Ether 12:14 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
behold it was the faith of Nephi and Lehi that wrought the change upon the Lamanites [that 1ABCDEFGIJLMNOPQRST|and HK] they were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost

Here we have another example where the subordinate conjunction that has a resultive meaning (‘with the result that’). Such usage is somewhat unexpected for speakers of modern English, so there has been a tendency in the history of the text to replace the that with and. Here in Ether 12:14, the change was made in the 1874 RLDS edition, but the 1908 RLDS edition restored the correct that. For a list of additional examples of the tendency to replace resultive that with and, see under 1 Nephi 11:29.

Summary: Maintain in Ether 12:14 the original resultive that in the clause “that they were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost”.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 6

References