Note: This is a prologue of sorts to an upcoming series of posts regarding my synthesis of Hebrew language studies and the Budge-Nuzzard. Next Friday i will post an announcement regarding this series.
A brief (well, sort of) lecture on the importance of textual criticism, with an example from the Budge-Nuzzard:
i’m currently translating 2 Samuel 11, and in verse 24 there are two variants known as ketiv-qere. This means that what is written (ketiv) and what is to be read aloud (qere) are slightly different. There can be a variety of reasons for this. The most common, which occurs so frequently that scribes do not even bother noting it in the margin, is the Name of G-d (the vowels have been swapped out so that no-one will accidentally pronounce the Name and risk using it in vain). There are other kinds of ketiv-qere differences, including spelling. And there are other types of variants besides ketiv-qere. One non-ketiv-qere difference occurs in verse 4, where the Hebrew text says Bathsheba came to David, and the Septuagint (Greek translation of the OT) says she was brought to him. This difference opens up the question of her culpability. Textual scholars and translators work to understand these variants and give them the appropriate weight. i will have to do some of this work in the chapter i’m translating.
In my Budge-Nuzzard editing i have adopted the ketiv-qere terminology to describe differences between the written (blog) and oral (podcast) traditions of the text. Unlike the OT, where there are hundreds of scrolls which can be compared, i have only one example of each tradition, so weighting the variants requires more subjective judgment calls. But here is a very interesting example of a ketiv-qere in the Budge-Nuzzard.
In the entry titled “Jouncey,” dated April 26, 2006, there are three ketiv-qeres. Two of them are insignificant, but one stands out as an important interpretive difference.
In the ketiv (written/blog): “Then did i learn of terrible things. The Budge-Nuzzard has laid foul plans upon the Pan Dimension (and all the innocent Pans within), and the Hegemony of Pan….”
In the qere (oral/podcast): “Then did i learn of terrible things. The Budge-Nuzzard has laid foul plans upon the Pan Dimension, and the Hegemony of Pan….”
The written tradition stresses the lives of the Pans, and names them innocent. Part of the scandal of the Budge-Nuzzard’s foul plans is thus its threat against vulnerable and innocent noncombatants. But the oral tradition omits this parenthetical entirely. (By the way, parentheticals in Hebrew, called waw-disjunctives, provide contrast, or background or interpretive asides, for the reader. One example is in 2 Samuel 11:4, where the reader is led to understand that Bathsheba was fertile at the time of her encounter with David, and thus is led to anticipate that something is about to go wrong—which does in fact happen in the next verse. This is true in the Budge-Nuzzard as well—this parenthetical increases the tension in the story and creates interpretive suggestions in the mind of the reader.)
Does the oral tradition devalue the lives of innocent Pans, showing concern only for the larger container? Does the notable omission of the natural and expected assertion of the civilians’ innocence instead suggest to the hearer that the Pans may not be innocent? Does the written tradition rightly or exploitatively prejudice the reader against the Budge-Nuzzard by using inflammatory images of suffering innocents to arouse sympathy?
Textual criticism is important.
Laurelindórenan Hittle 