Alma 24:26–27 Textual Variants

Although the surrounding passage is in the past tense, there is one sentence in the present tense (“therefore we have no reason to doubt but what they are saved”, at least originally). Since salvation is an eternal state, there is nothing wrong with the present-tense are in this passage. In fact, the change in the 1852 LDS edition of are to were may not have involved conscious editing: the following past-tense forms, was and were, may have led the 1852 compositor to accidentally replace the are in “but what they are saved” with were.

A similar case where the present tense “are saved” is used to refer to converted souls that have since died is found in Alma 5:9–10. In this case, Alma is talking about the people that his father had converted among the people of king Noah. Since at the time of this discourse Alma’s father is dead, as well as presumably a good many, if not all, of the people he converted, Alma is speaking about the souls of the deceased and yet he refers to the salvation of their souls in the present tense:

• Alma 5:9–10
  • and again I ask : was the bands of death broken and the chains of hell which encircled them about were they loosed I say unto you : yea they were loosed and their souls did expand and they did sing redeeming love and I say unto you that they are saved and now I ask of you : on what conditions are they saved

Thus the present-tense usage referring to the saved souls of the deceased is perfectly acceptable; the critical text will restore the original present-tense are in Alma 24:26.