1 Nephi 3:23 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
we went up again [unto 01ABCDGHKPRST|to EFIJLMNOQ] the house of Laban

Here the typesetter for the 1849 LDS edition accidentally changed the archaic preposition unto to the more expected preposition to. The to was retained in LDS editions until 1920.

The text usually favors “unto the house of X”, where X is a person’s name. We have five occurrences of “unto the house of Laban” (including this one), plus single occurrences with the names Ishmael (1 Nephi 7:4) and Jared (Ether 8:13). There is, however, one occurrence of “to the house of X”, namely, with the name Seantum (Helaman 9:26). Since both prepositions are possible, we follow the earliest textual sources.

Summary: Based on the reading in 𝓞 and usage elsewhere in 1 Nephi 3–4, the original preposition unto should be maintained in 1 Nephi 3:23 (“unto the house of Laban”).

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 1

References