How Textual Criticism Works (Part 3)
In a previous post, I presented six “manuscripts” with nine different “variants” to which we may apply out principles of textual criticism to arrive at the original text. Here they are again:
(M1) The discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and thousands of other manuscripts have verified the accuracy of the transmission of the biblical text.
(M2) The discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and tens of thousands of other manuscripts have verified the accuracy of the transmission of the biblical text.
(M3) The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and thousands of other manuscripts have verified the accuracy of the ____ biblilcal texts.
(M4) The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and of thousands of other manuscripts have verified the accuracy of the ____ biblical texts.
(M5) The discoveries of the DSS and 1000s of other manuscripts have verified the accuracy of the transmission of the biblical texts.
(M6) The discoveries of the DSS and 1000s of other manuscripts have verified the accuracy of the transmision of the bilbical texts
Step 1: First of all, we can judge the words “tens of” in M2 as an addition since that is the only version which contains them.
Step 2: The addition of “of” in M4 can be identified as a mere stylistic variant and can be judged to be an addition.
Step 3: The misspelling of “transmission” and “biblical” in M6 are variants, but they can be easily eliminated.
Step 4: M1 and M2 is the only “family” of manuscripts to use the singular “text”, so this is evidently an error.
Step 5: In M3 and M4, the singular “discovery” and the omission of a whole line (which like the line before it, ended in “of the” are evidently errors.
Step 6: The “family” of manuscripts made up of M5 and M6 alone use abbreviations, and does so frequently, so these are to be viewed as changes.
Step 7: “The discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and thousands of other manuscripts have verified the accuracy of the transmission of the biblical texts.” As Bowman points out, the precise wording of this sentence is beyond reasonable doubt, even though there are nine variants on only six manuscripts of a single sentence.
So, there, in a nutshell, is how the mysterious field of textual criticism works.