Alma 45:2 Textual Variants

The original manuscript reads those, but the o was written as if it were two e ’s (that is, the o was not closed). As a result, Oliver Cowdery copied those as these into the printer’s manuscript. However, the 1830 edition restored those, probably because 𝓞 was used to proof the 1830 sheet (the 22nd signature) for this part of the text (see the discussion under Alma 42:31). The 1830 compositor probably set these originally but then restored the those after proofing.

Elsewhere in the text, we have ten examples of these records; there are also two other examples of those records:

• Alma 3:11
  • whosoever would not believe in the tradition of the Lamanites but believed those records which were brought out of the land of Jerusalem …
• Alma 50:38
  • he had refused Alma to take possession of those records and those things which were esteemed by Alma and his fathers to be most sacred

Both of these instances of those records are followed by a relative clause headed by which, while it turns out that none of the examples of these records is postmodified by a relative clause. This difference further supports the reading those records here in Alma 45:2, which has a following relative clause (“concerning those records which have been kept”). Yet this difference does not prove that those records is correct in Alma 45:2; there is nothing in English grammar to prevent those records from standing alone or these records from being followed by a relative clause. In fact, there is the instance of these last records in 1 Nephi 13:40, and it has a following relative clause: “these last records which thou hast seen among the Gentiles shall establish the truth of the first”. As far as Alma 45:2 is concerned, either these or those is theoretically possible. The critical text will therefore follow the reading of 𝓞, “those records which have been kept”.

Oliver Cowdery made this same scribal slip in the next chapter, but in that instance he correctly copied the original those into 𝓟:

• Alma 46:14
  • for thus were all the true believers of Christ which belonged to the church of God called by [those /theese 0|those 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] who did not belong to the church

In this case, the correct reading is those, as is exemplified by the two examples of those who found in the next verse: “and those who did belong to the church were faithful yea all those who were true believers in Christ took upon them gladly the name of Christ” (Alma 46:15).