Textual Criticism
Textual criticism is a science, at the intersection of history , of criticism and literature , writing and studying the circumstances of writing and the tradition of ancient texts to us.
Also called critical restitution , textual criticism is the process for the recovery, according to witnesses remaining, original content of a text, written form of a work.
Summary |
The steps and goals of textual criticism are:
- The discovery and documentation of old manuscripts, old records,
- The comparison of alternatives.
- If possible, finding the most probable text of the original version.
Comparison of variants may be an external criterion such as:
- Dating the writing medium (a papyrus is generally older than parchment or composition of the ink ).
- Dating the type of writing (a text composed in tiny handwritten is generally more recent than a text written in capital letters). (See Caroline , uncial ).
It was decided, however, mainly after internal criteria:
- The hard lesson is most likely the original cons simply because the copyist preferred simplify content known and easy to pen than to overcome a strange formulation.
- The lesson is the shortest most probably the original, because the copyist preferred that add content removed.
- It happened that the monks might know copyists do not read and reproducing the manuscripts as drawings.
Methods of textual criticism
Three approaches are fundamental in textual criticism: the reference edition, eclectic, stemmatic.
The reference edition
With reference edition, the critic chooses to basic text a manuscript considered trustworthy. Often the basic text chosen is assumed the oldest manuscript of the text, but before printing, the basic text was often a current manuscript.
Using the method of the reference edition, the text to consider is facing the basic text, the critic makes corrections (called emendatio) in places where the text it seems erroneous. This can be done by looking for places in the text incomprehensible holds lessons or reviewing the lesson texts other witnesses to find a greater lesson. Conflicts are usually resolved in favor of the reference text.
The method is fragile: it promotes the integration of the copyist errors, such as interpolation or the integration of commentaries (annotations) in the following copies of the text when the reference edition is the latest manuscript. In some cases, these parts of the text changed in terms of content, purpose (as some gospel passages adapted to parallel passages in other Gospels) or involuntarily.
The first printed edition of the New Testament Greek has been produced by this method. Didier Erasme , critic, chose a manuscript in the collection of the convent Dominican local Basle and corrected obvious errors by consulting other local manuscripts.
Eclecticism
The eclecticism is, in practice, to examine a large number of manuscripts and choose the variant that seems superior, usually for internal reasons. In theory, this approach, no manuscript is favored, but in practice the critical eclectic tends to choose a couple of favorite choice based on external criteria, to resolve doubtful cases.
Eclecticism is the dominant method of critical edition of the Greek text of the New Testament (Nestle-Aland, 27th edition) which can not be found entirely in any one manuscript, but is a combination of lessons from various manuscripts. However, the manuscripts of Alexandrian text-type is favored, and the text has a decidedly critical tone Alexandrian.
stemmatic
The review stemmatic is one of the most rigorous approaches to textual criticism. It requires the reconstruction of the history of the text by examining variations in patterns of error. In particular, critics stemmatic employ the principle that "a community of error implies a unity of origin" for determining whether a group of manuscripts are generated through a lost, appointed a hyparchtype. Then determined the relationship between intermediaries lost by the same process, so that all existing manuscripts can be placed in a family tree or stemma codicum descended from a single hyparchtype.
After this step, called recensio, stemmatic critic then proceeds to stage selectio, where the text of the archetype is determined by examining variations of hyparchtypes closest to the archetype and selecting the best. Once the text of the archetype is established, the proceeds of examinatio step to examine this text and find the corruptions. If the archetypal text seems corrupt, it is corrected by a process or Divinatio emendatio.
Thus, the method stemmatic adopt techniques from other approaches after reattachment of the manuscripts in a rigorous historical framework. The process resembles selectio eclectic textual criticism, but applied to a limited set of hypothetical hyparchtypes. Stages of examinatio and emendatio similar to the method of the reference text.
In fact, other techniques can be seen as specific methods of stemmatic. But the weakness of the method is that family history of the text can not be determined exactly, even approached only very approximate.
If it appears that a manuscript text is by far the best method of publishing reference is appropriate, it seems that a group of manuscripts is good, then the eclecticism of this group needed.
References
- LD Reynolds, NG Wilson, From Homer to Erasmus: the transmission of Greek and Latin classics, CNRS Editions, 1988 for this edition. en fr. ( ISBN 2-222-03290-3 )
- cole Nationale des Chartes , Pascale Bourgain, Franoise Vieillard Tips for editing medieval texts, CTHS Paris, 2002 ( ISBN 978-2735505319 )
- Rules and recommendations for critical editions (Greek series), Les Belles Lettres, Collection of universities in France (Bude), 2002, 74 p.
See also
- Scholarly apparatus
- Critical apparatus
- Radical critique
- Ecdotic
- Stemma codicum
- New Testament Textual Variants
External Links
- (In) Exegesis , detailed discussion of New Testament
- discussion lists on the New Testament textual criticism:
- Synoptic-L form. The list operates in English and requires a good level of Greek.
- Graph on the Johannine literature and works in English
- Corpus Paulinum on Pauline literature and works in English. Some French.
- Read Montesquieu: The issues of an edition (project of the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon and the Open University of Humanities - Site devoted to the critical edition )
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