Alma 25:8 Textual Variants

One wonders here if the indefinite article a might be missing from before contention—that is, perhaps the original text read “and there began to be a contention in the wilderness”. Elsewhere in the text, we get 11 equivalent examples of “there was a contention” but none of “there was contention”; in fact, in six examples (each marked below with an asterisk), the text says that “there began to be a contention”:

• Omni 1:28 wherefore he caused a contention among them
• *Mosiah 19:3 and there began to be a great contention among them
• *Alma 2:1 there began to be a contention among the people
• Alma 22:22 and there should be a great contention and a disturbance among them
• Alma 50:25 had it not been for a contention which took place among them
• *Alma 50:26 therefore there began to be a warm contention between them
• *Alma 51:2 for there began to be a contention among the people
• *Helaman 1:2 therefore there began to be a serious contention
• *Helaman 2:1 therefore there began to be a contention again among the people
• Helaman 4:1 and there was also a contention among the people
• 3 Nephi 7:7 and they did cause a great contention in the land

For the example in Helaman 1:2, there is evidence for the omission of the a: namely, the 1874 RLDS edition omitted the a, giving “there began to be serious contention” (the 1908 RLDS edition restored the a to the RLDS text).

In the case of Alma 25:8, the original manuscript is not extant for “and there began to be (a) contention”, but the transcript in volume 1 of the critical text shows that there must have been some supralinear correction:

Alma 25:8 (line 10, page 268ªof 𝓞)

(                                 )

     BEGAN TO BE

( in) the wilderness & theLamanites began to hunt

& THERE < >^ CONTENTION

Based on the spacing between extant fragments, it is quite possible that Oliver Cowdery, the scribe in 𝓞, initially wrote “and there was a contention in the wilderness”, which he then corrected to “and there began to be contention in the wilderness”. He may have intended to correct the text to “and there began to be a contention in the wilderness”, but when he crossed out his original was, he may have also crossed out the a accidentally. It is also possible that he didn’t cross out the a but nonetheless omitted it when he copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟. Obviously, we are unable to determine whether the a was there or not in 𝓞. But clearly, there was some scribal correction or difference that could have led to the a being accidentally omitted.

Ultimately, the question comes down to whether the reading without the a is possible in Alma 25:8. When we consider the larger context here, we find that the text is referring to a general and continuing contention in the wilderness, not a specific or limited contention:

• Alma 25:7–9 (earliest extant text)
  • and it came to pass that those rulers which were the remnant of the children of Amulon caused that they should be put to death yea all those that believed in these things now this martyrdom caused that many of their brethren should be stirred up to anger and there began to be contention in the wilderness and the Lamanites began to hunt the seed of Amulon and his brethren and began to slay them and they fled into the east wilderness and behold they are hunted at this day by the Lamanites

Thus the context suggests that contention alone, without any indefinite article a, is possible in Alma 25:8. For this reason, the critical text will retain the earliest extant reading for Alma 25:8: “and there began to be contention in the wilderness”. But the possibility remains that an original indefinite article a was accidentally omitted here in the early transmission of the text.