behold the pride of this nation or the [ pride >+ people 1|people ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] of the Nephites hath proved their destruction except they should repent
Here in the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “or the pride of the Nephites”; then later with somewhat heavier ink flow he crossed out pride and
sublinearly wrote people (the correction occurs in the last line of text on the manuscript page). This correction probably occurred when Oliver proofed 𝓟 against 𝓞.
From a semantic point of view, either reading works. But the corrected text is characteristic of the Book of Mormon. Elsewhere in the text, we find similar uses of the corrective or
involving the names of peoples:
- Jacob 1:14
- and they which are friendly to Nephi I shall call Nephites or the people of Nephi
- Mosiah 1:10
- I would that ye should make a proclamation throughout all this land among all this people or the people of Zarahemla and the people of Mosiah
- Alma 2:11
- and the remainder were called Nephites or the people of God
- Alma 3:11
- whosoever would not believe in the tradition of the Lamanites but believed those records which were brought out of the land of Jerusalem … were called the Nephites or the
people of Nephi from that time forth
- Alma 4:19
- and this he did that he himself might go forth among his people or among the people of Nephi
- Alma 9:1
- And again I Alma having been commanded of God that I should take Amulek and go forth and preach again unto this people or the people which was in the city of Ammonihah …
- Alma 17:22
- and the king inquired of Ammon if it were his desires to dwell in the land among the Lamanites or among his people
- Alma 19:14
- now Ammon seeing the Spirit of the Lord poured out according to his prayers upon the Lamanites his brethren which had been the cause of so much mourning among the Nephites
or among all the people of God …
- Alma 21:20
- and he caused that his people or the people which was under his reign should assemble themselves together
While none of these other correcting or ’s use the phrase “the people of the Nephites”, this noun phrase occurs fairly often in the text, although not as often as “the people of Nephi”
(for some statistics, see under Alma 45:13). The critical text will follow the corrected reading in 𝓟 for Moroni 8:27, “the pride of this nation or the people of the Nephites”.
