In Alma 5:62, we read the following:
I speak by way of command unto you that belong to the church; and unto those who do not belong to the church I speak by way of invitation: Come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life.
Here, Alma clearly teaches baptismal regeneration, showing that, one’s becoming a partaker of the tree of life is contingent upon their water baptism, and such a baptism is “unto repentance.” One is struck by Acts 2:38, where the instrumentality of one’s reception of the Holy Spirit, as well as one receiving a remission of sins is that of water baptism (see the discussion of Acts 2:38 here).
Moreover, this reminded me of an interesting textual variation between the KJV and NKJV and all other translations of Rev 22:19. The KJV reads:
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
All other translations have, not "book of life," but "tree of life"; this is how the NRSV renders the verse:
If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person's share in the tree of life, and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
Why the difference? As the NET notes:
The Textus Receptus, on which the KJV rests, reads "the book" of life (ἀπὸ βίβλου, apo biblou) instead of "the tree" of life. When the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus translated the NT he had access to no Greek MSS for the last six verses of Revelation. So he translated the Latin Vulgate back into Greek at this point. As a result he created seventeen textual variants which were not in any Greek MSS. The most notorious of these is this reading. It is thus decidedly inauthentic, while "the tree" of life, found in the best and virtually all Greek MSS, is clearly authentic. The confusion was most likely due to an intra-Latin switch: The form of the word for "tree" in Latin in this passage is ligno; the word for "book" is libro. The two-letter difference accounts for an accidental alteration in some Latin MSS; that "book of life" as well as "tree of life" is a common expression in the Apocalypse probably accounts for why this was not noticed by Erasmus or the KJV translators. (This textual problem is not discussed in NA27.)
For more, see Kevin L. Barney, “A Book or a Tree? A Textual Variant in Revelation 22:19” in Apocalypse: Reading Revelation 21-22, ed. Julie M. Smith
Rev 22:19, of course, is often abused by some Protestants to support Sola Scriptura. For a refutation, see the section entitled, "Refuting an old canard: Rev 22:18-19" at Not by Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura (also available on Amazon)
