Hermeneutics - Textual Criticism

Alexandrian manuscripts

the greek manuscripts that come from the dessert parts of Egypt; there are few of these manuscripts; they are the oldest manuscripts; they are shorter manuscripts

byzantine manuscripts

the greek manuscripts that come from teh eastern Roman empire; there are many of these manuscripts; they are newer manuscripts; they are longer manuscripts

canonical

a canonical book is a book that is included in the biblical canon; a canonical book has a canonical form or shape to it when it became part of the canon

canonization

the process of a biblical book becoming a part of the biblical canon

composition (phase in making a biblical book)

the making of a whole coherent and cohesive book with a particular beginning, middle, and ending by how an author selects, adapts, and arranges his material to provide his perspective and message

Dead Sea scrolls

the oldest ancient Hebrew manuscripts of the OT discovered in 1947 in caves; it preserves a consonantal text that affirms the Masoretic Texts and Hebrew behind the Septuagint

external text critical information

data about a biblical manuscript's location, condition, scribe, scribal habits, and family of manuscripts

internal text critical information

data about the actual words and letters of a biblical manuscript

lower criticism

another name for textual criticism, which seeks to determine the original canonical, or earliest possible form of a biblical text

manuscript

an ancient handwritten text of a biblical book or part of a biblical book

masoretic text

the OT manuscript family preserved by the Majorettes (Jewish scribes) that provided a vowel system to preserve the readings the received; it is the most reliable witness to the canonical OT

minuscule manuscript

these are greek manuscripts that include lower case letters and were copied later than the original uncial manuscripts

reading of a text

the way a particular manuscript or manuscript family preserves a specific section of a text that in some way differs from other manuscripts

textual criticism

seeks to determine the original, canonical, or earliest possible form of a biblical text

textual family

a grouping of common and historically connected manuscripts that share traits and reflect similar readings between them

the Aramaic Targums

ancient jewish commentaries on the OT written in Aramaic that preserve reading of the OT older than the NT

the canon

the books included in the Bible, OT and NT

the septuagint

the Ancient Greek translation of the OT that is one of the main witnesses to the original, canonical, or earliest possible form of the OT

the Syriac peshitta

an ancient Syriac, which is a form of Aramaic, translation of the OT and NT for use in ancient Syriac churches

the vulgate

an ancient latin translation of the OT and NT by Jerome that become the main Bible in the western church; it preserves OT readings from the MT and LXX

transmission history

the history of how a biblical book was transmitted over time from one manuscript to another, being divided into composition, canonization and consolidation

unical manuscript

the oldest greek manuscripts written in all capital letter with no spacing between words and without any punctuation

variant readings

different readings of a biblical text during the text's consolidation the textual criticism evaluates