2 Nephi 21:14 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
but they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines [towards >% toward 1|toward ABCGHKPS|towards DEFIJLMNOQRT] the west

Isaiah 11:14 (King James Bible) but they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west

This is the one example in the Isaiah quotations that supports the King James toward as the original reading in the Book of Mormon text. As discussed under 1 Nephi 21:23, all other examples in the Isaiah quotations replace the King James toward with towards. Here in 2 Nephi 21:14, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote towards in 𝓟 but then immediately removed the s by erasure. Apparently, 𝓞 read toward, in agreement with the corresponding King James passage of Isaiah. This example suggests that the use of towards in the Book of Mormon quotations of Isaiah may be due to dialectal overlay by Oliver or perhaps Joseph Smith himself. In this one instance, an original toward seems to have made it through the early transmission of the text.

It has been difficult to maintain this toward. In the 1841 British edition, the typesetter replaced the toward of his copy-text (the 1837 edition) with towards. The LDS text has subsequently maintained the -s form of toward(s). On the other hand, the RLDS text, which derives from the 1840 edition, has maintained the earlier toward; the copy-text for the 1840 edition was also the 1837 edition.

As discussed under 1 Nephi 5:22, the most reasonable solution for each case of toward(s) is to accept the earliest textual reading, even if it differs from the reading in the King James Bible. Here in 2 Nephi 21:14, the corrected reading in 𝓟 (namely, toward ) appears to be the original reading.

Summary: Maintain the adverbial form toward in 2 Nephi 21:14, the (immediately) corrected reading in 𝓟 and the apparent reading in 𝓞; in this instance, the original Book of Mormon text agrees with the King James reading in having toward rather than towards (the normal form in the Book of Mormon text).

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 2

References