Here the 1830 edition has the singular thing, but the printer’s manuscript has the plural things. The original manuscript is not extant here; but for this part of the text, both these readings are firsthand copies of 𝓞, so the question is which one is the correct reading. In accord with the reading of 𝓟, the 1908 RLDS edition restored the plural things; the LDS text has retained the 1830 reading, the singular thing.
The stronger tendency for the scribes was to accidentally drop the plural s, but there are also cases where the plural s was accidentally added. In the following analysis (which excludes the case here in Helaman 15:8), I list all the manuscript mix-ups involving thing and things. In most cases, the scribes caught their obvious errors. If a mix-up is not an obvious error, I mark it with an asterisk. For each case, I also cite the correct reading:
oliver cowdery
errors corrected by Oliver Cowdery
things > thing
𝓞 Alma 63:13 these things
𝓟 1 Nephi 11:31 all these things
1 Nephi 14:29
1 Nephi 15:1
* the things which my father saw all these things
thing > things
𝓟 1 Nephi 15:11 * the thing which the Lord hath said
Jacob 7:14 * the thing which thou knowest
errors left uncorrected by Oliver Cowdery things > thing
𝓟 1 Nephi 18:6 * whatsoever things we had brought
3 Nephi 1:18 these things
thing > things
𝓟 Alma 57:14 * whatsoever thing they could get
scribe 2 of 𝓞
errors corrected by scribe 2 of 𝓞
things > thing
𝓞 1 Nephi 13:29 many plain and precious things
scribe 3 of 𝓞
errors corrected by scribe 3 of 𝓞
things > thing
𝓞 1 Nephi 8:38 many things
errors left uncorrected by scribe 3 of 𝓞
things > thing
𝓞 1 Nephi 7:13 all things which the Lord hath spoken
scribe 2 of 𝓟
errors corrected by scribe 2 of 𝓟
things > thing
𝓟 Alma 7:17
Alma 11:44
* the things which I have spoken all things shall be restored
3 Nephi 23:1 these things
Mormon 1:1
Mormon 8:12
* the things which I have both seen and heard all things
thing > things
𝓟 3 Nephi 23:11 this thing
errors left uncorrected by scribe 2 of 𝓟
things > thing
𝓟 Alma 12:1 to explain things
3 Nephi 27:21 * the things that ye must do
HYRUM SMITH
errors left uncorrected by Hyrum Smith
things > thing
𝓟 Mosiah 29:30 these things
Oliver Cowdery (when he proofed 𝓟 against 𝓞) corrected the error that scribe 2 of 𝓟 made in 3 Nephi 27:21. When he copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟, Oliver also corrected the obvious error that scribe 3 of 𝓞 made in 1 Nephi 7:13. The 1830 compositor corrected the obvious error made by scribe 2 of 𝓟 in Alma 12:1 as well as the obvious error made by Hyrum Smith in Mosiah 29:30. We should note here that the more frequent tendency in the manuscripts was to replace things with thing (17 times) rather than thing with things (4 times).
On the other hand, the 1830 compositor made only a few errors in typesetting thing(s), none of which are obvious (which means that each of these is marked with an asterisk to indicate that either reading is possible):
1830 COMPOSITOR
things > thing
1 Nephi 5:5 * in the which things I do rejoice thing > things
1 Nephi 15:11 * the thing which the Lord hath said
Alma 24:24 * the thing which they had done
It should be pointed out that other 1830 typos involving thing(s) could have been caught and corrected when the 1830 sheets were proofed.
From all of these errors, we can identify those that would specifically help in analyzing the variation here in Helaman 15:8. First, there is one clear case where Oliver Cowdery, as he copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟, replaced an original plural things with a singular thing:
On the other hand, there are two clear cases where the 1830 compositor set an original singular thing as a plural things:
Thus errors in the early transmission of the text provide support for either things or thing as the reading of the original manuscript in Helaman 15:8.
When we turn to internal evidence (that is, usage elsewhere in the text), we again find evidence to support either things or thing. First of all, let us consider one type of usage that favors the plural things, namely, the six other instances in the text of things (but not thing) followed by a relative pronoun that begins with the morpheme where (like whereof and whereby, similar to the wherewith here in Helaman 15:8):
Yet despite this regularity, there would be nothing wrong in Helaman 15:8 with the singular form, “and in the thing wherewith they have been made free” (the reading in the 1830 edition); there just needs to be a situation where the singular is expected.
Turning to evidence that supports the singular thing, we note that the text has three other occurrences of “in the thing(s)” followed by a relative clause:
For each of these examples, there is some other nearby pronoun or general noun that has the same number as thing(s): in the first example, the later it is used to refer to “the thing which thou knowest to be true”; in the second example, the plural them refers to riches and by implication to “the things which he hath blessed you”; and in the third example, the singular whatsoever thing parallels the preceding “in the thing which I shall desire of you”. But of some importance here, the first example (in Jacob 7:14) is one of those cases where Oliver Cowdery initially wrote things in 𝓟 (in that case he immediately erased the plural s to give the correct thing). This initial error on Oliver’s part in Jacob 7:14 argues that he could have made the same mistake in Helaman 15:8 when he copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟, but that time he did not catch his error.
The question in Helaman 15:8 is whether Samuel the Lamanite is speaking of one thing or many things in which the Lamanites “have been made free”. In this passage, Samuel is referring to those Lamanites who had been converted. David Calabro points out that the previous text identifies several things that could have made these Lamanites free, namely, (1) knowledge of their true history, belief in the scriptures and prophecies, (3) faith in the Lord, and (4) repentance:
On the other hand, one could argue that it is the last part of this passage (with its reference either to their “change of heart” or to their being “firm and steadfast in the faith”) that has made the Lamanites free. So the preceding text can be used to support either the plural reading things (in 𝓟) or the singular reading thing (in the 1830 edition).
A more convincing parallel for determining the number for thing(s) here in Helaman 15:8 derives from four other relative clauses that refer to people being made free. In each of these cases, the referent for the relative pronoun is the singular noun liberty:
In these four passages, the phraseology parallels Helaman 15:8. Note, in particular, how these four passages refer to “standing fast”, which has the same meaning as being “firm and steadfast in the faith” (the language in Helaman 15:8). So it seems that the thing in Helaman 15:8 (the 1830 reading) could be referring to the liberty that results from continuous righteous living. This interpretation even suggests that the original text in Helaman 15:8 might have read liberty instead of thing. But since both the 1830 edition and the printer’s manuscript have thing(s), the original manuscript undoubtedly read thing(s), not liberty. Overall, it seems doubtful that liberty would have been mixed up with thing(s) during the dictation of the text. As one might expect, there are no examples of such mix-ups in the text for these two words. Instead, the only nouns that things is ever mixed up with more than once in the text are the semantically related words and sayings; for some discussion, see under 1 Nephi 3:28 and 2 Nephi 33:4 (for things versus words) and under Mosiah 6:3 and Mosiah 13:25 (for things versus sayings). Nor is there any semantic similarity between thing and liberty. But the four references to liberty and being made free suggest that thing may stand for the word liberty, which is a singular.
Ultimately, one could argue here in Helaman 15:8 for things (the reading in 𝓟) or thing (the 1830 edition). Language usage elsewhere in the text provides a slight preference for the singular thing, the more difficult reading, especially since we can interpret the word thing as implicitly referring to liberty. Jacob 7:14 provides specific evidence that Oliver Cowdery could write things in place of thing in the phrase “in the thing” when it was postmodified by a relative clause. Moreover, here in Helaman 15:8 Oliver could have easily thought that these converts would have been free in more than one way, thus leading him to change the singular thing to the plural things. The critical text will therefore maintain the 1830 reading: “and in the thing wherewith they have been made free”.
Summary: Based on usage elsewhere in the text, the 1830 reading for Helaman 15:8, the difficult “in the thing wherewith they have been made free”, is slightly more probable as the reading of the original manuscript; the reading in 𝓟, “in the things wherewith they have been made free”, appears to be the result of Oliver Cowdery adding a plural s to things when he copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟; a similar example of this tendency to change “in the thing” to “in the things” can be found in Jacob 7:14.