![]() ![]() In contrast to NT textual critics' use of OT quotations, OT textual critics rarely avail themselves of this data, despite the fact that these quotations are valuable, and ancient, witnesses to both the LXX and pre-Masoretic Hebrew texts. ![]() It is especially dangerous to assume that the text of the Cambridge edition is the LXX, since it reflects the text of a single ms (Vaticanus in most instances) the Göttingen edition, or even Rahlfs' manual edition, are preferable to the Cambridge edition if the reading of the text (as opposed to one of the readings of the apparatus) is to be accepted. 1 One often unnoticed prerequisite of this procedure is to establish the text of the LXX in the passage in question. ![]() For this reason, readings that reflect a text different from that of the LXX are generally preferred to those that mirror the LXX ( Aland and Aland 1989:290). It has long been noted that NT writers tend to quote the OT from the LXX rather than the MT. ![]() One area of evident overlap between the two disciplines is OT citations present in the NT. A few textual critics of the past (Julius Wellhausen) and the present (Bruce Metzger) have bridged the gap in their own work, with rewarding results.ĥ. Although this division seems natural enough, it is by no means a necessity. The most obvious example, of course, is the fact that OT textual critics study the OT (which itself varies, depending on whether one includes the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books, and which ones), and NT textual critics study the NT. Above all, it is hoped that scholars on both sides of the canonical aisle will be sensitized to what those on the other side are doing, and so strengthen the exercise of their own discipline.Ĥ.ğirst of all, OT and NT textual critics deal with different data. This study aims to point out some of the differences, stress the significant similarities, and suggest some fruitful prospects for cooperation between practitioners of OT and NT textual criticism. In other words, OT textual criticism and NT textual criticism have different starting points (data), different endpoints (goal), different ways of getting from one to the other (methodology), and different ways of describing their work (terminology). OT and NT textual critics deal with different data, they strive for different goals, they approach their task with different methodologies, and they use different terminology. After all, very real differences exist between the texts of the Old and New Testaments, and they are also evident between OT and NT textual critics themselves. Didactic, religious, theological, and historical arguments can all be made to support the current state of affairs. Reasons to justify the split in the discipline are not difficult to find. In and of itself, the variety is not detrimental, but the lack of cross-pollination among textual critics is. This separation of the two from each other (and from other areas of textual criticism, such as of the classics) has resulted in profoundly varying approaches to the task of textual analysis. One casualty of the persistent tendency within biblical scholarship toward ever greater specialization is the discipline of textual criticism, which is almost universally divided into the camps of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Unfortunately, as biblical scholars increasingly focus on smaller and smaller areas of study, fewer cross-discipline investigations occur, and the gap between the testaments grows.Ģ. The reading of the OT informs NT interpretation, but so does the reading of the NT inform OT interpretation. The OT and the NT themselves are collages of overlapping ideas and structures, and the relationship of OT thought to that of the NT is both varied and complex. Barr criticizes the facile differentiation of ideas into the categories of "Hebrew" and "Greek" as a caricature ( Barr 1966:35), but he also decries the simplistic identification of OT and NT terms and concepts as "highly artificial" ( ibid.:154). In his 1966 book Old and New in Interpretation, James Barr calls for a reexamination of thinking about the two testaments, focusing especially on the areas of history, revelation, and exegesis, and their influence on Christian theology. Old and New in Textual Criticism: Similarities, Differences, and Prospects for Cooperation James R. This article is also available in transliteration and text-only formats. ![]()
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