Alma 52:10 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and that he [would also > also would 1|also would ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] fortify and strengthen the cities round about

Here in 𝓟, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “he would also fortify and strengthen the cities”, but then virtually immediately he moved the word also from after would to before it (giving “he also would fortify and strengthen the cities”); there is no difference in the ink flow for the correction. As discussed under 2 Nephi 21:13, also can occur either before or after the first auxiliary verb in a verb phrase. In each case, we follow the earliest sources, thus here in Alma 52:10 the corrected reading in 𝓟: “he also would fortify and strengthen the cities”. 𝓞 is not extant here, but the lacuna is sufficiently short that the also was probably supralinearly inserted, which could have made the placement of the also subject to error when the text was copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟.

Summary: Maintain in Alma 52:10 the placement of also before the auxiliary verb would, the corrected reading in 𝓟 (“he also would fortify and strengthen the cities”).

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

References