Alma 3:5 Textual Variants

The occurrence here of skin without the indefinite article a seems strange. The text is obviously referring to animal skin; but without any modification for the noun skin, one tends to initially misread skin as referring to the Amlicites’ own skin. Usage elsewhere in the text suggests that the indefinite article a is missing before skin in Alma 3:5:

• Enos 1:20
  • and wandering about in the wilderness with a short skin girded about their loins
• Alma 43:20
  • but they were naked save it were a skin which was girded about their loins
• 3 Nephi 4:7
  • and they were girded about after the manner of robbers and they had a lambskin about their loins

Except for the a, the phraseology in Alma 3:5 is virtually the same as in Alma 43:20: “but they were naked save it were a skin which was girded about their loins”. This usage with the indefinite article is also supported by the language in Mark 1:6 in the King James Bible: “and John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a girdle of a skin about his loins”.

There is also evidence that scribe 2 of 𝓟 sometimes omitted the indefinite article a:

• Alma 5:3 (a virtually immediately added by scribe 2)
  • behold I say unto you that he began to establish [NULL > a 1|a ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] church in the land which was in the borders of Nephi
• Alma 11:15 (a virtually immediately added by scribe 2; also omitted in the 1830 edition)
  • therefore a shiblon for [NULL > a 1| ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] half a measure of barley
• 3 Nephi 22:6 (a added by Oliver Cowdery when proofing 𝓟 against 𝓞)
  • for the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and [𝓢① NULL > 𝓢② a 1|a ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] wife of youth
• Mormon 9:15 (a virtually immediately added by scribe 2)
  • and God has not ceased to be [NULL > a 1|a ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] God of miracles

In the last two instances, the 1830 edition was set from 𝓞, not 𝓟, thus providing additional support that the a was in the original text for both these cases. Further, 3 Nephi 22:6 is a quotation from Isaiah 54:6, which has the a before wife in the King James Bible. Clearly, scribe 2 may have omitted an a in Alma 3:5. In accord with the consistency of the text elsewhere, the critical text will emend the text by adding the indefinite article a before skin in Alma 3:5.