In this long conjunctive structure, we have some variation with respect to the repeated of. It should first be noted that the individual conjuncts vary considerably in the repetition of their elements. Even the your is not always repeated (in “of your lyings and deceivings”, perhaps because lyings and deceivings are virtually synonymous, unlike the other conjuncts). And the of is repeated even less. In one case, the 1830 edition has a repeated of (“and of your whoredoms”) but the printer’s manuscript does not (“and your whoredoms”). In a second case, the 1858 Wright edition added a repeated of (“and of your priestcrafts”), thus showing that the of could have been added in the earlier “and of your whoredoms”. For this second variant, the 1908 RLDS edition restored the earlier reading without the of. Similarly, the critical text will follow the reading without the of in the second variant.
For the first variant, the evidence from textual transmission is fairly equally divided. As explained under 3 Nephi 9:5, the tendency has been about the same in the manuscripts and in the 1830 edition with respect to adding and deleting the preposition of in conjunctive structures. As far as this particular variant here in 3 Nephi 30:2 is concerned, we have one example where scribe 2 of 𝓟 omitted the repeated of in a conjunctive structure, and that example is found nearby:
In this instance, the repeated of was also omitted in the 1837 edition (see the discussion under that passage). In contrast, there are two instances in the text where the 1830 typesetter accidentally added the repeated of in a conjunctive structure:
In both of these passages, the critical text will restore the earliest reading without the repeated of. It should be noted, however, that we cannot conclude from these numbers that the 1830 typesetter tended to add the of more frequently than scribe 2 of 𝓟 omitted it since the typesetter set the entire Book of Mormon text while scribe 2 wrote down only 15 percent of 𝓟. We should also keep in mind that overall the more frequent tendency in the history of the text has been to omit rather than add function words. Since the transmission evidence is otherwise fairly equally divided here in 3 Nephi 30:2, the critical text will accept the longer reading with the of, the 1830 reading, as the probable reading in 𝓞 as well as the reading of the original text.
Nonetheless, there is one parallel passage that provides some support for the reading in 𝓟. This passage has the same noun conjuncts as here in 3 Nephi 30:2 (namely, whoredoms and secret abominations), yet the of is repeated only for the second conjunct:
Of course, in 3 Nephi 30:2 both noun conjuncts are modified by your:
| 3 Nephi 16:10 | 3 Nephi 30:2 (the reading in 𝓟) |
|
and whoredoms and of secret abominations |
and your whoredoms and of your secret abominations |
Except for the repeated your, the parallelism is identical. Even so, 3 Nephi 16:10 shows considerable variation in the repetition of the of. Similarly, there is considerable variation in the repetition of the of in 3 Nephi 30:2, which makes one unsure of how much to make of the lack of of being repeated before whoredoms in this particular sequence involving whoredoms and secret abominations. Note that there are differences in the occurrence of of when we line up all the parallel nouns in both these passages (here I follow the order of the noun pairs in 3 Nephi 16:10):
| 3 Nephi 16:10 | 3 Nephi 30:2 |
|
of lyings and of deceits and murders and priestcrafts and whoredoms and of secret abominations |
of your lyings and deceivings and of your murders and your priestcrafts and (of ) your whoredoms and of your secret abominations |
Excluding the case of whoredoms, there is agreement in three cases in the occurrence or nonoccurrence of the of; but in two cases there is disagreement: (1) “and of deceits” versus “and deceivings” and (2) “and murders” versus “and of your murders”. So the larger context provides no strong support for the occurrence or nonoccurrence of the of before whoredoms.
Summary: Accept in 3 Nephi 30:2 the 1830 reading with the repeated of (thus “and of your whoredoms”); this decision is based largely on the stronger tendency in the history of the text to omit function words rather than add them; under this interpretation, the reading in 𝓟, without the of, is the result of scribe 2 of 𝓟 accidentally omitting the of when he copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟; nonetheless, the possibility remains that the 1830 typesetter added the of; in 3 Nephi 30:2 the critical text will also maintain the shorter reading without the of before “your priestcrafts”.