Textual Criticism Quotes

The infallibility and inerrancy of biblical teaching does not, however, guarantee the infallibility and inerrancy of any interpretation or interpreter of that teaching; nor does the recognition of its qualities as the Word of God in any way prejudge the issue as to what Scripture does, in fact, assert. This can be determined only by careful Bible study.

Fundamentalism does mean reading quite conservatively and literally, saying 'the Bible is the word of God and we have to follow it. What it says is this.'

If we are perplexed by an apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, 'The author of this book is mistaken'; but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood.

In some Old Testament books, it's very evident that an editor has been at work. That's quite all right. It's part of the process.

Exegesis, exegesis, and yet more exegesis!

The Koran is a not 'a product of Muhammad or even of Arabia,' but a collection of earlier Judeo-Christian liturgical materials stitched together to meet the needs of a later age...A few scholars go even further, doubting even the existence of Muhammad.

I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.

Men talk of "the mistakes of Scripture." I thank God that I have never met with any. Mistakes of translation there may be, for translators are men. But mistakes of the original word there never can be, for the God who spoke it is infallible, and so is every word he speaks, and in that confidence we find delightful rest.

To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though it also requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.

Anybody who has read any biblical scholarship knows that every scholar struggles over completely intractable problems with the original texts, or what they have to work from. It's one of the great, powerful, mysterious objects that have come down through history. This does not translate into literal interpretation for me.

How can I trust that the Bible is reliable?

To claim, therefore, inerrancy for the King James Version, or even for the Revised Version, is to claim inerrancy for men who never professed it for themselves.

The idea of literalism in the Bible is a very new phenomenon. In many ways, it's a product of the scientific revolution.

Deconstruction: peering suspiciously at the text, I wait for it to make a slip and betray itself.

I believe in the Biblical documents supporting Jesus. But I have no illusions about them. I think they contain many flaws, scribal errors, and so forth and they are only partial or fragmentary.

[My approach to the Bible, history does really matter.] Everything matters. But I have priorities. For instance, for me to know whether there were two Isaiahs or one is less important than the text itself. Of course I read the arguments for and against. But it's not my task in life to say there were two or three authors of Isaiah's book, or how many authors there were of Deuteronomy. This is not what I'm doing.

In general, the philological movement opened up countless sources relevant to linguistic issues, treating them in quite a different spirit from traditional grammar; for instance, the study of inscriptions and their language. But not yet in the spirit of linguistics.

The goal of Bible translation is be transparent to the original text - to see as clearly as possible what the biblical authors actually wrote.

We don't actually know if the person who wrote the Gospel of John had a written copy of Thomas because we don't know exactly when it was written.

The first scholarly edition of Magna Carta was published by the eminent jurist William Blackstone. It was not an easy task. There was no good text available.

If one discards the Bible as being unreliable, then he must discard almost all literature of antiquity.

Most of the books call Her a He, but I am able to ascertain what is meant, despite that semantic error.

The discourse on the Text should itself be nothing other than text, research, textual activity, since the Text is that social space which leaves no language safe, outside, nor any subject of the enunciation in position as judge, master, analyst, confessor, decoder. The theory of the Text can coincide only with a practice of writing.

The Bible has been through at least half a dozen translations by the time you read it. Plus, when the word of God is infected by the hand of man, that is, written down, it is tainted.

It took three years to put Shakespeare's words together, there were a lot of words to be studied and a lot of words to be sorted out, and it proved to be a major project.