Alma 8:18 Textual Variants

The 1837 edition changed the past-tense was to the present-tense is here in Alma 8:18. This change in tense appears to be unintentional. It was not marked by Joseph Smith in the printer’s manuscript. Moreover, the Book of Mormon text consistently prefers past-tense verb forms within past-tense narrative descriptions, including references to geographical location, as in the following example that involves the noun borders:

• 1 Nephi 2:5
  • and he traveled in the wilderness in the borders which [was 0A|was >js were 1|are BCDEFGHIJKLMNOQRT|were PS] nearer the Red Sea

As discussed under that passage, every narrative that gives the geographical position with respect to the borders of some place uses the past tense, not the present tense. Here are some additional geographical examples involving words other than borders (such as way, land, and pass) that take the past tense:

• Mosiah 23:36
  • the Lamanites promised unto Alma and his brethren that if they would shew them the way which led to the land of Nephi that they would grant unto them their lives and their liberty
• Alma 43:5
  • and they came into the land of Antionum which [was 01ABCGHKPS|is DEFIJLMNOQRT] the land of the Zoramites
• Alma 50:34
  • and there they did head them by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward

For the example in Alma 43:5, the past-tense was was accidentally replaced by the present-tense is in the 1841 British edition; this change in tense has been maintained in the LDS text.