Alma 44:24 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and thus ended the record of Alma which was [wrote 01ABDE|written CGHIJKLMNOPQRST|wrote > written F] upon the plates of Nephi

Here we have an example of the simple past-tense form wrote acting as the past participle. This nonstandard usage was removed from this passage in the 1840 edition as well as in the second printing of the 1852 LDS edition (presumably by reference to the 1840 edition). There are five other examples of this dialectal usage in the original text, all of which have been removed from the LDS and RLDS texts. The use of the standard written is considerably more frequent in the original text. For a list of all six cases of original past participial wrote, see under past participle in volume 3. The critical text will restore all these instances of wrote since they are supported by the earliest textual sources. The dialectal use of the simple past-tense form as the past participle was very common in the original Book of Mormon text. See, for instance, the brief discussion under 1 Nephi 1:14 or the more general discussion under past participle in volume 3.

Summary: Restore the original past participial form wrote in Alma 44:24 since this is the reading of the earliest textual sources (including 𝓞); there are six examples (including this one) of past participial wrote instead of the standard written in the earliest text.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 4

References