The original manuscript is extant here for the phrase “Ammon and Aaron Omner and Himni”. One might wonder here why there is no and between the names Aaron and Omner, while there are and ’s separating the other pairs of names. Note, for instance, that in the very next verse, in Alma 23:1, the text places or ’s and a final nor between each of these items in the same conjunctive sequence:
Moreover, all other conjunctive structures involving the names Ammon and Aaron place an and between each pair of conjuncts:
Thus it is possible that Oliver Cowdery accidentally omitted the and between Aaron and Omner in Alma 22:35, especially since we have evidence of Oliver occasionally omitting the and, as in the first and in the phrase “Abraham and Isaac and Jacob” (see the discussion under 1 Nephi 17:40). One possibility, suggested by Jonathan Saltzman (personal communication), is that the and after Aaron would have been pronounced as /ßn/ in casual speech, the same as at the end of Aaron /ærßn/, with the result that the and would have been hard to distinguish; in other words, Aaron and /ærßnßn/ was misheard as simply Aaron /ærßn/.
On the other hand, it is possible that in Alma 22:35 Mormon intends to say that he is returning to two separate accounts, one dealing with Ammon (who worked alone as a missionary) and one dealing with Aaron, Omner, and Himni as well as their missionary brethren (who all seemed to have coordinated their missionary work). In fact, when Oliver Cowdery copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟, he apparently expected Mormon to return to the account of Aaron, Omner, and Himni and their brethren, so he initially omitted in 𝓟 the initial Ammon and for this passage:
Ammon &
having said this return again to the account of ^ Aaron Omner &
Himni & their brethren ‰‰‰‰‰‰‰‰Ω Chapter XIV
But 𝓞 is firm here in Alma 23:35 and reads “Ammon and Aaron Omner and Himni”, so there is no question that Ammon is included in this conjunctive structure.
We have one conjunctive example where Ammon is excluded from the list of names, and in that case there is no and between Aaron and Omner:
But this conjunctive structure is odd in that the preposition of is repeated for Omner but not for Himni, yet it does suggest that there need be no and between Aaron and Omner in Alma 22:35. (There may be some primitive error in Alma 27:19, although this reading is found in all the textual sources, including 𝓞. For further discussion, see under Alma 27:19.)
Since the original manuscript is extant for Alma 22:35 and reads without any and before Omner, the critical text will accept that reading. Even so, we should keep in mind that the original text itself may have had an and between Aaron and Omner and that it was lost as Oliver Cowdery took down Joseph Smith’s dictation.
Summary: Accept in Alma 22:35 the reading of the original manuscript (as well as all subsequent textual sources), which lacks an and between the names Aaron and Omner: “the account of Ammon and Aaron Omner and Himni and their brethren”; this reading is supported by the fact that Ammon worked separately from his brothers and the other missionaries; nonetheless, it is quite possible that the original text read “the account of Ammon and Aaron and Omner and Himni and their brethren”.