2 Nephi 1:1 Textual Variants

The conjunction that is highly expected after the “come to pass” predicate. In the context of a following after-clause, we usually get that with the preceding “come to pass” predicate (67 times in the original text). But we also have a number of cases where the that is not found. The manuscripts have six cases where no that occurs between an initial “come to pass” predicate and the immediately following subordinate conjunction after. In two of these cases (each marked below with an asterisk), the that does occur but only following the entire after-clause:

• * Mosiah 13:5
  • now it came to pass after Abinadi had spoken these words that the people of king Noah durst not lay their hands on him
• Mosiah 27:23
  • and it came to pass after they had fasted and prayed for the space of two days and two nights the limbs of Alma received their strength
• Mosiah 29:37
  • and now it came to pass after king Mosiah had sent these things forth among the people they were convinced of the truth of his words
• * Alma 14:23
  • and it came to pass after they had thus suffered for many days —and it was on the twelfth day in the tenth month in the tenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi— that the chief judge over the land of Ammonihah and many of their teachers and their lawyers went in unto the prison
• Alma 62:16
  • and it came to pass after they had took them they caused them to enter into a covenant
• Ether 6:2
  • for it came to pass [ 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|that > NULL 1] after that the Lord had prepared the stones which the brother of Jared had carried up into the mount the brother of Jared came down out of the mount

Except for the last case, the original manuscript is not extant. In addition to these original examples without the that, Joseph Smith (in his editing for the 1837 edition) created 12 additional cases of “come to pass” immediately followed by a dependent after-clause. Here is one example:

• 1 Nephi 18:21
  • and it came to pass [that 0A|that >js NULL 1| BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] after they had loosed me behold I took the compass and it did work whither I desired it

Ten of these 12 examples are in the small plates. The two other examples are found in Alma 30:1–2, one of which was never implemented in the 1837 edition. For a complete list, see that in volume 3.

In this example from 2 Nephi 1:1, the conjunction that was inserted (perhaps accidentally) in the 1905 LDS Chicago edition, and this reading with that has continued in the LDS text up through the current edition. The critical text, in accord with the earliest textual sources, will remove the extra that in this passage.