Here the 1830 edition has the preposition between, but the printer’s manuscript has betwixt. In the Book of Mormon text, between is considerably more common than the archaic betwixt, 32 to 5 (the count here excludes the case here in 3 Nephi 3:23 as well as a conjectured between in Alma 22:32, mentioned below). There is some evidence of Oliver Cowdery initially mixing up these two words as he copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟:
The original manuscript exists for both of these passages. In each case, Oliver initially wrote the wrong alternative in 𝓟 but then caught his error and corrected it. In one case, he replaced an original betwixt with the more expected between (Alma 35:13); but in the other case, he did just the opposite: he replaced the expected between with the archaic betwixt (Alma 40:21). So we see that Oliver could make a mistake in either direction. We also see that it is Oliver who seemed to have difficulty with the transmission of these two words, not the 1830 typesetter. Of course, Oliver corrected his mistakes in these two cases; if the typesetter made any such mistake, he must have caught it during composition or in proof.
Here in 3 Nephi 3:23, there is the preceding instance of between in “the land which was between the land of Zarahemla and the land Bountiful”. So one could argue that the parallel phraseology could have prompted the 1830 typesetter to replace an original betwixt with between, especially since betwixt would have been the less expected preposition. Moreover, in the one case where Oliver Cowdery initially replaced between with the more difficult betwixt (in Alma 40:21, listed above), there was an earlier use of betwixt in that chapter that could have prompted Oliver’s momentary error in verse 21:
In fact, Alma 40 has four instances that refer to what happens between death and the resurrection; betwixt is used the first time, then between for the following three:
However, the occurrences of between in verses 9 and 11 were not affected by the earlier instance of betwixt in verse 6, but the one in verse 21 may have been.
In the case of 3 Nephi 3:23, there is no nearby betwixt that could have prompted Oliver Cowdery to change between to betwixt. Nor does the preceding phrase with between (“and the land which was between the land of Zarahemla and the land Bountiful”) mean that the following yea- phrase must use between. The nearly identical expressions in Alma 40 essentially differ only in the choice of betwixt and between, so there is no overriding reason why we can’t have the same difference here in 3 Nephi 3:23, with between in the first instance and betwixt in the second.
In terms of Book of Mormon usage, it should be noted that betwixt does not otherwise occur in describing fixed geographical locations, as can be seen when we list every example of betwixt in the original text (the first example comes from Isaiah 5:3 in the King James Bible):
The last example refers to the location of the armies of the Lamanites; namely, they are between Sherrizah (a city or a land) and the armies of Mormon. This use of betwixt involves geography only partially and refers to the position of Mormon’s army, which is not fixed. In references to fully fixed locations, we otherwise get only the preposition between (including one more here in 3 Nephi 3:23):
There is also an example in Alma 22:32 where the between is conjectured, namely, in the phrase “on the line between the land Bountiful and the land Desolation”, yet in the discussion regarding that passage I note that this phrase could have originally read “on the line betwixt the land Bountiful and the land Desolation”. Of course, the number of examples of geographical description is relatively small, and the distinction is a fine one that depends upon positions between two fixed geographical locations, so betwixt is still a viable possibility for the conjectured reading in Alma 22:32. Moreover, the Oxford English Dictionary under betwixt cites instances of betwixt being used for geographical description, as in the following example from Middle English (here Tuede refers to the river Tweed):
The OED points out that betwixt is “now somewhat archaic in literary English and chiefly poetical” but that it is “still in colloquial use in some dialects”.
The King James Bible shows a similar lack of use for betwixt when compared with between, with between being much more common than betwixt (232 to 16). Most cases of betwixt are used in phrases involving persons, like “and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you” (Genesis 17:11). But location can also be specified: “then they fled and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the king’s garden by the gate betwixt the two walls” (Jeremiah 39:4).
It is possible that betwixt was an alternative in Oliver Cowdery’s own speech and that he could have accidentally replaced between with betwixt without being prompted by a nearby instance of betwixt. But note that in Alma 35:13, where Oliver initially replaced betwixt with between in 𝓟, the nearest preceding instance of between is in Alma 28:9 (“and also the wars between the Nephites and the Lamanites”), over 17 pages earlier in the printer’s manuscript. In other words, the initial error of between in Alma 35:13 seems to be due simply to Oliver’s preference for between. This makes one doubt whether betwixt in 3 Nephi 3:23 could be due to a dialectal preference on Oliver’s part for that preposition. The only time he initially replaced between with betwixt was when there was a preceding instance of betwixt that could have prompted the error (in Alma 40).
Here in 3 Nephi 3:23, the textual evidence basically supports betwixt as the original reading. Although we have no specific evidence that the 1830 typesetter ever mixed up betwixt and between, Oliver Cowdery’s errors argue that betwixt would have been the marked reading and thus subject to replacement by between, especially given the immediately preceding use of between in 3 Nephi 3:23. As noted in the discussion regarding Alma 40, there can be parallel expressions that essentially differ only in their use of betwixt and between. The critical text will therefore restore betwixt here in 3 Nephi 3:23.
Summary: Restore in 3 Nephi 3:23 the archaic preposition betwixt (the reading in 𝓟) for the phrase “yea to the line which was betwixt the land of Zarahemla and the land Desolation”; the between that occurs in the 1830 edition appears to be a regularization made by the 1830 typesetter under the influence of the between in the immediately preceding phrase (“and the land which was between the land of Zarahemla and the land Bountiful”).