Helaman 1:28–30 Textual Variants

The repetition of and he did in the middle of this passage appears to be an accidental dittography that entered the text when Oliver Cowdery copied this passage from 𝓞 into 𝓟. The current text is excessively redundant, as we can clearly see when we supply the ellipsis:

• Helaman 1:28–29 (ellipted text supplied, shown with an arrow)
  •   to head them before they should come to the land Bountiful
    → and thus he did head them
      and he did head them before they came to the land Bountiful

Without the extra “and he did”, we get a more parallelistic statement that avoids any excessive redundancy:

• Helaman 1:28–29 (parallelism in bold)
  • to head them before they should come to the land Bountiful 
    and thus he did head them before they came to the land Bountiful

Of course, the resulting parallelism is quite repetitious, as pointed out by David Calabro (personal communication). Even so, the first line refers to what Moronihah commanded Lehi to do, and the second line confirms that Lehi did precisely that. We get a similar kind of repetition, although not as parallelistic, later in the text when Gidgiddoni commanded his armies and they followed through:

• 3 Nephi 4:13
  •   and it came to pass that Gidgiddoni commanded
      that his armies should pursue them as far as to the borders of the wilderness 
      and that they should not spare any that should fall into their hands by the way
    → and thus they did pursue them and did slay them to the borders of the wilderness 
      even until they had fulfilled the commandment of Gidgiddoni

Here in Helaman 1, the original manuscript is not extant for the first part of verse 29, but spacing between extant fragments indicates that most likely Oliver simply wrote “& thus he did head them” in 𝓞; the transcript for this part of 𝓞 in volume 1 of the critical text reads accordingly:

• Helaman 1:28–29 (lines 2–3, page 368ªof 𝓞)
  • ( )ad them before they should co(m ) FORTH LEHI WITH AN ARMY ROUND ABOUT TO HE E TO THE
    ( m) before they came to the land Boun(t ) LAND BOUNTIFUL & THUS HE DID HEAD THE IFUL

If the extra “& he did” was in 𝓞, Oliver must have supralinearly inserted it, as follows:

• Helaman 1:28–29 (reconstructed line 3 on page 368ªof 𝓞)
  • & he did land Bountiful & thus he did ^ head them before they came to the land Bountiful

Elsewhere in the text there are 33 occurrences of “and thus did < do something >”, as in the following sampling:

• 1 Nephi 16:36 and thus they did murmur against my father
• Mosiah 10:2 and thus I did guard my people and my flocks
• Mosiah 10:5 and thus we did prosper in the land
• Mosiah 11:13 and thus he did do with the riches which he obtained
• Helaman 11:20 and thus it did come to pass that …

However, there is one clear example in the original text of “and thus did” where the main verb is ellipted:

• Alma 52:24–25
  •   behold Moroni commanded that a part of his army which were with him
      should march forth into the city and take possession of it
    → and thus they did
      and slew all those who had been left to protect the city
      yea all those who would not yield up their weapons of war

Providing the ellipted text, we get “and thus they did march forth into the city and take possession of it”, which causes no excessive redundancy. (For another possible example of “and thus they did”, see the discussion under Alma 24:18.)

Although there is theoretically nothing wrong with “and thus he did” in Helaman 1:29, the redundancy is excessive. In addition, spacing considerations in 𝓞 argue against the earliest extant reading (in 𝓟), which is also the reading in all the printed editions. Here in Helaman 1:29, the critical text will accept the emended reading without the dittography. As explained under Mosiah 10:5, there are several cases of dittography that appear to have entered the text during its early transmission. Each one involves an unacceptable sort of redundancy.