In this part of 𝓟, there are quite a few examples where Oliver Cowdery initially wrote what he expected rather than what the original manuscript actually read. For instance, in verse 2 (discussed above), Oliver first wrote the expected slain instead of the correct destroyed. Some of these errors were caught before being fully written. As an example, here in verse 3, Oliver started to write “the land of our fathers’ first inheritance”, but he caught his error after writing the extra first and crossed it out:
In this instance, Oliver was probably influenced by the preceding language in verse 1: “and having had a knowledge of the land of Nephi or of the land of our fathers’ first inheritance”. In verse 3, the proximity of the verb inherit probably caused Oliver to expect the fuller expression that ends in “first inheritance”.
A similar example of an inconsequential error due to expected language is found in verse 4:
The context implies that the place could be named; and if so, the word place would be followed by a passive form of the verb call, as in these examples elsewhere in the text:
In Mosiah 9:4, Oliver started to write the shorter “the place called X” instead of the fuller Book of Mormon expression “the place which was called X”. In any event, Oliver caught his error here in 𝓟, crossed out the called and supralinearly inserted where, and then continued inline with “our brethren were slain”.
These two errors in verses 3–4 were caught before being completed (“the land of our fathers first” and “in the place called”). But here in verse 3, there is one initial error that is more substantive. In this case, Oliver initially wrote “as many as were desirous to go up to the land”, but then almost immediately he supralinearly inserted the verb possess (the level of ink flow is unchanged, just as with the other corrections here at the beginning of Mosiah 9). The expression “to go up to the land” is much more frequent in the Book of Mormon than “to go up to possess the land” (15 to 1). In other words, the reading here in Mosiah 9:3 with the verb possess is unique (although there is a related example of “to go up to dwell in the land” in Mosiah 7:1). In fact, the immediately following predicate in Mosiah 9:3 contains an example of the expected expression: “and started again on our journey into the wilderness to go up to the land”. Undoubtedly, the original manuscript had the verb possess in the preceding predicate since there would have been no motivation for Oliver to have edited the text by adding the word possess.
For two more substantive instances of Oliver Cowdery having difficulty with copying from 𝓞 into this part of 𝓟, see the discussion regarding us instead of them in verse 11 and the phrase “all manner of weapons” in verse 16.
Summary: Retain in Mosiah 9:3 Oliver Cowdery’s insertion in 𝓟 of the verb possess (“to go up to possess the land”).