Heather Hardy (personal communication, 9 July 2008) suggests that the original text here read “from all eternity to all eternity”, just as it does elsewhere in the Book of Mormon text:
We get the similar phraseology in a revelation to Joseph Smith in January 1831:
There is a later revelation, dating from February 1832, where all is lacking for both instances of eternity:
This example suggests an alternative emendation here in Alma 13:7, namely, “from eternity to eternity”, which means that an extra all was inserted before the second eternity, perhaps prompted by the all in the immediately following phrase “according to his foreknowledge of all things”. In any event, there is no other example where one eternity has the all and the other lacks it.
There is considerable evidence that Oliver Cowdery sometimes omitted all in the manuscripts, although usually only momentarily:
There is also one case where all is conjectured to have been lost early on in the transmission of the text; for that example, see under Alma 11:44. On the other hand, there is no explicit evidence in the manuscripts that Oliver Cowdery ever added all, which makes us doubt the possibility that the original text here in Alma 13:7 read “from eternity to eternity”. (For one case where all may have been accidentally added but the evidence is only indirect, see under 2 Nephi 13:24.)
𝓞 is not extant for this specific phrase in Alma 13:7. However, the lacuna surrounding a fragment of 𝓞 argues that all was not in 𝓞 unless it was supralinearly inserted. This supports the earliest extant reading, in 𝓟, without the all before the first eternity. Nonetheless, it is quite possible that all was lost before the first eternity during the dictation of the text by Joseph Smith to Oliver Cowdery. Yet since the earliest reading, “from eternity to all eternity” is possible, despite its uniqueness in the text, the critical text will follow it. There are just not enough examples of the phraseology “from all eternity to all eternity” to argue convincingly that the reading without one of the all ’s is in error.
Summary: Maintain in Alma 13:7 the earliest reading, in 𝓟, which lacks all before the first eternity (“from eternity to all eternity”); even so, internal evidence as well as scribal errors suggests that this reading could be an error for “from all eternity to all eternity”.
Alma 13:9, page 1887, line –5
The word as was accidentally set as a s; the extra space should be removed.
Alma 13:10, page 1889, line –4
Although the transcript in volume 1 conjectures that for Alma 13:10 the original manuscript read their (only the is extant at the end of a line), we cannot really be sure whether the word in 𝓞 was their or the. Consequently, 𝓞 should be removed as evidence here in Alma 13:10 for the reading “their exceeding faith and repentance”. The scriptural citation should read as follows:
and it was on account of [the 1A|their BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] exceeding faith and repentance and their righteousness before God
Alma 13:10, page 1889, line –2
Contrary to what I wrote at the bottom of page 1889, the scribe here in 𝓟 was not Oliver Cowdery but scribe 2 of 𝓟. Oliver, however, was the scribe in 𝓞 for this part of the text.
Alma 14:5, page 1906, line –2
In the citation for 3 Nephi 3:23, the word between should read betwixt; for the evidence that supports betwixt rather than between, see the discussion under 3 Nephi 3:23.
Alma 14:26, page 1918, line –19
For the variation listed under 3 Nephi 20:3, Oliver Cowdery initially corrected brerke to just brak, not brake. Thus the variant here should read as follows:
[𝓢① brerke > 𝓢② brak > broke 1|break ABCDPS|brake EFGHIJKLMNOQRT]
This is how the variant is written under 3 Nephi 20:3 (here in part 6).
Alma 14:28, page 1921
The scriptural citation for the second write-up on this page is so complicated that the relationships between the textual sources can be perceived more readily by using an abbreviated lemmatized version of the variation, with bolding added to show the actual differences:
and every soul which was within the walls thereof ... were slain 1*A
and every soul who was within the walls thereof ... were slain 1cBCDEGHKPS
and every soul who were in the walls thereof ... were slain FIJLM*
and every soul within the walls thereof ...
were slain NO
and every soul within the walls thereof ... was slain McQRT
The ellipsis contains the words “save it were Alma and Amulek”, which is invariant in all the sources (excluding variation in the accidentals).
Alma 15:3, pages 1926–27
In one place in the original manuscript Oliver Cowdery may have started to write “by the cause of ” instead of because of:
In this case, of course, the original because of in Alma 49:6 will be maintained in the critical text. The original “by the cause of ” will be maintained in Alma 7:5 and restored in Alma 15:3.
Alma 16:8, pages 1938–39
Ultimately, I have decided that restoring the 1830 comma between the two restrictive relative clauses doesn’t really help the reader parse this sentence. The reader can figure out what the meaning is here without having an unexpected comma before a restrictive relative clause.
Alma 16:19, pages 1944–45
The argument against suffering can be made stronger: there is no evidence at all in the original Book of Mormon text for the singular noun suffering. For that point, see the discussion under Moroni 9:19.
Alma 16:21, page 1946, line 9
Actually the initial subordinate clause here in Alma 16:21 is a present participial after-clause.
Alma 17:27, page 1965, line 18
It is Ammon, not Alma, who is working with the other shepherds in herding the king’s sheep.
Alma 17:38, page 1976, line 6
In the earliest text, there were 78, not 77, instances of “save it were”. For the correct statement of this number, see the addendum here in part 6 under 1 Nephi 17:31.
Alma 18:3, pages 1978–79
There are three separate write-ups for Alma 18:3. The last two are in the wrong order and should be switched so that the citations follow their order within the text itself.
Alma 19:1, page 1997
Grant Hardy (personal communication, 15 December 2006) points out that on Literature Online there are examples of “being laid into one’s tomb”, thus providing additional support for the original use of into here in Alma 19:1 (“to take his body and lay it into a sepulchre”):
Alma 19:6, page 2004, line 1
For clarity’s sake, in the summary to Alma 19:6 we should note that Joseph Smith’s emendation of light to life was made in 𝓟 when he edited the text for the 1837 edition; the same change of light to life was independently made in the 1852 LDS edition.
Alma 19: 7, page 2004
The intrusive of in the 1874 RLDS edition was very likely prompted by the phrase desired of him in the previous sentence in the verse: “therefore what the queen desired of him was his only desire”.
Alma 19:16, page 2009, line 3
Here in the citation for Alma 19:16, there should be a question mark in the description of the variant in 𝓞, so that the second line in the citation reads as follows:
[NULL >? the name of 0|the name of 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] the Lord
There is no room in the lacuna of 𝓞 for this phrase except by supralinear insertion. But one could always argue instead that some other phrase in the lacuna (such as they did call ) was supralinearly inserted in 𝓞.
Alma 22:28, page 2062, line –13
The repeated earlier phrase needs the definite article the before land, thus “on the west in the land of Nephi”.
Alma 22:32, page 2068, lines 3–6
The statement that betwixt is never used for geography in the Book of Mormon text needs to be revised, in accord with the analysis of betwixt versus between under 3 Nephi 3:23 in part 5. For a complete discussion of the variation for these two prepositional forms, see under that passage. As far as the emendation here in Alma 22:32 is concerned, between is more probable than betwixt simply because between is much more common elsewhere in the Book of Mormon text (32 to 6); the argument from geography alone cannot be used to prefer between over betwixt.
Alma 22:32, page 2069, line –10
This line in the Helaman 4:7 citation should have the indefinite article a before day’s, thus “it being a day’s journey for a Nephite”.