3 Nephi 7:16 Textual Variants

There seems to be some word missing here, perhaps the preposition of, as if the text should read “and began to testify boldly of repentance and remission of sins”. In this instance, 𝓞 itself must have lacked the of since both 𝓟 and the 1830 edition are firsthand copies of 𝓞 and read identically in this instance. Elsewhere in the text, there are 32 instances of the expected phraseology, “to testify of NP” (where NP is a noun phrase), including two more with the word boldly:

• 3 Nephi 6:20
  • and there began to be men inspired from heaven and sent forth standing among the people in all the land preaching and testifying boldly of the sins and iniquities of the people and testifying unto them concerning the redemption which the Lord would make for his people or in other words the resurrection of Christ and they did testify boldly of his death and sufferings

Another possible emendation here in 3 Nephi 7:16 would be to replace the verb testify with a verb like preach (“and began to preach boldly repentance and remission of sins”).

Despite the difficulty of the construction “to testify NP”, there is evidence elsewhere in the text of the verb testify taking a direct object as its complement—namely, without the preposition of:

• Alma 5:44
  • yea I am commanded to stand and testify unto this people the things which have been spoken by our fathers concerning the things which is to come
• Alma 21:5
  • what is that that thou hast testified
• Helaman 8:19
  • and now I would that ye should know that ever since the days of Abraham there hath been many prophets that hath testified these things

In the first example, there is an intervening adverbial, the prepositional phrase, “unto this people”, just like here in 3 Nephi 7:16 with its intervening adverb boldly. In the second example the second that was removed in the 1837 edition, but in any event the original text did not have an of at the end of the relative clause (that is, it did not read “what is that (that) thou hast testified of ”). Finally, the third example shows that a noun phrase complement can directly follow the verb testify. The critical text will therefore maintain the difficult expression in 3 Nephi 7:16: “and began to testify boldly repentance and remission of sins”. Although unusual, such usage is definitely possible in the Book of Mormon text.