Alma 62:10 Textual Variants

In the original Book of Mormon text, the prepositional a is usually found as part of the main verb phrase, as in 1 Nephi 8:28: “those that were a scoffing at them”. The 1830 typesetter typically removed these instances of the prepositional a. There are a couple instances of the prepositional a after the past-tense or past-participial verb form found, here in Alma 62:10 and also once earlier in the text:

• Alma 21:11
  • and there he found Muloki [a 1A| BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] preaching the word unto them

In that case, the 1830 typesetter did not remove the a; the removal of the a occurred in the subsequent (1837) edition. The critical text will restore these two instances of “find someone a doing something”. On the other hand, there are four instances in the earliest text of “find someone doing something”—that is, where the text is lacking the prepositional a:

• Mosiah 24:11 (not “whosoever should be found a calling upon God”)
  • that whosoever should be found calling upon God should be put to death
• Alma 47:27 (not “and found the king a lying in his gore”)
  • and when they had come to the spot and found the king lying in his gore Amalickiah pretended to be wroth and said …
• Alma 56:15 (not “and his men a toiling with their mights”)
  • and I found Antipus and his men toiling with their mights to fortify the city
• 3 Nephi 5:5 (not “as many as were found a breathing out threatenings”)
  • yea as many as were found breathing out threatenings against their brethren were condemned and punished according to the law

So either construction, with or without the prepositional a, is possible in the original text. For further discussion, see under prepositional a in volume 3.