In the original manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote saith, but then he erased the th and overwrote it with a d. Scribe 2 of 𝓟 copied the said correctly, but the 1830 compositor set the present-tense saith. What is particularly interesting here is that this use of the historical present tense has been maintained in every printed edition, even though the tendency in the history of the text has been to remove instances of the historical present tense (for discussion, see under 1 Nephi 2:1 as well as under historical present in volume 3).
The larger passage here in Alma 11:21–39 shows some variation with respect to the use of the historical present tense. In Mormon’s abridgment of the confrontation between Zeezrom and Amulek, the original text uses both the historical present tense and the past tense to identify who is speaking, Zeezrom or Amulek. The clear tendency in the editing of the text has been to replace the historical present tense with the past tense, although not every instance of the historical present has been removed. Most of the changes to the past tense were made in the editing for the 1837 edition. Each example of the historical present that varies from the normal 1837 editing is marked below with an asterisk; each case that was originally in the past tense is indicated by an arrow:
| verse | speaker | textual variation |
| 21 | Zeezrom | [saith 0A|saith >js said 1|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 22 | Amulek | [saith >js said 1|saith A|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 22 | Zeezrom | [saith >js said 1|saith A|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 23 | Amulek | [saith >js said 1|saith A|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 26 | Zeezrom | [saith >js said 1|saith A|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 27 | Amulek | [saith >js said 1|saith A|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 28 | Zeezrom | [saith >js said 1|saith A|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| * 29 | Amulek | [answereth 01ABCDEGHKPS|answered FIJLMNOQRT] |
| 30 | Zeezrom | [saith 0A|saith >js said 1|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 31 | Amulek | [saith >js said 1|saith A|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 32 | Zeezrom | [saith 0A|saith >js said 1|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| * 33 | Amulek | [saith 0|said 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 34 | Zeezrom | [saith >js said 1|saith A|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| → 34 | Amulek | [answered … said 01ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 35 | Zeezrom | [saith 0A|saith >js said 1|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| → * 36 | Amulek | [saith >% said 0|said 1|saith ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| * 38 | Zeezrom | [saith 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
| 39 | Amulek | [saith >js said 1|saith A|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] |
So in only two cases (out of a total of 18) is the original reading in the past tense (answered and said in verse 34 and said in verse 36), although the original said in verse 36 was changed to saith by the 1830 typesetter and, surprisingly, has been maintained in the present tense in all subsequent printed editions. Similarly, verse 38 has maintained its original present-tense saith. The 15 other original cases of the historical present tense have been edited to the past tense. Joseph Smith is responsible for 13 of these changes; the 1852 LDS edition is responsible for the change in verse 29, scribe 2 of 𝓟 for the one in verse 33. The critical text will restore all 16 cases of the original historical present tense here in Alma 11:21–39.
Summary: In accord with the earliest textual sources, restore every instance of the historical present tense in Alma 11:21–39; also restore in Alma 11:36 the original past-tense said, which is supported by the past-tense usage in verse 34 (“answered and said”).