Helaman 9:24 Textual Variants

and because I have done this ye say that I have agreed with a man that he should do this thing [NULL > yea 1|yea ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] because I shewed unto you this sign ye are angry with me and seek to destroy my life

Here in the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote because without the preceding yea; then almost immediately he inserted the yea supralinearly (and without any change in the level of ink ﬂow). The construction yea because occurs five other times in the text, as in this nearby passage:

Helaman 7:13–14
- behold why have ye gathered yourselves together that I may tell you of your iniquities yea because I have got upon my tower that I might pour out my soul unto my God because of the exceeding sorrow of my heart which is because of your iniquities

There is nothing unusual about Oliver Cowdery’s correction to yea because in Helaman 9:24. Either reading, with or without the yea, is possible. Thus the original manuscript, which is not extant here, probably had the yea.

Summary: Maintain in Helaman 9:24 the instance of yea because, the corrected reading in 𝓟 (the earliest extant source).

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

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