Miramontes 1

Allya Miramontes

Dr. Daugherty

Understanding the Bible

8 September 2021

Essay #1

My understanding of textual criticism is evaluating the bibe and knowing which books

are changed and why. Textual criticism is breaking down a text to discover where the original

text/pieces originated from. Then you find out if anything has changed. Textual criticism comes

in many forms there are scripts from the text, quotations, copying errors, and intentional change.

These factors can affect the biblical text because we as readers, would interpret each text

differently. Not know what the original writings are. When looking at older documents, two

codexes are the closest original text we have, the codexes are Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. From

these two texts, people have made additional changes to the documents. The changes can be a

mistake or intentional. When we start to break down the text we can see that some changes are

mistakes like missing letters/words, punctuation, copying errors, and incorrect spelling. Even

though these errors can seem small, they can change the whole perception of a certain sentence.

A missing word can affect a lot of the text and the context it gives the reader. As well as

punctuation, because different punctuation and interpret different meanings. Copying errors can

be small like a misheard word or trying to copy another person's handwriting. This is why textual

criticism is important because as a reader you have to evaluate a text that was put together by

other people to understand the information you are receiving. This can be especially hard but

also helpful because as a reader we do not have the author to go to for questions to ask and
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seeing if all the information written over time is accurate, but it is helpful to know certain “rules”

or look for what writings might have been changed to get a better understanding for yourself.

This was just the beginning of textual criticism. They also looked for intentional changes. The

intentional change affects the text the most because the scriptures become what people think of

the text instead of what the text actually is. Even though this can be good for people to

understand, what the text states, is not great for everyone. Everyone takes the bible readings in

their own way, and when it is in the original text we can have a better understanding, instead of

having the scriptures changed. Textual criticism helps me understand the bible better because

before, I used to never questioned if the readings in the bible were the original text or if it was

changed throughout the process. I would not have thought that it would be that important if a

small mistake was changed, but now I see how it can impact me when I read a verse and if

someone else read the same verse but with something missing. It also made me realize that not

everything in the bible is quoted word for word from each author. It makes me wonder if we will

ever be able to get the accurate, original text because even if we have the Greek documents when

we translate it can change the proper meaning.