Here Oliver Cowdery edited the printer’s manuscript in pencil, which strongly suggests that this change of “lived in tents” to “dwelt in tents” was made in the 1830 print shop and without reference to the original manuscript (which, unfortunately, is not extant here). For further discussion regarding the use of pencil in emending 𝓟 in the print shop, see the references listed above under Alma 22:22–23.
Perhaps Oliver Cowdery could not accept the reading “lived in tents” since everywhere else in the Book of Mormon we have people “dwelling in tents”, not “living in tents”:
We get similar results for the King James Bible, with 14 occurrences where the verb is dwell (as in Genesis 25:27: “and Jacob was a plain man dwelling in tents”), but there are no biblical examples of people “living in tents”. So familiarity with the King James Bible may have also influenced Oliver’s decision to replace live with dwell.
Normally the Book of Mormon uses the verb live to refer to being alive or keeping alive or to how one lives. When referring to people living in a place or in some kind of habitation, the text almost always uses the verb dwell. People dwell in cities, lands, houses, tents, and caves, or they dwell with someone. There is even one case of “dwelling in the wilderness”—namely, in Ether 14:7: “Coriantumr dwelt with his army in the wilderness”. The only other example that seems to refer to “living in the wilderness” actually refers to how the people of Lehi kept themselves alive in the wilderness: “while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness” (1 Nephi 17:2). And once more, the King James Bible consistently refers to “dwelling in the wilderness” (nine times), as in Genesis 21:20: “and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness”. Thus both examples of live in Alma 22:28 are unusual for the scriptural text. In fact, we are left wondering why Oliver Cowdery didn’t also replace the first example of lived with dwelt. In modern English, of course, we expect the verb live rather than dwell, which is now archaic and formal sounding. Although live is the expected word in modern English, references to “living somewhere” can be found as far back as Middle English and Early Modern English (see the examples in the Oxford English Dictionary listed under definition 12a for the verb live).
Despite this overall tendency for live and dwell to occur in different semantic domains, there is some minor overlap in addition to the case of “living in the wilderness” and the case of “living in tents” (both in Alma 22:28): namely, when referring to being in captivity, the Book of Mormon text almost always prefers the verb dwell over the verb live, but there is one instance of “living in captivity” (marked below with an asterisk):
Thus in the Book of Mormon text, the verb live can substitute for the more common dwell. The first example from Ether 10:31 provides support for the earliest reading in Alma 22:28 (“lived in the wilderness and lived in tents”).
One possibility here in Alma 22:28 is that Oliver Cowdery’s emendation from lived to dwelt could be correct; that is, the original manuscript could have read “lived in the wilderness and dwelt in tents”. Under the influence of “lived in the wilderness”, Oliver could have accidentally repeated the lived when he came to copying “dwelt in tents” from 𝓞 into 𝓟, especially since the verb live is what is normally expected in modern English. On the other hand, it seems less likely to assume that the original text read “dwelt in the wilderness and dwelt in tents”, since this emendation would require Oliver Cowdery to have twice replaced dwelt with lived.
Ultimately, the reading of the earliest textual source, with lived occurring both times in Alma 22:28, is possible, just as it occurs once in Ether 10:31 (“and Heth lived in captivity all his days”). Thus the critical text will restore the earliest extant reading in Alma 22:28: “lived in the wilderness and lived in tents”, despite the repetition of the verb and the unusualness in the scriptural text of using live where dwell is expected.
Summary: Restore in Alma 22:28 the earliest extant text, the reading in 𝓟: “now the more idle part of the Lamanites lived in the wilderness and lived in tents”; the use in this passage of the verb live to refer to “dwelling in the wilderness” and to “dwelling in tents” is unexpected when compared to other usage in the scriptural text, but live is nonetheless perfectly acceptable in English; apparently Oliver Cowdery corrected the second lived to dwelt while in the print shop and without reference to 𝓞; he seems to have been influenced by the scriptural style that favors “dwelling in tents” rather than “living in tents”.