Alma 29:5 Textual Variants

Here in the larger passage, Alma is arguing that men will be judged according to their desires and their wills:

• Alma 29:4
  • I had not ought to harrow up in my desires the firm decree of a just God for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desires whether it be unto death or unto life yea I know that he allotteth unto man yea decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable according to their wills whether it be unto salvation or unto destruction

But when Alma follows this statement with “yea and I know that good and evil hath come before all men”, he suddenly realizes that he has overstated his argument—good and evil have not come before everyone—so Alma immediately adds a clarifying or- statement to deal with those who have not known good or evil (and therefore have not had desires of good or evil): “or he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless”. After this clarification, Alma returns to his original topic—those who do know good and evil:

• Alma 29:5
  • but he that knoweth good and evil to him it is given according to his desires whether he desireth good or evil / life or death / joy or remorse of conscience

Alma thus corrects his original statement by using the conjunction or, which is one common way that the original Book of Mormon writers used in making corrections in the text, as for instance in Alma 24:19: “and thus we see that they buried the weapons of peace or they buried the weapons of war for peace” (see the discussion under Alma 22:22–23). The use of or here in Alma 29:5 is crucial in distinguishing between those who do not know good from evil and those who do.

The 1920 LDS edition removed the or; this change was a conscious one since it is marked in the copy of the 1911 large-print Chicago edition that the 1920 committee used to mark the 1920 textual changes. The 1830 printer’s punctuation in this passage (two semicolons, which divided up the passage into three separate sentences) may have led the 1920 committee to consider the or as superfluous. The or should definitely be restored since this was Alma’s way of indicating that what he had just written was not totally accurate and could be misleading. In addition, the punctuation should be changed to show that the text that follows the or is Alma’s way of correcting his initial statement:

• Alma 29:5 (with emended punctuation)
  • yea, and I know that good and evil hath come before all men— or he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless— but he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience.