Alma 57:20 Textual Variants

Once more we have an example where these and those have been switched in the history of the text; for a nearby example of the opposite change, see under verse 16. Here in verse 20, Oliver Cowdery changed these to those when he copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟. In this letter of Helaman’s, we have two other examples of these or those occurring with two thousand:

• Alma 56:9 (𝓞 is extant)
  • I Helaman did march at the head of these two thousand young men
• Alma 56:27 (𝓞 is not extant)
  • there was brought unto us many provisions from the fathers of those my two thousand sons

Either reading is theoretically possible in Alma 57:20, so the best solution is to follow the earliest textual sources (in this case the original manuscript). For further discussion of mix-ups between these and those, see under Alma 3:25.