Omni 1:6 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
yea he would not suffer that the words [NULL >+ should not be verrified 1|should not be verified ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] which he spake unto our fathers saying [NULL >+ that 1|That AHIJKLMNOPQS|that BCDEFGRT] inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments / ye shall not prosper in the land

In this passage, there are two supralinear insertions in the printer’s manuscript. Both are written with heavier, darker ink and were clearly inserted later, probably while proofing 𝓟 against 𝓞. (For discussion of these and several other corrections resulting from proofing these pages of 𝓟, see under Omni 1:17.) It would appear that Oliver Cowdery, the scribe here in 𝓟, accidentally skipped over the text twice here in Omni 1:6. The first insertion, a verb phrase (“should not be verified”), appears to be necessary to make sense of the text. The second insertion, the subordinate conjunction that, is also consistent with usage elsewhere; in the expression “spake ... saying”, that can optionally appear after the word saying. (See, for instance, the discussion under 1 Nephi 7:1; for further discussion of the optionality of that, see under that in volume 3.)

In fact, this whole passage in Omni 1:6 is a negative form of a nearly identical statement found in the previous book:

Thus the two insertions in Omni 1:6 are very likely readings from 𝓞.

Summary: Retain in Omni 1:6 Oliver Cowdery’s two corrections in 𝓟, which most probably are corrections to the reading in 𝓞, no longer extant here.

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

References