David Calabro (personal communication) notes here that the current text seemingly refers twice to the same wilderness area, namely the wilderness “on the west in the land of Nephi” (listed above as 1 and 3). He suggests the possibility that the preposition in in the second occurrence of “on the west in the land of Nephi” is an error for of, which would mean that the original text actually referred to three different wilderness areas:
The original land of Nephi is definitely not the place of the Lamanites’ first inheritance. Instead, as Calabro notes, it was the land that Nephi and his people originally fled to (see 2 Nephi 5:5–8); it is also the land that Nephites like Zeniff refer to as “the land of our fathers’ inheritance”:
Calabro also asks why the text in Alma 22:28 should twice refer to the same wilderness area. Note especially that the purpose of the yea-clause is to identify additional wilderness areas (“yea and also on the west of the land of Zarahemla … and on the west of the land of Nephi”, as emended), both of which are near the seashore. Also note the use of the logical connector thus in reference to the last wilderness area: “and thus bordering along by the seashore”. The writer expects the reader to recognize that the original land of inheritance for the Lamanites was by the seashore since that is where Lehi and his people landed in the beginning and it was the Lamanites, not the Nephites, that had remained in that area.
The reason for the error is also readily explainable. First of all, the immediately following phrase begins with in (“in the place of their fathers’ first inheritance). And secondly, as Calabro points out, the preceding occurrence of “on the west in the land of Nephi” could have led Oliver Cowdery, in either writing down 𝓞 or in copying from 𝓞 into 𝓟 (𝓞 is not extant here), to accidentally change “on the west of the land of Nephi” to “on the west in the land of Nephi”. On the other hand, “on the west of X” is clearly possible since it also occurs in this same passage (“yea and also on the west of the land of Zarahemla”). Finally, in support of this proposed mix-up between of and in, there are similar examples of this error tendency in the history of the text:
Despite these arguments for emending the preposition in to of, there is also evidence for retaining the in. First of all, it is worth noting that yea-clauses can repeat text providing some additional information is added. Consider, for instance, this nearby example:
Notice how the yea-clause has two parts: an initial clause that introduces something new (“if thou repent of all thy sins”), which is then followed by a repetition of the earlier clause that precedes the yea-clause (“if thou will bow down before God yea ... and will bow down before God”) but with an additional stipulation (“and call on his name in faith”). In other words, a yea-clause may revise an earlier statement by providing additional information. One can interpret the earliest text for Alma 22:28 in the same way:
This yea-clause has an initial phrase that introduces new information (“and also on the west of the land of Zarahemla in the borders by the seashore”), which is then followed by a repetition of the earlier phrase “on the west in land of Nephi” but with the added information that the west in the land of Nephi was the place of the Lamanite fathers’ first inheritance, which bordered on the seashore.
Another factor that affects the analysis of “the land of Nephi” is that this phrase can refer either to the specific land that Nephi and his people originally settled or to the whole land inhabited by the Lamanites. The earliest occurrences of “the land of Nephi” almost all refer to the more specific land, while later occurrences usually refer to the entire Lamanite territory. In the original text, there are 28 references to the specific “land of Nephi” and 26 to the general “land of Nephi” or “land Nephi”. (In calculating these statistics, I exclude the two instances of “the land of Nephi” here in Alma 22:28; I also exclude one example where “the land of Nephi” may be an error for “the land of the Nephites”; for that case, see the discussion under Alma 53:6.)
We can see the difference between the specific “land of Nephi” and the general “land of Nephi” right here in chapter 22 of Alma. At the beginning of the chapter, we have a reference to three specific lands, one of which is the specific “land of Nephi”:
This specific “land of Nephi”, originally settled by Nephi and his people, had become the ruling center of the Lamanites, which may explain why its name was extended to apply to the entire Lamanite territory (although we should keep in mind that the generalized “land of Nephi” appears to be the Nephite term). In contrast to the specific use of “the land of Nephi” in Alma 22:1, later on in the chapter there are clear references to the general “land of Nephi”:
These two references to the general “land of Nephi” follow closely upon the two references to “the land of Nephi” in Alma 22:28; in fact, all four references are found in the same passage that describes the general territories occupied by the Nephites and the Lamanites (from verse 27 through verse 34). Thus it is more reasonable to assume that the two occurrences of “the land of Nephi” in Alma 22:28 refer to the general “land of Nephi”.
The critical text will therefore maintain both occurrences of the phrase “on the west in the land of Nephi” in Alma 22:28. Despite the initial attractiveness of emending the preposition in to of in the second occurrence of the phrase, other factors relating to the generalized meaning of “the land of Nephi” and the structure of yea-clauses support the earliest reading.
Summary: Maintain in Alma 22:28 the repeated reference to the same wilderness area “on the west in the land of Nephi”; the text here intends to refer twice to the same area, but the second reference occurs in a yea-clause that provides additional information regarding this wilderness area; moreover, “the land of Nephi” here refers to the general Lamanite territory, not the specific “land of Nephi” that the Nephites originally inhabited.