Stephen L. Carr has suggested (personal communication, 2 September 2003) that this passage is an error for “and we did reap grain in abundance”. His argument is that (1) again does not make sense, but grain does; and (2) if again was pronounced as /ßgein/ rather than as /ßgen/ (the current American pronunciation), the phonetic similarity would be quite close and could have led the scribe of 𝓞 (here apparently Oliver Cowdery) to have misheard /grein/ as /ßgein/. The original manuscript is not extant here but probably read again, although it is possible that 𝓞 read grain and that Oliver Cowdery misread grain as again when he copied 𝓞 into 𝓟.
Historically, the word again has two pronunciations, /ßgein/ and /ßgen/ (see the Oxford English Dictionary under again for discussion of the historical development of the two pronunciations). Scribal misspellings in the Book of Mormon manuscripts imply that again was pronounced /ßgein/ rather than as its historical alternative /ßgen/. First, there are a few examples where the scribe wrote the word as two words (“a gain”):
| scribe 2 of 𝓞 | a gain |
1 Nephi 3:31 1 Nephi 4:11 1 Nephi 15:16 |
| scribe 3 of 𝓞 | a gain | 1 Nephi 11:30 |
| Oliver Cowdery in 𝓟 | a gain > again | Alma 18:28 |
This two-word spelling implies that the gain portion of again was being pronounced identically to the word gain and that the initial schwa was being interpreted as equivalent in spelling to the indefinite article a.
Second, there is manuscript evidence that sometimes the initial schwa itself was dropped in pronunciation, thus giving the spelling gain for again. This misspelling provides additional evidence that the stressed syllable of again was pronounced /gein/:
| Oliver Cowdery in 𝓞 | gain | Alma 41:14 |
| scribe 2 of 𝓟 | gain > again |
Alma 9:1 Alma 11:34 3 Nephi 20:3 |
Scribe 2 of 𝓟 always caught this error (three times), but Oliver Cowdery did not correct his single error. Of course, in the vast majority of cases, again was spelled correctly. Significantly, there are no misspellings in the manuscripts like agen that would support the /ßgen/ pronunciation.
We also find that the scribes made the same kind of spelling errors for the historically related word against, which implies that Joseph Smith and his scribes pronounced against (like again) with the full /ei/ vowel (and sometimes without the initial schwa) rather than with the alternative (and modern-day American) pronunciation /ßgenst/:
| scribe 2 of 𝓞 | a gainst | 1 Nephi 12:19 |
| scribe 2 of 𝓟 | gainst | Alma 2:14 |
The one-syllable pronunciation gainst for against has long existed in colloquially spoken English (with the written form ’gainst appearing chiefly in poetry, according to the OED).
Despite all this secondary evidence regarding the pronunciation of again, it should be pointed out that there is not one explicit example in the manuscripts (or, for that matter, in the transmission of the text through the printed editions) of again and grain ever being mixed up, either phonetically in the original manuscript or visually in later transmissions of the text. Of course, these two words normally occur in such different contexts that mix-ups are highly unlikely, except possibly here in 2 Nephi 5:11.
Although there are no specific examples in the text of “reaping grain”, there are passages that use semantically related verbs to refer to grain production: “raising grain” (seven times), “bringing forth grain” (two times), and “yielding forth grain” (one time). And two of these examples refer to “raising grain abundantly”:
Obviously, if one can “raise grain in abundance”, one can also “reap grain in abundance”.
The text in 2 Nephi 5:11 splits the process of raising grain into two stages: sowing the seed and then reaping at harvest time. This division of labor is found elsewhere in the Book of Mormon (although the two instances in the Mosiah passage are figurative):
Thus the possibility of first “sowing seed” and then “reaping grain” is perfectly acceptable.
On the other hand, there is something unexpected about the use of the word again in the current text for 2 Nephi 5:11. In the earliest text, there are 480 occurrences of the adverb again, of which the large majority modify the main verb in the clause and mean ‘once more’. Obviously, the current text for 2 Nephi 5:11 does not intend to say that the reaping was repeated but the sowing was not. Nonetheless, Don Brugger points out (personal communication) that the use of again in 2 Nephi 5:11 could refer back to the initial settlement of the people of Lehi just after their arrival in the promised land:
This earlier passage suggests that the people of Lehi’s first harvest had been abundant. By the time of 2 Nephi 5:11, Lehi had died and Nephi and his followers had been forced to find a new settlement. Once more the people planted seeds, with the result that they “did reap again in abundance”. Thus by connecting 2 Nephi 5:11 to 1 Nephi 18:24, the word again can take on the meaning ‘once more’.
One could perhaps interpret the again in 2 Nephi 5:11 as meaning ‘in addition’, something like ‘for we did sow seed and in addition we did reap in abundance’. Under this interpretation, the again would now be more of a narrative connector, much like the sentence-initial expression “and again” that is found at least 50 times elsewhere in the text (the exact number depends on how we analyze the syntax), as in the following extended example:
One problem with applying this interpretation to 2 Nephi 5:11 is that again should come at the beginning of the clause (“and again we did reap in abundance”) rather than after the main verb (“and we did reap again in abundance”).
Another possibility would be to interpret again as meaning ‘in return’, something like ‘and in return we did reap in abundance’. The OED lists this meaning (under definition 2) as obsolete or archaic, which would explain why modern readers might find its use in 2 Nephi 5:11 strange. Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon text, there is one example of again with this meaning:
Such usage is also found in the King James Bible:
Obviously, the suggested emendation here of grain for again makes perfectly good sense. On the other hand, there are at least two possible interpretations for again that also make sense—either the archaic meaning ‘in return’ or the standard meaning ‘once more’ if we connect 2 Nephi 5:11 with the earlier 1 Nephi 18:24. Given the fact that there is no explicit textual evidence for mixing up grain and again, the critical text will retain again, the earliest extant reading in 2 Nephi 5:11.
Summary: Retain the current reading in 2 Nephi 5:11 (“for we did sow seed and we did reap again in abundance”) since again can be assigned an appropriate meaning; nonetheless, the proposed conjectural emendation of grain instead of again remains a distinct possibility.