Alma 43:6 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
therefore [Zerahemnah 01ABCDEFGHIJKLMNPQRST|Zarahemnah O] appointed chief captains

For 11 of its 17 occurrences (including the first occurrence in Alma 43:5), the name Zerahemnah is spelled without variation. But there is a tendency to misspell the name under the influence of the very similar place-name Zarahemla. In the textual history, there are seven instances of spelling variation for the name Zerahemnah; the variants are all isolated and were never transmitted into any subsequent edition:

misspelling location textual sources
Zarahemnah Alma 43:6 1907 LDS
  Alma 43:20 1852 LDS
  Alma 44:10 𝓞*
  Alma 44:12 1841 British
Zerahemlah Alma 44:12 𝓞*
Zerahemna Alma 44:12 1849 LDS
  Alma 44:16 1849 LDS

Each misspelling shows in a different way the influence of Zarahemla (e to a, n to l, or loss of final h). The last misspelling, Zerahemna, occurs twice but only in the 1849 LDS edition. Zerahemnah is twice misspelled in 𝓞 but is corrected both times. The critical text will, of course, maintain the spelling Zerahemnah.

Summary: Maintain the spelling Zerahemnah in Alma 43–44; the manuscripts consistently support this spelling, despite the tendency to misspell the name under the influence of the very similar Zarahemla.

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

References