Literary Criticism - Tumblr Posts

What is Textual Criticism?

By Bible Researcher Eli Kittim

Definition of Textual Criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of textual studies, which comprise various disciplines whose aims are to transcribe, edit, or annotate texts and documents. Textual criticism is a branch of philology (the study of language in oral and written historical sources) and literary criticism, which is interested in the identification of textual variants or different versions of books or manuscripts. Simply put, textual criticism is a method by which scholars try to determine what an original text actually said. Whereas *higher criticism* is concerned with the origins of the original text (e.g. its authorship, date & place of composition), *lower criticism* (i.e. “textual criticism”) seeks to determine the original linguistic-grammatical structure of the text.

The Process of Textual Criticism

In ancient times, prior to the 15th century invention of the printing press, scribes were usually employed to copy documents by hand. During the copying process, however, intentional and unintentional alterations were made, the former sometimes due to political or religious reasons, the latter out of sheer misunderstanding or negligence. Thus, the aim of the textual critic is to understand the historical composition and transmission of a text and its variants. In so doing, the textual critic may be able to produce a so-called “critical edition,” which is a scholarly edition of a corrected text in conjunction with a critical apparatus that records editorial changes, names of manuscripts, and the like.

As already noted, prior to the printing press, literary works were copied by hand and, as expected, copyists produced different variations at certain places in the text. Given that different scribes introduced various errors, the task of textual reconstruction usually requires a selection of readings gathered from multiple sources. Such an edited text is called “eclectic.” In contrast to the multiple-sources approach, however, a number of textual critics will only seek to identify the best extant text with regard to textual reconstruction. When considering various documents (i.e. “witnesses”) of an original text, the linguistic or grammatical differences or variations are called “variants” or “variant readings.” So, through various comparative methods, textual criticism tries to ascertain how the variants were introduced into the text——whether accidentally (via duplication or omission) or intentionally (by way of censorship or harmonization)——as scribes copied from the original autograph and then transmitted these writings across the then-known world.

Guidelines of Textual Criticism

We have hundreds of extant copies of ancient works, thousands as far as the Bible is concerned, but their relationship to the original text is often unclear. Thus, in order to ascertain which readings are faithful (most closely related to the autograph), textual scholars typically debate which sources appear to be derived from the original text. Typically, when there’s no known original manuscript but only several extant copies or versions, certain guidelines/methods of textual criticism are employed in an attempt to *reconstruct* the original text (i.e. the autograph) as faithfully as possible. In order to determine the most accurate readings of a text, scholars have devised certain guidelines (i.e. “canons”) of textual criticism. Without going into great detail, one of the most prominent rules was established by Koine-Greek scholar Johann Albrecht Bengel (1687–1752), who also produced an edition of the Greek New Testament. In his commentaries, Bengel (aka Bengelius) established the rule that “the harder reading is to be preferred.” That’s because the most difficult reading is probably the one that is less tampered with. A number of these guidelines, which were initially designed for Biblical textual criticism, are now applied to all literary texts that have been exposed to errors of textual transmission!

Conclusion

Textual Criticism is important in determining the original words of texts. But it’s especially important in Bible studies with regard to establishing “the word of God” (Hebrews 4:12), that is, the things that God originally said and revealed in holy writ, since it is said therein that “All Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16)!

—

A Critique of Form Criticism

By Bible Researcher & Award-Winning Goodreads Author Eli Kittim 🎓

What is Form Criticism?

Form criticism is a discipline of Bible studies that views the Bible as an anthology of conventional stories that were originally transmitted orally and later codified in writing. Therefore, form criticism tries to identify scriptural literary patterns and trace them back to their particular oral tradition. Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932), a German Old Testament Bible scholar, was the founder of form criticism. He was also one of the leading proponents of the “history of religions school,” which employed the methods of historical criticism. While the methods used in *comparative religion* studies were certainly important, these liberal theologians nevertheless began their formal inquiry with the theoretical presupposition that Christianity was equal to all other religions and they, therefore, rejected its claims to absolute truth. However, this underlying presumption involves circular thinking and confirmation bias, which is the habit of interpreting new evidence as confirmation of one's preexisting beliefs or theories. Despite the usefulness of the approach, form criticism involves a great deal of speculation and conjecture, not to mention blatant unbelief. One of its biggest proponents in the twentieth century was German scholar Rudolf Bultmann (1884—1976). Similar to other form-critics who had a bias against supernaturalism, he too believed that the Bible needed to be “demythologized,” that is, divested of its miraculous narratives and mythical elements.

Form criticism is valuable in identifying a text's genre or conventional literary form, such as narrative, poetry, wisdom, or prophecy. It further seeks to find the “Sitz im Leben,” namely, the context in which a text was created, as well as its function and purpose at that time. Recently, form criticism's insistence on oral tradition has gradually lost support in Old Testament studies, even though it’s still widely used in New Testament studies.

Oral Tradition Versus Biblical Inspiration

Advocates of form criticism have suggested that the Evangelists drew upon oral traditions when they composed the New Testament gospels. Thus, form criticism presupposes the existence of earlier oral traditions that influenced later literary writings. Generally speaking, the importance of historical continuity in the way traditions from the past influenced later generations is certainly applicable to literary studies. But in the case of the New Testament, searching for a preexisting oral tradition would obviously contradict its claim of biblical inspiration, namely, that “All Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3.16). It would further imply that the evangelists——as well as the epistolary authors, including Paul——were not inspired. Rather, they were simply informed by earlier oral traditions. But this hypothesis would directly contradict an authentic Pauline epistle which claims direct inspiration from God rather than historical continuity or an accumulation of preexisting oral sources. Paul writes in Galatians 1.11-12 (NRSV):

For I want you to know, brothers and sisters,

that the gospel that was proclaimed by me

is not of human origin; for I did not receive it

from a human source, nor was I taught it,

but I received it through a revelation of

Jesus Christ.

Moreover, the gospels were written in Greek. The writers are almost certainly non-Jews who are copying and quoting extensively from the Greek Old Testament, not the Jewish Bible, in order to confirm their revelations. They obviously don’t seem to have a command of the Hebrew language, otherwise they would have written their gospels in Hebrew. And all of them are writing from outside Palestine.

By contrast, the presuppositions of Bible scholarship do not square well with the available evidence. Scholars contend that the oral traditions or the first stories about Jesus began to circulate shortly after his purported death, and that these oral traditions were obviously in Aramaic. But here’s the question. If a real historical figure named Jesus existed in a particular geographical location, which has its own unique language and culture, how did the story about him suddenly get transformed and disseminated in an entirely different language within less than 20 years after his purported death? Furthermore, who are these sophisticated Greek writers who own the rights to the story, as it were, and who pop out of nowhere, circulating the story as if it’s their own, and what is their particular relationship to this Aramaic community? Where did they come from? And what happened to the Aramaic community and their oral traditions? It suddenly disappeared? It sounds like a non sequitur! Given these inconsistencies, why should we even accept that there were Aramaic oral traditions? Given that none of the books of the New Testament were ever written in Palestine, it seems well-nigh impossible that the Aramaic community ever existed.

Besides, if Paul was a Hebrew of Hebrews who studied at the feet of Gamaliel, surely we would expect him to be steeped in the Hebrew language. Yet, even Paul is writing in sophisticated Greek and is trying to confirm his revelations by quoting extensively not from the Hebrew Bible (which we would expect) but from the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament. Now that doesn’t make any sense at all! Since Paul’s community represents the earliest Christian community that we know of, and since his letters are the earliest known writings about Jesus, we can safely say that the earliest dissemination of the Jesus story comes not from Aramaic oral traditions but from Greek literary sources!

Conclusion

It doesn’t really matter how many sayings of Jesus Paul, or anyone else, reiterates because it’s irrelevant in proving the impact of oral tradition. The point is that all the sayings of Jesus may have come by way of revelation (cf. Gal. 1.11-12; 2 Tim. 3.16)!

And why are the earliest New Testament writings in Greek? That certainly would challenge the Aramaic hypothesis. How did the Aramaic oral tradition suddenly become a Greek literary tradition within less than 20 years after Jesus’ supposed death? That kind of thing just doesn’t happen over night. It’s inexplicable, to say the least.

Moreover, who are these Greek authors who took over the story from the earliest days? And what happened to the alleged Aramaic community? Did it suddenly vanish, leaving no traces behind? It might be akin to the Johannine community that never existed, according to Dr. Hugo Mendez. It therefore sounds like a conspiracy of sorts.

And why aren’t Paul’s letters in Aramaic or Hebrew? By the way, these are the earliest writings on Christianity that we have. They’re written roughly two decades or less after Christ’s alleged death. Which Aramaic oral sources are the Pauline epistles based on? And if so, why the need to quote the Greek Septuagint in order to demonstrate the fulfillment of New Testament Scripture? And why does Paul record his letters in Greek? The Aramaic hypothesis just doesn’t hold up. Nor do the so-called “oral traditions.”

—

How I give ‘criticism/advice’ on writing has significantly changed from before and after I started writing.

Before I started writing, as a teen reading Fanfics, any criticism I gave was directed at the writing and how it was done, based purely on how I felt about the writing and story personally. This is pretty much the most common style of criticism or critical analysis I observed on my own and other’s writing. Nothing wrong with it, it’s just incredibly rare that it ends up being productive for the artist.

Now, I’d rarely label a personal review of someone’s writing as criticism. Me telling them that I really didn’t like the way that they wrote a character meant that I didn’t like the way that they wrote them, and it doesn’t immediately mean that they are bad at writing a character.

This is to an extent though, if someone’s narration style randomly drops or they made a mistake grammatically or structurally wise, I’d let them know, politely.

Some of my advice that I consider most valuable is on the logistics of writing, the backend where everything is planned (haha, funny joke, right? Who even plans?) actually, I do. It’s incredibly important to line all your ducks in a row before you get those first chapters down, as tempting as it is to release them early for that dopamine rush. This is because you may end up finding yourself stuck with plot points that DO NOT mesh with what you are trying to do with your story, that are hard-baked in.

I’ll tell people the best ways I’ve found to brainstorm, what writing programs I prefer, the importance of having a document on your mobile device to write down conniptions that you have late at night or at work, while you are away from your personal computer. Those kinds of advice apply to pretty much everyone who writes, and they aren’t heavily influenced by my interpretation of their art (and end up in a situation where criticism boils down to ‘it would be so much better if you wrote it like how I would have’)

This lets them naturally develop their writing in a way that works for them. The rest is ironed out with time and effort.

This is also super specific to ‘comment criticism’ the kind you give in a comment section or discord chat.

There is actual professional style criticism where one writing will ask another writer who they trust as skilled to pick their entire work apart, make them really think about things, and ask hard questions they wouldn’t have asked themselves under any other circumstances. My above advice may have a bit of overlap, but otherwise it doesn’t really apply all that much to it.

i am not a fan of book banning for almost any reason (and even then it should be centered more around letting people use their discretion to say “um maybe kids shouldn’t be reading erotica” than “this topic is ugly and opens the door to too many questions so we just shouldn’t talk about it”) but so much of book banning revolves around this very idea, that if a book so much as mentions a difficult topic, we shouldn’t talk about it, rather than the way the topic itself is handled

"this work is problematic because of how it handles [subject]": reasonable premise for media criticism

"this work is problematic because it depicts [subject]": do not pass go do not collect $200 this is, as a general rule, a functionally reactionary and conservative argument