Mormon 4:20–21 Textual Variants

The 1874 RLDS edition added the again here, probably accidentally. The probable source for the error was the again that is found in the virtually identical clause that ends the previous verse (“until they had come again the second time”). Elsewhere in the text, again usually occurs in front of the phrase “the nth time” (there are 13 more examples). However, in three cases the again is not there (identified below in each instance with an arrow):

• 3 Nephi 11:5–6
  •   and again the third time they did hear the voice …
    → and behold the third time they did understand the voice which they heard
• 3 Nephi 26:15
• •   after he had ascended into heaven
    → —the second time that he shewed himself unto them— and gone unto the Father …
• Ether 14:29
  •   and it came to pass that they came forth but were driven again
    → and they came the second time and they were driven again the second time

Note the variation in usage in the first and third of these three passages, just as in Mormon 4:20–21, although in 3 Nephi 11:6 the again is not really possible before the second instance of “the third time” since the crowd understood the voice only after they had heard it three times. In any event, the original text in Mormon 4:20–21 without the again for the repeated instance of “the second time” is fully possible (just like in Ether 14:29).