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orion ORION: Canons & Faithful Reproduction
Fred,
As to whether late antique and medieval parallels are not
relevant because they are all "after the notion of canonicity
and of the faithful reproduction of texts" ... Doesn't it
rather depend upon the definition of "canonicity"?
Many people do not seem to be aware of the fact that Christians
were in North-East France and in England (probably Syriac sects)
outside the Roman held area a good 100 years before Athanasius
and Arius went to it head-on back at the ranch, uhh, Alexandria.
*Three* English Bishops attended the Council of Arles in 314.
The Columban church Easter was 8 days off from the Roman... and
the Welsh and Cornish sects stayed that way, as even Bede mentions.
Doesn't faithful reproduction of texts depend a great deal on a
fixed text?
The number of variant vorlagen in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin
that must have been around on that Island can make one's
head spin. They even had two different Psalter traditions in
the vernacular. One was translated from some early variant
Hebrew vorlage that still contains, for example, the 'nun'
verse and added verses to Ps. 96. (The last make a great deal
of sense in context - they bridge an otherwise abrupt and un-
traditional transition in the HB - and no, these verses do not
appear in either the BHS or the Vulgate apparatus.) The other
tradition is somewhat later and follows translations from
various Latin vorlagen. They composed Latin translations from
Greek, and would play on Hebrew against Latin and Greek words
(Howlett's work). They also had longer and shorter texts.
One OE Poem, "Daniel," for years was considered "a poor specimen"
and erroneous because it did not follow The Vulgate. (Not that
there was any such thing as "The Vulgate" before the Council of
Trent in 1546.) Farrell knew Greek. Lo and behold, the OE "Daniel"
follows the LXX, not the Latin.
So, which canon and which faithful reproductions are meant?
For years now, it has been accepted in Old English and Latin
studies that variant orthographies represent phonetic renditions
of dialects. (My work is again main stream, but ahead in this
area. I've mapped the phone-to-graphs for the Anglo-Saxon Phonetic
Alphabet.) From the work that has been done on Hebrew dialects,
we know that the Northern and Judean dialects differed. Should we
be surprised to see variant orthography in the DSS?
And, while there are positive aspects to standardization, we
should at least be aware that the forces behind a move to con-
formity are political, and not because of variant orthography.
Cheers,
Rochelle
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Dr. R. I. S. Altman RISA@CONCENTRIC.NET
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