Alma 7:6 Textual Variants

Lyle Fletcher has suggested (personal communication, 29 October 2004) that there may be something missing before “which is to come”, perhaps in that: “with an everlasting faith in that which is to come”. Another possibility is of that, in accord with the following reading:

• Mosiah 4:11
  • and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come

On the other hand, one could maintain the earliest text in Alma 7:6 by interpreting the which as meaning ‘who’—that is, the phrase “which is to come” may refer to the coming of “the true and the living God”, mentioned earlier in the verse. In fact, there is a clear reference to the coming of Christ in the next verse:

• Alma 7:7
  • for behold I say unto you there be many things to come and behold there is one thing which is of more importance than they all for behold the time is not far distant that the Redeemer liveth and cometh among his people

But the statement “there be many things to come” in verse 7 suggests that the reference in verse 6 to something (or someone) coming may not be referring to the coming of the Redeemer per se.

One other way to view Alma 7:6 is that the relative clause “which is to come” refers to the preceding noun phrase “the remission of your sins”. This interpretation would mean that “with an everlasting faith” is a displaced prepositional phrase that refers to “ye look forward”. In other words, the meaning of the passage is equivalent to “ye look forward with an everlasting faith for the remission of your sins which is to come”. As discussed under Mosiah 26:23, there are examples in the text where prepositional phrases syntactically occur in what might appear to be the wrong place. A good example of a displaced prepositional phrase headed by with is in Mosiah 26:6: “for it came to pass that they did deceive many with their flattering words which were in the church”. (For a more extensive list of examples, see under displaced prepositional phrases in volume 3.) In support of such an interpretation regarding Alma 7:6, there is evidence elsewhere in the text that the remission of sins will come later (as a result of Christ’s atonement):

• Mosiah 15:11
  • behold I say unto you that whosoever hath heard the words of the prophets yea all the holy prophets which have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord I say unto you that all those who hath hearkened unto their words and believed that the Lord would redeem his people and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins I say unto you that these are his seed or they are heirs of the kingdom of God

Thus the most reasonable interpretation of Alma 7:6 is that the relative clause “which is to come” refers to “the remission of sins” while the displaced prepositional phrase “with an everlasting faith” refers to “ye look forward”. There is therefore no textual need to emend Alma 7:6. It should also be noted that the 1920 LDS text placed commas around the prepositional phrase “with an everlasting faith”, which is consistent with this interpretation.