Alma 12:10 Textual Variants

Here in the printer’s manuscript, scribe 2 wrote “until they knew them in full”, yet the rest of the larger passage is in the present tense, in particular in the parallel construction in the following verse:

• Alma 12:11
  • and he that will harden his heart to him is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries

Thus the 1830 typesetter replaced knew with the present-tense know in the preceding verse.

There are other examples of difficulties between know and knew in the transmission of the text, including this instance in 𝓟 where Oliver Cowdery himself miswrote know as knew but caught his error and corrected it:

• Alma 55:3
  • behold I [know 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|knew > know 1] the place where the Lamanites doth guard my people which they have taken prisoners

For other examples of textually significant mix-ups between know and knew, see under Alma 38:4 and Helaman 9:36. The critical text will accept the 1830 emendation of knew to know in Alma 12:10; the original text here most probably read “until they know them in full”.