Joseph Smith, in his editing of the text for the 1837 edition, emended half the instances of “in the which”, usually to “in which”. In some cases, he replaced the preposition in with some other preposition. But here in Alma 61:8, the in as well as the the has been removed. Although this change was not marked by Joseph in 𝓟, he was probably the one responsible for it. (For a brief analysis of this editing, see under 1 Nephi 3:2. See under in the which in volume 3 for a complete analysis.)
The motivation for making the change here in Alma 61:8 is that there is a need for a subject in the relative clause. By removing the in (and the the), which maintenance becomes the subject, thus “which maintenance ... will enable the Lamanites to conquer the remainder of the land”. In fact, one could propose that the occurrence in the earliest extant text (in 𝓟) of “in the which maintenance” was an error prompted by the preceding use of “in the which”, especially the closer instance of “in the which alliance”. Notice, in particular, how “in the which alliance” refers back to the noun alliance (“he hath joined an alliance with him in the which alliance he hath agreed …”). Since the proposed original which maintenance refers back to the verb maintain (“he hath agreed to maintain the city of Zarahemla which maintenance …”), it is quite possible that an extra in the was added during the early transmission of the text. The in the would be intrusive, just as it would be in the following passage where “which ”, not “in the which ”, refers to a preceding verb:
In this verse from Helaman we also have an example involving the verb suppose that further supports Joseph Smith’s emendation in Alma 61:8:
The intervening clause “we have reason to suppose” could be omitted and the result would be grammatical (“which ... hath been given to our fathers”), just as in Joseph’s emendation for Alma 61:8 (“which maintenance ... will enable the Lamanites to conquer the remainder of the land”). One difficulty with this emendation, however, is that there is no explicit evidence that the relative pronoun which has ever been expanded to “in the which”, either in isolation or under the influence of a nearby “in the which”, as this emendation in Alma 61:8 implies happened.
A related problem with the earliest text for Alma 61:8 is that in all other cases of “in the which ”, the subject for the relative clause follows the noun:
These examples suggest another possible emendation for Alma 61:8, namely: add a subject pronoun for the relative clause, such as he: “in the which maintenance he supposeth he will enable the Lamanites to conquer the remainder of the land”. One could argue that this second he was readily lost in the early transmission of the text, especially in the context of the preceding he of “he supposeth”. For this emendation, there is considerable evidence that the scribes, including Oliver Cowdery, sometimes omitted the subject pronoun he; for a list of examples, see under Jacob 5:1.
Also in support of this second emendation are examples where the verb suppose is comple- mented by a finite clause without the expected that:
In each of these, of course, that could be supplied, which is also the case in Alma 61:8 if an extra he is supplied (thus hypothetically we could have “in the which maintenance he supposeth that he will enable the Lamanites to conquer the remainder of the land”).
As far as the verb enable is concerned, either emendation will work. The subject for enable can be an abstract concept or a person, as exemplified by the following:
learning enables:
people enable:
As part of this analysis, we need to consider the intervening clause “he supposeth” here in Alma 61:8. As noted above in the example from Helaman 5:8, an intervening clause can break in seamlessly between the subject and verb: “which we have reason to suppose hath been given to our fathers” (that is, “which … hath been given to our fathers”). When we compare this example and the one here in Alma 61:8 with other intervening clauses in the text, we find that the intervening clause is typically followed by an infinitival clause, as in these examples:
Examples like these suggest that Alma 61:8 could have originally read “in the which maintenance he supposeth to enable the Lamanites to conquer the remainder of the land”; that is, the infinitival to occurs in place of the modal will. However, there are no instances in the history of the text where a modal has been mixed up with the infinitival to. (There are some examples in Joseph Smith’s editing where he consciously replaced an infinitival to with a modal verb; see, for instance, under 1 Nephi 10:2–3 and Alma 55:6–8.)
Finally, there is the possibility, suggested by David Calabro (personal communication), that the original text here read “the which maintenance he supposeth will enable the Lamanites to conquer the remainder of the land”. In other words, only an extra in was added in the early transmission of the text. Adding only an extra in, triggered by the two preceding occurrences of “in the which”, seems more easily done than accidentally adding the longer in the. One problem with this proposal is that there is no evidence elsewhere in the Book of Mormon text for the expression “the which ”. There are plenty of instances of “which ” (54 of them). Elsewhere in the text, the definite article the can occur before “which ” but only in a prepositional phrase; besides the six cases where the preposition is in (listed earlier in this discussion), we have these three other cases in the original text:
There are also three cases of “ which ” in the original text—that is, without any the:
So if the original text in Alma 61:8 read without the preposition in, we would have a unique reading for the Book of Mormon text: “to maintain the city of Zarahemla / the which maintenance he supposeth will enable the Lamanites to conquer the remainder of the land”. Of course, the unexpectedness of this expression could have been the reason for the intrusion of the preposition in, prompted in particular by the preceding occurrence of “in the which alliance he hath agreed to maintain the city of Zarahemla”.
In the King James Bible, there is only one example of the phrase “ the which ”:
There is considerable support for the phrase “ the which” (with 40 occurrences), as in the following sampling for the more common prepositions:
There are also four examples of “the which” without any preposition:
But there are no examples of “the which ” in the King James Bible. The Book of Mormon text has evidence for only two of the types, “ the which” and “ the which ”.
Despite the lack of evidence for “the which ” in the scriptures, such examples can be found from Middle English up into the 19th century; the Oxford English Dictionary (under definition 13a of which) cites the following examples where “the which” is used to modify a noun (here I maintain the original accidentals but provide glosses for the older citations):
So the reading “the which maintenance” is possible here in Alma 61:8. (I wish to thank Don Chapman for help in providing the glosses for the two Middle English citations.)
Under definition 13b for which, the OED provides examples of “the which” used as a relative pronoun (that is, without any following noun), as in this example from John Bunyan (1682) without any preceding preposition: “He told too, the which I had almost forgot, how Diabolus had put the Town of Mansoul into Arms.” As noted above, this kind of expression does occur in the King James Bible (four times) but not in the Book of Mormon.
Ultimately, it is difficult to decide between these emendations. It appears easier to have the unexpected “the which maintenance” (rather than “which maintenance”) change to “in the which maintenance” since that change involves adding only in (rather than in the). Unfortunately, we can find no independent evidence in the manuscripts for either kind of change. In any case, the two preceding instances of “in the which” here in Alma 61:8 appear to be the source for ending up with “in the which maintenance” as the earliest reading. One problem with “the which maintenance” as an emendation is that there are no examples of “the which ” elsewhere in the Book of Mormon or, for that matter, in the King James Bible (although such usage did occur in earlier English). On the other hand, we do have evidence for “which ” in the Book of Mormon text. Consequently, the critical text will accept “which maintenance”, Joseph Smith’s emendation, as the most probable reading for the original text, although “the which maintenance” is clearly possible despite the fact that as an emendation it creates a unique reading in the text.
Other emendations, such as inserting a he or changing will to to are also possible but seem less likely. There is, for instance, no scribal evidence for replacing to with will. And although there is scribal evidence that an original he could have been lost from “in the which maintenance he supposeth he will enable the Lamanites to conquer the remainder of the land”, this emendation nonetheless places an inordinate emphasis on the rebel Nephite king, Pachus, as enabling the Lamanites.
Summary: Accept in Alma 61:8 Joseph Smith’s emendation of the text from “in the which maintenance” to “which maintenance”; this emendation implies that during the early transmission of the text Oliver Cowdery or Joseph Smith accidentally added the extra in the to the original “which maintenance”, prompted by the two preceding occurrences of “in the which” in the passage (“in the which he hath joined an alliance with him / in the which alliance he hath agreed to maintain the city of Zarahemla”).