Ross Geddes (personal communication, 23 August 2004) suggests that the preposition of in the first present participial clause is an error for as; that is, the text should read “having the same instruction and the same information as the Nephites”. Note that the second present participial clause could be the source for the of since it reads “yea having been instructed in the same knowledge of the Lord”. Here both of ’s are extant in 𝓞, which means that if there is an error it must have occurred as Joseph Smith dictated the text to Oliver Cowdery. Even so, elsewhere in the text there are no examples of as and of ever being mixed up.
Here the prepositional phrase “of the Nephites” is potentially ambiguous. One could interpret the larger phrase “the same instruction and the same information of the Nephites” as meaning ‘the same instruction and the same information concerning the Nephites’. But this interpretation is clearly wrong in this passage. Another possibility, equally unlikely, is that the of means ‘from’. These dissenters were originally Nephites, so they did not receive the gospel from the Nephites: they were Nephites and had been taught the gospel from an early age. A third interpretation for this phrase, the correct one, is that these dissenters had “the same instruction and the same information that the Nephites had”. This possessive interpretation is clearly possible for “the same instruction and the same information of the Nephites”.
Of course, the of in the second present participial clause, “having been instructed in the same knowledge of the Lord”, is not possessive in meaning. Here the meaning of “the same knowledge of the Lord” is ‘the same knowledge concerning the Lord’. Normally in the Book of Mormon, the of in “the knowledge of X” has the meaning ‘concerning’. On the other hand, there are no instances in the text where “knowledge of the Lord” means ‘knowledge from the Lord’. But there are definitely instances where “the knowledge of X” has the possessive meaning ‘X’s knowledge’, as in these examples:
And the possessive interpretation is the way Alma 47:36 is using of in “the same instruction and the same information of the Nephites”. Although that reading is difficult for modern English readers, the critical text will maintain the of rather than emend it to as.
Summary: Maintain in Alma 47:36 the of in the phrase “the same instruction and the same information of the Nephites”; here the of is possessive in meaning and refers to the instruction and the information that the Nephites had.