Alma 17:7–8 Textual Variants

and this they done that they might provide food for themselves while in the wilderness and thus they departed into the wilderness 1ABCEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST NULL D with their numbers which they had selected

The copytext for the 1841 British edition was the 1837 Kirtland edition. Here the 1841 compositor accidentally omitted the phrase “and thus they departed into the wilderness”. For this portion of the text, the 1837 edition was set as follows:

Alma 17:7–8 (1837 edition, page 286, lines 13–14)
- selves while in the wilderness : and thus they departed into the wilderness, with their numbers which they

The placement in the 1837 edition of the two occurrences of the phrase the wilderness thus facilitated this visual skip. The subsequent LDS edition (1849) restored the missing text.

Summary: Maintain the phrase “and thus they departed into the wilderness” in Alma 17:8.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 3

References