Here in the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “or broken the bands of death”. Later (with somewhat heavier ink flow and at a slant), Oliver supralinearly inserted the perfect auxiliary verb have in 𝓟. This correction appears to be secondary. The use of the present-tense have seems out of place with respect to the past-tense subjunctive forms otherwise used in this passage (had, should, and could). Moreover, if we accept this intrusive have, then perhaps we should also get a negative not between the have and broken (or maybe even before the have broken). But even with an additional not (as in “or have not broken the bands of death”), the phraseology would still sound awkward because of the clash between have and the preceding had.
Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon there are three more examples of predicates conjoined by the conjunction or within a subordinate if-clause:
In the first case, the modal verb (should) is not repeated; in the second case, the modal verb (shall) is repeated. The third example does not involve any auxiliary verb. In none of these cases is there any change in tense.
But it should also be pointed out that not does not occur in any of these examples. When we consider cases where or conjoins predicates involving not, we still find that there is no change in tense:
These few examples suggest two possible readings for the original text here in Mosiah 16:7. One is that the original text read “or had not broken the bands of death” (with repetition of the auxiliary verb had and the not). The other is that the original text read “or broken the bands of death” (with no repetition of the auxiliary verb had or the not). The more plausible reading seems to be the second one since it involves only the insertion of have in the text, while the first one involves replacing had with have and omitting the not. Since the initial reading in 𝓟 was perfectly acceptable (“or broken the bands of death”), there would have been no motivation for Oliver Cowdery to have inserted the have in 𝓟 except that the have was in the original manuscript (no longer extant here). In other words, the original manuscript may have actually read “or have broken the bands of death”—but this was an error for “or broken the bands of death”. One explanation for such an error, suggested by David Calabro (personal communication), is that the scribe of 𝓞, in taking down Joseph Smith’s dictation, may have accidentally inserted an extra have as he heard Joseph dictating the immediately following subordinate clause (“that the grave should have no victory”):
Although Joseph would not have dictated all of this passage at once, it is possible that he dictated the second and third lines (as listed above) without pausing, which could have led the scribe to have accidentally inserted the have in 𝓞. It is also possible that Joseph himself could have accidentally dictated the have in anticipation of its occurrence in the following clauses.
Since the current reading here in Mosiah 16:7 is quite improbable, the critical text will accept the simplest emendation, namely “if Christ had not risen from the dead or broken the bands of death”. Not only does this reading make perfectly good sense, it is also what Oliver Cowdery initially wrote as he copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟. But since 𝓞 seems to have read “or have broken the bands of death”, Oliver later inserted the have, probably when he proofed 𝓟 against 𝓞.
Summary: Remove in Mosiah 16:7 the intrusive have in “or have broken the bands of death”; the original manuscript apparently had the have, and Oliver Cowdery ended up copying it into 𝓟; one possible source for the extra have in 𝓞 could have been the have in the immediately following clause (“that the grave should have no victory”).