Conjectural Emendation Research Articles

ΒΕΛΌ́ΣΤΑΣΙΣ in LXX JEREMIAH 28:27 (51:27): A Conjectural Emendation

Abstract In LXX Jer. 28:27 (51:27) there is a semantic mismatch between the Greek βελόστασις, an ‘emplacement for the discharge of missiles’, and the Hebrew טִפְסָר, a ‘tablet writer’. Rather than viewing this reading as a mistake made by the translator, alternative solutions will be suggested. A consideration of several additional factors recommends a conjectural emendation. It will be proposed that the conjectural emendation may resolve the semantic discrepancy between the LXX Jer. 28:27 and the MT.

Cornutiana

Abstract This article provides conjectural emendations and exegetical notes to several passages in Cornutus’ Theologiae Graecae compendium; it also offers an emendation of a controversial fragment of Cleanthes on physics (SVF 1,497).

Freedom from the world and freedom in the worlds

Interpretation of the UpaniSads has occupied scholars from ancient times to the present, and ancient interpretations have influenced modern scholars even if they are not committed to any Vedantic school. This article looks at the history of interpretation of Katha Upanisad 6.4, which speaks of embodiment in worlds after death. Because such embodiment seems contrary to received ideas, this verse has been subject to conjectural emendations, or to interpretations which are difficult to reconcile with the text. The article looks at earlier Vedic ideas about existence after death, and some later ideas, and attempts to show that the apparent meaning of the verse is consistent with such ideas.

Ancient Letters and Old Paper: How Matthew Parker (1504–1575) Understood Medieval Books

Abstract: This article examines the efforts of Matthew Parker and his scholarly circle to understand the medieval books that he collected as archbishop of Canterbury. It argues that Parker made sense of his books by connecting them to what amounted to an emerging history of the book. That is, Parker began to piece together the formal features of different medieval books into a rough but increasingly refined timeline of the history of book production in order to contextualize any given manuscript. The evidence can be found scattered throughout Parker's library, in the form of annotations, transcripts of passages, copied illustrations, and printed books that offer a wealth of information about how Parker's team understood the books they handled. This documentation reveals how they combined scribal knowledge with textual information, to powerful ends. By connecting Parker's practices to contemporary developments in other areas of knowledge production, from alchemy to conjectural emendation, this article offers a new way forward for scholarly analysis of the early modern study of older books, especially for our analysis of early modern practices and paradigms that do not fit modern definitions of paleography and codicology.

Conjectural Emendations in the Aeneid, 4.436 & 12.423


 I: A. 4.436 has caused commentators and interpreters serious worries and have done so for two millennia: (1) Which reading is correct, dederit or dederis? (2) Which varia lectio is preferable, cumulatam or cumulatā? (3) What does morte refer to? (4) What is meant by (veniam) remittere? These issues are constantly seeking some form of unified solution. The 19th century made several attempts at conjectures none of which gained ground. After discussing the best among these at length (Philip Wagner’s 1832 proposal) the time has come to move outside the well-trodden paths and make a new try at a solution. II: Taking his point of departure from an error in Hirtzel’s Vergil edition (OCT 1900) the author advocates a new text at A. 12.423, nullā for nullo, finding the resulting

Natural Inseparability in Aristotle,MetaphysicsE.1, 1026a14

AbstractAt Aristotle,MetaphysicsE.1, 1026a14, Schwegler’s conjectural emendation of the manuscript reading ἀχώριστα to χωριστά has been widely adopted. The objects of physical science are therefore here ‘separate’, or ‘independently existent’. By contrast, the manuscripts make them ‘not separate’, construed by earlier commentators as dependent on matter. In this paper, I offer a new defense of the manuscript reading. I review past defenses based on the internal consistency of the chapter, explore where they have left supporters of the emendation unpersuaded, and attempt to strengthen their appeal. I challenge Schwegler’s central case, developed by Ross and others, that the construction μὲν ἀλλ’ οὐκ demands an implausible ‘logical antithesis’ between inseparability and mobility. This is arguably the fundamental obstacle to the manuscript reading, and counterexamples have not to date convinced emenders. I offer a new, systematic review of Aristotle’s use of the phrase, including relevant cases from theRhetoric, to show how its usual meaning in Aristotle supports the transmitted text; I also reply to possible objections. Finally, I explore the implications of this defense for the classification of the sciences in E.1.

Rid Us (Not) of the Temptation: A Note on the Text of Hebrews 11.37

Prior to the publication of [Formula: see text]46 (P.Beatty II; LDAB 3011), at Heb. 11.37 the earlier critical editions printed one of the longer readings, though from Erasmus onwards the passage was subject to a considerable number of conjectural emendations. With [Formula: see text]46, the evidence for the reading ἐπρίσθησαν gained significant early manuscript support, thus impacting subsequent editorial practice and textual analysis. This study offers a reinvestigation of this textual problem and brings a new proposal based on a fresh evaluation of external and internal criteria.

Conjectures to Two Greek Medical Texts: Apollonius Citiensis 92 and Galen Praen. 14.638K

This article proposes two emendations to the text of Apollonius Citiensis and Galen of Pergamum’s De Praecognitione. The problematic transmissions are isolated and a conjectural emendation suggested.

Beowulf 501b and the authority of Old English poetical manuscripts

In his Old English grammar, A. Campbell put forward his theory of Old English accentuation, according to which disyllabic words like Bēowulf and ǣniġ receive a half-stress only if made trisyllabic by the addition of an inflection (as in Bēowulfes or ǣniġra), provided the middle syllable is heavy. A. J. Bliss tacitly rejected Campbell’s analysis when he postulated the existence of metrical type 3B2, a rare rhythmical pattern in which trisyllabic forms like Bēowulfes and ǣniġra must exceptionally be assumed to lose their otherwise conventional half-stress. Bliss based his analysis on the evidence afforded by four readings from the text of Beowulf: ll. 501b, 932b, 949b, and 1830b. Even though Bliss expressed reservations about his own analysis, he still preferred it to the alternative possibility of emending these four exceptional verses (a possibility that he did not even consider in his book). Non-metrical arguments in support of the emendation of at least one of these verses (1830b), however, had been advanced well before The metre of Beowulf was first published. Since then, ll. 932b and 949b have also been emended on grounds other than metre. This article offers new linguistic reasons for the emendation of l. 501b, the one remaining reading for which no alternative explanation had yet been proposed. It concludes that Bliss was unnecessarily cautious in his treatment of these four aberrant verses, and that, as Kenneth Sisam memorably stated in 1946, conjectural emendation is, and still remains, a useful tool for the study of Old English poetical manuscripts.

Between Antiquarianism and Satire: Tertullian’s De Pallio in the Age of Confessions, c. 1590–1630

This article analyses the scholarly efforts of two generations of late humanists on a text that became particularly popular in learned circles around the turn of the seventeenth century: Tertullian’s mock oration on the philosophical cloak, known as De Pallio. It focusses on a methodological shift in scholarship from conjectural emendation to antiquarian explication, and it highlights the polemical and literary dynamics at the basis of the text’s reinterpretation as a satire. These insights are in turn linked to the changing circumstances of learned polemics in the Republic of Letters, and to the central place of confessional strife as an organizing principle for scholarship itself. I conclude the article by gesturing towards the seventeenth-century fortune of the ‘pallium’ as a polemical trope.

Women's Silence and Jewish Influence: The Problematic Origins of the Conjectural Emendation on 1 Cor 14.33b–35

This article explores the origins of the conjectural emendation on 1 Cor 14.33b–35, first made in 1863 by Jan Willem Straatman. It shows that Straatman attributes the instruction on women's silence to Jewish influence and bases his view on a reconstruction of early Christianity in which Paul and his Gentile message were opposed by Jewish adversaries. This anti-Jewish tendency persisted in subsequent scholarship and has continued to characterise the understanding of this passage into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Adapting Digital Biblical Resources for Translation and Teaching: Harvesting low-hanging fruit and growing next generation resources

When biblicalhumanities.org launched in 2013, we naively assumed that software developers would know how to take advantage of high quality, innovative data if it were published in open formats under free licenses. We understood the importance of building communities that know how to take advantage of this data, software and frameworks that make it easily accessible, and tailoring data to specific use cases, but we assumed that this would happen if we just made the data freely available. Freely licensed base texts, morphologies, contextual glosses, syntax treebanks, discourse analyses, lexicons, textual variants, images, conjectural emendations, and grammars are available now, and some are at least as good as commercial resources, but they are not yet widely used. In the last year or so, Jupyter Notebooks and academic conferences have started to bring this data into academic study, but we have barely begun to tap its potential for translation, language learning, and scripture engagement for those who know the languages. To realize this potential, we need to understand the use cases and mindset of potential users and create software and other resources tailored to their needs. Over time, we need to gather feedback from these same users, walk with them as they learn and grow, and welcome them into communities that will create the next generation of resources.

Note: Unemending Piers Plowman B.18.421

This note argues that the conjectural emendation to hire at B.18.421 found in Kane-Donaldson, Schmidt, and Robinson-Shepherd, should be rejected, and the reading here, found in W and L, and in the reconstruction of Bx by Burrow and Turville-Petre should be restored.

Matthew 27:52-53 as a Scribal Interpolation: Testing a Recent Proposal

AbstractIn his recent commentary on Matthew, C. A. Evans suggested that Matt 27:52-53 is an early scribal interpolation. Although no extant manuscripts omit these verses, Evans argued thatthe absence of references to these verses in Christian literature prior to the Council of Nicaea supports this conjectural emendation. Although several German and Dutch scholars ofthe 18th and 19th centuries also proposed this emendation, most appealed primarily to historical and theological evidence. A thorough text-critical analysis has not previously beenpublished. This essay explores the internal and external evidence and concludes that these verses belong to the earliest text of Matthew that can be established from currentlyavailable evidence.

Unos pasajes corruptos del Libro de Apolonio

There is only one extant manuscript of the Spanish Libro de Apolonio. This manuscript was copied about 150 years after the anonymous author had written the poem about Apollonius of Tyre. Like any manuscript, this copy contains errors introduced by the copyist or former copyists. Since there is no possibility to compare different versions, attempts to rectify the corrupted passages must be made through conjectural emendations based on metrics, semantics, narrative logic and the usus scribendi of the Spanish authors of the middle of the thirteenth century and particularly those of the poetic school of the mester de clerecia. This article contains 12 new emendations to the Libro de Apolonio, as a further contribution to the important work of different scholars who in recent years have formulated emendation proposals of this text.

Using an Author's Consistency of Usage and Conjectures as Criteria to Resolve Textual Variation in the Greek New Testament

As one of its rules, thoroughgoing eclecticism in New Testament textual criticism puts great store by an author's consistency of language, style and usage when assessing variation. This article examines the theoretical justification for such a rule and sets out a number of examples from throughout the New Testament to show how such an application works, even when the preferred solutions may go against traditional principles of text-critics such as the age, quality or quantity of witnesses in supporting a selected initial text. One section deals with conjectural emendation.

William Michael Rossetti and the Organization of Percy Bysshe Shelley in the Later Nineteenth Century

Rossetti was a self-proclaimed interventionist who saw it as his “clear duty and prerogative to set absolutely wrong grammar … rhyming and … metre right.” In the matter of conjectural emendation, he noted that Swinburne and Harry Buxton Forman thought he had gone too far, his brother and William Bell Scott not far enough. By modern standards, Rossetti appears gauche in comparison with such contemporary editors as Forman, Dowden, and Woodberry. Yet in her review of his 1870 edition, Mathilde Blind recognized his extraordinary flair: “if in many instances his scruples are needless, there are many others where they have been called forth by a real corruption, which he has instinctively felt.” To Rossetti's delight, several of his conjectural emendations to the text of Prometheus Unbound proved correct on C. D. Locock's inspection of the manuscripts donated to the Bodleian in 1893. With regard to the organization of Rossetti's editions of Shelley, this essay addresses his “innovation” on “Mrs. Shelley's distribution of the poems” whereby the number identified as “Fragments” was significantly increased. Overall, it argues for a need to respect Rossetti's principled resistance to individuals and institutions (Lady Shelley, the Shelley Society) who sought to organize Shelley in questionable ways for posterity.

De coniectura quadam prius inaudita: A Brief Note on Cusanus’ Geistphilosophie

In Nicolas of Cusa’s De li non aliud, chapter 19, one should read “in prima seu metaphysicali philosophia” instead of “in prima seu mentali philosophia.” This conjectural emendation is required because the identification of ‘first philosophy’ with ‘mental philosophy’ is attested nowhere else. The paper shows that the huge literature on Cusanus’ alleged re-interpretation of metaphysics as Geistphilosophie rests on a copyist’s mistake.

Come si fa una congettura a Pentadio. Con ripuliture al c. 234 R = 226 SB

The paper shows, through examples from the poem de fortuna, that before venturing a conjectural emendation in the Pentadius’s poems, is useful to obtain data of the handwritten transmission which show the unitary state of the text in the oldest stadium attainable of its tradition. This allows both to delete mistaken conjectural emendations, produced by scholars and editors during the publishing history of the text, and to restore its original facies.

Cutting Off “Kith and Kin,” “Er and Onan”?: Interpreting an Obscure Phrase in Malachi 2:12

The participial phrase [inline-graphic 01] in Mal 2:12 has been a crux interpretum since the earliest versions of the Hebrew Bible. A comprehensive search reveals that at least ten distinct interpretations have been proposed for the obscure phrase by translators and commentators. Retroversion of ancient versions to a different Hebrew Vorlage , conjectural emendation, or various etymological and philological considerations of the homonymic verbs [inline-graphic 02] and [inline-graphic 03] (some on the basis of cognate languages) do not yield a clear understanding of how to interpret the obscure phrase. This article therefore proposes a different methodological approach. By comparing the construction [inline-graphic 04] + [inline-graphic 05] + two coordinated participles/nouns (often displaying alliteration and/or assonance) with other biblical texts, some progress is possible on discerning the meaning of this difficult phrase, even if an exact rendering remains beyond our grasp. Having established that the phrase is most likely a grammatical hendiadys, which constitutes an idiom for “offspring”—one’s own “kith and kin”—this article engages with a recent proposal for an inner-biblical allusion to Genesis 38, and the sons of Judah, [inline-graphic 06] and [inline-graphic 07].