3 Nephi 26:1–2 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and now it came to pass that when Jesus had told these things he expounded them unto the multitude and he did expound all things unto them both great and small and he [sayeth 1|saith ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] ...

Here we have an example of the historical present-tense saith that Joseph Smith missed in his editing for the 1837 edition. As explained under 1 Nephi 2:1, Joseph usually emended the historical present tense to the past tense. Interestingly, here in 3 Nephi 26:2 no subsequent edition has ever made the change. There is a nearby example, in 3 Nephi 27:2, where Joseph marked the change from saith to said in 𝓟 but it was never implemented in the 1837 edition. In that case, 20th-century editions of the Book of Mormon made the change to said. For a complete discussion of the historical present tense in the original Book of Mormon text, plus its normal editing to the past tense, see under historical present in volume 3.

Summary: Maintain the present-tense saith in 3 Nephi 26:2; such usage is common in the original Book of Mormon text, although most cases have been edited to said.

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

References