copying from 𝓞 to 𝓟, to add an unto prepositional phrase after the use of saith (now edited to said ). In the first case, Oliver kept the phrase “unto him”, but in the second case he deleted the extra “unto me”.

In 1 Nephi 11–14, the text begins with the discourse between Nephi and the Spirit of the Lord, followed by the longer discourse between Nephi and the angel of the Lord. For most of this vision of Nephi’s, verbs referring to speaking are followed by the prepositional phrase “unto X”, but not always. In the following statistics, the pronoun I /me refers, of course, to Nephi, while he/him refers to either the Spirit or the angel; the two instances in 1 Nephi 13:22–23 are counted as examples lacking the unto prepositional phrase:

So the use of the prepositional phrase (either “unto me” or “unto him”) is considerably more frequent, but there are five cases that lack the prepositional phrase, the two here in 1 Nephi 13:22–23 and the following three examples:

• 1 Nephi 11:3 and I saith
  • I desire to behold the things which my father saw
• 1 Nephi 11:5
  • and I said yea thou knowest that I believe all the words of my father
• 1 Nephi 13:2 and I said
  • I behold many nations and kingdoms

Since these few examples show that the prepositional phrase is not always included, we reject Oliver Cowdery’s addition of “unto him” in 1 Nephi 13:22 and accept his correction (removing his own intrusive “unto me”) in 1 Nephi 13:23.