Mormon 6:2 Textual Variants

In the original manuscript Oliver Cowdery’s spelling of the first occurrence of the name Cumorah apparently looked like Camorah (Oliver is the presumed scribe in 𝓞 for this part of the text). Both scribe 2 of the printer’s manuscript and the 1830 compositor interpreted the initial vowel as an a, but Oliver, when he proofed 𝓟 against 𝓞, replaced the initial a with a u. This correction argues that Oliver himself decided that the intended name in 𝓞 (which he himself had written, it would appear) was Cumorah, not Camorah.

Similarly, the u in the name Cumenihah, which occurs later in this chapter, was also written so that it looked somewhat like an a, thus leading the 1830 compositor to set Camenihah. In that case, scribe 2 of 𝓟 wrote Cumenihah in 𝓟:

• Mormon 6:14
  • and [Cumenihah 1PST|Camenihah ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOQR] and Moronihah and Antionum and Shiblom and Shem and Josh had fallen with their ten thousand each

Oliver frequently mixed up his a ’s and u ’s in his manuscript work, especially in cases of original u that were written like a, as in the following names (see the discussion under each of the passages):

For instance, in two out of 12 extant occurrences of the name Kishcumen in the original manuscript, Oliver’s u almost looks like an a—that is, cumen twice looks like camen (for discussion of this point, see under Helaman 1:9). Thus it is not surprising that in Mormon 6:14 an original Cumenihah could have been miswritten in 𝓞 so that it looked like Camenihah to the 1830 compositor.

The name Cumenihah occurs only once in the text, but Cumorah occurs nine times, all in Mormon. We get the following variation in the earliest textual sources for Cumorah (𝓞 is not extant for any of these):

Scribe 2 of 𝓟 has three different spellings for the standard Cumorah. Besides Cumorah (with six occurrences), there are two of Comorah and one of Camorah. As already noted, Camorah is the spelling in 𝓟 for the first occurrence of the name, which Oliver Cowdery corrected to Cumorah. The 1830 edition has only the spelling Camorah, while the 1837 edition consistently has the standard Cumorah. Subsequent editions have consistently followed the 1837 spelling.

The two cases where scribe 2 of 𝓟 wrote Comorah rather than his most frequent spelling Cumorah may be the result of Cumorah looking like Camorah in 𝓞. Indeed, sometimes in the manuscripts a ’s look like o ’s and vice versa. For a list of examples involving Book of Mormon names and words, see the discussion regarding the name Ammaron under 4 Nephi 1:47. But it is also possible that Comorah is an error based on Cumorah since there is evidence in the manuscripts for mix-ups of o and u in Book of Mormon names and words, especially when the vowel was followed by m:

So the two instances of the misspelling Comorah could be used to argue that Oliver wrote either Camorah or Cumorah in 𝓞, at least for the fifth and eighth occurrences of the name.

Internal evidence from the spelling of other Nephite names and words supports the u vowel for the spellings Cumorah and Cumenihah. We have a number of names preceded by a /k/-like sound (spelled as either c or k) and followed by an m. In each case, the textual evidence argues that the vowel is u rather than a. Cumenihah is specifically supported by other names that contain the morpheme cumen(i) or kumen:

Cumeni, Kishcumen, Kumen, Kumenonhi, Pacumeni

More generally, there are other Nephite names and words that have the sequence cum, but there are none with cam:

cumom, Mocum, Moriancumer, Ripliancum, Teancum

Cumorah is indirectly supported by all these examples and more specifically by cumom (the word cumom occurs twice, both times in the plural, in Ether 9:19).

The 1830 spelling Camorah was recognized as incorrect prior to its correction in the 1837 edition. In one of Oliver Cowdery’s letters on the early history of the LDS church, published in the July 1835 issue of the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate (volume 1, number 10), Oliver wrote in reference to the 1830 edition:

By turning to the 529th and 530th pages of the book of Mormon you will read Mormon’s account of the last great struggle of his people, as they were encamped round this hill Cumorah. [It is printed Camorah, which is an error.]

The parenthetical statement at the end is a part of the citation. (This quote was brought to my attention by Delbert Curtis and confirmed with the assistance of Scott Faulring.)