KnoWhy #331 - What If Martin Harris Didn’t Lose All Of The 116 Pages? (Words of Mormon 1:18-Mosiah 1:1)

It is possible that verses 12–18 of Words of Mormon were not originally part of Words of Mormon, but were part of the Book of Mosiah. When Oliver Cowdery was making the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon, he copied the text of the original Book of Mormon manuscript faithfully, including putting down “Chapter III” from the original manuscript, but couldn’t find chapters 1 and 2. The previous heading was ‘The Words of Mormon,’ with no other chapters intervening. Oliver fixed the problem by inking out the last two characters of ‘Chapter III’ (making it ‘Chapter I’) and inserting ‘Book of Mosiah’ above the line. Later, when Oliver was making the printer’s manuscript, he copied down Words of Mormon and then went straight into the remaining portion of Mosiah 2 without noticing at first.