1 Nephi 18:11 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and it came to pass that Laman and Lemuel did take me and bind me with cords and they did treat me with much harshness nevertheless the Lord [suffered 0|did suffer 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] it that he might shew forth his power unto the fulfilling of his word which he hath spoken concerning the wicked

We have already seen one other example (in 1 Nephi 2:16) where Oliver Cowdery, in his copying from 𝓞 to 𝓟, accidentally added the auxiliary verb do. Here in 1 Nephi 18:11, Oliver seems to have been influenced by the use of the auxiliary verb do earlier in this verse: “Laman and Lemuel did take me and bind me with cords and they did treat me with much harshness”. Elsewhere the text has nine occurrences of the simple past-tense suffered and four occurrences of did suffer, so either reading is theoretically possible. In each case, we let the earliest textual sources determine the reading. In 1 Nephi 18:11, 𝓞 has suffered rather than did suffer.

Summary: Restore the reading of the original manuscript in 1 Nephi 18:11 (“the Lord suffered it”).

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

References