As discussed under Alma 1:33, the modal verb durst is historically a past-tense form and is usually used this way in the Book of Mormon. But some instances of durst in the Book of Mormon have a semantically present-tense meaning. And here in Alma 12:14, we have a unique instance of durst participating in a double modal, shall durst: “we shall not durst look up to our God”. In his editing for the 1837 edition, Joseph Smith replaced the modal durst with dare, the corresponding presenttense modal form: “we shall not dare look up to our God”. In the 1852 LDS edition, the infinitival to was added after the modal verb dare, thus making dare into a main verb.
The online Oxford English Dictionary gives 13 examples of shall dare. Eight of these are followed by the infinitival to and a subsequent infinitive verb form, but five have just the bare infinitive verb form without the to:
On the other hand, the OED lists no examples of shall durst (nor are there any cited on Literature Online ).
In the original text of the Book of Mormon, the modal verb dare never occurs at all; there is only durst, and that occurs in both present and past time. The main verb dare occurs once in the text:
This example has the infinitive marker to after daring (“daring not to give”), which lends support to the 1852 addition of to here in Alma 12:14. However, Joseph Smith did not add the to in Alma 12:14; he intended dare to be a modal verb, as in “I dare not tell him”. The critical text will restore the original double modal shall durst in Alma 12:14: “we shall not durst look up to our God”.
Summary: Restore the original double modal shall durst in Alma 12:14 (“we shall not durst look up to our God”); Joseph Smith’s shall dare (“we shall not dare look up to our God”), introduced into the 1837 edition, is also a double modal; beginning with the 1852 LDS edition, the LDS text has had the infinitival to after the dare (“we shall not dare to look up to our God”), thus making dare into a main verb.