Alma 21:4 Textual Variants

In this passage, Oliver Cowdery initially missed a prepositional phrase (“to the Amalekites”) and a subject pronoun, he. Almost immediately he supplied the prepositional phrase (by supralinear insertion and without any change in the level of ink flow). Somewhat later, he inserted the he inline. The level of ink flow for that insertion is only slightly heavier; perhaps Oliver redipped his quill just before making that correction.

Here in Alma 21, Oliver Cowdery consistently wrote Amalekites in 𝓟 instead of Amelicites, the probable reading in 𝓞; Amelicites is apparently an error for the correct name, Amlicites (see the complete discussion under Alma 2:11–12). Clearly, the prepositional phrase “to the Amlicites” is necessary here in Alma 21:4; otherwise the text, as initially given, sounds like a dittography: “Aaron came to the city of Jerusalem and firstly began to preach and began to preach to them in their synagogues”. Undoubtedly, the prepositional phrase was in 𝓞.

In the same way, 𝓞 probably also had the repeated subject, the pronoun he. Although the he doesn’t seem to be required, it is worth noting that elsewhere in the text, whenever there is a conjoining of “began to X” with itself (that is, where the verb X is repeated), the subject is also repeated (as a pronoun):

• Mosiah 6:4
• and Mosiah began to reign in his father’s stead and he began to reign in the thirtieth year of his age
• Helaman 11:7
• and they began to remember the Lord their God and they began to remember the words of Nephi

Thus the occurrence of the subject pronoun he in Alma 21:4 is consistent with these two other examples of repeated “began to X”. But there would have been no motivation in Alma 21:4 for Oliver to have supplied the he on his own since here the he is not required in English.