Here in 1 Nephi 12:1, the original manuscript appears to have a dittography. The first occurrence of “the land” is found at the end of the line, then “the land” is repeated at the beginning of the
next line:
- 1 Nephi 12:1 (lines 23–24, page 18 of 𝓞)
- seed of thy brethren & i lookt and beheld the land the land of promise and i beheld multitudes of ...
This particular scribe (scribe 3 of 𝓞) produced two other examples of dittography as he moved from the end of one line to the beginning of the next line. In both these cases, he caught his error
and crossed out the initial occurrence (the one at the end of the line):
- 1 Nephi 7:19 (lines 7–8, page 11 of 𝓞)ware
- And it came to paßs that they ^ angry with me again and saught to lay hands uppon me but behold one of the
- 1 Nephi 10:13–14 (lines 8–9, page 15 of 𝓞)
- lord that we should be scattered uppon all the faseof the earth and after that the house of israel ...
For 1 Nephi 12:1, Oliver Cowdery initially copied the dittography into 𝓟, then deleted the first one. Apparently, he wrote land as band, but he undoubtedly intended
land. In any event, Oliver interpreted “the land the land” in 𝓞 as a dittography that scribe 3 had neglected to correct.
The chances are slight that the repetition in “the land the land of promise” is genuine. Besides the two other cases involving the end of the line (listed above), scribe 3 of 𝓞 often created
dittographies, although in all other cases he caught his error:
- 1 Nephi 4:26 (line 14, page 7 of 𝓞)
- I had Slew where fore he did follow me and
- 1 Nephi 7:6 (lines 12–13, page 10 of 𝓞)
- i nephi and sam and their father ishmael and his wifeand his three other daugters and it came
- 1 Nephi 8:26 (lines 48–49, page 12 of 𝓞)
- and beheld on the other side of the river of water a great and spesious bilding and it
- 1 Nephi 11:36 (line 17, page 18 of 𝓞)
- fall there of was exceding great and the ...
These examples are all alike: in each case, the same precise words are repeated.
Elsewhere in the text there are no examples of “the land the land”, but there are quite a few cases where land is repeated in an appositive, yet the repetition always includes some
difference:
- Nephi 2:20
- ye shall prosper and shall be led to a land of promise yea even a land which I have prepared for you a land which is choice above all other lands
- Nephi 1:5
- we have obtained a land of promise a land which is choice above all other lands a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of
my seed
- Mosiah 21:26
- nevertheless they did find a land which had been peopled yea a land which was covered with dry bones yea a land which had been peopled
and which had been destroyed
- Mosiah 23:4
- and they came to a land yea even a very beautiful and pleasant land a land of pure water
- Alma 17:19
- and Ammon went to the land of Ishmael the land being called after the sons of Ishmael
- Alma 45:16
- cursed shall be the land yea this land unto every nation kindred tongue and people …
- Alma 50:11
- the Nephites possessing all the land northward yea even all the land which was northward of the land Bountiful
- Alma 54:13
- yea and we will seek our lands the lands of our first inheritance
- Helaman 16:20
- but not among us but in a land which is far distant a land which we know not
- Nephi 5:12
- and behold I am called Mormon being called after the land of Mormon the land in the which Alma did establish the church among this people
These examples strongly suggest that the unmodified repetition “the land the land” in 1 Nephi 12:1 of 𝓞 is a dittography and that Oliver Cowdery was right to delete the repetition in the printer’s
manuscript.
