John Tvedtnes has suggested on page 3 of “Reconstructing the Book of Mormon”, The FARMS Review 15/1 (2003), that the reading “in the midst of darkness” in Alma 5:7 is an error for “in the mist of darkness”. This part of the text is not extant in 𝓞; in 𝓟, the unknown scribe 2 initially wrote the d of midst without much of an ascender, then added a little more to the ascender to make the letter look more like a regular d than an a. It would be incorrect to say that this overwriting of the d in midst means that “the d was added as an afterthought.” The printer’s manuscript firmly supports midst, not mist, as the original reading.
Elsewhere the Book of Mormon has the following passages with the phrase “mist(s) of darkness”:
The plural “the mists of darkness” was the original reading in 1 Nephi 8:24. This example and the other ones show that when preceded by the, the plural mists is expected rather than the singular mist; in fact, there are no instances of “the mist” in the original text of the Book of Mormon. This systematic usage could be used to argue that if Alma 5:7 is to be emended, as suggested by Tvedtnes, then perhaps it should read “they were in the mists of darkness” rather than “they were in the mist of darkness”.
In the King James Bible, there is one example of “the mist of darkness” (but none of “the mists of darkness”):
However, there are two examples in Deuteronomy that support the Book of Mormon reading “in the midst of darkness”:
When we consider all the Book of Mormon passages (other than possibly Alma 5:7) that refer more than once to mists of darkness, we find that the first occurrence in a passage always involves an indefinite reference to the darkness (with either the indefinite article a /an or no determiner at all, represented below as null); then later in the passage when the darkness is again referred to, the noun phrase is always preceded by the definite article the:
In addition, the larger context for the Alma 5:7 passage shows that the use of midst there is wholly appropriate:
These repentant people were originally surrounded by darkness (“in the midst of darkness”). Notice the following reference to them being “encircled about by the bands of death and the chains of hell”. The use of “in the mist(s) of darkness” would seem strange here since there is no previous mention of a mist of darkness or simply darkness. If mist (or mists) were correct in Alma 5:7, we should expect either “behold they were in a mist of darkness” or perhaps “behold they were in mists of darkness”. Of course, the use of the definite article the in front of midst is firm in the text. And we definitely expect the before midst: there are 41 other examples of “the midst” in the text (31 of “in the midst”), but none with any other determiner. Thus the use of the before midst is highly expected, but the before mist does not work well in Alma 5:7.
Finally, there is no textual variation between midst and mist(s). On one occasion Oliver Cowdery wrote mids in place of midst (in 2 Nephi 16:5), but still the intended word was midst (in agreement with Isaiah 6:5 in the King James Bible). The only variant for mist(s) is the one involving the singular and plural of mist in 1 Nephi 8:24 (listed above). Thus there is no strong reason to reject the earliest reading “in the midst of darkness” in Alma 5:7.
Summary: Maintain the use of midst in Alma 5:7 (“in the midst of darkness”); elsewhere the language of the Book of Mormon supports midst in this context rather than mist(s).