Editions of Texts
Understanding Editions:
Have you ever wondered why a library might have so many different translations of the same religious texts?
Few of the sacred texts we study originate in English (and we don't have original copies of most of them). So we rely on editors and translators to compile the versions of the texts that we read today. If you've ever studied a language, ancient or otherwise, you know that there's often more than one way to translate a word or phrase into English! Each edition of a text represents a particular scholar's idea of the best way to convey the text's original meaning into English.
Textual Criticism
Textual criticism is one word for a kind of scholarship that involves tracing the history of a particular version of a text. For example, say you are a scholar working with the Book of Genesis. The oldest complete copies of Genesis date to around the 400s CE, but scholars today hypothesize that the narrative we know was written over the course of centuries, possibly as early as the 400s BCE -- so those aren't the originals!
One way to study Genesis, then, is to try to figure out -- based on notes on the copy, based on the way the language is used, based on other copies we have of pieces of Genesis -- when different parts of this version of Genesis were actually written, and which ones we think might be original. Think of it like a textual multiverse!
Critical Editions
In study older works of literature (including sacred literature) we often use what are called critical editions --a version of a text that is based on a carefully-chosen combination of sources. Usually, these editions are accompanied by information designed to help us understand (1) which sources were used and (2) why the scholar chose the combination of sources they did -- a commentary, notes, or even a critical apparatus:
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Commentaries & Concordances
Commentaries
What is a Commentary?
Commentaries are designed to help both students and scholars work more effectively with religious texts.
Commentaries can take many different forms. Some commentaries are written as footnotes, under or around an edition of an ancient work. Others can be found at the back of the book, or in a completely separate volume. You can find commentaries which walk you through an ancient text line-by-line, and others which take more of a narrative approach to describing important themes, characters or other ideas in a text.
Commentaries may also be very different in their focus. A commentary designed for students might provide translations or explanations for important vocabulary. Commentaries might also address topics related to the text such as word choice, grammar, literary devices, or meter; historical details; themes and ideas; manuscript sources for the text; and/or questions and problems that previous scholars have had about a certain part of the work. The ultimate goal of any commentary, though, is to help the reader to better understand and to engage more fully with, the text.
Why Use a Commentary?
If you are studying a text in class, often your required textbooks will include some kind of commentary. But beyond assigned readings, it is often valuable to consult one (or more!) commentaries for a text that you are trying to read closely. A commentary will help you better understand what you are reading and ask questions about it. It will highlight important parts of the text which you should particularly pay attention to or ask questions about. Commentaries are particularly useful if you are trying to compare different versions of the same text (or different versions of the same story told in multiple texts). They can also be very helpful inspiration for reflection or research paper topics, or for other long-term projects!
How Do I Find Commentaries?
Most of the time, commentaries will be found with the texts they comment on. Check multiple editions of the text in question to see if they contain commentaries, or look for separate commentary volumes in the same areas. There are also some useful collections of commentaries on the web.
Concordances
What is a Concordance?
Concordances are designed to help both students and scholars work more effectively with textual sources, particularly when it comes to understanding the use of language in those sources. The goal of a concordance is to index every appearance of a specific name or term in the book or set of books that it accompanies. There are concordances for many types of literary works, ranging from the Bible, to Homer, to the works of Shakespeare.
Concordances can take many different forms, and not all are constructed the same. For works in non-English languages, concordances can be in the source language, or in English or another translated language. When selecting a concordance to study a text originally written in a different language, and/or a text that has many different forms, it is critical to match the concordance to the version. For example, a concordance matched to the King James Version of the Book of Genesis, will not be helpful if you are primarily using the New Revised Standard Version of Genesis, because different editions may choose a different English equivalent for the same Hebrew word.
Why Use a Concordance?
Concordances can be very helpful for research that involves close-reading of a text. Perhaps you want to know every use of the word prophet in the Hebrew Bible, or every time that righteousness is discussed in the Qur'an. A concordance will collect that information for you. Because concordances are usually compiled by hand, they have an advantage over word searches in online tools (though those are also helpful) because they will more-easily catch different forms of the same word while excluding words with similar beginnings that are not what you're looking for.
How Do I Find Concordances?
Concordances are usually located close to the texts they are matched to. So, a concordance to the Huainanzi will be located in the same section as versions of that text; Bible concordances will be located in the biblical studies section of the library. Note that not every text has a concordance created for it (and not all concordances are owned by Dinand -- although some older concordances will nonetheless be available in places like HathiTrust).