Synoptica
Text Preliminaries

Scriptorium: The Multiplication of Copies by Mediaeval Scribes

On the main page of the Synoptica section, we have distinguished between a text's growth process and its later corruption process. We now look more closely at the corruption stage, as a necessary preliminary to the growth analysis toward which we are slowly working.

Text Criticism

The criticism of a text involves comparing manuscript copies, noticing differences, and of two or more readings, eliminating those which seem to be due to later copyists, and retaining the one which seems to represent the original text. In this way the corruptions and additions of later copyists are gradually removed. The final result of text criticism, in favorable cases, is the reconstruction of the archetype: the master copy from which all later copies are descended. In principle, that process of text criticism should be carried out before the text is used as evidence for the time when it was written.

The choice between two manuscript readings is basically a matter of determining the directionality of their relationship. The experience of many scholars over many years has led to guidelines and expectations and reminders of what actually happens to a text in the course of being recopied. The process is essentially the determining of directionality:

Does one version make smooth sense, and does the other involve a difficult but possible reading? Then the smoother one may be the later, since scribes often improve the clarity of their text (thinking thereby to restore the presumably clear original). Does a passage have little to do with what comes before and after it, and does the sense of the surrounding text improved when that passage is taken out? Then the passage is probably an interpolation, placed there for a reason of its own, but disturbing the original text in some way.

Out of many such remembered solutions does the art of the text critic gradually come together. Some of these memories get embodied into too precise rules. One such rule is "lectio brevior potior" (the shorter of two readings is better). The rule is easy to remember, but it also leads to wrong results if, in fact, through dittography or homoeoteluton or any of half a dozen other quite common errors, the longer reading is actually the better. The only valid short rule is one that was first identified as basic by Tischendorf in 1854, and by 1943 could be treated by Grant, and by 1964 by Metzger, as self-evident. This is the idea that the reading is to be judged earlier from which the other can most plausibly be derived. In Metzger's words:

"Perhaps the most basic criterion for the evaluation of variant readings is the simple maxim 'choose the reading which best explains the origin of the others.'We all follow this common-sense criterion when confronted with errors and "variant readings" in modern books . . . " (p207).

Or newspapers. Viewers may note that the mental correction of a misprint in the newspaper is not based on the comparison of different manuscript readings. There can be no different manuscript readings: it is the nature of the printing process that all copies of that newspaper will have the same error. Correction of such an error is based on recovering an error process for which we have only the single erroneous text as evidence. In such cases we see that the Tischendorf Principle applies also to single-text situations, and is not limited to the adjudication of parallel and competing versions. Here is the area in which what we here call the "middle criticism" has been practiced in the past.

The present preliminaries are meant to establish some facts about the texts we will later be analyzing, using standard methods of text criticism, as well as giving viewers an idea of text criticism itself. The cases we will consider include some where two or more manuscript variants are adjudicated, and some where only the evidence of a single text is available. The arguments can be complex, and it helps in following them if one has met some of the terms before. Here is a very brief sample of that background knowledge:

For a more detailed treatment, we may recommend Metzger Text, in toto.

We here highlight certain high-profile passages in the various Gospels (and some Epistles). The sections in question also give analyses of other passages in those texts for which text critical decisions later become necessary. All such passages may be accessed at any subsequent time from this Text Preliminaries page, should the interest of the viewer require. They may be surveyed at this point for viewers desiring additional practice in text criticism.

The manuscript-attested problems, since they obviously arose within the later history of the text, belong to that later history. Solving them is how we get rid of that later history, and back to the texts themselves (that is, the archetypes). We will not routinely pause over other problems of the same sort in the following pages. Instead, for the most part we will silently accept the verdict of centuries of scholarly effort, and will regard Codex Vaticanus (4th century; emended as above described) as our base text. Now and then, attention to some detail will be required. Otherwise, we end our glimpse of text criticism at this point.

With this sample of how texts are made safe for analysis by text criticism, and with Luke in particular usefully clarified and thus brought closer to its archetype, we may now turn to the Synoptic Problem itself, as it has usually been defined.

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25 Sept 2005 / Contact The Project / Exit to Synoptica Page