In dictating Alma 2, Joseph Smith, Jr. appears to forget his own villain, Nehor, executed just verses earlier in Alma 1. The lapse suggests an overnight pause in dictation, leaving Joseph foggy on details— The verse should plainly read:

Amlici … he being after the order of Nehor.

Instead, it drags into clumsy circumlocution:

“… Amlici … he being after the order of the man that slew Gideon by the sword, who was executed according to the law.”

For believers, this word-for-word transmission from the seer-stone demands acceptance not only of divine dictation but also of needless verbosity—lengthy, awkward phrasing in a text already advertised as abridged.