1 Nephi 15:35 Textual Variants

The original manuscript reads “the souls of man”, a mixture of plural and singular. This is possible if we interpret man as semantically plural, meaning ‘mankind’. Even so, Oliver Cowdery emended the singular to the plural men when he copied the text from 𝓞 to 𝓟, thus ending up with both nouns in the plural (“the souls of men”).

Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, there are seven occurrences of “the souls of men”, so this emendation seems quite possible:

• 1 Nephi 14:3 that he might lead away the souls of men down to hell
• Alma 40:7 what becometh of the souls of men
• Alma 40:9 what becometh of the souls of men
• Helaman 8:28 which seeketh to destroy the souls of men
• 3 Nephi 28:9 that ye might bring the souls of men unto me
• Mormon 5:8 to harrow up the souls of men
• Ether 12:4 maketh an anchor to the souls of men

There is also one case where both nouns are in the singular:

• Alma 41:2 the soul of man should be restored to its body

But there are no other occurrences of mixed number (like “the souls of man” or “the soul of men”).

Further, there are quite a few cases in the manuscripts where the scribe initially wrote either man or men and then changed it to read the opposite, perhaps in the same manuscript or in copying from 𝓞 into 𝓟:

• 1 Nephi 18:25 (Oliver Cowdery, copying from 𝓞 into 𝓟)
  • and all manner of wild animals which were for the use of [man 0|men 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST]
• Mosiah 29:12 (Hyrum Smith, initial error in 𝓟 immediately corrected)
  • but the judgments of [men > man 1|man ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] are not always just
• Alma 28:14 (Oliver Cowdery, initial error in 𝓞 immediately corrected)
  • and thus we see the great call of the diligence of [man > men 0|men 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] to labor in the vineyards of the Lord
• Alma 34:15 (Oliver Cowdery, initial error in both 𝓞 and 𝓟 immediately corrected)
  • and bringeth about means unto [man > men 01|men ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] that they may have faith unto repentance
• Alma 42:4 (Oliver Cowdery, initial error in 𝓞 immediately corrected)
  • and thus we see that there was a time granted unto [men > man 0|man 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] to repent
• Nephi 27:11 (Scribe 2’s error in 𝓟, corrected by Oliver Cowdery while proofing)
  • and is built upon the works of [𝓢① man >+ 𝓢② men 1|men ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST]

Confusion between man and men is therefore fairly frequent.

But there is another possibility: perhaps scribe 2 of 𝓞’s souls is an error for soul. We have manuscript evidence that on two different occasions scribe 2 accidentally added a plural s:

• 1 Nephi 13:32
  • because of the plain and most precious parts of the [gosples > gosple 0|Gospel 1A|gospel BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] of the Lamb
• 1 Nephi 15:30
  • our father also saw that the [Justices 0|Justice 1|justice ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] of God did also divide the wicked from the righteous

Thus it is quite possible in 1 Nephi 15:35 that scribe 2 of 𝓞 accidentally wrote the plural souls instead of the correct singular, soul.

But the crucial factor in interpreting 1 Nephi 15:35 is an earlier verse where the brothers ask about “the final state of the soul”:

• 1 Nephi 15:31
  • and they said unto me doth this thing mean the torment of the body in the days of probation or doth it mean the final state of the soul after the death of the temporal body or doth it speak of the things which are temporal

Thus in verse 35, Nephi answers his brothers’ question, and the text there should correctly read “the final state of the soul of man”, parallel to verse 31. We can therefore assume that in verse 35, scribe 2 of 𝓞 accidentally added a plural s to soul when he took down Joseph Smith’s dictation. The corresponding occurrence of the singular man in 𝓞 therefore represents the original reading and should not have been emended to men.