Textual Criticism

Some Basic Textual Criticism Terms Defined

Textual criticism in Indology and in European

This paper discusses the post-enlightenment development of philology in Europe during the 19-20 centuries, particularly in the German speaking areas. After several centuries of sustained interest in the Graeco-Roman Classics, all types of medieval, older European and Asian literatures became the focus of new textual approaches. Prominent was an historical and critical approach bolstered by the ...

Textual Criticism and the Turbulent Life of the Platform Sūtra

The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch is one of the most widely known and beloved texts produced by Chinese Buddhism. However, what makes the Platform Sūtra especially interesting is the fact that uniquely among Chinese Buddhist texts it is extant in a number of editions that differ significantly from one another, spanning the eighth to the thirteenth centuries. Thus the Platform Sūtra is n...

New Testament Textual Criticism: The Case for Byzantine Priority

1. From the beginning of the modern critical era in the nineteenth century the Byzantine Textform has had a questionable reputation. Associated as it was with the faulty Textus Receptus editions which stemmed from Erasmus' or Ximenes' uncritical selection of a small number of late manuscripts (hereafter MSS), scholars in general have tended to label the Byzantine form of text "late and secondar...

The Relevance of Textual Theories for the Praxis of Textual Criticism

rules. For that reason, we often find such rules mentioned and exemplified in introductions. If these rules are of little help in textual praxis, textual theories are even less beneficial.32 In the textual comparison of readings, our main guides are common sense, experience, and knowledge. Or, in the words of McCarter,33 the textual critic needs training, experience, and a good master. This lea...