Mosiah 29:42 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and it came to pass that Alma was appointed to be the chief judge he being also the high priest his father having conferred the office upon him and [had 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|having RT] given him the charge concerning all the affairs of the church

Here the 1920 LDS edition replaced the finite verb form had with the present participle having. However, there is some evidence that the original text allowed this kind of construction—namely, a present participial clause followed by a conjoined finite predicate. For discussion, see under Mosiah 23:1. The passage there originally read “now Alma having been warned of the Lord that the armies of king Noah would come upon them and had made it known to his people”.

Summary: Restore the finite verb form had in Mosiah 29:42 since such usage seems to be intended.

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

References