Mosiah 23:25 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
behold an army of the Lamanites [were 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|was RT] in the borders of the land

Here the 1920 LDS edition replaced the original plural were with the singular was; the obvious intent was to make the verb agree with the singular head noun army. Of course, the word army can be treated in the singular (as a group of people) or in the plural (as the individuals in the group). The Book of Mormon text shows both possibilities. This variation in usage even holds when words like part and remainder, not army, serve as the head noun. There are six cases in the singular:

But almost as frequent are five occurrences in the plural (counting Mosiah 23:25):

In fact, the only place in the text where a plural were referring to an army has been edited to was is here in Mosiah 23:25; all other instances of “army were” have been left unedited, as have all instances of “army was”. The critical text will follow in each case of “army was/were” the reading of the earliest textual sources.

Summary: Restore the plural were in Mosiah 23:25: “an army of the Lamanites were in the borders of the land”.

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

References