Alma 16:21 Textual Variants

Here the original text has an initial present participial clause which is completed by a main clause that is preceded by a Hebrew-like use of and: “and now after the church having been established throughout all the land … and thus ended the fourteenth year of the reign of the judges”. In his editing for the 1837 edition, Joseph Smith removed the extra and. Joseph typically removed such Hebraistic and ’s between subordinate and main clauses, but the critical text will restore them. For further discussion of this kind of editing, see under Alma 2:30 and Alma 9:1.

In the 1920 LDS edition, the present participial having was replaced with the finite verb form had. One could argue that the initial having here in Alma 16:21 was an error in anticipation of the having in the following present participial clause, “having got the victory over the devil”. Despite this possibility, there are other instances in the original text of stranded present participial clauses, some of which have been edited to finite clauses; here are some other examples where having has been edited to have or had:

• Mosiah 10:7 (Joseph Smith’s 1837 editing)
  • but [I having >js I had 1|I having A|I had BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] sent my spies out round about the land of Shemlon that I might discover their preparations
• Alma 13:4 (Joseph Smith’s 1837 editing)
  • and thus they [having >js havi 1|having A|have BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] been called to this holy calling on account of their faith while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds
• Mormon 1:7 (1920 LDS editing)
  • the whole face of the land [having 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQS|had RT] become covered with buildings and the people were as numerous almost as it were the sand of the sea

In each of these cases, as well as here in Alma 16:21, the critical text will restore the original present participial having, despite its difficulty for modern readers.