Alma 50:2 Textual Variants

Here the original manuscript reads those. When Oliver Cowdery copied this passage into the printer’s manuscript, he initially wrote these but then corrected these to those. Nonetheless, the 1830 compositor ended up setting these, which has continued in all subsequent editions. For a list of instances where the 1830 compositor mixed up those and these, see under Mosiah 28:1. For instances where Oliver Cowdery mixed up these two demonstratives, see under Alma 3:25.

Here at the beginning of Alma 50, there is a long narrative chain that refers to various defensive works for which those is consistently used as a link between the works:

• Alma 50:1–4 (original text)
  • (a) that they should commence in digging up heaps of earth round about all the cities throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites
    (aª) and upon the top of those ridges of earth
    (b) he caused that there should be timbers yea works of timbers built up to the heighth of a man round about the cities
    (bª) and he caused that upon those works of timbers
    (c) that there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers round about and they were strong and high and he caused towers to be erected
    (cª) that overlooked those works of pickets
    (dª) and he caused places of security to be built upon those towers

The use of those throughout this passage is clearly intended. Thus the one inconsistent change of those to these at the beginning of verse 2 should be reversed.