1 Nephi 17:7 Textual Variants

Here the 1830 typesetter unnecessarily added the preposition of. According to the manuscripts, there are 4 occurrences of “the land of Bountiful” but 19 of “the land Bountiful”; similarly, there are 2 occurrences of “the city of Bountiful” but 6 of “the city Bountiful”. In other words, the tendency in the original text is to omit the of when the accompanying name is Bountiful.

In most cases, the current text follows the manuscript readings. The only lasting changes (in addition to this one in 1 Nephi 17:7) show a contrary tendency—namely, to delete the of when the name is Bountiful:

• Alma 50:32
  • the people which were in the land [or >% of 0| 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] Bountiful …
• Alma 52:15
  • Teancum ... had began his march towards the land [of 01| ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] Bountiful

In the first case, Oliver Cowdery dropped the of —probably accidentally since there is no evidence in the manuscripts of Oliver (or any other scribe) ever trying to systematically add or delete of in the construction “the land/city (of ) X”. Similarly, the 1830 typesetter also accidentally omitted the of in the second case. In both instances, the of should be restored.

The tendency to accidentally add the of is also found in the 1841 edition, but this error did not persist:

• Alma 52:9
  • and he also sent orders unto him that he should fortify the land [ 1ABCEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|of D] Bountiful