Here in the original manuscript, the past participle apparently reads became rather than the standard become, although the a vowel looks somewhat like an o. Oliver Cowdery, here the scribe for both 𝓞 and 𝓟, copied this past participle into 𝓟 as became. As explained under 1 Nephi 17:43, the original text of the Book of Mormon allowed such verb phrases as “had became” (as well as “had become”). For a complete discussion, see under past participle in volume 3. Here in Alma 42:3, the nonstandard “had became” was grammatically emended to “had become” in the 1840 edition and (probably independently) in the 1849 LDS edition.
One could argue that the original text itself read “had become” since the corresponding King James passage has become: “behold the man is become as one of us / to know good and evil” (Genesis 3:22). This argument is not particularly strong, in my opinion, since the King James language uses the archaic be verb rather than have as the perfect auxiliary for the verb become (that is, “is/was become” rather than “hath/ had become”); moreover, the parallel Book of Mormon language is only paraphrastic of the biblical phrase:
| Alma 42:3 | Genesis 3:22 |
| now we see that the man had became as God knowing good and evil | behold the man is become as one of us to know good and evil |
The 1874 RLDS edition replaced the past-tense “had become” with the present-tense “hath become”. This change in tense does not work well within the larger past-tense context. The 1892 RLDS edition continued the incorrect hath, but the 1908 RLDS edition restored the original had.
Summary: Restore the original use of the past participial form became whenever it is supported by the earliest textual sources, as apparently here in Alma 42:3; also maintain the past-tense auxiliary verb form had.