Here the earliest extant text, the printer’s manuscript, reads “and he answered unto him”. The 1830 typesetter considered this usage as strange, perhaps impossible, so he added and said, thus giving “and he answered and said unto him”. There are no examples of “to answer unto someone” anywhere else in the Book of Mormon text, but there are 14 occurrences of “to answer someone”; in fact, four of these are conjoined with the phrase and said (each marked below with an asterisk):
The example from Alma 22:7 also has unto him after and said (“answered him and said unto him”). Similarly, there are five instances in the text of “answered and said”, of which two are of the form “answered and said unto him” (each marked here with an asterisk):
Thus the 1830 typesetter’s emendation here in Alma 18:25 makes the phraseology agree with the nearby reading in Alma 18:19: “Ammon answered and said unto him”. All the printed editions have retained the easier 1830 reading for Alma 18:25. And indeed, the original text may have read with and said, which would mean that sometime during the early transmission of the text and said was lost.
Contrary to these findings, two facts suggest that the original text in Alma 18:25 may have read without and said. First, there are no examples in the history of the text where any phrase involving the word say has ever been accidentally omitted. There are, to be sure, a few examples where a phrase involving say was intentionally deleted by Joseph Smith (these changes, each specifically marked below with an arrow, were made during the editing for the 1837 edition):
In each of these passages, Joseph removed the redundant repetition of the same phrase involving say. But of the numerous instances of “and saith/said” in the text, none of these have ever been omitted, either accidentally or intentionally.
The second fact to consider is that the King James Bible has a number of examples of the expression “to answer unto someone”:
There are also numerous examples of “to answer unto someone” from Early Modern English up through the 19th century, as in this sampling from the online Oxford English Dictionary and Literature Online , with accidentals regularized:
So the earliest reading in Alma 18:25, “and he answered unto him”, is quite possible.
One other emendation to consider here is that the original text for Alma 18:25 may have read “and he said unto him” rather than “and he answered unto him”. This possibility would imply that at some time in the transmission of the text, an original said was accidentally replaced by answered, perhaps prompted by previous occurrences of the verb answer in this chapter (five times). Moreover, the immediately preceding text in verse 24 and the following text, from verse 26 through verse 34, have only the verb say except for the one case of answer here in verse 25 (marked below with an arrow):
Thus answered in Alma 18:25 could be an error for said. On the other hand, there is no explicit evidence that answer and say have ever been mixed up in the history of the text. The only possible case is found in 2 Nephi 16:11, where the Book of Mormon text reads “and he said” while the corresponding King James text in Isaiah 6:11 reads “and he answered”. The discussion under 2 Nephi 16:11 suggests the possibility that the Book of Mormon text there could have originally read answered but that it was replaced by said (as a result of the earlier occurrence in the verse of “then said I”). As argued under that passage, the critical text will retain the consistent reading of all the Book of Mormon textual sources for 2 Nephi 16:11 (namely, said rather than the King James answered ). Ultimately, there is no specific evidence for mix-ups between answer and say in the Book of Mormon text. Thus the critical text will maintain the verb answer in Alma 18:25: “and he answered unto him”.
Summary: Remove the intrusive and said from Alma 18:25, thus restoring the earliest extant reading (in 𝓟) of “and he answered unto him”; although this is a difficult reading, there is considerable evidence for the expression “to answer unto X” in Early Modern English (including the King James Bible) as well as throughout the 19th century.