Joseph Smith’s addition in the 1840 edition of the phrase “or out of
the waters of baptism” can be considered a marginal note since it appears
within parentheses in that edition. This parenthetical phrase continued in the
early RLDS textual tradition, but was removed from the 1908 RLDS edition since
the phrase does not appear in the printer’s manuscript.
. . .
The LDS text, on the other hand, did not adopt this extra phrase until
the 1920 edition, but in that edition the parentheses was replaced by commas..
. . This change can mislead the reader into thinking that this parenthetical
comment was actually part of the original text, even perhaps concluding not
only that this extra phrase is in the original biblical text, but also that
some scribe deliberately edited it out of the Hebrew text because of its reference
to baptism, assumed to be a strictly Christian practice. Joseph Smith’s
probable intention was to provide an interpretive reading. There is no evidence
to suggest in any way that he was restoring the original text of the Book of
Mormon, especially since the original manuscript is here extant and it agrees
with the reading of the King James Bible (which follows the traditional Hebrew
text) and is also in agreement with all other ancient versions of the text insofar
as they all lack this extra phrase mentioning baptism. (Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual
Variants of the Book of Mormon, 427)
