Alma 13:9 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
thus they become high priests forever after the order of the Son / the Only Begotten of the Father

One wonders here if the present-tense form become is an error for the past-tense became. Both the beginning and the ending of the passage are in the past tense:

Notice in verse 10 (at the end) that after the doxology to the Son (beginning with “after the order of the Son” and ending with “and thus it is / Amen”), Alma repeats what he said earlier. He explicitly introduces his reprise with “Now as I said concerning the holy order or this high priesthood” and then follows that with a repetition of the past-tense were ordained and a repetition, if the emendation is accepted, of the past-tense became.

There is one example in the manuscripts that indirectly shows a tendency for the scribes to mix up become and became. (Here I exclude the use of became as the past participle in the original text; for discussion of that usage, see under 1 Nephi 17:43.) This single example is found in that portion of the text where both 𝓟 and the 1830 edition were set from 𝓞:

As discussed under that passage, usage elsewhere in the text argues that became, the reading in 𝓟, is the original reading, which means that here we have a possible instance of became being replaced by become. It is possible that the 1830 compositor set become in 4 Nephi 1:43 because the reading in 𝓞 looked somewhat like become rather than became. There are also a few other examples of mix-ups between become and became in the printed editions:

Although there is only minor indirect evidence for mixing up become and became in the manuscripts, there is considerable evidence that the scribes had difficulty with the historically related verb come, especially in their tendency to write the base form come in place of the correct past-tense form came:

These many examples of came miswritten as come argue that scribe 2 of 𝓟 could have miswritten became as become in Alma 13:9—or that Oliver Cowdery could have made that mistake in 𝓞 when he copied down Joseph Smith’s dictation.

It is possible that the present-tense form become entered the text in Alma 13:9 as a result of the present-tense is in the immediately following doxology:

But another way to look at the occurrence of the present-tense become is to consider it part of the doxology. As David Calabro points out (personal communication), we get a similar use of the present tense earlier in this chapter:

Just as in verses 8–10, verse 3 has a present-tense verb form (“are called”) referring to accepting the calling of high priest, yet the larger passage begins and ends in the past tense (“were ordained … was prepared”). Thus the earliest text in Alma 13:9 will work; even though become in verse 9 may be an error for became, the critical text will accept the earliest reading, become.

Summary: Accept the present-tense become in Alma 13:9, the reading in all the extant sources; this present-tense form is supported by similar usage in Alma 13:3.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 3

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