Alma 59:8 Textual Variants

The original manuscript is extant here and reads even (“they came even and joined the army of Moroni”). Paul Huntzinger (personal communication, 10 December 2003) suggests that here even is an error for the visually similar over. He notes, for instance, that nearby in the previous chapter we get the same expression but with over rather than even:

• Alma 58:6
  • yea even those which had been compelled to flee from the land of Manti and from the land round about had came over and joined the Lamanites in this part of the land

In fact, there are two more examples that refer to “coming over and joining a people”:

• Alma 25:13
  • and many of them came over to dwell in the land of Ishmael and the land of Nephi and did join themselves to the people of God which was the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi
• Alma 47:29
  • they were frightened again and fled into the wilderness and came over into the land of Zarahemla and joined the people of Ammon

Besides these examples, there are 17 additional examples of “come over” that deal with geographical movement.

On the other hand, there are no examples in the text where even modifies the verb come. There are occurrences of “come even” that refer to a geographic place, but in these cases even does not refer to the verb come but to the place:

• Alma 15:1 and they departed and came out even into the land of Sidom
• Mormon 2:16 and they were pursued until they came even to the land of Jashon
• Ether 2:7 but he would that they should come forth even unto the land of promise

In fact, for the first of these examples, Huntzinger proposes that this instance of even could also be an error for over. But as discussed under Alma 15:1, internal evidence elsewhere in the text argues that in that passage no emendation from even to over should be made. But here in Alma 59:8, internal evidence strongly supports the emendation.

When we consider scribal practice, we find considerable evidence that the scribes sometimes mixed up o and e as well as n and r. More specifically, there is one clear example of a mix-up between over and ever:

• 2 Nephi 18:8
  • and he shall pass through Judah he shall overflow and go [ever 1|over ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST]

This is a biblical quotation from Isaiah 8:8, which has over: “and he shall pass through Judah / he shall overflow and go over”. 𝓞 is not extant for 2 Nephi 18:8 but probably read over, which Oliver Cowdery must have miscopied as ever. There are considerably more examples of mix-ups between ever and even. For a list, see under Alma 56:46. But there are no examples of mix-ups between over and even except, it would appear, here in Alma 59:8. Since there is only one instance of mixing up over and ever, the lack of specific evidence for mixing up over and even is not that surprising. We should note here that since even is the reading in 𝓞 for Alma 59:8, Joseph Smith himself was probably responsible for the error. It seems unlikely that even was the result of Oliver Cowdery mishearing Joseph’s dictation of over. Instead, Joseph probably misread the original over as the visually similar even.