Joanne Case suggests (personal communication, 10 June 2004) that the noun phrase “the whole armies” seems strange. In English we expect whole to occur with singular noun forms. Thus one wonders if “the whole armies” could be an error for “the whole army”. There is evidence in the manuscripts that Oliver Cowdery sometimes mixed up army and armies:
Elsewhere in the Book of Mormon text, the attributive adjective whole almost always precedes a singular noun. The only cases in the text where we get plurals after whole is with the word soul, with two original instances and one that has been introduced into the LDS text (marked below with as asterisk):
The plural whole souls is therefore possible. For each case of the plural, there is a plurality of individuals, each with a whole soul.
Similarly, one can make the same interpretation regarding whole armies in Helaman 11:32. The phrase whole army is used when the text is speaking of a single army in the field:
But in Helaman 11:32, the text says that the robbers could withstand any of the whole armies of the Nephites and Lamanites. The plural is possible and should therefore be retained in the critical text, especially since it is the earliest extant reading.
Summary: Maintain the plural whole armies in Helaman 11:32, the consistent reading in all the textual sources; each of the armies of the Nephites and Lamanites can be considered a whole army; thus the plural usage “the whole armies” is possible and will be retained in the critical text.