Alma 58:3 Textual Variants

Here in Alma 58:3, the editors for the 1920 LDS edition removed the clause-initial of the from the rather awkward relative clause “of the which we had retained of our possessions”. One could argue that the extra of the was due to the of the in the preceding noun phrase, “those parts of the land”. The 1920 change is probably the best possible minimal emendation for making the text conform to standard literary English.

Despite the 1920 emendation, the resulting relative clause still reads awkwardly. Another possible emendation would have been more drastic: change the relative clause by replacing the phrase “of our possessions” with the simple noun possession, thus “those parts of the land of the which we had retained possession” or (more smoothly) “those parts of the land which we had retained possession of”, as elsewhere in the text:

• Alma 52:5
  • and now Teancum saw that the Lamanites were determined to maintain those cities which they had taken and those parts of the land which they had obtained possession of
• Alma 56:13
  • and now these are the cities which the Lamanites have obtained possession of
• Alma 57:4
  • but the people of Antiparah did leave the city and fled to their other cities which they had possession of

Alma 58:3 is extant in the original manuscript. As explained under 2 Nephi 3:14, there are similar examples of this kind of awkward usage in the original text, so the usage here in Alma 58:3 may be intended and will therefore be restored in the critical text.