Alma 32:15 Textual Variants

The original manuscript is not extant for “they who are/art”. In the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery wrote “they who art”. The art in 𝓟 was carried over into the 1830 edition, but the 1837 edition replaced it with the standard are.

As noted under Mosiah 2:24, Oliver Cowdery sometimes accidentally crossed the final e of are (especially if the e was written larger than normal), thus ending up with art. There are at least three cases of this error in the manuscripts:

• Mosiah 2:24
  • and ye are still indebted unto him and [are / art 1|are ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] and will be
• Alma 27:12
  • and blessed [are / art 0|art >js are 1|art A|are BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] this people in this generation
• Alma 37:11
  • now these mysteries [art >+ are 0|are 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] not yet fully made known unto me

For each of these cases, we find no independent evidence for the use of art in similar constructions, but there is considerable evidence for are (for this point, see the discussion under each of these passages).

One could propose that the art here in Alma 32:15 is also the result of accidentally crossing the final e of are (as is suggested in the discussion under Mosiah 2:24). But there is a more reasonable possibility—namely, the original text for this passage actually read art: “yea much more blessed than they who art compelled to be humble”. The evidence for this alternative comes from the following four instances of original but nonstandard art:

• Alma 10:7
  • for thou shalt feed a prophet of the Lord / yea a holy man which [art >js is 1|art A|is BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] a chosen man of God
• Alma 36:18
  • O Jesus thou Son of God have mercy on me who [are > art 0|art 1ABCDEFGHIJKLPS|art > am M|am NOQRT] in the gall of bitterness and [art 01ABCDEFGHIJKLPS|art > am M|am NOQRT] encircled about by the everlasting chains of death
• Alma 61:2
  • I Parhoron which [art >js am 1|art A|am BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] the chief governor of this land do send these words unto Moroni the chief captain over the army
• Helaman 7:16
  • yea how could ye have given away to the enticing of him who [art >js is 1|art A|is BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] seeking to hurl away your souls down to everlasting misery and endless woe

In these four cases, there is no real possibility that the original text read are, which means that in these cases we can eliminate the possibility that art was simply are with the e accidentally crossed. But of greater importance for Alma 32:15 is that for all these four other cases the art is preceded by a relative pronoun (so we have either “which art” or “who art”), just like here in Alma 32:15. This similarity strongly suggests that in Alma 32:15 we have a fifth case of “which/who art”, irrespective of the fact that the antecedent for the relative pronoun is the plural pronoun they (which does take are in standard English). The critical text will therefore accept art as the original reading in Alma 32:15, although the possibility remains that the art is simply a case of are where the final e was accidentally crossed.