Old Testament Textual Criticism on the Decline?
by philipengmann » Mon 27. Feb 2012, 14:47
Dear Listees,
I would value your comments on my abstract below please (before I send it for assessment by the Chair for OT TC, SBL).
Many thanks,
Philip.
Once bitten, forever smitten
A call to the preservation and growth of OT TC in future generations—What is the best method of presenting OT TC methods to a beginner?
Global under-representation, decline and African dearth of OT TC
It is the view of this paper that the study of Old Testament textual criticism (OT TC) globally, is relatively under-represented and worse still, is on the decline. In particular reference to the African continent, there seems to be almost a dearth of OT TC studies, and apart from activity in South Africa, OT TC seems to be practically unheard-of.
Objective of this paper
There are several reasons which account for this under-representation of OT TC in general,[1] but this paper addresses the presentation of OT TC to a beginning student with the objective that he or she when ‘once bitten’ would not be ‘twice shy’, but would remain ‘forever smitten’, i.e. this paper suggests a paradigm shift from a focus on academically correct presentations with a view to completing a given syllabus, to one whose main focus is to stimulate the student to longevity of pursuit of further studies in this field. More specifically, this paper offers a comparative analysis of the various literary OT TC methodological presentations available, and suggests which presentation may perhaps be most useful to a beginner not only in terms of academic scientific presentation and content, but also in terms of interest stimulation and clarity of presentation for easy beginner assimilation and subsequent promotion of the discipline.
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[1] See Philip Engmann, Reasons accounting for global under-representation, decline and African dearth of OT TC, (not yet published).
