Grant Hardy, in his 2004 article “Of Punctuation and Parentage” (on pages 2–3 of the FARMS newsletter Insights 24/2), argues that here in 2 Nephi 4:3 the verb called should be interpreted as meaning ‘named’ and that the comma between “the children of Laman” and “his sons and his daughters” should be removed. In accord with this interpretation, Hardy earlier removed the comma for this verse in The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2003). Hardy argues that Lehi is here adopting Laman’s children as his own children, to replace their rebellious father, Laman. My objection to this interpretation, referred to in a footnote to Hardy’s article, is that the parallel passage in verses 8–9 clearly refers to the children of Lemuel being brought before Lehi rather than being adopted as Lehi’s own (the expression used there is “caused ... to be brought” rather than one with the potentially ambiguous verb call ):
Note especially that here in 2 Nephi 1–4 Lehi never directly addresses any of his other grandchildren. Lehi hopes that Laman and Lemuel’s children will be righteous and wants to speak to them directly since he has little hope that their fathers will ever teach them the ways of the Lord. He even refers to these children, both Laman’s and Lemuel’s, as “my sons and my daughters” (in verses 3 and 9). Yet even if one considers Lehi as having adopted these grandchildren as his own, the text should avoid interpreting the verb called as meaning ‘named’ in 2 Nephi 4:3. The critical text will treat the phrase “his sons and his daughters” as an appositive to the preceding noun phrase, “the children of Laman”.
Summary: Maintain in 2 Nephi 4:3 the commas around the appositive noun phrase, “his sons and his daughters”; in accord with the parallel passage in verses 8–9 (where Lemuel’s children are “brought before him”), Lehi is having Laman’s children brought before him in verse 3, not naming them as his adopted children.
2 Nephi 4:5, pages 531–534
The textual variation discussed in these two separate write-ups should be combined, perhaps in a single lemmatized form (where the correction in 𝓟 was made by Joseph Smith in his editing for the 1837 edition):
As pointed out in my original discussion, the phrase “the right way(s) of the Lord (or God)” occurs four times in the Book of Mormon text. Grant Hardy (personal communication, 27 May 2005) points out that there is a biblical passage that could be referred to in support of the specific phrase “the right ways of the Lord”:
Hardy has elsewhere argued that here in 2 Nephi 4:5 Joseph Smith removed the word right in his editing for the 1837 edition because of the biblical usage without the right before way in the corresponding famous passage in Proverbs:
It is likely that Joseph was influenced by the language in Proverbs when he edited right from 2 Nephi 4:5. Notice, in particular, that he not only omitted the adjective right but he also deleted the that, both of which are lacking in the Proverbs version. Nonetheless, the critical text will restore the earliest extant reading, with the right and the that. For Hardy’s published comments on this reading, see pages 48–49 of his article on the critical text project, “Scholarship for the Ages”, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 15/1 (2006): 43–53, 71.
2 Nephi 4:26, page 546
One wonders here if there is any independent manuscript evidence for mix-ups between men and me. It turns out that there is one example:
Here in the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote me instead of the correct men. In this instance, me is quite impossible. Later, probably when he proofed 𝓟 against 𝓞, Oliver corrected his initial me to men (the ink flow for the inserted n is heavier and written somewhat wobbly).