In Alma 19:28, Joseph Smith Jr. appears to forget the name of Abish—a saintly woman mentioned just twelve verses earlier. This oversight suggests a possible overnight gap between dictating Alma 19:16 and 19:28, during which Joseph may have become foggy on the previous day’s details, perhaps due to fatigue or distraction.

The verse could have read simply:

“… And while they were thus contending, Abish saw the contention …”

Instead, likely due to this lapse, it reads:

“… And while they were thus contending, the woman servant who had caused the multitude to be gathered together came, and when she saw the contention …”

This cumbersome phrasing replaces Abish’s name with a lengthy description, despite the rarity of named women in the Book of Mormon—only six in total.

To accept the idea of a flawless, word-for-word translation via a divine device, one must also accept the inclusion of unnecessarily verbose sentences in a book that is repeatedly described as being highly condensed.