Helaman 1:5 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
Parhoron was appointed by the voice of the people to be [a 01A| BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] chief judge and a governor over the people of Nephi

The 1837 edition omitted the indefinite article a before chief judge. This omission was undoubtedly accidental. It was not marked by Joseph Smith in his editing of 𝓟 for the 1837 edition. Nearby the virtually identical expression has been left unchanged:

The Book of Mormon text always repeats the article, if one exists, before both chief judge

and governor in conjoined structures:

Thus the indefinite article a needs to be restored before chief judge in Helaman 1:5, making this passage specifically agree with Helaman 1:13 and, more generally, with usage elsewhere in the text.

Summary: Restore the indefinite article a before chief judge in Helaman 1:5; the a was accidentally deleted in the 1837 edition.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 5

References