Alma 43:5 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
and they came into the land of Antionum which [was 01ABCGHKPS|is DEFIJLMNOQRT] the land of the Zoramites

As explained under Alma 8:18, the Book of Mormon consistently uses past-tense verb forms to describe geographical location whenever the narrative as a whole is in the past tense. In this passage, the 1841 British edition replaced the original was with is; the LDS text has continued with this present-tense reading up through the current edition. The critical text will restore the original was.

Summary: Restore the original past-tense was here in Alma 43:5 since geographical location is characteristically referred to in the past tense in the Book of Mormon whenever the narrative itself is in the past tense.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 4

References