Hermeneutics & Textual Criticism

NT Exam 1

hermeneutics

intepretation of the bible to find meaning

• the bible doesn’t say anything on its own

three worlds of the Bible (explain and questions)

• world in the text (everything behind it: history, culture, etc.; needs research) (why and how they put up the stop sign?)

• world of the text (story elements; author’s intent) (the sign says stop - command?)

• world in front of the text (contemporary application/about the reader) (personal experience understanding the stop sign instructions)

contextualization (4 points)

• constant community communication

• helps differ right/wrong interpretation for bias

• deeper insight, clarity

• bible is for the church, not just me

quadrilateral

• what the text explicitly states

• christian traditional interpretation (insight)

• personal perception

• Holy Spirit influence

textual criticism

study of textual variations bewteen manuscripts (hand-copied) to determins what to print and not print

text criticism task (3 C’s)

collecting, comparing, and choosing MSS

Is there an original MSS?

NO!

• less than 5,000 in Greek

• but 20,000 in total

textual variants

how MSS differ

textual variant effects

97-99% do NOT affect meaning

about 1% are important

accidental variants

• faulty eyesight (letters)

• faulty hearing (words)

• homoioteleuton (skip a whole chunk when similar meanings)

• dittography (repeating the text)

deliberate variants

• grammer corrections

• harmonization (matt and luke’s lord’s prayer)

• explanatory details (margins now implemented)

papyri (papyrus)

earliest, fragmentary, written in majuscule

majuscule

continuous script in all caps

codex (codices)

book form MSS; complete copies in majuscule

minuscules

• byzanite (era)

• lowercase cursive continuous writing

• fancier and have more copies because church getting money

• largest MSS group

lectionaries

second largest MSS group

devotional booklets

rules of thumb

• shorter (because info most likely added unless homoiteleuton situation)

• difficult passage (simplified usually in an attempt to correct grammar/theology)

• reading that explains the other should be inferred

• the heavier the weight over the amount of MSS to support it

why weight over quantity?

• older better and more accurate versus a bunch of newer ones (more time for variants)

• quality of the copyist over carelessness