In this verse, the auxiliary did in “did pass” was removed by Joseph Smith in his editing for the 1837 edition. He apparently rejected the past-tense form in favor of the base form of the verb in the clausal complement of the verb beheld; that is, he changed “X beheld something happened” to the more expected “X beheld something happen”. Normally, in English we expect the base form of the verb, as in the following three examples involving beheld:
The original past-tense usage in 1 Nephi 12:11 may more appropriately be considered as a case where the subordinate conjunction that is missing. Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, we have 40 occurrences of “X beheld that something happened or something was” (such as “I beheld that the rod of iron … was the word of God” in 1 Nephi 11:25). Thus the earliest reading in 1 Nephi 12:11 (“and I looked and beheld three generations did pass away”) may be equivalent to “and I looked and beheld that three generations did pass away”. This example turns out to be the only case involving the past-tense beheld where the that preceding a finite clause is missing. So it is possible that the original text had the that and somehow it was accidentally omitted when scribe 2 of 𝓞 wrote down Joseph Smith’s dictation. More generally, the text usually has that following verbs of quotation or perception, but occasionally the original text is missing the that. On the other hand, there is also evidence that in transmitting the text, scribes and typesetters have occasionally deleted the that. In general, the best solution here is to follow the earliest textual sources in each case (unless there is something definitely wrong with the earliest reading). Thus in 1 Nephi 12:11, the critical text will accept the reading of the original manuscript—that is, without the that. (For a complete analysis, see that in volume 3.)
Nonetheless, there is some internal evidence in support of Joseph Smith’s emendation. By deleting the finite verb did, Joseph made all 16 examples of “I looked and (I) beheld” conform, with each example having a nonfinite complement: in ten instances, the complement is simply a noun phrase; in four cases, the complement is a noun phrase followed by a participial phrase; and in one case, we have the base form of the verb (that is, the bare infinitive):
Thus Joseph Smith’s editing in 1 Nephi 12:11 removed the only example where “I looked and (I) beheld” is followed by a finite clause. In other words, his editing to “I looked and beheld three generations pass away in righteousness” made 1 Nephi 12:11 conform to 1 Nephi 11:30. We should also keep in mind that Joseph’s emendation could be the original text and that somehow the did was accidentally added during the initial transmission of the text (as Joseph was dictating the text to scribe 2).
There are two other possible emendations for 1 Nephi 12:11 that should be mentioned here. First, it is possible that the original text read “and I looked and behold three generations did pass away in righteousness”. This Hebraistic construction is frequently found in the King James Bible, occurring 29 times (such as “and he looked and behold the bush burned with fire” in Exodus 3:2). In the Book of Mormon text, there is considerable evidence that behold and beheld were frequently mixed up by the scribes while transmitting the text. However, in this construction, “I looked and beheld”, there are no examples whatsoever of scribal difficulty. Only the past-tense verb form beheld is ever found in this context—16 times and without any variation. (For a complete discussion of the mix-ups between behold and beheld, see under behold in volume 3. The discussion there also includes a complete list of the places where behold and beheld have been mixed up by either scribes or typesetters.)
Another possible emendation for 1 Nephi 12:11 proposes that in the original text the subject pronoun I was actually repeated but was somehow skipped—that is, 1 Nephi 12:11 originally read “and I looked and I beheld three generations did pass away in righteousness”. Actually, the odds are against this emendation. In Nephi’s account of his vision of the tree of life, the clause “I looked and beheld” occurs a total of 13 times (including this one in 1 Nephi 12:11), while “I looked and I beheld” occurs 3 times (1 Nephi 11:24, 30, 31). In all 16 cases, there is no scribal variance: for each instance, the original manuscript itself shows no deletion or addition of the I. Since either reading is theoretically possible, in the case of 1 Nephi 12:11 we follow the earliest textual sources (here the original manuscript).
Summary: Restore in 1 Nephi 12:11 the reading of the original manuscript (“and I looked and beheld three generations did pass away in righteousness”), even though the subordinate conjunction that may have been accidentally omitted in the early transmission of the text.