Alma 50:2 Textual Variants

he caused that there should be timbers —yea works of [timbers 01ABCDEFGIJLMNOPQRST|timber HK]— built up to the heighth of a man round about all the cities

Here the 1874 RLDS edition replaced the plural timbers with the singular noncount noun timber. The 1908 RLDS edition restored the correct plural, probably by reference to 𝓟. The plural is undoubtedly correct, as exemplified by the usage in the next verse:

Alma 50:3
- and he caused that upon those works of timbers that there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers round about

Note especially the occurrence of the very same phrase “works of timbers” in the first part of Alma 50:3.

Summary: Maintain in Alma 50:2 the original plural timbers in the yea-phrase: “yea works of timbers”; support for this plural usage can be found in the following verse (“upon those works of timbers”).

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

References