3 Nephi 4:22 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
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

The earliest textual sources have the present-tense form come. The 1841 British edition and the 1858 Wright edition changed come to the past-tense came. Since both the 1830 edition and the printer’s manuscript read come, the original manuscript most probably read come, which seems to be an error. But the question is: an error for what?

One possibility is that the original text read in the past perfect, as had come, and that in copying down Joseph Smith’s dictation Oliver Cowdery accidentally skipped the had. As discussed under Helaman 16:1, there are three cases in the manuscripts where Oliver omitted the perfect auxiliary had, once initially in 𝓞, once initially in 𝓟, and once permanently in copying from 𝓞 into 𝓟 (for these examples, see under Helaman 16:1).

A second possibility here in 3 Nephi 4:22 is that Oliver Cowdery miswrote the simple pasttense came as come. And Oliver made this error more frequently than he omitted the had, with one case initially in 𝓞, three cases initially in 𝓟, and six cases in 𝓟 without any correction (each of the permanent ones is marked below with an asterisk):

The variation in 3 Nephi 6:23 is precisely like the one here in 3 Nephi 4:22: 𝓟 has an uncorrected come, the 1830 edition has the correct past-tense form, came, and both 𝓟 and the 1830 edition are firsthand copies of 𝓞.

Early transmission errors thus support either came or had come as the original reading in this passage. For the construction found here in 3 Nephi 4:22 (namely, “because of ”), there are examples of relative clauses in the simple past tense (21 times) and in the past perfect (23 times). So in theory the simple past and the past perfect are about equally possible. But since miswriting came as come is more frequent than the loss of had before come, the odds are higher that the original reading here in 3 Nephi 4:22 was simply came. The critical text will therefore accept the 1841 (and 1858) emendation of come to came in this passage.

There is a third possibility that should be mentioned: namely, the original text read had came, which would mean that in writing down come in 𝓞 instead of had came there would have been two changes, the loss of had and the replacement of came with come. The change of had came to come seems less likely than the change of had come to come or the change of came to come. (In extant portions of 𝓞, there are examples of both had come and had came, eight of the first and seven of the second. For discussion of the competition between had come and had came in the original text, see under 1 Nephi 5:1, 4; also see the general discussion under past participle in volume 3.)

Summary: Accept came in 3 Nephi 4:22 as the most probable reading of the original text for what was apparently miswritten by Oliver Cowdery as come in the original manuscript; that is, the original text probably read “because of the great destruction which came upon them by night and by day”.

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

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