Brent Kerby (personal communication, 5 January 2009) suggests that become in “that the trees had become again the natural fruit” is an error for brought, thus “that the trees had brought again the natural fruit”. The source for the become would be the correct occurrence of became in the following clause: “and they became like unto one body”. To be sure, there is no other instance in Jacob 5 that refers to trees becoming fruit. We have to interpret the earliest reading here in Jacob 5:74 as something like ‘the trees had become again of the natural fruit type’ (but without assuming that the word type or kind was in the original text).
Elsewhere in Jacob 5, the text has 28 instances of trees and branches “bringing forth fruit” and one, in Jacob 5:61, of the Lord “bringing forth fruit”. In other words, what we expect here in Jacob 5:74 is “the trees had brought forth again the natural fruit” (that is, with the adverb forth). But Kerby points out that there is one instance of “bringing fruit” without forth, namely in the immediately following verse:
and it hath brought unto me again the natural fruit
Thus the suggested emendation of brought for become in Jacob 5:74 seems quite reasonable, especially since become does not really work. The critical text will therefore accept this emendation.
As explained in the preceding addendum, this line should be emended so that it reads “that the trees had brought again the natural fruit” (that is, brought instead of become).
The original manuscript is not actually extant here for the word pleasing in Jacob 6:13, but there is not enough room in the lacuna for pleasing except by supralinear insertion. It seems very unlikely that the unexpected pleasing would have been added as Oliver Cowdery copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟, so it was probably inserted in 𝓞. But since we can’t be sure, it is probably best to add a question mark to the variant specification:
before the [NULL >? pleasing 0|pleasing 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] bar of God
It should also be noted that 𝓞 probably did not read pleading, the proposed conjectural emendation for the original text here in Jacob 6:13. For discussion of this point, see the write-up under Jacob 6:13 in part 2.
According to the analyses under Alma 11:44 in part 3, this line in the citation should be revised to read with a conjectured all and the archaic verb form raigned:
and all shall be brought and be raigned before the bar of Christ
In the list of examples showing the tendency in the text to replace an uncommon word with a common one, one could add the example of wrecked in place of racked:
This example is especially interesting in that it took until 1879 for the correction to be made in the LDS text (and it has never been made in the RLDS text). Seven other examples in the text of the verb rack are, however, correct in the earliest text. For discussion, see under Mosiah 27:29.
In the list of examples showing the occurrence of either shall or should, the one identified as Helaman 11:15 is actually found in 3 Nephi 11:15; when corrected, this citation will go at the end of the list.
Jacob 7:9, page 1060, line –4
The discussion of double negatives is found in volume 3 under negation, not multiple negation.
At the end of the first paragraph in this write-up, we should note that in his editing for the 1837 edition Joseph Smith corrected the second speak to spake in 𝓟, to make it agree with the 1830 reading.
Addenda: Jacob, Enos, Jarom
We cannot be sure that the crossed-out word in 𝓞 for Jacob 7:18 was eternity, so the variant specification should have a question mark added to the proposed correction in 𝓞:
and he spake of [eternity >? Hell 0|hell 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] However, the supralinearly inserted Hell is basically extant in 𝓞.
Since the word behold is the first word in an original section of the text, the convention in the critical text is to capitalize the first letter of that word. Thus the first line in the citation of Enos 1:1–3 will read as follows (here the bolding will, of course, be maintained):
Behold it came to pass that I Enos
More accurately, I should state here that “the earliest textual readings could be used to support a consistent use of bare in the original text”.
One should look under bear in volume 3, not bare.
The word order should be altered here to read “nowhere in the Book of Mormon text do we get constructions like the following”.
Summary: Emend Jacob 5:74 so that had become is replaced by had brought, thus “that the trees had brought again the natural fruit”; the replacement of the original brought with become was probably the result of the became in the following clause (“and they became like unto one body”).