3 Nephi 1:8 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
but behold they did watch steadfastly for that day and that night and that day which [should 1PRST|shall ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOQ] be as one day as if there were no night that they might know that their faith had not been vain

The printer’s manuscript has the past-tense modal should, while the 1830 edition has the presenttense modal shall. The whole passage otherwise uses past-tense verb forms (did watch, were, might know, had not been); this consistency supports the use of should rather than shall. Normally, the Book of Mormon text has the past-tense should rather than the present-tense shall when the surrounding context is in the past tense, even when referring to future events:

In addition, there is definite evidence that the 1830 typesetter was inclined to replace instances of should with shall, especially when the text is referring to the future:

For a fifth possibility, see under 3 Nephi 26:9. Interestingly, the 1830 typesetter never once made the opposite change, of shall to should.

There is only one clear case where Oliver Cowdery permanently changed an original shall to should in his copywork:

Yet this change is not simply an instance of replacing shall with should; it also represents Oliver’s decision to remove the original Hebraistic and that separated the if-clause and its following main clause. Other than this complicated case, there are no instances where Oliver permanently made the change from should to shall in his copywork. To be sure, there are a number of cases where Oliver initially wrote should instead of shall, including several here in 3 Nephi:

There is also one related case in 3 Nephi 9:8 where Oliver initially mixed up shall and should (see the discussion under that passage). On the other hand, there is one case where he initially wrote shall instead of should:

So Oliver definitely tended to mix up shall and should in his copywork, but only once (in 1 Nephi 17:50) did he make that change permanently (and that change involved the more significant issue of removing a Hebraistic and ). If we count only the permanent changes in the text, the 1830 typesetter was definitely more prone to switch these two modals than Oliver was. The critical text will therefore accept the reading of the printer’s manuscript here in 3 Nephi 1:8; the 1830 typesetter seems to have once more removed an unusual should in favor of the expected shall.

Summary: Restore the should in 3 Nephi 1:8 (“that day and that night and that day which should be as one day”), the reading of the printer’s manuscript; there is considerable evidence that the 1830 typesetter tended to replace should with shall if the context referred to a future event; the use of should is also consistent with the other past-tense verb forms used throughout this passage.

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

References