Alma 4:15 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and now it came to pass that Alma having seen the afflictions of the humble followers of God and the persecutions which was heaped upon them by the remainder of his people and seeing all their unequality [he >js NULL 1|he A| BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] began to be very sorrowful

Here we have one more instance where Joseph Smith, in his editing for the 1837 edition, removed a redundant subject pronoun. Such redundancy is quite common in the original text when the initial subject is followed by a long present participial clause (in this case, two conjoined ones). For further discussion, see under Mosiah 8:7; also see the list of examples under subject repetition in volume 3. The critical text will restore the redundant subject pronoun he in Alma 4:15 (“Alma having seen the afflictions of the humble followers of God … he began to be very sorrowful”).

Summary: Restore the redundant subject pronoun he in Alma 4:15 (“Alma … he began to be very sorrowful”).

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

References