Alma 2:15 Textual Variants

In this verse the 1841 British edition introduced two secondary readings. The first was the accidental addition of the before east, creating the very strange noun phrase “the east of the river Sidon”. Even more strange is that this awkward reading was maintained in the LDS text until the 1920 edition. Whenever a cardinal direction is the head noun in a prepositional phrase and the direction is immediately followed by the preposition of, the definite article the occurs before the direction:

as the head noun in a prepositional phrase (a sampling from 20 occurrences)

• Mosiah 9:14 away on the south of the land of Shilom
• Mosiah 10:8 they came up upon the north of the land of Shilom
• Alma 2:34 which was on the west of the river Sidon
• Alma 6:7 and went over upon the east of the river Sidon

But when the cardinal direction acts as the subject complement (as here in Alma 2:15) or when it postmodifies another noun, the direction always occurs without the the:

as the subject complement (a sampling from 8 occurrences)

• Alma 31:3 a land ... which was east of the land of Zarahemla
• Alma 50:7 their own lands which were south of the land of Zarahemla
• Alma 50:9 the east wilderness which was north of the lands of their own possessions

as the postmodifier for a noun (2 occurrences)

• Mosiah 11:13 to be built on the hill north of the land Shilom
• Alma 2:17 to slay the Amlicites upon the hill east of Sidon

Of course, these results correspond to modern English usage.

The second 1841 change in this passage was also accidental—namely, the loss of the preposition of from “the land of Zarahemla”. As noted under 1 Nephi 17:7, either reading, with or without the of, is theoretically possible. But it actually turns out that in the original text of the Book of Mormon there are only instances of “the land of Zarahemla” (105 times). Here in Alma 2:15, the 1920 LDS edition restored the of to the LDS text. Elsewhere there are four cases where of has been accidentally omitted from “the land of Zarahemla”. In each of these other cases, the omission was limited to a single textual source:

passage source of omission

• Alma 22:27 1841 British edition
• Alma 31:3 initially by Oliver Cowdery in 𝓞
• 3 Nephi 3:23 1981 LDS edition
• Mormon 1:6 1874 RLDS edition

For discussion, see each passage. The critical text will maintain the consistent use of of in the phrase “the land of Zarahemla”, although theoretically “the land Zarahemla” is possible. For discussion of the phrase “the land (of ) X”, especially when X is the name of a person, see under Alma 27:23 regarding the phrase “the land (of ) Nephi”.