Exploring Textual Fluidity in Parabiblical Literature

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Tobias Nicklas, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Roman Catholic Theology ; Protestant Theology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 553618644

The recent surge of interest in parabiblical literature has prompted a reevaluation of approaches to textual fluidity. This shift is fueled by recent advances in digital humanities and the increased accessibility of manuscripts in multiple languages, which have illuminated the complex landscape of textual fluidity within the transmission history of parabiblical texts. Textual fluidity, characterized by variant text forms arising from intentional and unintentional alterations during copying and translation, presents both new challenges and opportunities for scholarly inquiry, necessitating a nuanced approach to understanding the evolution of these texts. What is needed, therefore, is a change of mentality in our study of these writings. They need to be examined with a greater awareness of the whole landscape of evidence, and thus with a positive approach that does not try to overcome the various forms of fluidity in order to recover an original textual form only, but to study them in a more comprehensive way. The fundamental goal of the project is to better understand and describe the textual fluidity of parabiblical texts. To achieve this goal, this project will combine a vertical approach, i.e., individual projects studying one case of a text in detail, with a horizontal approach, i.e., focusing broadly on three select dimensions of textual fluidity that we will explore through research workshops involving other specialists working on other parabiblical texts.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Czech Republic
• Partner Organisation: Czech Science Foundation
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. David Cielontko; Professor Dr. Wolf Oerter