Alma 22:25 Textual Variants

Here in the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “Aaron and his brethren”; then he virtually immediately corrected his brethren to those (there is no change in the level of ink flow for the supralinear correction). Spacing between extant fragments of 𝓞 supports the shorter those. Oliver probably wrote “Aaron and his brethren” because that phraseology had been used four times in the preceding text:

• verse 19 and also Aaron and his brethren standing as though …
• verse 20 they durst not lay their hands on Aaron and his brethren
• verse 21 that they might slay Aaron and his brethren verse
• 24 because of Aaron and his brethren

The unexpected “Aaron and those which were with him” was undoubtedly the original reading in verse 25.