Alma 46:29 Textual Variants

For this sentence, 𝓞 seems to have originally lacked the subject pronoun he at the beginning of the main clause (“fearing that he should not gain the point / took those of his people which would and departed”). One possibility is that Oliver Cowdery noticed the missing he when he copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟, with the result that virtually immediately Oliver supralinearly inserted the pronoun he in 𝓟 and at the same time supralinearly inserted the he in 𝓞. The correction in 𝓞 is with somewhat heavier ink flow, but the one in 𝓟 is without any change in ink flow.

A second possibility is that Oliver corrected 𝓞 during the dictation process. Perhaps the missing he was caught when Oliver read the text back to Joseph Smith; yet when Oliver copied this passage into 𝓟, he once more skipped the he but this time corrected the error virtually immediately.

There is clear evidence in this part of 𝓞 that Oliver Cowdery sometimes omitted the subject pronoun he as he took down Joseph Smith’s dictation. Besides the example here in Alma 46:29, there are four more in 𝓞; three of these appear to be virtually immediate corrections, without any difference in the level of ink flow (the one involving a heavier ink flow is marked with an asterisk):

• Alma 35:8–9
  • and the chief ruler of the Zoramites being a very wicked man sent over unto the people of Ammon desiring them that they should cast out of their land all those which came over from them into their land and [NULL > he 0|he 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] breathed out many threatenings against them
• Alma 42:17
  • now how could a man repent except he should sin how could [NULL > he 0|he 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] sin if there was no law
• * Alma 46:13
  • and he called it the title of liberty and [NULL >+ he 0|he 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] bowed himself to the earth and he prayed mightily unto his God
• Alma 48:7–8
  • Moroni on the other hand had been a preparing the minds of the people to be faithful unto the Lord their God yea [NULL > he 0|he 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites

There is also an instance in 𝓟, somewhat later in the text, where Oliver omitted the subject pronoun he in the main clause following a sentence-initial present participial clause:

• 3 Nephi 4:14
  • Giddianhi who had stood and fought with boldness was pursued as he fled and being weary because of his much fighting [NULL > he 1|he ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] was overtaken and slain

In this instance, the 1830 edition is a firsthand copy of 𝓞, and it has the he; the correction in 𝓟 is virtually immediate, so we can be confident that in 3 Nephi 4:14 the original manuscript had the subject pronoun he.

The most reasonable assumption in Alma 46:29 is that Oliver Cowdery omitted the he, this time in both manuscripts. Even if the he in 𝓞 was supplied when Oliver copied the text into 𝓟, he was most probably correct in his assumption that the he was there in the original text.