This essay argues that the neutral continuous script of ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament composed with no punctuation and no spacing provided readers discretionary authority to determine and assess the status of phrases as they articulated a cohesive and coherent reading of the script. The variety of reading renditions, each differently scored with punctuation, supported the production of quotations. These cultivated and harvested quotes, while useful for authorizing sectarian discourse, rarely convey the sense of the phrase in the continuous script. Augustine’s work on punctuating the scriptures in service to the production of plainer quotable passages in support of the rule of faith is addressed. The textual analysis of a plainer quotable passage at 1 Cor. 7:1b concerning male celibacy supports the thesis that plainer passages are the product of interpretative scoring of the script in service to discursive endeavours. To quote is often to misquote.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Augustine. 1995. De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Teaching) (ed. and trans. R. P. H. Green; Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Barthes, Roland. 1986. The Rustle of Language (New York: Hill and Wang).
Barthes, Roland. 1979. “From Work to Text,” in J. V. Harari (ed.), Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-Structural Criticism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).
De Beaugrande, Robert. 1980. Text, Discourse, and Process: Towards a Multidisciplinary Science of Texts (Advances in Discourse Processes 4; Norwood, NJ: Ablex).
De Beaugrande, Robert, and Wolfgang Ulrich Dressler. 1981. Introduction to Text Linguistics (New York: Longman).
Blass, Friedrich, and Albert Debrunner. 1961. A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature; a Translation and Revision of the ninth-tenth German Edition Incorporating Supplementary Notes of A. Debrunner by Robert W. Funk. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press).
Brown, T. Julian. 1999. “Punctuation,” in Encyclopaedia Britannica. (Revised and updated, 2002 and 2007. Accessed www.britannica.com/topic/punctuation, January 14, 2017).
Brown, T. Julian. 1993. A Paleographer’s View: The Selected Writings of Julian Brown (eds. Janet Bately, Michelle P. Brown and Jane Roberts; London: Harvey Miller Publishers).
Chandler, Daniel. 2002. Semiotics: The Basics (New York: Routledge).
Clark, Elizabeth. 1999. Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Denniston, J. D. 1934. The Greek Particles (Oxford: The Clarendon Press).
Eco, Umberto. 1979. The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
Eco, Umberto. 1984. Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
Eco, Umberto. 1989. The Open Work (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Eco, Umberto, with Richard Rorty. Jonathan Culler, and Christine Brooke-Rose. 1992. Interpretation and Overinterpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Fairclough, Norman. 2001. Language and Power (London and New York: Longman).
Fairclough, Norman. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (London and New York: Longman).
Gorlee, Dinda. 1994. Semiotics and the Problem of Translation: with Special Reference to the Semiotics of Charles S. Peirce (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi).
Hall, Stuart. 1980. Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972–1979 (London: Hutchinson).
Hurd, John C. 1965. The Origins of 1 Corinthians (New York: Seabury Press).
Jakobson, Roman. 1990. On Language (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Jerome. 1893. Against Jovinianus, Book I (trans. W. H. Fremantle et al., in NPNF 6, ser. ii; Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/30091.htm. Accessed January 14, 2017).
Lee, Harper. 1960. To Kill a Mockingbird (New York: HarperCollins).
Odell-Scott, David. 1991. A Post-Patriarchal Christology (The American Academy of Religion Series 78; Atlanta: Scholars Press).
Odell-Scott, David. 2003. Paul’s Critique of Theocracy: A/Theocracy in Corinthians and Galatians (London/New York: T & T Clark International).
Odell-Scott, David. 1987. “In Defense of an Egalitarian Interpretation of First Corinthians 14:34–36: A Reply to Murphy-O’Connor’s Critique,” BTB 17.3: 100–103.
Odell-Scott, David. 1983. “Let the Women Speak In Church: An Egalitarian Interpretation of First Corinthians 14:33b–36,” BTB 13.3: 90–93.
Odell-Scott, David. 2005. “Patriarchy and Heterosexual Eroticism: The Question in Romans and Corinthians,” in C. Green and Daniel Patte (eds.), Gender, Tradition and Romans: Shared Ground, Uncertain Borders (Romans Through History and Cultures Series; New York: T&T Clark).
Odell-Scott, David and George Aiecher. 2013. “Semiotics,” in Steven L. McKenzie (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press).
Parkes, M. B. 2008. Their Hands Before Our Eyes: A Close Look at Scribes (Aldershot: Ashgate).
Parkes, M. B. 1992. Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Aldershot: Scolar Press).
Parkes, M. B. 1991. Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts (London/Rio Grande: Hambledon).
Perrin, Porter G., George H. Smith, and Jim W. Corder. 1968. Handbook of Current English, 3rd Edition (Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Co.).
Porter, Stanley E. 1995. “Discourse Analysis and New Testament Studies: An Introductory Survey,” in Stanley E. Porter and D. A. Carson (eds.) Discourse Analysis and Other Topics in Biblical Greek. (JSNTS 113; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press Ltd.).
Quintilian. 2006. Institutio Oratoria, Book 2 (eds. Tobias Reinhardt and Michael Winterbottom; Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press).
Ricoeur, Paul. 2004. On Translation (New York: Routledge).
Ricoeur, Paul. 1976. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press).
Sloane, Thomas O. (ed.), 2001. Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press).
Tertullian. 1956. Monogamy (trans. and ann. William P. Le Saint, in Tertullian, Treatises on Marriage and Remarriage, To His Wife, An Exhortation to Chastity, Monogamy; Westminster, MD: Newman Press).
Van Den Hoek, Annewies. 1996. “Techniques of Quotation in Clement of Alexandria. A View of Ancient Literary Working Methods,” Vigiliae Christianae 50.3: 223–243.
Whitehead, Alfred North. 1978. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (corrected edition by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne; New York: Free Press.).
Whitehead, Alfred North. 2004. The Principle of Relativity with Applications to Physical Science (Mineola: Dover Publications [original, 1922]).
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Philosophical Investigations (third edition, revised translation by G. E. M. Anscombe; Malden: Blackwell [German original, 1953]).
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1961. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (transl. D. F. Pars & B. F. McGuinnes; London/Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul [German original, 1921]).
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 364 | 48 | 9 |
Full Text Views | 419 | 1 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 106 | 6 | 1 |
This essay argues that the neutral continuous script of ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament composed with no punctuation and no spacing provided readers discretionary authority to determine and assess the status of phrases as they articulated a cohesive and coherent reading of the script. The variety of reading renditions, each differently scored with punctuation, supported the production of quotations. These cultivated and harvested quotes, while useful for authorizing sectarian discourse, rarely convey the sense of the phrase in the continuous script. Augustine’s work on punctuating the scriptures in service to the production of plainer quotable passages in support of the rule of faith is addressed. The textual analysis of a plainer quotable passage at 1 Cor. 7:1b concerning male celibacy supports the thesis that plainer passages are the product of interpretative scoring of the script in service to discursive endeavours. To quote is often to misquote.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 364 | 48 | 9 |
Full Text Views | 419 | 1 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 106 | 6 | 1 |