Scribal Errors Research Articles

Polyphony in Medieval Paris: The Art of Composing with Plainchant, by Catherine A. Bradley

<i>Polyphony in Medieval Paris: The Art of Composing with Plainchant</i>, by Catherine A. Bradley

‘God the Father’ or ‘God our Father’? Galatians 1.4–9 on a Miniature Parchment Leaf

This article publishes for the first time a Sahidic parchment leaf containing portions of Gal 1.4–9. Its main interest lies in the omission of the possessive in Gal 1.4d, which reads ‘God the Father’ as opposed to the mainstream ‘God our Father’. Two possible explanations are proposed: scribal error or translational assimilation, involving the more complex question of the relationship between the Coptic and Greek versions. Beyond the biblical textual criticism, this article also adds to the study of miniature codices.

Scribal Errors and “Layout Genetics” in Dunhuang Buddhist Manuscripts

Abstract This essay explores the mechanisms linked to the production of specific mistakes and textual alterations in Dunhuang Buddhist manuscripts, which provide information of codicological interest, in particular on the formal characteristics of a manuscript archetype, on its production phases/techniques, and its formal evolution. It also draws attention to the importance of surveying the alterations in the arrangement of textual and paratextual elements by means of a structural analysis revealing manuscript filiation based on formal characteristics, an approach that can help to explore not only the codicological evolution of a book in manuscript form, but also its philological ties with branches of a specific tradition.

Philology and the History of Words: Some Notes on the Humanists’ Etymological Argumentation

The article concerns the influence of humanist scholarship on sixteenth-century etymological practices, testified in the Neo-Latin reference works and special treatises on linguistics and history. Being an important part of historical research, which relied mostly on Greek and Latin literary sources, etymology could not but adopt some important principles and instruments of contemporary philological work, notably on the source criticism. The foremost rule was to study the sources in their original language, form, and eliminate any corrupted data as well as any information not attested in written sources. This presumed that every text had its own written history, which tended to be a gradual deterioration of its state, represented in the manuscript tradition that was subject to scribal errors and misinterpretations. This view on the textual history was strikingly consonant with that on the history of languages, which was treated by the humanists as permanent corruption and inevitable degeneration from the noble and perfect state of their ancient ancestors. In an effort to restore the original text, philology used emendation as a cure for scribal abuse and textual losses; likewise, language historians had their own tool, namely etymology, to reconstruct and explain the original form of words (including the nomenclature of various sciences). The intersection of both procedures is taken into account in the article and it demonstrates how textual conjectures, manuscript collation, and graphical interpretation of misreadings were employed by the sixteenth-century scholars to corroborate their etymological speculations, which established themselves as one of the ways of the reception and criticism of classical scholarly heritage.

How a Small Scribal Error Left a Medieval Document Unprinted for 500 Years: Report from a Cataloguing Project at Copenhagen City Archives

This annotation describes how a small scribal error in a late medieval Danish document led to that document being left out of the later printed source edition, because the scribe’s correction of his own mistake was not recognized by the man who registered the document later on in the city archives in Copenhagen. It talks about how this sealed the fate that the document remained unknown and unpublished until a registration project at Copenhagen City Archives rediscovered and redated it in 2017 finally resulting in the making of the first-ever printed source edition i 2019. It also discusses the implications this has had for the intellectual knowledge of the history of Copenhagen and even for the understanding of modern cultural heritage in the streets of Copenhagen.

A tale of two baraitot: the Western Galilee borders of the rabbis in archaeology and texts

The purported border of Jewish settlement in the Western Galilee is identified in two separate tannaitic texts, each referring to the ̔Akko–Akhziv road. One text cites this road as the western border of Jewish settlement, while the other cites the same road as the eastern border. The border of Jewish settlement is also described in another rabbinic text, also discovered in the Reḥov synagogue excavations. This text is inconsistent with the texts referring to the ̔Akko–Akhziv road. Archaeologists give priority to the Reḥov inscription and dismiss the contradictory texts as a scribal error. Talmudic scholars validate the authenticity of the apparently contradictory texts using critical textual analysis, but leave the apparent contradictions unresolved. This article uses archaeological evidence in conjunction with a critical review of the texts to resolve the apparent contradiction, proving that the rabbinic texts authenticated by Talmudic scholars are consistent with the Reḥov inscription.

Blotting Out the Name

Abstract Part 1 of this study considered how the rabbinic prohibition against erasing the Tetragrammaton led to scribes performing diverse procedures to resolve scribal errors. In part 2 it will be shown that special procedures were performed in Torah scrolls, namely, skiving, excision, and removing sheets. Washing off the divine name was not found in the corpus examined. Despite the rabbinic prohibition, medieval Jewish scribes occasionally marked the Tetragrammaton with a strikethrough or erased it through abrasion. This may have been the handiwork of Karaite scribes who did not see themselves bound by the midrashic interpretation of Deut 12:4. The scribes who wrote the Aleppo Codex may have abraded erroneous instances of the Tetragrammaton in order to create a model codex. Scribes in the isolated Jewish community of Kaifeng, who erased erroneous instances of the Tetragrammaton, may not have been familiar with rabbinic strictures.

Digital editing of Early Modern English medical manuscripts: scribal errors and corrections

An important philological question is how to edit texts. An edition always entails interpretation of the text and also of the sociocultural context in which the manuscript was created and used. In new philological theory, and contrary to more traditional approaches, the individual manuscript versions, i.e., the textual witnesses, are regarded as valuable in their own right, as every textual witness tells us something about the culture of manuscripts (Carlquist, 2004: 112). This is the approach followed for the digital editing of Early Modern English scientific writing in The Malaga Corpus of Early Modern English Scientific Prose. In this paper, we discuss the challenges that producing such type of edition pose. We will particularly focus on the issue of scribal errors and corrections and how the editor can treat and capture them in the edition. MS Wellcome 213, one of the texts included in the above-mentioned corpus, will be analysed for the purpose. The corpus consists of manuscripts from the Hunterian Collection (Glasgow University Library), the Wellcome Collection (London Wellcome Library) and the Rylands Collection (University of Manchester Library). With regard to text types, these manuscripts hold specialized texts, surgical and anatomical treatises, as well as recipe collections and materia medica.

Whose Error Anyway? Epigraphic and Orthographic Variation in a Book of the Earth as Evidence for Multiple Master Documents in the Sarcophagus Chamber of Ramesses VI

This article considers instances of variation among determinatives within the so-called “Book of the Earth,” as attested in the burial chamber of Ramesses VI. Variants that appear to occur as deliberate contrivances of the ancient authors are distinguished from those that might have arisen as a result of scribal error. The occurrence of variants with thematic or mythological significance and their clustering within the three dimensional space of the burial chamber are then evaluated as evidence for the use of master document(s), which have otherwise been lost, in the execution of the monument’s decorative program.

P. Beatty III (𝔓 47): The Codex, Its Scribe, and Its Text

<i>P. Beatty III (</i>𝔓 47<i>): The Codex, Its Scribe, and Its Text</i>

Yazdan Safaee. “A Local Revolt in Babylonia during the Reign of Darius III”

This article discusses the possibility of a local revolt in Babylonia at the beginning of the reign of Darius III before Alexander’s expedition on the evidence of the Late Babylonian Uruk Kinglist where, before the name of Darius III, A. Kuhrt has read ‘[… whose] other name is Nidin-B[el?]’. One interpretation denies the existence of such an usurper and considers this name just as a scribal error. However, Y. Safaee considers him as a local rebel who is not mentioned in the other sources may...

Sennacherib’s Successor: Titus and Anti-Roman Rhetoric in TgJon to Isa. 10:32

Abstract As recent research in the study of manuscripts has demonstrated, variations in the phrasing of a text not only reveal scribal error or play but also indicate how changes to a given passage in different manuscripts convey important interpretive traditions. In this article, I explore one such case in TgJon to Isa. 10:32. First, I examine how key features (or the lack thereof) in the biblical text of Isa. 10:32 led to certain lines of rabbinic interpretation as found in b. Sanh. 95b, which contains a midrashic story based on the biblical text. Second, I analyse a parallel account of this story as found in TgJon to Isa. 10:32, and I argue that a particular manuscript of this Targum (B. M. 2211) contains added layers of anti-Roman rhetoric through an allusion to Abraham and Nimrod. In this fashion, the variation in wording in this manuscript is indicative of a distinct interpretation from that found in the Talmud.

The Uighur Word Materials in a Manuscript of Huá-yí-yì-yǔ (華夷譯語) in the Library of Seoul National University (V) — 天文門 tianwenmen ‘the category of astronomy’ —

AbstractThe Huá-yí-yì-yǔ is a general name for the various wordbooks between the Chinese language and its neighbouring languages compiled from the beginning of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). It has broadly 4 different classes. In the wordbooks of the third class the words of each foreign language were transliterated only in Chinese characters and the letters of the language in question were not used. To this third class belongs the manuscript in the collection of the library of Seoul National University. Its seventh volume is for the Uighur language. It contains 19 categories. In this paper the first category of astronomy with 85 entries is treated.There are many scribal errors in these materials. Apart from the shortcomings of the Chinese characters, this may be the main reason why the Uighur word materials in the wordbooks of this class are not highly regarded.

In the Age of Non-Mechanical Reproduction: Manuscript Variation in Early-Modern South Asia

In the Age of Non-Mechanical Reproduction:Manuscript Variation in Early-Modern South Asia Arthur Dudney and Neeraja Poddar KEY WORDS Manuscript studies, South Asia, early-modern, transmission, copying, reproduction, circulation, pothi, codex, book history, manuscript variation, plagiarism, Persian, intertextuality, manuscript, painting, illustration Humanistic scholarship on South Asia has become increasingly interested in examining culture not as a monolith but as a field where the actors, objects, and ideas are mobile and frequently altered by interactions with each other.1 Recent publications in art history, literary studies, history, and religious studies have taken notice of this dynamism and concern themselves with the "circulation of culture—its [End Page 1] producers, products, and practices."2 As opposed to privileging an "original" avatar with a fixed meaning, which has been the fate of many itinerant objects and texts that have previously been studied, scholars have begun to probe the layers of meaning acquired by texts and objects that move across time, place, and contexts, their mobility forming them into hybrid products shaped from myriad points of contact.3 These objects and texts are frequently treated as sites where the interface between cultures can be traced; a large proportion of new scholarship on such questions is focused on the encounter of Indic artistic and literary idioms and practices with Islam. The introduction and articles in this special issue, which began as a panel we organized at the European Conference on South Asian Studies at the University of Warsaw in 2016, add to this literature on circulation. But they shift the emphasis away from mobility and cross-cultural exchange and concern themselves primarily with "multiples"—the multiple iterations, versions, interpretations, and uses of a text or artwork that facilitate circulation. Concentrating on works in transit, they explore the themes of copying, repetition, and reproduction in the context of early-modern South Asian manuscripts. Included are works in the pothī (loose-leaf), codex, and scroll format, with and without illustrations, and ranging in genre from literature and religious treatises to dictionaries and other reference works. Common to them is the fact that multiple versions and editions of each were made through copying by hand. Taking into account the somewhat unpredictable nature of human agency, the articles examine the tangible impact of transmission processes on the meaning of a particular work. The result of non-mechanical reproduction is that copies might not be "perfect" because of variations introduced by artists, scribes, and editors, either deliberately or inadvertently, into illustrations and texts. Our purpose is to consider the significance of [End Page 2] such variations to understand how books were valued, used, and disseminated. Rather than thinking of variations as merely discrepancies or mistakes, we regard them as junctures where the authors' or artists' engagement with contemporary sectarian concerns, literary trends, artistic strategies, and popular culture may be manifest. The questions that have guided our contributors include: What is the core of a text? Which viewpoint is preferred at a particular historical moment? How are narratives transformed as they are copied? What is the impact of scribal error when such an error becomes sanctified by usage? To what degree was a pre-modern author thought of as the owner of his or her work? What purchase does our understanding of intertextuality and plagiarism have in the past? Woven through the articles is a deliberation on agency—how do we ascribe agency to copyists, editors, scribes, and other persons who are not the "creators" of a work but nevertheless have an impact on its meaning? In its exploration of the mechanics of transmission, we see this issue as contributing to a broader understanding of circulation in early-modern South Asia. The approach adopted by most of our authors—combining a grasp of the contexts in which specific versions were making meaning, with detailed analyses of texts and illustrations—is applicable to multiples produced in a variety of formats and across modern academic disciplines. The different case studies demonstrate similar concerns, stressing the need for and advantage of interdisciplinary dialogue. Moreover, they all advocate a return to objects (in the plural), rather than relying on a single, standardized, published, or original one, as the means to a...

Jezus „zdjęty litością” czy „ogarnięty gniewem”? Analiza Mk 1,41 w świetle argumentów z krytyki tekstu

The pericope in Mark 1:40-45 portrays the healing of the leper. A majority of manuscripts of the Gospel use the participle σπλαγχνισθeίς in Mark 1,41 to describe Jesus as “moved by compassion”. Nevertheless, there are other versions of the text, including Codex Bezae, which contain a different reading of this participle, namely as ὀργισθeίς, which would characterize Jesus as overwhelmed with anger. Faced with this glaring discrepancy, one needs to decide which version is more appropriate from the point of view of textual criticism. This article discusses both possibilities and attempts to provide the most fitting solution. External criticism of this text (based on the assumption that no scribal error occurred), especially arguments stemming from its internal analysis, bring us to the conclusion that the reading ὀργισθeίς characterizing Jesus as overwhelmed with anger, is most credible.

The Sinless Children of Adam and Eve: Christ and Satan, ll. 469–83

In the Old English poem Christ and Satan, Christ addresses the souls of the just whom he has freed from Hell, speaking of how Adam and Eve had children before the fall. There is a lacuna and a syntactically confused passage in this speech, and editors have emended the text in order to provide an approximately conventional account of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve. Editors have generally assumed that the claim that Adam and Eve had children before the fall is a result of scribal error or authorial confusion, since children born before the fall would, by definition, be sinless. But belief in prelapsarian children of Adam and Eve is in fact affirmed in the Hiberno-Latin Reference Bible and in the Middle-Irish ‘Dúan in choícat cest’, and was even current in Old and Middle Irish tales dealing with the Otherworld, which make explicit their sinless condition. Editors have assumed that the ideology of Christ and Satan is conventionally ‘Augustinian’ Christianity but there were other strands of Christian thought in the early Middle Ages in the British Isles and in Christ and Satan, the risen triumphant Jesus tells a strikingly unconventional account of the life of Adam and Eve before the fall.

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR’S SHRINE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY: THE QUESTION OF METRE

In an earlier paper that looked at the dating of Edward the Confessor’s shrine at Westminster Abbey and which was published in volume 97 of The Antiquaries Journal, the authors suggested that a scribal error in the recording of the original inscription by the fifteenth-century monk Richard Sporley may have led to the incorrect date of 1279 being given for the construction (or, at least, completion) of the shrine. As a result of the debate aroused by that earlier paper, the authors have now reconsidered and slightly amended their original argument.

Re‐examining RAMRY/94‐az‐Zālif 1 no. 1: probable finding of a previously unknown name for a temple of S1yn amid a plurality of scribal errors

AbstractRAMRY/94‐az‐Zālif 1 no. 1 (first century BCE to second century CE) is a Hadramitic inscription from ancient az‐Zālif that has eluded a full interpretation because of scribal errors and lacunae. I survey and critique Frantsouzoff’s and the Digital Archive for the Study of pre‐Islamic Arabian Inscriptions’ previous treatments of the text. After proposing an emendation of an incompletely engraved letter and noting the presence of construction text formulary phrases, I reconstruct the lacunae and suggest that the inscription records the erection of a sanctuary for S1yn Bql, a previously unknown epithet for the god S1yn. This new reading will show that the text contains more errors than previously known and implies that Bql is the hitherto unknown name of the temple in which the inscription was found.

A New Approach to Using the Old Greek in Hebrew Bible Textual Criticism

AbstractEmanuel Tov’s published methodology for using the Old Greek in textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible has been the gold standard for all such methods. I present a new approach by building on Tov’s methodology. Although Tov accounts for the reality of Hebrew variants within the mind of the translator, he explores the idea only with regards to scribal errors, leaving most changes stemming from “contextual exegesis” to be categorized as inner-translational and inadmissible in the text critical endeavor. I argue for an extension of Tov’s method by considering other ways in which a scribe working in Hebrew could have made the changes commonly attributed to the translator. In contrast to Tov’s method, I suggest we center our use of the Old Greek in textual criticism around one main criterion: if Hebrew can be reconstructed on the basis of clear translation patterns, the evidence should be used in textual criticism.

Does the Yod of ‮נַפְשִׁי‬‎ in Ps 24:4 Represent a Minuscule Waw?

AbstractIn BHS, Ps 24:4 has a reading of ‮נַפְשִׁי‬‎ “my soul” in a context that logically demands a reading of ‮נַפְשׁוֹ‬‎ “his soul.” In several manuscripts and in the Rabbinic Bible, there is a kəṯîḇ ‮נפשו‬‎ “his soul” and a qərê ‮נַפְשִׁי‬‎ “my soul.” However, some prominent Masoretic scholars, Elias Levita, Solomon Norzi and Solomon Frensdorff, have rejected this qərê reading by suggesting that the yod of ‮נַפְשִׁי‬‎ is the result of a scribal error, and that it represents a so-called minuscule waw. This article surveys the history of this debate, examines the nature of the minuscule letters, and shows that new evidence in a Genizah fragment and in the Masoretic appendices to the Leningrad Codex offers support for this dissenting opinion. As a result, the best reading in the context would probably be ‮נַפְשׁוֹ‬‎.