Alma 36:13–14 Textual Variants

The current text at the beginning of verse 14 reads “yea and I had murdered many of his children”. The earliest extant textual sources, including the printer’s manuscript, read this way. When the 1830 compositor set this passage from 𝓟, he placed a semicolon before the yea-clause that begins verse 14 since the yea-clause in his copytext was a main clause, not a subordinate that-clause. In the 1874 RLDS edition, the subordinate conjunction that was added (probably unintentionally). This intrusive that was removed in the 1908 RLDS edition since the printer’s manuscript does not have it.

The original manuscript is not extant for this part of the verse, yet spacing between surviving fragments clearly provides room for the that. Of course, such a that could have also been crossed out in the original manuscript. Or there could have been some other textual correction or difference in the lacuna that explains the extra length.

The possible occurrence of the subordinate conjunction that here in verse 14 (indicated below with an arrow) is consistent with the two occurrences of that previously in verse 13:

• Alma 36:13–14 (proposed emendation)
  •   yea I saw that I had rebelled against my God
      and that I had not kept his holy commandments
    → yea and that I had murdered many of his children
      or rather led them away unto destruction

With this emendation, the text explicitly states that Alma himself is aware that he has committed three serious sins, each introduced by a that: “yea I saw that S1 and that S2 yea and that S3” (where the S stands for a finite clause). Elsewhere in the text, there are five examples of “yea and that S”:

• Alma 5:23
  •   behold will they not testify that ye are murderers
    → yea and also that ye are guilty of all manner of wickedness
• Alma 37:21
  •   and now I will speak unto you concerning those twenty-four plates
      that ye keep them …
    → yea and that ye preserve these directors
• Alma 45:21
  •   it became expedient that the word of God should be declared among them
    → yea and that a regulation should be made throughout the church
• Alma 58:41
  •   and now my beloved brother Moroni
      that the Lord our God ... may keep you continually in his presence
    → yea and that he may favor this people …
• Helaman 7:21
  •   but behold it is to get gain / to be praised of men
    → yea and that ye might get gold and silver

Notice that in the first four examples there is a preceding that-clause, just like here in Alma 36:13–14. Thus there is internal support for the subordinate conjunction that at the beginning of verse 14.

On the other hand, there are examples in the text of “yea and S” where an extra that is possible yet it is lacking:

• 1 Nephi 4:11 (not “yea and that he would not hearken …”)
  •   yea and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life
    → yea and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord
• Alma 56:11 (not “yea and that they are happy”)
  •   nevertheless we may console ourselves in this point that they have died in the cause of their country and of their God
    → yea and they are happy
• Alma 62:10 (not “yea and that whosoever was found a denying their freedom was …”)
  •   and thus it became expedient that this law should be strictly observed
      for the safety of their country
    → yea and whosoever was found a denying their freedom was speedily executed according to the law

So it is quite possible that there was no that in Alma 36:14 either. The critical text will therefore follow the reading of the earliest extant source for Alma 36:14, the printer’s manuscript: “yea and I had murdered many of his children”. The possibility remains, of course, that there was a that here in the original text (and in the original manuscript).