Alma 58:18 Textual Variants

The original manuscript is not extant here for “that my men those which were with” (which is how 𝓟 and all the printed editions read). Yet this reading is a little too short for the space between the extant portions of 𝓞. In the transcript of 𝓞, I proposed that 𝓞 had the conjunction or: “I caused that my men or those which were with me should retreat into the wilderness”. There is definitely room for the word or in 𝓞, and Oliver Cowdery could have dropped it in his copying from 𝓞 into 𝓟. Under Alma 1:30, I list a number of cases in the text where an original or was omitted in the early transmission in the text, sometimes permanently and other times only momentarily.

The use of or seems appropriate here in Alma 58:18. The text is trying to correct the idea that all of Helaman’s men were with him; from verses 16 and 17 we know that Helaman has split his army up into three units, with Gid, Teomner, and himself as commanders. Elsewhere in the text, there are examples where or introduces a similar kind of correcting clause:

• 1 Nephi 19:4
  • wherefore I Nephi did make a record upon the other plates which gives an account or which gives a greater account of the wars and contentions and destructions of my people
• Jarom 1:14
  • for behold upon them the records of our wars are engraven according to the writings of the kings or that which they caused to be written
• Alma 11:1
  • now it was in the law of Mosiah that every man which was a judge of the law or which was appointed to be judges should receive his wages according to the time which they labored to judge those which were brought before them to be judged
• Alma 46:10
  • and to destroy the foundation of liberty which God had granted unto them or which blessing God had sent upon the face of the land for the righteous’ sake
• Alma 54:5
  • I have wrote unto you somewhat concerning this war which ye have waged against my people or rather which thy brother hath waged against them and which ye are still determined to carry on after his death
• Helaman 4:22
  • and that they had altered and trampled under their feet the laws of Mosiah or that which the Lord commanded him to give unto the people
• 3 Nephi 3:2
  • as if ye were supported by the hand of a god in the defense of your liberty and your property and your country or that which ye do call so
• Mormon 6:10
  • and it came to pass that my men were hewn down yea or even my ten thousand which were with me and I fell wounded in the midst

In the last example, the 1830 compositor omitted the or when he set the type (in this case, from 𝓞 rather than from 𝓟). There is also one example where the text has “I mean”, which is semantically equivalent to a correcting or:

• Alma 6:3
  • and it also came to pass that whomsoever did belong to the church that did not repent of their wickedness and humble themselves before God
    —I mean those which were lifted up in the pride of their hearts— the same were rejected and their names were blotted out

On the other hand, there is one case in the text of an appositive ending in a relative clause that lacks the correcting or or another kind of correcting word or phrase, yet the semantics clearly imply a correction:

• Alma 52:38
  • and it came to pass that when the Lamanites had heard these words their chief captains—all those which were not slain— came forth and threw down their weapons of war

The original manuscript is extant for Alma 52:38, and the or is definitely not there, nor does it seem necessary. This example shows that the or is not required in Alma 58:18. Although spacing considerations in 𝓞 support its occurrence in that manuscript, there could be some other cause for the extra length in the lacuna. The critical text will therefore follow the earliest extant source, the printer’s manuscript, which reads without the or.