Alma 25:14 Textual Variants

Here Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “according as their brethren”, a clausal fragment. Later, with somewhat heavier ink flow, Oliver supralinearly inserted the auxiliary verb had. This correction may have occurred when Oliver read the text back to Joseph Smith. There is clearly a need for some verbal element here. Another possibility would have been to insert did rather than had.

Elsewhere there are 20 examples of “according as” in the text, and each instance is followed by a subject and a predicate. Seven of these examples take the past-tense perfect auxiliary had:

• Omni 1:13 according as the Lord had commanded him
• Alma 8:1 according as he had before done in the land of Zarahemla
• Alma 19:7 according as the queen had desired him
• Alma 25:11 according as he had suffered
• Helaman 9:37 even according as Nephi had said unto them
• 3 Nephi 1:15 according as they had been spoken
• Ether 2:21 according as the Lord had commanded

There are no examples of “according as” where the auxiliary verb is do, so odds are the inserted had here in Alma 25:14 is correct. Note by the way that the ellipsis after the auxiliary verb seems appropriate; it would seem odd, although not impossible, for the text to repeat the language of the immediately preceding text:

• Alma 25:14 (with ellipted words supplied)
  • and they did also bury their weapons of war according as their brethren had buried their weapons of war

The corrected reading in 𝓞 probably represents the original text. Some kind of auxiliary verb is needed here, while ellipsis of the rest of the predicate is expected. Of the possible auxiliary verbs, had seems to be the most plausible.