3 Nephi 1:22 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and it came to pass [ 1|that ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] from this time forth there began to be lyings sent forth among the people by Satan

The printer’s manuscript and the 1830 edition differ here with respect to whether that should follow an immediately preceding “it came to pass”. In quite a few cases, there is clear evidence that Oliver Cowdery omitted the that after “it came to pass”, usually momentarily but one time permanently (marked below with an asterisk):

On the other hand, the 1830 compositor added a that after “it came to pass” only once:

Most of the time, that immediately follows “it came to pass” in the text (about nine times more frequently than cases where the that is lacking). Thus the occurrence of that after “it came to pass” in 3 Nephi 1:22 is favored, but not conclusively. When comparing Oliver Cowdery’s copywork with the 1830 compositor’s typesetting, we find that the odds of Oliver omitting the that after “it came to pass” is somewhat greater (if we include his initial errors) than the compositor adding the that in that same context. This difference is consistent with the general tendency in Book of Mormon copywork of omitting small words more frequently than adding them (as discussed in volume 3). The critical text will therefore accept the 1830 reading with the that here in 3 Nephi 1:22.

There are two other passages in this part of the text (where both 𝓟 and the 1830 edition are firsthand copies of 𝓞) that involve the loss or addition of that after “it came to pass”:

Both of these show the opposite variation as here in 3 Nephi 1:22; see under each of these passages for discussion.

Summary: Accept in 3 Nephi 1:22 the 1830 reading with the occurrence of that in “and it came to pass that from this time forth there began to be lyings sent forth”; the reading in 𝓟 without the that is also possible, but statistically the text favors the that in this context.

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

References