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Question: Why was the name "Cumorah" originally spelled "Camorah" in the 1830 Book of Mormon?
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Question: Why was the name "Cumorah" originally spelled "Camorah" in the 1830 Book of Mormon?
Oliver Cowdery stated that this was an error in spelling
In order to more closely associate the Book of Mormon with the Comoros Islands, Grant Palmer and other critics note that "Cumorah" is spelled "Camorah" in the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon. Recall that the Comoros were most often called "Camora" prior to French occupation in the 1840s. The name "Cumorah" figures 9 times in the Book of Mormon text, all within the book of Mormon.
Oliver Cowdery stated that this was a spelling error in the July 1835 issue of the Latter Day Saint's Messenger and Advocate. Oliver Cowdery states:
By turning to the 529th and 530th pages of the book of Mormon you will read Mormon's account of the last great struggle of his people, as they were encamped round this hill Cumorah. (It is printed Camorah, which is an error.)
This assertion from Oliver matches evidence from the Printer's Manuscript of the Book of Mormon where the name is spelled "Camorah" once, "Cumorah" seven times, and "Comorah" twice.[1] The portion of the Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon containing the book of Mormon is no longer extant. There were three scribes for the Printer's Manuscript: Oliver Cowdery, and unknown scribe, and Hyrum Smith.[2] The unknown scribe is the one that copied this portion of the book of Mormon from the Original Manuscript to the Printer's Manuscript. This unknown scribe may have been Martin Harris.[3] Royal Skousen argues persuasively that Oliver Cowdery likely meant to spell it "Cumorah" all nine times in the original manuscript and that Harris (when copying the original manuscript to the printer's manuscript) and the typesetter for the Book of Mormon, John Gilbert (when setting the type for the Book of Mormon), thought that some of Cowdery's uses of the letter "u" looked like uses of the letter "o" and "a". Cowdery also sometimes actually did write the wrong letter.[4] These may be the result of Oliver mishearing the pronunciation of Book of Mormon names by Joseph Smith as he dictated the text of the Book of Mormon.
Further, the use of "Cumorah" brings the name into greater parallel with other names in the Book of Mormon including:
- CUMENI
- CUMENIHAH
- CUMOMS
- KISHKUMEN
- KUMEN
- KUMENONHI
- PACUMENI
- RIPLIANCUM
- TEANCUM
We don't have a Book of Mormon name that includes "cam" or "kam" in its spelling. All names have a u.
There are "com" names in the Book of Mormon such as:
- COM
- COMNOR
- JACOM
But, again, the textual evidence documented by Royal Skousen above argues against the name being Comorah first and then changed later to Cumorah.
Notes
- ↑ See here for the listings and the manuscript listed on the Joseph Smith Papers website for confirmation of this.
- ↑ Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part 1 (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2014), 21.
- ↑ Royal Skousen, “Oliver Cowdery as Book of Mormon Scribe,” in Days Never to Be Forgotten: Oliver Cowdery, ed. Alexander L. Baugh (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009), 53.
- ↑ Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part 6 (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2009), 3636–38.