I’ve posted on textual criticism for the past two days.  This will probably be the last post on the topic for a while.  Yesterday, I posted on video I used in attempting to show my students the importance of textual criticism.  I also used this quote from Pope Pius XII in Divino Afflante Spiritu to try to communicate this:

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17. The great importance which should be attached to this kind of criticism was aptly pointed out- by Augustine, when, among the precepts to be recommended to the student of the Sacred Books, he put in the first place the care to possess a corrected text. “The correction of the codices” — so says this most distinguished Doctor of the Church — “should first of all engage the attention of those who wish to know the Divine Scripture so that the uncollected may give place to the corrected.”[23] In the present day indeed this art, which is called textual criticism and which is used with great and praiseworthy results in the editions of profane writings, is also quite rightly employed in the case of the Sacred Books, because of that very reverence which is due to the Divine Oracles. For its very purpose is to insure that the sacred text be restored, as perfectly as possible, be purified from the corruptions due to the carelessness of the copyists and be freed, as far as may be done, from glosses and omissions, from the interchange and repetition of words and from all other kinds of mistakes, which are wont to make their way gradually into writings handed down through many centuries.

18. It is scarcely necessary to observe that this criticism, which some fifty years ago not a few made use of quite arbitrarily and often in such wise that one would say they did so to introduce into the sacred text their own preconceived ideas, today has rules so firmly established and secure, that it has become a most valuable aid to the purer and more accurate editing of the sacred text and that any abuse can easily be discovered. Nor is it necessary here to call to mind — since it is doubtless familiar and evident to all students of Sacred Scripture — to what extent namely the Church has held in honor these studies in textual criticism from the earliest centuries down even to the present day.

19. Today therefore, since this branch of science has attained to such high perfection, it is the honorable, though not always easy, task of students of the Bible to procure by every means that as soon as possible may be duly published by Catholics editions of the Sacred Books and of ancient versions, brought out in accordance with these standards, which, that is to say, unite the greatest reverence for the sacred text with an exact observance of all the rules of criticism. And let all know that this prolonged labor is not only necessary for the right understanding of the divinely-given writings, but also is urgently demanded by that piety by which it behooves us to be grateful to the God of all providence, Who from the throne of His majesty has sent these books as so many paternal letters to His own children.

This is kind of picks up in the middle of the document, but you can read the rest HERE.  Of course, a quote from a pope may not work quite so well in other institutions ;-).  But, I imagine it worked okay in mine.

In my Wisdom Literature class, I’m taking the approach of tradition history.  We are trying to look at this corpus through each stage of development.  We started with textual criticism.

At any rate, I can’t find the exact video I used, but this one will do.  To illustrate the importance of textual criticism, I told them that they did not want to be the preacher preaching on a text that might not have been original to a book.  To help communicate the point, I showed them this video:

It’s a sweet little video isn’t it.  Problem is that it’s based on Proverbs 4:7, which a text that is in the Masoretic text, but not in the Septuagint.

I wasn’t trying to make any points about whether or not the text was original.  I only wanted to realize that in preaching these sorts of things ought to be taken into consideration.  You may not want to focus in a sermon, or theological dialogue, or a song on a text that could be questionable from a text critical perspective.

A while back I posted asking if anyone knew of interesting text critical issues in the Wisdom Literature that I could use in my class.  I got no response other than Tim being surprised at how text critically inept we must be.

At any rate, here are some of the texts that I ended up using:

1. Proverbs 11:30 “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, but [violence] (Greek, Syriac)/ [a wise man] (Hebrew) takes lives away.
2. Proverbs 13:11 “Wealth [hastily gotten] (Greek Latin)/ [from vanity] (Hebrew) will dwindle, but those who gather little by little will increase it.”
3. Proverbs 13:15 “Good sense wins favor, but the way of the faithless is [their ruin] (Greek, Syriac, Latin, Aramaic)/ [is enduring] (Hebrew).”
4. Proverbs 14:24 “The crown of the wise is their [wisdom] (Greek)/ [riches] (Hebrew), but folly is the garland of fools.”

I identified these text critical notes by looking at the notes in the NRSV.  Text critical notes are one of the reasons I really like the NRSV.  This was super easy using the Kindle edition.  Then, I showed the class translations in parallel to see how different translations handled the issues.

Then, as an exercise, I had the students try to think through what might be the better reading based on the principle that the more difficult reading is to be preferred.  Obviously, this wasn’t meant for coming to hard and fast conclusions about which text was to be preferred since most of the students wouldn’t have the requisite language tools to make that kind of determination.  For that, I told them that they would need to look at a good commentary.  But, it was mainly to gain an appreciation of some of the principles that text critics use and to teach them where to look to read about text critical issues.  I also wanted to help them understand as well that when reading a translation a lot of decisions are being made for them.

In my Wisdom Literature class, we are talking about the transmission of the text of the Wisdom books.  We’ll work through some examples of text critical issues in class.  I have some examples already in mind, but I wanted to ask here: are there any interesting text critical issues that you have come across in the Wisdom Literature?

Perhaps your examples would be more interesting than mine.  And, if you suggest the same ones as me without me giving them to you, then I’ll know I picked some good examples.

The Old Testament lectionary reading for yesterday was Isaiah 53:10-11.  Verse 11 contains an interesting textual variant revolving around whether or not the word “light” is a part of the text.  It is one of those text critical issues where it really is a tough call.  An older manuscript contains the word light; however, the more difficult reading (which is normally to be preferred) does not include the word.   HERE is a link to a post about this issue from a blog entitled Evangelical Textual Criticism.  To whet your appetite to go over and check out the post I’ll cite the comparison of translations.  You should be able to see a major difference.

Translations of Isaiah 53:11

Taken from the blog post linked to above:

ESV: Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

RSV: he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities.

NRSV: Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.