medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Paul:
I did not mean to sound negative about VulSearch. I absolutely agree: better
to have this resource than none at all. In this respect, I disagree with Paul
Tombeur on the question of whether the PLD is actually setting scholarship back
or advancing it: I find it a wonderful tool. Tombeur argued that the use of the
PLD would drive people away from the use of modern, critical editions, and use
nineteenth-century reprints of seventeenth-century editions as if they were the
latest that scholarship had produced. And, to be honest, he has a point here.
But that is a matter of the level of education of the users of PLD, not PLD
itself.
My concern, and you rightly point that out, was just that people should check
the PL text and Vulsearch text of the Glossa ordinaria with at least the Rusch
edition, or better, the manuscripts, depending on the level of scholarly use
(even if that means taking the bus). There are critical editions of the Glossa
ordinaria currently only for Song of Songs, as you point out, and Lamentations
1 (by Alexander Andrée). Mark Zier is working on an electronic edition of the
Rusch Glossa ordinaria, on-line (he has reserved the domain
www.glossaordinaria.net for this, but it will be a while before this is up
and running!), and I am told that an electronic edition of Rusch's Glossa
ordinaria on Matthew is forthcoming by Marjorie Burghart (www.glossae.net). Of
course the use of Rusch brings certain risks as well. Many authors treat it as
if it were the twelfth-century glossed Bible itself, which is certainly not the
case. In fact, one might argue that before the advent of printing, "the" Glossa
ordinaria did not really exist; there were just glossed Bibles.
As with any tool, scholarly or not, you need to know what it does and how to
handle it, before you use it. But I am not saying here anything that is not
common sense to anyone on this list, I realize.
Frans van Liere
Department of History, Calvin College
1845 Knollcrest Circle SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/history/faculty/vanlieref/
>>> Paul Chandler <[log in to unmask]> 10/31/2007 5:53 AM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
"The best is the enemy of the good" (Voltaire, I think).
I did not really mean to open any cans of worms, but only to draw attention
to some useful resources, one of them a readily-available printed Vulgate,
which the original post in the thread implied was hard to find, the other a
related electronic resource. It is valuable that their limitations are also
pointed out, so that the adage "abusus non tollit usum" can be wisely
applied by those who must sometimes settle for the merely good.
1) With regard to the Gloss, Frans is quite right to note the very defective
nature of the PL version, which is used -- no doubt with the usual raft of
introduced errors -- in VulSearch. I'm fortunate to have ready access to
several 16th-century editions of the glossed Bible, which I find a good
thing. I have to go to another library to check the 4-vol. Brepols reprint
of the 1480 Strassburg edition, which is a better thing, though consulting
it is less convenient and you cannot follow up every passing hunch if it
means taking a bus. If there were a full critical edition that would be the
best thing, but there is not (except, as far as I know, for Mary Dove's work
on the Gloss on the Song of Songs). So I still find the VulSearch module
"quite useful", though I'm grateful to be reminded of its defects, which I
understand are rather severe.
2) With regard to the Douay-Rheims, I was aware of Challoner's Anglicising
work to which John Briggs refers, the original having been long criticised
for being too much like a Latin crib. Unfortunately, at least in my
experience, pre-Challoner versions are surprisingly difficult to come by,
even in libraries, and Challoner can still be handy.
3) I find it positively advantageous that the VulSearch version of the
Clementine Vulgate has re-classicised spelling, as reliable electronic
searching, the main use of a program such as this, is so much more
challenging without it. If it's necessary to address some finer point--and
for many or most such purposes it's not--one can go from the search results
to an early printed edition or to the Stuttgart critical ed. as need
requires.
4) I'm sorry if I inadvertently recommended a "defective pirated" edition of
the Stuttgart Vulgate. I was not aware of that, and would be interested to
know more. Investigating just now I see that VulSearch takes the Stuttgart
text from the main UK Sourceforge mirror at the University of Kent, which
does not immediately put one in mind of piracy. What should we know? -- Paul
Chandler
On 31/10/2007, John Briggs <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Frans van Liere wrote:
>
> >> Do be aware that the 'Stuttgart' text is the usual defective pirated
> >> version. The 'Douay-Rheims' is from a modern edition of Bishop
> >> Challoner's 18th century version (he revised the translation to bring
> it
> >> more into line with the King James Version...) For that matter, the
> >> Clementine text itself is from a 20th century edition with
> >> 're-classicised' spelling. The whole thing has all the textual
> >> authenticity of Project Gutenberg :-)
> >
> > And beware that the "Glossa ordinaria" here is, in fact, the
> > incomplete Glossa ordinaria text that can be found in PL 113.
>
> I think between us we've covered everything :-)
>
> John Briggs
>
>
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