Alma 30:20 Textual Variants

Here in Alma 30:20, the original manuscript is not extant for “a high priest”. Based on spacing between the extant fragments, the best fitting text in the lacuna would be “the high priest”. Still, “a high priest” fits well enough. It is possible here that 𝓞 originally read “the high priest” and that Oliver Cowdery accidentally replaced it with “a high priest” as he copied from 𝓞 into 𝓟. There is at least one clear case involving a position of leadership where Oliver incorrectly replaced the with a in his copywork:

• Alma 47:13
  • if he would make him Amalickiah [the 0|a 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] second leader over the whole army

For another possible example of the same error by Oliver Cowdery (namely, a foundation instead of the foundation), see under Alma 50:13–14.

Emending “a high priest” to “the high priest” here in Alma 30:20 could be based on the argument that each people or land or church would have had only one high priest. For instance, here in Alma 30 the very next verse implies a single high priest in the land of Gideon:

• Alma 30:21
  • and it came to pass that he caused that he should be carried out of the land and it came to pass that he came over into the land of Gideon and began to preach unto them also and here he did not have much success for he was taken and bound and carried before the high priest and also the chief judge over the land

The use of “the high priest” in this verse definitely implies that the immediately preceding verse 20 could also have originally read “and carried him before Ammon which was the high priest over that people”.

When referring to the early days of the church (originally founded by Alma the elder), the text clearly refers to there being only one high priest over the entire church, originally Alma the elder and later his son, Alma the younger (ten times from Mosiah 23:16 through Alma 8:23), as in the following examples in Alma 4–5 that refer to Alma the younger:

• Alma 4:4
  • yea they were baptized by the hand of Alma who had been consecrated the high priest over the people of the church by the hand of his father Alma
• Alma 4:18
  • now Alma did not grant unto him the office of being high priest over the church but he retained the office of high priest unto himself but he delivered the judgment seat unto Nephihah
• Alma 5 preface
  • The words which Alma the high priest according to the holy order of God delivered to the people in their cities and villages throughout the land

Yet despite this reference to Alma the younger as “the high priest”, Alma himself in his address to the church in Zarahemla in Alma 5 refers to himself as “a high priest”, perhaps because his father would have continued to have been a high priest after ordaining his son to the high priesthood:

• Alma 5:3
  • I Alma having been consecrated by my father Alma to be a high priest over the church of God …

On the other hand, there are references later in the book of Alma that mention a multiplicity of high priests:

• Alma 46:6 for they were high priests over the church
• Alma 46:38 and Helaman and the high priests did also maintain order in the church
• Helaman 3:25 even the high priests and the teachers were themselves astonished
• 3 Nephi 6:21 and they which had been high priests and lawyers
• 3 Nephi 6:27 yea even almost all the lawyers and the high priests did gather themselves together

The two examples in 3 Nephi 6 refer to apostate high priests. Such high priests can be found much earlier in the Book of Mormon, under king Noah:

• Mosiah 11:11
  • and the seats which was sat apart for the high priests which was above all the other seats he did ornament with pure gold and he caused a breastwork to be built before them that they might rest their bodies and their arms upon while they should speak lying and vain words to his people

Earlier the text refers only to priests, not high priests (see Mosiah 6:3 for king Benjamin and his son, king Mosiah; see Mosiah 11:4–7 for Zeniff and his son, king Noah). In any event, the references to high priests suggest that there could have been more than one high priest among the people of Ammon; one would think that Ammon’s brothers (Aaron, Omner, and Himni) could have also been high priests in the land of Jershon (if they resided there).

The phrase “a high priest over that people” can also be interpreted as saying that Ammon was a high priest, namely, the one over the people of Ammon. In other words, Alma was the high priest over the whole church; and Ammon was also a high priest but only over the people of Ammon. We could treat “over that people” more as added information than as restrictively modifying high priest. Thus we can make sense of the reading “Ammon which was a high priest over that people”. The critical text will retain the a here in Alma 30:20, although the a could be an error for the.