2 Nephi 8:13–14 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
because of the fury of the oppressor as if he were ready to destroy and where is the fury of the oppressor [as if > NULL 0| 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] the captive exile hasteneth

Isaiah 51:13–14 (King James Bible) because of the fury of the oppressor as if he were ready to destroy and where is the fury of the oppressor the captive exile hasteneth

Here we have an interesting error in the original manuscript that was immediately corrected by Oliver Cowdery. This error shows that the repetition of the preceding phrase “the fury of the oppressor” also triggered the repetition of “as if ”. It is possible that this extra repetition was the result of Oliver keeping the first phrase in short-term memory. There are 10 words between the two occurrences of “the fury of the oppressor”, which would have required Oliver to have remembered 15 previous words. Another possibility is that Joseph Smith himself made this error while reading off the translation, especially if what he saw by means of the interpreters or the seer stone were the two occurrences of “the fury of the oppressor” one right above the other. Whatever the source of the error, the repeated “as if ” was deleted, so the corrected reading is identical to the corresponding King James text.

Summary: Accept the reading “and where is the fury of the oppressor / the captive exile hasteneth”, which follows the King James text as well as the immediately corrected text in 𝓞.

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

References