Sacred Books - Textual Recension
A Recension is properly a work of criticism by editors; but it is used, even by some modern critics, as synonymous with a "family" of manuscripts. Johann Salomo Semler, Professor of Theology at Halle, was the first to apply the term "Recension" to the ancient texts, an error which has caused some confusion. Semler was the leader of the 18th Century reaction in Germany against the traditional views of the canon of Scripture. There existed in early times different recensions of the sacred text, and the proximate business of the critic was to ascertain how far these coincided or differed, respecting any particular reading, and that one MS., which represents a recension, is equivalent to any number which, belonging to the same recension, make up only one voice after all. Want of familiarity with the sacred words in the first ages, carelessness of scribes, and incompetent teaching led to further corruption of the Sacred Text. Then out of the fact that there existed a vast number of corrupt copies arose at once the need of Recension.
There exists no reason for supposing that the Divine Agent, who in the first instance gave the Scriptures of Truth, straightway abdicated His office; took no further care of His work; abandoned those precious writings to their fate. That a perpetual miracle was wrought for their preservation — that copyists were protected against the risk of error, or evil men prevented from adulterating shamefully copies of the Deposit — no one, it is presumed, is so weak as to suppose. But it is quite a different thing to claim that all down the ages the sacred writings must needs have been God's peculiar care; that the Church under Him has watched over them with intelligence and skill; has recognized which copies exhibit a fabricated, which an honestly transcribed text; has generally sanctioned the one, and generally disallowed the other.
In many cases the men named as the authors of the different holy books were not their authors in reality. The real authors lived and wrote much later than the facts occurred which they describe. They collected their knowledge from tradition and hearsay; but though they wrote in good faith, and according to their best understanding, without the least desire to impose, their views must have been limited. Neither can they be held responsible for the changes in the text made by copyists and revisers during the hundreds of years which elapsed between them and the first authentic edition which is in the possession of modern time. Most scriptures at various stages have undergone considerable redaction (editing, adding and rearranging material to create a unified whole with identifiable themes and theology), frequently leading to a "final recension," to read the present back into the past.
Too often interpolations were made for doctrinal purposes. Here a zealous copyist, in transcribing a passage, thinks it would be a great advantage if its doctrinal teaching were a little more explicit. He is very sure he knows what it was meant to teach. Why should not he add a few words that will make its meaning clearer? In his pious zeal he does so. It is in some such way as this, doubtless, that we must account for that famous passage in i John v., called the text of the three heavenly witnesses, which for centuries was regarded as the leading New Testament proof-text in support of the doctrine of the Trinity, but which the Revised Version throws out, as scholars have long known it ought to be thrown out.
Greater violence is done by successive interpreters to sacred writings than to any other relics of ancient literature. Ideas grow and change, yet each generation tries to find its own ideas reflected in the sacred pages of their early prophets. Passages which do not bear on religious or philosophical doctrines are generally explained simply and naturally, even by the latest of native commentators. But as soon as any word or sentence can be so turned as to support a religious doctrine, however modern, or a religious precept, however irrational, the simplest phrases are tortured and mangled till at last they are made to yield their assent to ideas the most foreign to the minds of the authors.
People allow themselves conveniently to drop into the background some of the more incredible or objectionable things which the books contain; they develop a marvelous facility in explaining away contradictions and inaccuracies and things which the increase of knowledge has shown not to be true, and in reading into the books in a thousand places all sorts of new meanings and so-called "deeper interpretations," to make the teachings of the books harmonize with the increase of knowledge. That which really belongs to the mind of the reader is attributed to that of the writer. The natural and simple meaning of the words is set aside. Forced interpretations are put upon passages for the purpose of compelling them to harmonize with that which it is supposed they ought to mean. Statements, doctrines, and allusions are discovered in the books which not only have no existence in their pages, but which are absolutely foreign to the epoch at which they were written.
As Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason "It is not the antiquity of a tale, that is any evidence of its truth; on the contrary, it is a symptom of its being fabulous; for the more ancient any history pretends to be, the more it has the resemblance of a fable."
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