Alma 3:27 Textual Variants

Throughout the history of the text, there has been some tendency to replace the past-tense ended with endeth when the passage refers to the end of a certain period of time. In English the presenttense form is actually expected in narrative accounts since it gives an immediacy to the account. Here in Alma 3:27, the 1830 error of endeth was corrected in the 1888 LDS edition and the 1908 RLDS edition. But because the 1888 edition never served as a copytext for any subsequent LDS edition, the current LDS text has retained the present-tense endeth in this instance.

Besides the instance of endeth here in Alma 3:27 (which the 1830 typesetter was responsible for), we have five other cases of this error. No one edition is responsible for introducing all these errors:

• Alma 4:5 (error in the 1837 edition; corrected in the 1906 LDS edition, the 1908 RLDS edition, and the 1981 LDS edition)
  • and thus [ended 1ANPST|endeth BCDEFGHIJKLMOQR] the seventh year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi
• Alma 4:10 (error in the 1874 RLDS edition; corrected in the 1908 RLDS edition)
  • and thus [ended 1ABCDEFGIJLMNOPQRST|endeth HK] the eighth year of the reign of the judges
• Alma 28:7 (error in the 1837 edition; corrected in the 1888 LDS edition, the 1906 LDS edition, and the 1908 RLDS edition)
  • and thus [ended 01AJNPS|endeth BCDEFGHIKLMOQRT] the fifteenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi
• Alma 51:37 (error in the 1849 LDS edition; never corrected in the LDS text)
  • and thus [ended 01ABCDGHKPS|endeth EFIJLMNOQRT] the twenty and fifth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi
• Alma 51:37 (error in the 1849 LDS edition; never corrected in the LDS text)
  • and thus [ended 01ABCDGHKPS|endeth EFIJLMNOQRT] the days of Amalickiah

In the original text, there were no examples of the present-tense endeth. In 50 cases where the text refers to the ending of a period of time or of a person’s life, the original text consistently uses the past-tense form ended rather than the present-tense endeth. Moreover, in each instance, the surrounding text is in the past tense, so the use of ended is also consistent in that regard. In each of the four instances where endeth entered the RLDS text, the 1908 edition restored the original ended. Of the five instances where endeth has entered the LDS text, only the one in Alma 4:5 has been removed from the current text. The critical text will, of course, have only ended, the consistent reading of the earliest text.

It should be noted, however, that the present tense is not impossible in referring to the end of a period of time in the Book of Mormon, as in the following unique example:

• Alma 28:9
  • and this is the account of the wars and contentions among the Nephites and also the wars between the Nephites and the Lamanites and the fifteenth year of the reign of the judges is ended

Besides the 50 examples of the simple past-tense form ended, there are two other past-tense uses of the verb end that refer to the end of a period of time:

• Helaman 6:1
  • and it came to pass that when the sixty and second year of the reign of the judges had ended all these things had happened
• Helaman 11:21
  • and it came to pass that the seventy and sixth year did end in peace and the seventy and seventh year began in peace