3 Nephi 1:1 Textual Variants

This preface describing Christ’s visit among the Nephites begins with the verb in the present tense (“Jesus Christ sheweth himself ”) but then immediately switches to the past tense (“as the multitude were gathered together”). Subsequent statements in this preface use the auxiliary do verb in the past tense (“did minister” and “did shew”), which undoubtedly motivated the editors for the 1920 LDS edition to change the present-tense showeth at the beginning of the preface to the past-tense did show (the archaic shew had already been emended to show in earlier LDS editions, beginning with the 1888 large-print edition). Another possibility would have been to change the initial verb showeth in this preface to the simple past-tense form: “Jesus Christ showed himself unto the people of Nephi”.

The finite verbs in the Book of Mormon prefaces can be classified according to their use of tense:

only present tense

• 2 Nephi preface rebelleth, warns
• Jacob preface confoundeth, seeketh
• Helaman 7 preface threatens, will, repent, smiteth, repent, turn, prophesies
• 4 Nephi preface is

only past tense

• Mosiah 9 preface left, were
• Mosiah 23 preface was
• Alma preface was
• Alma 5 preface delivered
• Alma 7 preface delivered
• Alma 17 preface rejected, went
• Alma 45 preface kept
• Nephi preface was, was, was, was, was, came

a mixture of present and past tense (with the latter set in bold)

• 1 Nephi preface warns, prophesieth, seek, taketh, taketh, returns,take, take, depart, come, rebelleth, confoundeth, buildeth, call, cross, is, wrote
• Alma 9 preface was, was, are, was
• Helaman preface was, are, is
• 3 Nephi 11 preface sheweth, were, did, did

no finite verbs

• Alma 21 preface, Alma 36 preface, Alma 38 preface,
• Alma 39 preface, Helaman 13 preface, Moroni 9 preface

The examples with mixture show that the tense can be inconsistent in a preface. In fact, the Alma 9 preface seems rather unusual in its mixture of tenses, yet it has never been edited:

• Alma 9 preface
  • The words of Alma and also the words of Amulek which was declared unto the people which was in the land of Ammonihah and also they are cast into prison and delivered by the miraculous power of God which was in them according to the record of Alma

The one instance of the present tense in the Alma 9 preface provides a sense of immediacy to that part of the narrative summary. Although different in purpose, there are examples in the original text of the historical present tense being used in past-tense narratives, as in 1 Nephi 2:1: “the Lord spake unto my father—yea even in a dream—and saith unto him : blessed art thou Lehi”. Examples like this one show a mixture of tenses within the same sentence (for further discussion, see under historical present in volume 3). By starting out the 3 Nephi 11 preface in the present tense, Mormon provides a sense of immediacy, while the specific past-tense emendation, did show, sounds rather abrupt. In any event, the original use of sheweth in this preface appears to be fully intended, and the critical text will restore it.

In the modern LDS text, all instances of the archaic verb form shew have been systematically replaced with the modern show. If the present-tense form of the verb show were restored in the standard LDS text for this 3 Nephi 11 preface, the form corresponding to the original sheweth would, of course, be showeth, not shows. To be sure, neither of the two forms with the do auxiliary, doth show and does show, would be appropriate here since in this case the original preface did not use the do auxiliary.