Alma 2:18 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
nevertheless the Lord did strengthen the hand of the Nephites that they slew the Amlicites with a great slaughter [that 1ABCDEFGIJLMNOPQRST|and HK] they began to flee before them

The 1874 RLDS edition replaced the subordinate conjunction that with the coordinating and, perhaps unintentionally. The 1908 RLDS edition restored the original that. Here we have a resultive relationship between the two that-clauses: the Nephites slaughtered the Amlicites, with the result that the remaining Amlicites started to flee. Similar examples can be found in the text where pairs of that-clauses are asyndetically conjoined, as in the following example where the second pronoun they has a different referent from the first they (just as here in Alma 2:18):

Thus the critical text will maintain in Alma 2:18 the two conjoined that-clauses for which there is no connecting and.

Summary: Maintain the subordinate conjunction that in Alma 2:18; sequences of asyndetically conjoined that-clauses can be found elsewhere in the text.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 3

References