Understanding Mosiah 25:6

After the people of Alma and the people of Limhi all made it back to Zarahemla, “king Mosiah caused that all the people should be gathered together.” He wanted to have the records of the groups read to the people so they could all hear their stories. We read, “And it came to pass that Mosiah did read, and caused to be read, the records of Zeniff to his people; yea, he read the records of the people of Zeniff, from the time they left the land of Zarahemla until they returned again.” So first the record of Zeniff, which included an account of the people from Zeniff to Limhi, was read to the people. The next verse reads this way: “And he also read the account of Alma and his brethren, and all their afflictions, from the time they left the land of Zarahemla until the time they returned again” (Mosiah 25:1-6). The last part of this verse is a little hard to understand, for Alma and his people never left the land of Zarahemla. They left the land of Nephi, settled in Helam, and ultimately made it to Zarahemla. Certainly their parents or grandparents left Zarahemla, but that was part of Zeniff’s group whose record had already been read. So how can we understand this verse?

               I see a two possible ways we might explain this verse:

•  The verse was supposed to say “Ammon” instead of “Alma”. If that were the case, then it makes perfect sense: they left Zarahemla, traveled in the wilderness, and ultimately found the people of Limhi and returned to Zarahemla. They even “suffered many things; they suffered hunger, thirst, and fatigue,” and so it would match the reference to “all their afflictions” in Mosiah 25:6. It would be easy to imagine that Joseph said “Ammon” and the scribe heard “Alma” and wrote it down wrong. Or when the copy of the original manuscript was made it could have been copied wrong and changed from Ammon to Alma for the printer’s manuscript (I did confirm online that the printer’s manuscript clearly says Alma in this verse). The challenge with this theory is that it would be surprising for the account of Alma’s people not to have been read in this setting when the stories were told. Also, after the reading the people reacted to Alma’s story: “And again, when they thought of the immediate goodness of God, and his power in delivering Alma and his brethren out of the hands of the Lamanites and of bondage, they did raise their voices and give thanks to God” (Mosiah 25:10). So it seems that Alma’s story was indeed told.
•  Or, perhaps the last part of the verse was incorrectly copied from the previous verse. Verses 5 and 6 end in almost the exact same way in our text, with only the addition of “the time” in verse 6:

o   “from the time they left the land of Zarahemla until they returned again” (v5)

o   “from the time they left the land of Zarahemla until the time they returned again” (v6).

If this were true, then perhaps the original ending verse 6 was supposed to say something more along the lines of “from the time they left the land of Nephi until the time they arrived in Zarahemla.” That’s certainly the time period of the people of Alma that we would expect to be recounted. It is easy to imagine how Oliver in copying the original manuscript to the printer’s manuscript could have made this kind of mistake with both verses already very similar.

 Of course, this isn’t meant to be critical of the Book of Mormon but is rather an acknowledgement that humans were involved in the process of bringing it forth and we need not expect perfection in the strictest sense for the book to be the word of God. Whatever the explanation is here it doesn’t change what the text is really trying to say in this chapter. The key message is that all the peoples were gathered back together and united in their faith, just as we should strive to be today: “And they were called the people of God. And the Lord did pour out his Spirit upon them, and they were blessed, and prospered in the land” (Mosiah 25:24).