Thinking from the Margins: Textual Plurality Outside the Masoretic Tradition

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stefan Schorch
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology ; Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 322993875

The project PLURITEXT intends to devote an in-depth methodological and hermeneutical reflection on the question of the textual plurality in ancient Jewish and Samaritan Literature in Hebrew, Greek and Samaritan. The discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the middle of the 20th century, and of the Cairo Genizah, at the end of the 19th century, have shed new light on the question of divergent textual forms, not only for the texts that constitute the Hebrew Bible, but also for cognate ancient Jewish literature. They have proved that crucial divergences exist between the textual witnesses of the Hebrew Bible. While 19th century scholars addressed this problem through the concept of an alleged Urtext, this response is no longer satisfactory, and the question, -What is the Bible?- needs to be raised anew, in light of the new evidence. New paradigms are needed to accommodate textual plurality. Against the background of this research-desideratum, the present project aims at the creation and testing of new scientific paradigms, which encompass and conceptualize the phenomenon of an irreducible textual plurality. The concept of textual plurality must be understood broadly. The recognition of divergent textual traditions generates numerous theological, legal, political, social and cultural implications. The analysis would include: (1) divergent textual witnesses from the same linguistic tradition; (2) the phenomenon of translation and cultural transfers it entails; (3) semantic and conceptual transformation through transition from one language to another, from one socio-cultural identity to another; (4) examination of textual variants between the different witnesses, but also with comparison to rabbinical and patristic traditions; (5) in-depth study of scribal practices, at codicological level: paratextual elements, corrections, marginal notes as witnesses of a hermeneutical process through text transmission. Obviously, the transmission of the text is intertwined with its transformation, under the impact of scribes, translators, and commentators. In addition to its clear scientifically-oriented goal, this project aims to have important socio-cultural impact: (1) it shows that the founding text of Judaism and Christianity was polymorph from its origin, which raises the question of its edition; (2) the diagnosis of textual plurality as an essential concept sheds new light at claims of religious communities, that these texts are normative in terms of legislative and cultural concepts, worship and identity; (3) and it therefore deprives religious fundamentalism of its basis, which is based on the concept of a monolithique text.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Eberhard Bons; Professor Dr. Jean-Sébastien Rey