Helaman 15:13 Textual Variants

Here we have two minor changes. First consider the omission, probably accidental, in the 1837 edition of the word again. The text just before has already referred to the Lamanites in the last days as being brought once again to the truth:

• Helaman 15:11
  • until the time shall come which hath been spoken of by our fathers and also by the prophet Zenos and many other prophets concerning the restoration of our brethren the Lamanites again to the knowledge of the truth

In Helaman 15:13, the again was restored to the RLDS text in 1908, to the LDS text in 1981.

There has been some tendency in the history of the text to accidentally omit again. Out of 18 more examples of this error, there are two that the 1837 typesetter was responsible for:

• Mosiah 12:1
  • and it came to pass that after the space of two years that Abinadi came among them in disguise that they knew him not and began [again 1APS| BCDEFGHIJKLMNOQRT] to prophesy among them
• 3 Nephi 2:18
  • and in the fifteenth year they did come forth [again 1APS| BCDEFGHIJKLMNOQRT] against the people of Nephi

The second change here in Helaman 15:13 occurred later, in the 1852 LDS edition; in the first printing of that edition, the typesetter accidentally replaced the original modal shall with should. The correct shall was restored in the second printing for that edition, probably by reference to the 1840 edition. A similar replacement of shall with should occurred earlier in verse 9 of this chapter (but in the 1837 edition); see the nearby discussion under Helaman 15:9. Either reading, shall or should, will theoretically work here in verse 13. The critical text will follow the earliest reading, thus “they shall again be brought to the true knowledge”.