Description
Book SynopsisIn Textual Criticism and Sacred Texts: A Comparative Method, Signe Cohen looks at the text-critical scholarship on sacred texts across disciplines. She traces the development of the genealogical method and discusses its role in textual criticism today. The book examines the applicability of traditional text-critical methods to oral texts as well as the roles of translations and commentaries in textual criticism. Cohen then turns to the under-theorized question of the relationship between religion and text-critical scholarship and outlines ethics of textual criticism applied to religious texts. She then discusses how new digital technologies will change the textual scholarship of the future and proposes new ways that scholars can collaborate across sub-disciplines.
Trade ReviewThis book presents the reader with an innovative suggestion of an interdisciplinary and comparative approach towards the various fields of textual analysis of sacred texts. With a strong background in oriental texts, and with laudable expertise in all forms of textual criticism, Signe Cohen succeeded in reviewing
the many relevant aspects of this cross-disciplinary discussion. While doing so, and by focusing on oriental texts, she created a new dimension within the text-critical investigation.
-- Emanuel Tov, Hebrew University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: What is Textual Criticism?
Chapter One: The Lachmannian Method, Criticisms, Refinements, and Alternatives
Chapter Two: Textual Criticism of Sacred Texts: The State of the Scholarship
Chapter Three: Textual Criticism and Oral Texts
Chapter Four: Translations, Commentaries, and Textual Criticism
Chapter Five: Textual Criticism and Religion: Towards an Ethics of Textual Criticism of Sacred Texts
Chapter Six: Computer-Aided Textual Criticism and the Religious Text
Conclusion: Towards a Comparative Textual Criticism
Bibliography
About the Author
