lower criticism
Noun: * Textual criticism focused on establishing the original wording: "Lower criticism" is a branch of textual criticism specifically concerned with the examination and comparison of existing manuscripts, documents, or source materials to reconstruct the most authentic or original version of a text. It deals with the physical evidence of the text itself.
"Lower criticism" is an academic term used primarily in the fields of biblical studies, classical philology, and literary studies. It focuses on the foundational task of determining the correct words of a text before any interpretation ("higher criticism") can begin. * Scholars employed lower criticism to compare hundreds of ancient papyri fragments. * The first step in analyzing the historical document was a rigorous exercise in lower criticism.
- "to engage in lower criticism": to perform the work of comparing textual variants.
- The philologist spent years engaging in lower criticism of the medieval epic.
- As a methodological step: Often contrasted with "higher criticism," which analyzes the historical context, authorship, and sources of a text.
- The commentary first addresses questions of lower criticism before moving to theological interpretation.
- Textual criticism (n): The broader scholarly discipline that includes both lower and higher criticism. "Lower criticism" is a subset of textual criticism.
- Textual variant (n): A difference in wording found between different manuscripts of the same text, which is the primary data studied in lower criticism.
- Textual analysis (in its specific, manuscript-comparison sense)
- Textual scholarship
- Establish the text: The primary goal of lower criticism.
- The editor's goal was to establish the text using the principles of lower criticism.
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the study of existing manuscripts of the Scriptures in order to determine the original text