Alma 60:24 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
that he may support those parts of our country which he hath [obtained >+ retained 1|retained ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|regained RT]

As explained under Alma 58:3, the original text here read retained, which means ‘regained’. In order to avoid confusion, the 1920 LDS edition emended this instance of retained to regained. The critical text will restore the original retained here in Alma 60:24. Also note here that Oliver Cowdery initially wrote the word in 𝓟 as obtained, which is visually similar to retained and semantically related. Yet here the text is referring to Helaman taking back lands that the Lamanites had seized during the war; it is more than just obtaining those lands. For another example where Oliver may have initially replaced retain with obtain (but this time in 𝓞), see under Alma 25:16.

Summary: Restore the original retained in Alma 60:24; here the verb means ‘take back’.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 5

References