The Work of Repair
In Alma 39:3, Alma chastises his youngest son, Corianton. Corianton had ”forsake[n] the ministry and [gone]. . . after the harlot Isabel,” so Alma tells him to “return unto [the Zoramites] and acknowledge [his] faults and that wrong which [he had] done” (Alma 39:13). That advice makes sense, but it contradicts advice found in the same verse in editions prior to 1920. In early editions, Alma 39:13 advised Corianton to “return unto [the Zoramites], and acknowledge your faults, and retain that wrong which ye have done” (Alma 39:13, my emphasis). Retaining wrongs does not make sense, which is presumably why James E. Talmage lined out the word and wrote an editor’s “delete” mark in the margin of his 1911 edition.
Deleting one word renders the sentence meaningful. But, as Royal Skousen notes, the Printer’s Manuscript shows a word between and and that wrong, which makes it difficult to justify leaving the space simply wordless. Skousen suggests that quirks in Oliver Cowdery’s cursive style may have created a word that looked like retain but was in actuality repair.
Repair is not used often in the Book of Mormon, but the word makes sense in Alma’s context. After he and the sons of Mosiah are rebuked by an angel, they “traveled throughout all the land . . . zealously striving to repair” the damage they had done to the Church. This work of repairing highlights the conclusion of Alma’s short conversion narrative and the beginning of Alma’s post-conversion life.
A story, according to Aristotle’s deceptively simple definition, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In an ongoing epic, altering where a story begins can alter what the story means. Where does Alma’s story begin? Mosiah 27:8, when he enters the text? Or Mosiah 27:24, when he declares that he has “repented” and has “been redeemed”? Because both verses are subsumed by original chapter Mosiah XI (23-27), it also makes sense to view Mosiah 23:1 as Alma’s beginning. Any of these possible beginnings face an almost-insurmountable obstacle: the book break between Mosiah and Alma. The break is so momentous that it justifies Alma 1:1 as yet another beginning and tacitly encourages leaving wicked Alma behind in a sort of forgive-and-forget theology of repentance.
But separating Alma from his reckless past separates him from the events and people that create his beliefs and motives for the rest of his life.
In one beginning, Alma is introduced in loaded terms. He is labeled as a “very wicked and idolatrous man” and a “man of many words,” who “was numbered” among the “unbelievers” (Mosiah 27:8). Notably, Alma is not called Alma “the Younger” in scripture. How much does that non-scriptural label suggest youth and immaturity? The idea of a teenaged Alma has relatively little support in the Book of Mormon, while words, phrases, known death dates, and the results of his rebellion suggest that Alma was in his thirties or forties (possibly fifties) when he was converted. A wayward son can cause great pain regardless of age, and yet a deliberately deceptive, dangerously vicious, and powerfully persuasive man can be much more destructive.
Only three people in the Book of Mormon are “very wicked”: Alma, Amalickiah, and the leader of the Zoramites. Little is known about the Zoramite leader, but Amalickiah earned the label by conspiring to revive the Nephite monarchy, murdering the Lamanite king, deceiving and marrying the Lamanite queen, swearing to drink Moroni’s blood, and leading the Lamanite army into horrific battles without regard for loss of life. The text does not say why Alma earned the same label as Amalickiah, but, rather, leaves Alma’s very wicked label devoid of specifics. That makes underestimating Alma’s wickedness rather easy.
The initial descriptions say that Alma is an “unbeliever” (Mosiah 27:6), namely, one of the “little children” who were not converted by King Benjamin’s speech (Mosiah 26:1). These unbelievers reject the “resurrection of the dead” and “the coming of Christ” (Mosiah 26:2). They are not peaceable atheists or contented agnostics, but, rather, activists who want to “[steal] away the hearts of the people” with their anti-Christ, anti-Church-of-God rhetoric. They almost universally begin with flattery, but that form of persuading escalates often to physical persuasion ranging from slaps to murder. Most seem intent on creating dissension to destroy the church of God. Alma seems to be a leader, if not the leader of the unbelievers.
Considering Alma’s age, significant wickedness, and social connections, it seems rather naive to flip from page 207 to page 208 as if the book of Mosiah ends with everything and everyone as changed as Alma. Repentance and forgiveness may “snatch” Alma’s soul from “an everlasting burning” (Mosiah 27:28), but why would Alma’s repentance change everyone else? King Mosiah, for example, doubts his sons’ change, worrying that one of them might “recall the things which he had said, and claim his right to the kingdom” (Mosiah 28:9). If a loving father doubts his sons’ conversions, how many others do as well?
Readers who begin Alma 1 assuming that Alma is a rhetorically-gifted high priest and chief judge are not wrong—but are they right? This man is also a repentant man with a past full of anti-Christ baggage. Forgiving Alma is the right thing to do, but disconnecting Alma from his very wicked past leaves Alma 1-29 strewn with ill-fitting, unprovoked, and odd actions.
For example, why does Nehor plead for himself “with much boldness” when he knows Alma can impose the death penalty? Why does every named anti-Christ found in the Book of Mormon except for Sherem show up in the first two decades of the reign of the judges? Why is it Alma’s lot to deal with a near-constant round of warfare, notwithstanding narratorial claims of continual peace? Why are these wars almost always between dissenting Nephites and Nephites, not Nephites and Lamanites? Why does Alma 29 mirror the structure of Nephi’s Psalm? Who is speaking in Alma 28? And how can any rational person believe that building “a lake of fire and brimstone” and burning innocent women and children is anything close to justifiable? Do they think a massacre is a macabre joke? Words are insufficient to describe the horror—even Alma’s words fall short.
These smaller stories arc in beginnings, middles, and ends, tucked inside Alma’s overarching story. He is a vile sinner at the beginning, choosing to hurt many people. (Is this not—in some very real ways—the story of each of us?) Forgiveness is good. We should forgive. But forgetting Alma’s sinfulness diminishes his need for a Savior’s grace to cleanse him—and that undermines his unwavering desire to bring souls to Christ. Without that desire, he lacks sufficient motive for his relentless work. In the middle, Alma is hurt deeply by others (and again, is this not our story, as well?), but overlooking his great and terrible suffering diminishes his need for a Savior to heal him.
God does not wait for Alma to heal every person he persecuted before offering forgiveness. God also does not wait for the townspeople to repent before reaching out to heal Alma from the trauma of Ammonihah.
Agency and atonement mean that suffering and sin do not have to balance. Actions can have brutal, unfair, severe, and even inhumane consequences.
God does not condition a sinner’s forgiveness on every sufferer feeling healed, nor does he condition every sufferer’s healing on a sinner’s forgiveness. No one is forced to forgive, forget, or repent. Anyone can choose to retain their sins or their suffering.
And that is why the missing word in Alma 39:13 is more than a quirky bit of gospel trivia. Repairing wrongs depends on someone else’s agency. Reformed sinners may halt such efforts when people refuse to be healed or helped. That is understandable, even justifiable. But Alma chooses to continue. Readers learn what the middle of a Christlike life may look like. It looks like repairing. Repairing is no guarantee of results, but it does stand firm against retaining. When former friends retain his very wicked past, Alma repairs. When Ammonihah retains hatred and lights fires, Alma continues the work of repairing. When people retain fear, cruelty, evil, and wickedness, Alma repairs.
Alma’s narrative begins in sin’s darkest abyss and ends when he wanders away, exhausted. His repentance breaks the book and motivates the work from which he “could not rest” (Alma 43:1). From the thankless middle, Alma repairs.
Kylie Nielson Turley loves teaching BYU's "Literature of the LDS People" course (English Dept) and "Teachings and Doctrines of the Book of Mormon" course (Ancient Scripture Dept). She was perfectly delighted when those worlds collided in a close, literary reading of Alma 1-29 for the Brief Theological Introduction Series.
Art by Brian Kershisnik.
These essays appear in Theological Insights from the Book of Mormon, a Wayfare series that pairs the 2024 Come, Follow Me curriculum with authors of the Maxwell Institute’s Brief Theological Introductions to the Book of Mormon series.
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