3 Nephi 5:8 Textual Variants

Here the printer’s manuscript reads could not in the first case, then cannot in the second case, whereas the 1830 edition has cannot in both cases. The use of the yea-clause supports the parallel use of cannot in both clauses, but of course one could argue that in the 1830 edition an original could not was replaced with cannot precisely because of the following cannot.

Elsewhere in the text, given the passive be written, we have 13 examples with the modal can, but none with the modal could; all of these also occur in negative statements (like the two examples here in 3 Nephi 5:8):

• 1 Nephi 6:3 for they cannot be written upon these plates
• 1 Nephi 9:1 and also a great many more things which cannot be written upon these plates
• Jacob 3:13 and a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people … cannot be written upon these plates
• Alma 8:1 after having taught the people of Gideon many things which cannot be written
• Helaman 8:3 yea many things did Nephi speak which cannot be written
• Helaman 14:1 Samuel the Lamanite did prophesy a great many more things which cannot be written
• 3 Nephi 7:17 and all of them cannot be written
• 3 Nephi 17:15 and the things which he prayed cannot be written
• 3 Nephi 17:17 and no tongue cannot speak neither can there be written by any man …
• 3 Nephi 19:32 and tongue cannot speak the words which he prayed neither can be written by man the words which he prayed
• 3 Nephi 19:34 so great and marvelous were the words which he prayed that they cannot be written
• 3 Nephi 26:6 and now there cannot be written in this book even an hundredth part of the things …
• Moroni 9:19 yea tongue cannot tell neither can it be written

In other words, the Book of Mormon text never has a past-tense or conditional could in describing what cannot be written, even though that is what modern English readers expect here in this past-tense narrative in 3 Nephi 5. Note that the preceding text reads in the past tense, with had and the historical past-tense modal would: “and there had many things transpired which in the eyes of some would be great and marvelous”. Thus it seems probable that Oliver Cowdery, the scribe in 𝓟, was prompted to write could not rather than cannot in the immediately following clause. There is also evidence elsewhere in the text for this kind of mistake on Oliver’s part, as in the following case where he introduced a secondary could as he copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟:

• Alma 36:21
  • yea I say unto you my son that there [can 0|could 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as was my pains

Note once more that the replacement of can with could took place in the environment of a pasttense verb form (“as was my pains”). There is one other case where Oliver wrote could; in this instance, he started to write a clause as an indirect quote in the past tense (with could ) rather than as a direct quote in the present tense (with can):

• Helaman 16:6
• therefore when they saw that they could not hit him with their stones and their arrows they cried out unto their captains saying : take this fellow and bind him for behold he hath a devil and because of the power of the devil which is in him [they could > we can not 0|we cannot 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOQRT|we can not PS] hit him with our stones and our arrows therefore take him and bind him and away with him