Alma 46:13 Textual Variants

Here the 1953 RLDS edition added the infinite verb form be, replacing “there should a band of Christians remain” with “there should be a band of Christians remain”. This secondary reading appears to be grammatically wrong. There is a similar example of such an intrusive be in the LDS text, beginning with the 1905 LDS missionary edition:

• Ether 6:5
  • and it came to pass that the Lord God caused that there should [ 1ABCDEFGHIJKLNOPS|be MQRT] a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters towards the promised land

The construction “there should NP ” (where NP stands for a noun phrase) is a fairly common construction in the Book of Mormon text. Dispersed throughout the rest of the original text are seven more examples of this construction (of which five involve negation):

• 2 Nephi 25:18 for there should not any come save it should be a false Messiah
• Mosiah 2:14 that there should nothing come upon you which was grievious
• Mosiah 27:2 that there should not any unbeliever persecute any of those …
• Alma 1:21 that there should not any man belonging to the church arise and persecute those that did not belong to the church
• Alma 22:21 lest there should some evil come upon her
• 3 Nephi 26:16 that there should not any man write them
• Moroni 8:4 that there should disputations rise among you

Thus there is no need to insert a be verb in either Alma 46:13 or Ether 6:5. In fact, it is wrong because the following verb takes the infinitive form. There are cases of this construction where be does occur as an auxiliary verb, but in all instances that verb is followed by a past-participial verb form (so that we end up with a passive construction):

• 1 Nephi 9:3 that there should be an account engraven of the ministry of my people
• Jacob 3:5 and there should not be whoredoms committed among them
• Jacob 7:12 if there should be no atonement made
• Mosiah 10:1 that there should be weapons of war made of every kind
• Mosiah 13:29 that there should be a law given to the children of Israel
• Mosiah 29:7 if there should be another appointed in his stead
• Alma 21:20 that there should be synagogues built in the land of Ishmael
• Alma 50:2 that there should be ... works of timbers built up to the heighth of a man
• Alma 50:3 that there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers
• Alma 59:9 that there should be men sent to the city of Nephihah
• Helaman 11:28 that there should be a stop put to this work of destruction
• 3 Nephi 2:3 that there should be any more signs or wonders given
• 3 Nephi 3:14 that there should be armies … placed as guards round about

The last example has a long relative clause after armies and in the original text ends up repeating the verb phrase should be; see the discussion under 3 Nephi 3:14.

The intrusive be here in Alma 46:13 and in Ether 6:5 may be due to the influence of the construction “there shall be NP ”, which is found in the original text. For discussion of that construction, see under 2 Nephi 1:6 and Helaman 14:5.