3 Nephi 12:37 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
for whatsoever cometh of more than these [are 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|is RT] evil

Matthew 5:37 (King James Bible) for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil

The Book of Mormon version reorders the words, with cometh first and the be verb shifted to later in the sentence. However, since the be verb is immediately preceded by the plural these in the Book of Mormon text, that verb reads in the plural as are rather than in the singular as is. The 1920 LDS edition made the grammatical change to the singular is, thus providing agreement with the preceding singular “whatsoever cometh”. As explained under 1 Nephi 4:4, there are instances in the original Book of Mormon text where the verb agrees with the nearest preceding plural noun rather than with the earlier singular noun that acts as the semantic subject:

For further discussion of this issue, see under subject-verb agreement in volume 3.

Summary: Restore in 3 Nephi 12:37 the original plural are in “for whatsoever cometh of more than these are evil”; such cases of subject-verb agreement based on proximity can be found elsewhere in the original Book of Mormon text.

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

References