Mosiah 1:3 Textual Variants

Here in the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “these records and the commandments”, but then virtually immediately he corrected the text to read “these records and these commandments” (the se was squeezed in between the the and commandments without any change in the level of ink flow). Since either reading is possible, there is no motivation here for editing; the original manuscript undoubtedly read these commandments. Similar repetitive use of these is found elsewhere in the text, as in the following example from the small plates of Nephi:

• The Words of Mormon 1:6
  • but behold I shall take these plates which contain these prophesyings and revelations and put them with the remainder of my record