Mosiah 11:17–18 Textual Variants

Here the 1830 typesetter dealt with two incorrect uses of the simple present tense by substituting the corresponding simple past-tense form (came for come and drove for drive). Of course, the original manuscript could have also had the simple past-tense forms. But another possibility is that the original manuscript might have used the periphrastic past-tense forms, did come and did drive, so that these errors in the printer’s manuscript could have simply been due to the loss of the past-tense auxiliary verb form did. Nonetheless, it is rather doubtful that in Mosiah 11:17–18 both come and drive are the result of dropping the auxiliary verb form did. There are no examples elsewhere in the text of more than one periphrastic do being omitted within a given passage; but there are quite a few passages where Oliver Cowdery omitted a single periphrastic verb form, at least momentarily:

• Alma 44:22
  • and it came to pass that they [did 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|NULL > did 1] cast their dead into the waters of Sidon
• Alma 60:22
  • yea and tens of thousands which [NULL > do 1|do ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] also sit in idleness
• Helaman 3:20
  • and he did [do 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|NULL >+ do 1] that which was right in the sight of God continually
• 3 Nephi 3:2
  • yea ye do stand well as if ye were supported by the hand of a god in the defense of your liberty and your property and your country or that which ye [NULL >+ do 1|do ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] call so
• 3 Nephi 3:26
  • and Gidgiddoni [caused > did cause 1|did cause ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] that they should make weapons of war of every kind
• Ether 10:3
  • and his eldest son whose name was Shez [did rebell 0|rebelled >+ did rebell 1|did rebel ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] against him
• Ether 10:8
  • the people [raised >+ did raise 1|did raise ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|did rise RT] up in rebellion against him
• Ether 13:28
  • and it came to pass that Coriantumr beat him and [did persue 0|persued >+ did persue 1| did pursue ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] him until he came to the plains of Heshlon

In each of these examples, Oliver initially omitted the auxiliary verb do in the printer’s manuscript but later supplied it, sometimes almost immediately.

For the specific case of come, we have considerable evidence that Oliver Cowdery frequently miswrote came as come:

• 2 Nephi 7:2 (error in 𝓟*; Isaiah 50:2 reads came)
  • when I [came 0BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|come >js came 1|come A] there was no man
• Mosiah 19:13 (initial error in 𝓟)
  • and it [come > came 1|came ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] to pass that those that tarried with their wives and their children caused that their fair daughters should stand forth and plead with the Lamanites
• Alma 35:8 (initial error in 𝓞)
  • desiring them that they should cast out of their land all those which [come > came 0|came 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] over from them into their land
• Alma 43:5 (initial error in 𝓟)
  • and it came to pass that the Lamanites [came 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|come > came 1] with their thousands and they came into the land of Antionum
• Helaman 11:34 (error in 𝓟 and possibly in 𝓞)
  • now this great evil which [come 1|came ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] unto the people because of their iniquity did stir them up again in remembrance of the Lord their God
• 3 Nephi 4:22 (error apparently in 𝓞 since both 𝓟 and the 1830 edition read come)
  • and thus it became the desire of the people of Zemnarihah to withdraw from their design because of the great destruction which [come 1ABC|came DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] upon them by night and by day
• 3 Nephi 6:23 (error in 𝓟 and possibly in 𝓞)
  • now there were many of those which testified of the things pertaining to Christ which testified boldly which were taken and put to death secretly by the judges that the knowledge of their death [come 1|came ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] not unto the governor of the land until after their death
• 3 Nephi 6:25 (initial error in 𝓟)
  • therefore a complaint [come > came 1|came ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] up unto the land of Zarahemla
• Moroni 7:26 (error in 𝓟 and possibly in 𝓞)
  • and after that he [come 1|came ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] men also were saved by faith in his name

Thus Oliver frequently replaced came with come. On the other hand, there are 38 occurrences in the original text of did come (counting only those cases without any intervening word between the did and the come), yet for none of these did the scribes ever drop the auxiliary did. The preponderance of the textual evidence suggests that here in Mosiah 11:17, the come in the printer’s manuscript is an error for came rather than did come.

With respect to the case of drive, the solution is more difficult. There are seven occurrences of did drive in the text:

• Omni 1:24
  • but behold the Nephites did obtain much advantage over them yea insomuch that king Benjamin did drive them out of the land of Zarahemla
• Mosiah 10:20
  • and it came to pass that we did drive them again out of our land
• Alma 51:23
  • the Nephites were not sufficiently strong in the city of Moroni therefore Amalickiah did drive them slaying many
• Alma 62:38
  • insomuch that they did slay them with a great slaughter and they did drive them out of the land
• 3 Nephi 2:17
  • nevertheless the people of Nephi did gain some advantage of the robbers insomuch that they did drive them back out of their lands into the mountains and into their secret places
• Mormon 2:4
  • the Lamanites did come upon us and did drive us out of the city
• Mormon 4:14
  • and they did also march forward against the city Teancum and did drive the inhabitants forth out of her

For five of these cases, the preceding finite verb is also the auxiliary verb did.

In contrast to these examples, there are six examples in the earliest text of the simple pasttense drove or drave:

• Mosiah 11:17 (𝓞 is not extant)
  • and the Lamanites came upon them and killed them and drove many of their flocks out of the land
• Alma 2:33 (𝓞 is not extant)
  • but Alma with his guards contended with the guards of the king of the Lamanites until he slew and [drave 1|drove ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] them back
• Alma 3:23 (𝓞 is not extant)
  • and they went up and slew many of the Lamanites and drove the remainder of them out of the borders of their land
• Alma 42:2 (𝓞 is extant and reads drove, as in Genesis 3:24)
  • for behold after the Lord God sent our first parents forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken yea he [drove 0|drew 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] out the man …
• Alma 50:7 (𝓞 is extant)
  • yea and they went forth and [drave 01|drove ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] all the Lamanites which were in the east wilderness into their own lands
• Ether 13:29 (𝓞 is extant)
  • and behold he did beat Coriantumr and drove him back again to the valley of Gilgal

In five of these six cases, the preceding finite verbs are also in the simple past tense. In only one case, the last one, is the preceding finite verb the auxiliary verb did. Related to this last example is the following instance where the immediately preceding finite verb is once more the auxiliary did:

• Mosiah 21:8
  • and it came to pass that the Lamanites did beat them and [drive >+ drove 1|drove ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] them back and [slay >+ slew 1|slew ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] many of them

For this example, Oliver Cowdery later (with uneven and heavier ink flow) changed drive to drove and slay to slew. These two changes appear to be the result of proofing 𝓟 against 𝓞, not editing; for discussion, see under Mosiah 21:8.

In Mosiah 11:18 the preceding finite verb is the simple past-tense were (“they were driven back”), which suggests that statistically the more probable original reading was drove rather than did drive; nonetheless, did drive is still possible. Yet one further possibility is that the original text read drave rather than drove. Of the six occurrences of the past-tense form for drive in the earliest text, two actually read drave (see the preceding list). For the three cases where 𝓞 is extant, one reads drave while the two others read drove. If the original manuscript (not extant for the book of Mosiah) read drave in Mosiah 11:18, the misreading to drive would have been much easier since a looks much more like i than o does; in fact, Oliver Cowdery frequently wrote his a like a u, which would have further facilitated the misreading drive.

Ultimately, the probable source for misreading either drove or drave as drive in Mosiah 11:18 was the occurrence of driven in the immediately preceding clause (“they were driven back”). Since drove is slightly more frequent than drave in the earliest readings, the critical text will assume that the 1830 typesetter’s emendation of drive to drove restored the original reading. Yet both drave and did drive remain viable alternatives here in Mosiah 11:8.