1 Nephi 3:13 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
Laban was angry and thrust him out [ from 01ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPRST|of Q] his presence

The 1911 LDS edition accidentally replaced the phrase “out from his presence” with the more normally expected phrase “out of his presence”. The 1920 edition restored the original reading. The Book of Mormon otherwise prefers “out of X’s presence”, but there are only two examples:

Variation is possible in the Book of Mormon text. For this expression we follow the earliest textual sources to determine in each case whether the preposition should be from or of.

In the King James Bible, the phrase “out from X’s presence” occurs more frequently than “out of X’s presence” (nine versus three occurrences), as in “they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence” (Exodus 10:11) versus “and cast you out of my presence” (Jeremiah 23:39).

Summary: Maintain the use of “out from his presence” in 1 Nephi 3:13 rather than the more modern “out of his presence”.

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

References