Alma 39:19 Textual Variants

Here we have one more example in the transmission of the text where those and these have been mixed up. In this instance, the 1830 typesetter substituted these for the those of the original manuscript. Earlier in the larger passage (in verse 16), Alma refers to “these glad tidings”:

• Alma 39:16
  • and now my son this was the ministry unto which ye were called to declare these glad tidings unto this people

This preceding occurrence of “these glad tidings” is probably the source for the 1830 typesetter’s error here in verse 19. Elsewhere in the text, there are two other occurrences of “these glad tidings” but none of “those glad tidings”:

• Alma 13:22 and he doth sound these glad tidings among all his people
• Alma 13:23 for we have these glad tidings declared unto us
• More generally, the text allows for both those and these. In each case, we follow the earliest textual sources, thus those here in Alma 39:19 (but these in Alma 39:16). For a list of cases where the 1830 typesetter mixed up those and these, see under Mosiah 28:1.