The Ammonihahites repeat their first objection to Alma’s preaching. The implication is that they are so important that Yahweh should send them more than one messenger. Possibly they are invoking something like the Deuteronomic law of witnesses (Deut. 19:15), and perhaps this is one reason for Amulek’s calling. The testimony of two messengers will stand against these people, undercutting some unstated assumption. The Lord certainly knows the circumstances necessary to foster belief and here provides them, giving the Ammonihahites a full opportunity to repent before destruction befalls them. When Alma is finished, Amulek provides a second testimony against them.
Text: The printer’s manuscript fairly consistently had the name “Amonihah” in this chapter. This city name apparently gave transcribers problems. Scribe 2 had the name as “Ammonidah” in Alma 8:6 (see commentary accompanying that verse) and then Oliver spelled it with the current “Ammonihah” in Alma 9:9. At this point he leaves out an “m,” which he corrects in the printer’s manuscript prior to sending it to the typesetter.
This pattern provides more evidence that Joseph dictated the text and that mistakes in hearing the unfamiliar words appeared in the manuscript. That these errors made it from the original to the printer’s copy prior to correction suggests that Joseph Smith was not performing critical readings of the text until prior to submission.
This evidence contradicts David Whitmer’s description of the translation process in his An Address to All Believers in Christ in 1887:
I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.
These details were known only to Joseph Smith or perhaps Oliver Cowdery. There is no indication that either of them described the translation process in this detail. Since the evidence contradicts Whitmer, it must be concluded that this description of a method that did not allow an error must itself be in error.