Some paper blogging, when I should be paper writing...
I despise text criticism. Not specifically text criticism of Jewish texts, and not for religious reason, which one might expect of a {more or less) orthodox Jew, but all text criticism. I hate it because it is so stultifyingly boring, but simultaneously necessary to any kind of text study. It is impossible to study any text properly without getting a picture of what the original text looked like. The problem exists for Shakespeare as well as the Bible. A short anecdote, to demonstrate my hatred. I've been working on a paper about Exodus 21:37 for the past little while. Yesterday, while looking in a book by Jacob Neusner, I saw a translation of the verse which excluded the following verse 22:1 and picked up at 22:2. I freaked out, afraid that there was a variant Bible text somewhere that I wasn't aware of. There was a copy of The New American Bible Translation nearby, I forget why. I picked it up to check to see what it said. The same as the Neusner book. Now I was really freaking out. Was I going to have to spend a million years trying to reconstruct the original reading, which I had no interest in doing? I ran and checked the Septuagint. It was the same as the Masoritic text. I double checked the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Same as the Masoritic text as well. Now I'm scared. I have no idea where this variant is coming from, but I've seen it two places. However, it doesn't exist in any of the oldest bible versions we have. I spent the next three hours or so going over books trying to figure out what the hell happened. In the end, it turned out to be a false alarm. Both Neusner and the New American Translation had used internal literary evidence to reconstruct what they thought was the original text, but none of that is within the scope of my paper. So I spent three hours freaking out over nothing. Moral of the story, text criticism is the Devil. Along with Ikea, Purolator and Kenyon Martin.
UPDATE: Rebecca pointed out the obvious fact that I can't spell, so I fixed it.
3 Comments:
Spellcheck?
Jessie,
I read your post and had to laugh a bit. I have been in your exact situation but was working on the Ten Words in Exodus and Deutonomy. It was a Ph.D. Seminar on the Pentateuch. When it came time to present my paper for critique the professor and class listened attentively. Once I finished with my presentation the professor said, "Have you examined ALL the textual varriants?" With the emphasis on "ALL." I gulped and gave a feeble "yes" for I had searched high and low for all the textual variants. He quized me a bit but my fear was misplaced - I had indeed done my homework. However, much like you I have since had an aversion to textual criticism. Now that I am finished with the Ph.D. I am coming to like it again somewhat tentatively. You probably already know this source - but when I start any textual study on the Torah I always use as my basis Weavers "Notes on the Greek Text of __________." You can fill in the blank with any of the five books. He does an excellent job.
Blessings
Joe
Dr. Cathey,
I wasn't actually aware of the source. Thanks for letting me know about it. The fact is, since I wrote this post I've rethought my position a bit, as the result of time and distance from the troublesome incident, as well as some research, has led me to actually enjoy text criticism a bit. The details of my thoughts on that probably warrent their own post though, which I intend to write soon. Thanks again.
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