Thesis ID: CBB001567633

The Erotic Life of Manuscripts: A History of New Testament Textual Criticism and the Biological Sciences (2014)

unapi

Lin, Yii-Jan Chen (Author)


Yale University
Martin, Dale B


Publication Date: 2014
Edition Details: Advisor: Martin, Dale B.
Physical Details: 223 pp.
Language: English

This dissertation focuses on the relationship the field of New Testament textual criticism has formed with the biological sciences, starting from the eighteenth century and continuing to the present. The first chapter covers the use of taxonomy to distinguish different text types and how this classification employs contemporary racial descriptors from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The second chapter discusses the tracing of textual genealogies in order to reach the "original text" of the New Testament and how this goal and its methodologies reflect European anxieties of the nineteenth century over racial impurity, corruption, and degeneration. As Darwin's theory of evolution gained dominance in the twentieth century, New Testament textual criticism saw the rise of "narrative textual criticism," which chapter three focuses on. Narrative textual criticism, unlike traditional philology, considers variant readings as important, in and of themselves, as part of the evolving, adapting, and "living" text of the New Testament. Finally, chapter four discusses the affinities between genomics/phylogenetics and current traditional textual criticism methods, particularly the Coherence Based Genealogical Method, used to create the most popular scholarly edition of the Greek New Testament. The aim of this project is to show how biological metaphors and methods, though dynamic, have limited the field of New Testament criticism and created an ever-widening gap between it and literary interpretation and theory in biblical studies. The conclusion suggests new theoretical possibilities for the field.

...More

Description Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-A 75/09(E), Mar 2015. Proquest Document ID: 1542117001.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001567633/

Similar Citations

Book Barton, Stephen C.; Wilkinson, David; (2009)
Reading Genesis after Darwin (/isis/citation/CBB001035403/)

Book Killeen, Kevin; Forshaw, Peter J.; (2007)
The Word and the World: Biblical Exegesis and Early Modern Science (/isis/citation/CBB000772154/)

Article Renate Dürr; (2017)
Mapping the Miracle: Empirical Approaches in the Exodus Debate of the Eighteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB598420370/)

Book Friedrich, Christoph; Bernschneider-Reif, Sabine; (2003)
Rosarium litterarum: Beiträge zur Pharmazie- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte: Festschrift für Peter Dilg zum 65. Geburtstag (/isis/citation/CBB000780042/)

Thesis Santoro, Lily A.; (2011)
The Science of God's Creation: Popular Science and Christianity in the Early Republic (/isis/citation/CBB001567279/)

Book Bourke, Joanna; (2014)
The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers (/isis/citation/CBB001202302/)

Chapter Mandelbrote, Scott; (2008)
Biblical Hermeneutics and the Sciences, 1700--1900: An Overview (/isis/citation/CBB001031754/)

Chapter Yarchin, William; (2008)
Biblical Interpretation in the Light of the Interpretation of Nature, 1650--1900 (/isis/citation/CBB001031755/)

Book Meer, Jitse M. van der; Mandelbrote, Scott; (2008)
Nature and Scripture in the Abrahamic Religions: 1700--Present (/isis/citation/CBB001031753/)

Book Numbers, Ronald L.; Stenhouse, John; (1999)
Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender (/isis/citation/CBB000110621/)

Book Dick van Miert; Henk Nellen; Piet Steenbakkers; Jetze Touber; (2017)
Scriptural Authority and Biblical Criticism in the Dutch Golden Age (/isis/citation/CBB865945939/)

Book Michael Ruse; (2016)
Darwinism as Religion: What Literature Tells Us about Evolution (/isis/citation/CBB247868178/)

Book McGrath, Alister E.; (2011)
Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology (/isis/citation/CBB001220972/)

Book Ruse, Michael; Travis, Joseph; (2009)
Evolution: The First Four Billion Years (/isis/citation/CBB001232307/)

Book Dry, Sarah; (2014)
The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton's Manuscripts (/isis/citation/CBB001422225/)

Authors & Contributors
Ruse, Michael
Mandelbrote, Scott
Prinster, Scott Gerard
Renate Dürr
Yegge, John G.
Santoro, Lily A.
Journals
Past and Present
Journal of Medical Biography
Publishers
Oxford University Press
Walden University
University of Wisconsin at Madison
University of Delaware
Wiley-Blackwell
Palgrave Macmillan
Concepts
Bible
Science and religion
Evolution
Hermeneutics
Darwinism
Christianity
People
Darwin, Charles Robert
Rendle-Short, John
Wright, George Frederick
Paracelsus, Theophrast von Hohenheim
Newton, Isaac
Moore, Aubrey
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
18th century
17th century
21st century
16th century
Places
United States
Europe
Great Britain
Netherlands
Australia
England
Institutions
Cambridge University
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment