Ether 13:17 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
but he repented not neither his fair sons [nor 1ABCEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|and D] daughters neither the fair sons and daughters of Cohor neither the fair sons and daughters of Corihor

The 1841 British edition changed the nor before the first daughters to and, undoubtedly under the influence of the following “neither the fair sons and daughters of Cohor / neither the fair sons and daughters of Corihor”. The subsequent LDS edition (in 1849) restored the original nor.

Another difference between these three conjoinings of sons and daughters is that the last two give the name of the father, while the first one uses his (because Coriantumr has already been mentioned). A stronger cohesiveness is required when the name is given after the conjunct. If nor were used in the last two conjuncts, it would be more difficult to associate the following name with both the sons and the daughters.

This question of cohesiveness may be related to the discussion under Ether 6:20. There we saw that the determiner the was not repeated in a conjunct followed by the actual name of a person (thus, “the number of the sons and daughters of Jared”). Following names seem to require a closer connection between the conjuncts; for that reason, and is chosen over nor, and determiners are not repeated.

Summary: Accept in Ether 13:17 “neither his fair sons nor daughters” as well as “neither the fair sons and daughters of Cohor / neither the fair sons and daughters of Corihor”; when followed by a name, the conjuncts sons and daughters are more closely associated syntactically.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 6

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