[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: orion Variations/scribes




> We have no evidence that authors wrote their own texts. What
> evidence we do have indicates precisely the opposite: that
> authors dictated their works to scribes... though there are
>

Following this discussion with keen interest . . . If the dictation 
idea for the production of Qumran texts is correct, is there a way to 
distinguish a copy dictated by an author from a copy dictated by 
a non-author?  I cannot think of any way,  but it would be useful if 
there was a way.  Would an author proofread and edit the copy written 
by the scribe?  Who is responsible for the formatting? i.e. how long lines 
will be, whether the divine name is in paleohebrew, paragraph 
division markings, that sort of thing?  The author or the scribe?  

Furthermore, do you have a reason to think that an alternative 
practice would not have occurred (referring to the Qumran texts)
--that an author would work up a copy in writing, and turn it 
over to a scribe to produce it professionally?  (Then it would 
either be copied by eye or by scribe-to-scribe dictation?)  For 
example, the author(s) of Isaiah--some parts are so filled with 
wordplays could this have been composed in the head, rather than 
worked out on paper, so to speak?  And acrostic psalms--and 
paranomasia phenomenae . . . 

Would an ancient author dictate to a scribe like we use a computer, to get a 
printout?  Today, we make corrections on a printout (at least I do) 
several times, enter changes, and get a new printout.  Is there any 
reason why this would not happen anciently?  This ends up with the 
question someone asked about fair copies, or first editions of a 
finished copy.  These would be contemporary with the author and the 
equivalent, in modern terms, to a first edition.  Perhaps at Qumran 
we are looking at many such first editions?  How could this question 
be answered, yes or no?

A final question: is it safe to assume that what you write
is more or less mainstream within classicists?  i.e. are you 
reporting a mainstream; personal research that is in line with but 
goes beyond a mainstream; or personal research that goes against a 
mainstream?  (Just to help some on this list get this discussion of 
limits, ascenders, et al located on a landscape.)  Naively, 
like most, I trust experts in other fields, like writers of encyclopedia 
articles, to get it right, in clean and orderly constructions that can 
be trusted, even though I know my own field is filled with ferment.  
But this paradox will always be with us.  :-)   Anyway thanks for 
the interesting posts.

Greg Doudna