Alma 2:33 Textual Variants

The printer’s manuscript has the archaic drave, which the 1830 typesetter changed to the modern drove. Based on the earliest textual sources, there are eight occurrences in the original text of the past-tense form of the verb drive, of which two take the archaic drave in the earliest textual sources (each marked below with an asterisk):

• Mosiah 11:17 and drove many of their flocks out of the land
• Mosiah 11:18 or they drove them back for a time
• Mosiah 21:8 the Lamanites did beat them and drove them back
• *Alma 2:33 until he slew and drave them back
• Alma 3:23 and drove the remainder of them out of the borders of their land
• Alma 42:2 yea he drove out the man
• *Alma 50:7 and drave all the Lamanites … into their own lands
• Ether 13:29 and drove him back again to the valley of Gilgal

Both instances of drave were edited to the modern drove by the 1830 typesetter.

In Alma 42:2, when copying from 𝓞 into 𝓟, Oliver Cowdery accidentally misread drove as drew, an error that has been consistently maintained in the subsequent history of the text. In Mosiah 21:8, drive was corrected to drove by Oliver Cowdery in 𝓟, with drove being retained in all the printed editions (for discussion, see under that passage). It is also possible that in Mosiah 11:18, the original text actually read drave there instead of drove (for discussion, see under that passage).

The archaic form drave was commonly used in Early Modern English but has now been replaced by drove. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (see under the verb drive), drave was the northern form in Britain and drove the southern form. The King James Bible prefers drave over drove (13 to 9). Thus either drave or drove is possible in the Book of Mormon text. The critical text will follow the earliest textual sources in each case, which means that drave will be restored here in Alma 2:33 as well as in Alma 50:7. For further discussion of drave as well as similar past-tense forms like bare and sware, see under past tense in volume 3.