BIBLICAL CRITICISM. Textual Crit icism of the Bible.— The object of Textual Criticism is to ascertain the original text of a literary work, as written by the author or authors. Since its objects and principles do not vary essentially in different fields of operation, its application to the.Bible gives it no special characteristics. Literary works vary, of course, in the nature and amount of the materials available for textual criticism, this being true of the Old and New Testa ments in comparison with each other, and also of the individual books or even parts of books. Textual Criticism is sometimes called Lower Criticism, in distinction from Higher Criticism. The term Textual Criticism, however, is more exactly descriptive, and hence to be preferred.
The materials available for the textual criticism of the Bible may be classified under three heads, (1) Manuscripts. These are the principal source in the New Testament, more than 3,000 being in existence which con tain the whole or a part of the New Testa ment, of which the earliest are assigned with much confidence to the 4th century A.D. In the Old Testament the.manuscript material is of comparatively little importance since the oldest manuscript, of a part of the Old Testament, is dated in 916 A.D., and the manuscripts show but few variations of importance. An excep tional position, however, is occupied by the Samaritan manuscript of the Pentateuch. This is of uncertain date, but probably comparatively old, and its evidence is of much value. (2) Versions, that is, translations into other lan guages than the original. Several of these have a real, though subordinate, value for New Testament work, the Syriac and Old Latin being most important. In the Old Testament, however, they are the principal documentary source. The chief of these, in the order both of age and importance, are the Septuagint, a Greek translation, made, at least for the most part, in the 3d and 2d centuries a.c.; the Peshitta, a Syriac translation belonging prob ably to the 4th century A.D., but based on versions as early as the 2d century; the Vul gate, a Latin translation made by Jerome, com pleted in 405 A.D. ; and various Targums, which are Aramaic translations, first oral and then written, these belonging, in the written form, to the period from the 5th to the 9th cen turies A.D. (3) Quotations. Those from the Old Testament which are sufficiently ancient to be of value are in the Tahnud and other Jewish writings, but the textual variations they exhibit are of minor importance, although they would doubtless repay more careful study in reference to this matter. Those of value in
relation to the Nevi Testatnent are found in the early Church fathers, and these have been studied with considerable thoroughness but have not furnished much material of im portance.
The textual criticism of the New Testa ment has been the subject of rnuch careful work which has produced results of great value. Amcmg those spedally prominent and successful in this study may be mentioned Michaelis, Tregelles, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and Von Soden.
Textual criticisnt is necessary because of textual corruption, changes from the original form of the text This textual corruption has arisen in large measure from the scribal copy ing by hand, but partly also as a result of corrections, so-considered, of manuscripts already copied. The corruption is either de liberate or accidental. Deliberate corruption includes principally grammatical corrections, assimilation to parallel passages, explanatory additions, usually first written in the margin and later put in the text, and dogmatic changes, the last being undoubtedly found but not numerous. Accidental corruption is quite cer tainly more frequent and more important than deliberate. This results from the carelessness that is in some measure inevitable in copying by hand.
The following are the principal forms of corruption that are due to accident: (1) Dit tograpky and Elision. Dittography is the repetition of letters or words, and elision is the omission. Both are usually due to the occurrence of the same or a similar combina tion of letters or words at two points near together, the scribe unconsciously passing from one to the other. (2) Additions, not -of the nature of dittography. These are usually scribal explanations on the margin, and hence at first deliberate; but the reception into the text is usually accidental. (3) Conflation. This results when a scribe or corrector is acquainted with two readings and is uncertain which is correct so that he includes.both. Here the inclusion itself is deliberate, but the cor rupted te3[t on which it is based is ordinarily accidental. (4) Changes. This is frequently by mistake for a word that is similar either to the sight or the hearing, as manuscripts were copied in both ways, and sometimes also by mistake for a word of similar meaning. It. sometimes arises, also, from the illegibility of the manuscript that is being copied.