Malachi151

I'm looking for a good image to go along with a segment on the difficulty of translating ancient manuscripts, that demonstrates some of the problems that were/are faced by translators and scribes.

Perhaps something with a known interpolation, margin notes, interlinear notes, etc.

Roger Pearse

I'm perhaps being over-sensitive here, but I am a little concerned. Most people have a vague idea that "history is mostly bunk" and that anything in an old book is rubbish because it is old; that nothing can really be known about the past, that only the present matters.

I'm concerned that you may intend something which will reinforce this anti-educational idea. All the problems of transcription in the world should never, ever, be allowed to obscure the successful transmission of the classical heritage to us.

It was the rediscovery of that heritage by Petrarch and Salutati and Poggio and the rest that created the modern world. Petrarch was so excited when he found a manuscript of Cicero's letters that he sat down and wrote a letter to Cicero, telling him how much they had meant to him. The ms. was late, certainly; suffered from scribal corruptions, probably; was affected by all the problems of transmission, certainly; yet the text came through.

Cicero lives in his letters. We read the letter describing a visit from Caesar as dictator, and the latter receiving news of an execution he had ordered -- "his face did not change"; his letter to Brutus expressing regret that he had not been invited "to the banquet you held on the ides of March". In the Octavius of Minucius Felix we see the sun sparkling on the sea at Ostia, where three friends wander along the beach. Caecilius kisses his hand to a statue of Serapis that they happen to pass, whereupon the three begin to argue over whether any of this means anything. Pliny the Younger describes his uncle, commanding the fleet, sailing over to Pompeii where a great plume of ash is arising from the hill above the city, and choking to death in a villa there. And so on, and so on.

All the technical stuff about problems of transmission is intended to be a method to improve the texts in a structured way and allow us to heal objectively common problems. It must never, ever, become an excuse to pretend that the text has not reached us. Unless you are very careful your intended audience will take that message away -- in short you will be teaching them something that is untrue and harmful by means of a load of technically correct detail. Please make sure that this doesn't happen!

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Malachi151

Nothing to worry about Roger. Just point out why straight translations aren't always easy or right. Sometimes the problem is the opposite of what you describe. People see a translation that says something and they say, no it says right there in English in black and white, "So-and-So did X", but just because some English translation says that doesn't mean that thats what the original said, and it certainly doesn't mean that we can be careful and get a better idea of what the original might have said.

Its hard ot build historical cases if you dismiss history

Julian

Lots and lots of images of manuscripts on the web, although not as many as I would like. Try this for starters: http://www.csntm.org/Manuscripts.aspx

Julian

ETA: You seems to be touching on textual criticism to some extent. Maybe you should consider getting a copy of the Nestle-Aland, 27th Edition Greek NT. It shows a lot, not nearly all, of the manuscript variations.