1 Nephi 15:16 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
behold I say unto you yea they shall be [numbered 0|remembered 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] again among the house of Israel

When Oliver Cowdery was copying from 𝓞 to 𝓟, he apparently misread the word numbered at the end of the line in 𝓞. His error, remembered, has continued in all the printed editions. Although people can be remembered again, its use here does seem odd. The original reading of “numbered again” is obviously better.

Elsewhere in the current Book of Mormon text, people are virtually always numbered as members of certain groups (31 times). Examination of the original manuscript has led to a 32nd example, one where numbered was accidentally omitted when Oliver Cowdery copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟:

See Alma 27:27 for discussion of the evidence for restoring numbered, plus its significance for the meaning of that passage.

In the current text, there is only one other occurrence of the verb remember instead of number that is used to refer to people. This example is found in a portion of the text that is no longer extant in the original manuscript:

As we have seen here in 1 Nephi 15:16, Oliver Cowdery can misread numbered as remembered, so remembered in Alma 1:24 may be a scribal error for numbered.

Language elsewhere in the Book of Mormon strongly suggests that this example of remembered in Alma 1:24 is indeed an error. Whenever names are blotted out, the associated clause always refers to these people as being no longer “numbered among” the people of the Lord:

As shown by 1 Nephi 15:16, Oliver Cowdery can indeed misread number as remember. The close similarity of the language of Alma 1:24 with the four other passages provides strong evidence that the text in Alma 1:24 should be emended so that the verb is numbered rather than remembered.

Summary: Based on the original manuscript, remembered should be replaced by numbered in 1 Nephi 15:16; based on internal evidence as well as this evidence of scribal error in 1 Nephi 15:16, the text in Alma 1:24 should be emended to read “they were numbered no more among the people of God”.

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

References