Alma 40:17 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
now we do not suppose that this first resurrection which [has been > is 1|is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] spoken of in this manner can be the resurrection of the souls

Here we have a virtually immediate correction in 𝓟. Oliver Cowdery initially wrote has been spoken; then he crossed out the has been and supralinearly inserted is. There is no change in the level of ink flow for the correction. Oliver’s error was probably prompted by the use of the perfect with the passive spoken in the two previous verses: “according to the words which have been spoken / and behold again it hath been spoken that …” (Alma 40:15–16). 𝓞 is not extant for the verb is, but there is room for only the short is in the lacuna (unless there is some supralinear insertion). Finally, either reading will work here, so the corrected reading in 𝓟 was undoubtedly the reading in 𝓞.

Summary: Retain in Alma 40:17 the corrected reading in 𝓟, the present-tense is (“which is spoken of in this manner”).

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 4

References