Helaman 5:6 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and this I have done that when [ you 1ABCDEFGIJLMNOQRT|ye HKPS] remember your names that ye may remember them and when ye remember them ye may remember their works and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said and also written that they were good

Here the earliest textual source, the printer’s manuscript, reads you for the first instance of the second person plural subject pronoun, whereas elsewhere in this logically arranged sequence of complex clauses, we get only ye. The 1874 RLDS edition changed this one instance of you to ye, and it has been maintained in all subsequent RLDS editions, probably because of the strong parallelism with the following sequence of clauses. Although this instance of you may be an error for ye (𝓞 is not extant here), the critical text will maintain the you since in the Book of Mormon text you is possible as the subject pronoun form, even when there is a ye elsewhere in the same sentence (see the discussion under Mosiah 4:14 and, more generally, under ye in volume 3).

Summary: In accord with the earliest extant text (the printer’s manuscript), maintain in Helaman 5:6 the subject pronoun form you in the first when-clause, “when you remember your names”; although ye is supported by the usage in the remainder of this passage, you is still possible.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 5

References