“Moroni Took the Remaining Part of His Army and Marched Over into the Land of Manti”

Brant Gardner

Although Moroni has excellent intelligence about the movements of the Lamanite army, he prudently considers the possibility of a secondary attack on Jershon and therefore leaves a defensive force behind.

Variant: The original and printer’s manuscripts and 1830 edition read: “… take possession of the city, and Moroni took the remaining.… ” The italicized phrase was dropped after the first edition, which smoothes out the sentence structure. The original manuscript was not neatly broken into sentences, reflecting the plate text. “And Moroni” marks a new idea, a new sentence. That function has been lost by the removal, but no real information has disappeared.

Second Witness: Analytical & Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 4

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