The printer’s manuscript has the repeated of in this conjoining of the prophets and the saints, while the 1830 edition lacks the repeated of. Following the reading in 𝓟, the editors for the 1908 RLDS edition restored the repeated of, while the LDS text has maintained the 1830 reading without the extra of.
Although repetition of conjunctive elements is characteristic of the Book of Mormon text (see the discussion under conjunctive repetition in volume 3), for this particular conjunctive structure we find that elsewhere the of is not repeated. All other examples that refer to the blood of prophets and saints come shortly after this first instance of the phrase in verse 5:
The language for the three examples in verses 7–9 is virtually the same as in verse 5 (except for one minor change in word order and the question of whether the modal is should or shall ). In all four cases, there is no repeated of in the conjoining of the prophets and the saints. This finding implies that there should be no repeated of in verse 5 either, which is how the 1830 edition reads. So the repeated of in the printer’s manuscript for verse 5 could very well be an error. On the other hand, if the 1830 compositor is responsible for the variation here in verse 5, then the loss of the of was probably independent of the four following instances of “the blood of the prophets and the saints”. Instead, the more likely reason for the loss would have been the natural tendency in the history of the text to omit repeated elements in conjunctive structures, especially when such repetition is unexpected in English.
When we look at early transmission errors in the text, the evidence is nearly equally balanced in terms of adding and dropping the repeated of in conjunctive structures. Oliver Cowdery, for instance, momentarily added a repeated of in two cases:
In the second example, Oliver expected the phrase “idols of gold and of silver” (elsewhere the text has seven instances with “of gold and of silver” but none with “of gold and silver”).
In contrast to these two cases, there is one case where Oliver momentarily omitted a repeated of:
But it should be noted that there is no evidence of Oliver permanently adding or dropping a repeated of in a conjunctive structure.
We can find evidence for the 1830 compositor adding and dropping the repeated of; and in his case, the changes are permanent (none of them involve in-press changes). In two cases, he omitted the of:
And in two cases he added the of:
So in 3 Nephi 9:5, Oliver Cowdery could have added the of or the 1830 compositor could have dropped it, but the permanency of the 1830 changes in comparison to Oliver’s momentary changes suggests that the odds are somewhat greater that the 1830 compositor is responsible for the variation in this passage. And this would mean that the loss of the of was consistent with the general tendency in the text to omit repeated elements in conjunctive structures. The critical text will therefore accept the reading in 𝓟, the more difficult one with the repeated of, as the probable reading in 𝓞. This means that there is one instance of “the blood of the prophets and of the saints” in the earliest text but four of “the blood of the prophets and the saints”. In other words, we have variation for this phrase.
Elsewhere the textual evidence favors the loss of the repeated of. As far as scribe 2 of 𝓟 is concerned, there is evidence from two passages of him omitting the repeated of (see the discussion under 3 Nephi 29:8 and under 3 Nephi 30:2). More strikingly, in the subsequent printed editions (from 1837 on), the overwhelming tendency has been to omit the repeated of, which is consistent with the general omission of repeated elements in conjunctive structures:
There is only one example where a repeated of has been added in an edition published after 1830:
Summary: Restore in 3 Nephi 9:5 the more difficult reading with the repeated of in the phrase “the blood of the prophets and of the saints” (the reading in 𝓟); the 1830 reading without the repeated of is more likely an error on the part of the 1830 compositor; Oliver Cowdery, the scribe in 𝓟, never permanently added a repeated of in his scribal work, while the 1830 compositor sometimes permanently omitted the repeated of in his typesetting.