3 Nephi 2:17 Textual Variants

Lyle Fletcher has suggested (personal communication, 23 August 2006) that the of here in “the people of Nephi did gain some advantage of the robbers” might be an error for over. Perhaps the use of of was prompted by the phrase “to take advantage of someone”, which does occur in the text:

• 2 Nephi 28:8 take the advantage of one because of his words
• Ether 12:26 that they shall take no advantage of your weakness

Here in 3 Nephi 2:17, both 𝓟 and the 1830 edition agree, so 𝓞 undoubtedly had the of in “did gain some advantage of the robbers”. When we consider all other verbs in the text that have advantage as their complement, we find that over is the preposition that follows advantage, including four more with the verb gain; in fact, one is nearby in this same chapter of 3 Nephi (marked below with an asterisk):

• Omni 1:24 the Nephites did obtain much advantage over them
• Alma 51:31 they did gain advantage over the Lamanites
• Alma 52:19 that they might gain advantage over them
• Helaman 1:25 this march of Coriantumr’s through the center of the land gave Moronihah great advantage over them
• * 3 Nephi 2:18 the Gaddianton robbers did gain many advantages over them
• Mormon 6:4 and here we had hope to gain advantage over the Lamanites

Moreover, there are a few cases in 𝓞 where Oliver Cowdery initially wrote of instead of the correct over (but these he immediately corrected to over):

• Alma 43:6
  • therefore Zerahemnah appointed chief captains [of >% NULL 0| 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] over the Lamanites
• Alma 45:23
  • after Helaman and his brethren had appointed priests and teachers [of >% over 0|over 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] the churches …
• Alma 50:35
  • and thus ended the twenty and fourth year of the reign of the judges [of >% over 0|over 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] the people of Nephi

So the of in 3 Nephi 2:17 could be an error for over, at least in theory.

Of course, in current English we do have the phrase “you have the advantage of me”, so the of should not be ruled out here in 3 Nephi 2:17. More significantly, the Oxford English Dictionary states under definition 1b for the noun advantage that the preposition can be either of or over for expressions of the form “to have, gain, get, give advantage of, over” (in fact, in Early Modern English there were also examples with the preposition on). The OED cites two instances of “advantage of ” (both in Early Modern English); in each case, we would expect “advantage over” in modern English:

• Thomas Becon (1561)
  Let his enemy the devil have none avantage of him.
• 2 Corinthians 2:11 (King James Bible, 1611)
  
  • Lest Satan should get an aduantage of vs.

(Except for the bolding of the of, I cite these with their original accidentals as given in the OED.) Thus the use here in 3 Nephi 2:17 of the preposition of is acceptable, even though this usage appears to be archaic. The critical text will maintain the of.