 |
 |
As a result of what I discovered in the course of my PhD research (http://purl.org/tfinney/PhD), I have a few (loud-mouthed) opinions about electronic critical editions. I don't know about other fields, but in classical New Testament textual criticism a critical text is constructed by weighing variants at every point of variation. A number of principles are used to discern the "best" reading. These principles are divided into internal (e.g. prefer the shorter reading; prefer that which at first seems wrong but on closer examination has native dignity) and external (e.g. prefer the reading of a particular MS). Now to my ideas. After looking at the results of a statistical analysis of purely external evidence (i.e. multivariate analysis (MVA) of (1) substantive and (2) orthographic variations among ~30 MSS in Greek of a New Testament epistle called Hebrews), I am inclined to think that there is grouping among the MSS. I think that I see three groups. I associate these with three broad regions of the early (200-1000 CE) Greek-speaking Christian world: Egypt, Palestine/Syria, Asia Minor. Your interpretation of the results may differ. (For nearly all of the MSS, the grouping found for substantive variations is the same as found for orthographic variations. This is an unexpected result, and, I think, significant. It indicates, to me at least, the existence of local texts.) So what does this have to do with an edition? In my opinion, the external evidence can be used to extract a primitive text using the following approach for substantive variations: (1) isolate MS groups using MVA (2) isolate within-group readings by taking the majority reading within the group at each point of variation (if such exists) (3) isolate between-group readings by taking the majority reading across groups (if such exists). E.g. group 1 majority text: The cat sat on the rat. group 2 majority text: The cat spat on the mat. group 3 majority text: The cat pounced on the mat. Result: The cat (sat|spat|pounced) on the mat. There is no between-group majority reading for the third word, so all one can do is declare that the technique produces no winner. There is a winner for the last word: mat beats rat. In general, readings can be rated thus: (A) all groups agree, (B) a majority of groups agree (e.g. two groups vs one), (C) there is a tie (e.g. two groups vs two groups), (D) there is no majority between-group reading (e.g. two groups vs one group vs another group vs yet another group.) This can only work for MS traditions with many extant copies of the same work. (Don't bother with it unless there are enough witnesses/MSS to produce statistically significant results.) It is not always reliable because the popular reading is not guaranteed to be the primitive reading. Also, perhaps fatally, the number of groups is not always clear. Nevertheless, this seems to me a useful approach when considering purely external evidence--the kind of evidence that emerges from computer-assisted capture and analysis of a text. (The approach works best if you consider copyists to be isolated automatons rather than omniscient editors. Try downloading, compiling and running my copying simulation at http://purl.org/TC/downloads/simulation to see why.) Is this a critical text? No--there is no critical thought involved. Is it reliable? As a scientist, I am more inclined to believe an approach based on evidence than one based on beliefs about what scribes are inclined to do. In the end, it comes down to estimating the reliability of each principle. Unfortunately, many of the internal principles are untestable because one needs to know the primitive text (or texts) before one can determine the probability that application of a principle will yield the primitive reading (or readings). Warning: My results and conclusions have been met by a deafening silence. The reason may be that a purely external approach is considered heretical, especially due to the influence of Westcott and Hort's introduction to their 1880s critical text. They say "MSS should be weighed, not counted." My response is, Westcott and Hort did not perform MVA on collation results. Best Tim Finney