Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Textual criticism
(2,068 words)

1. Definition

As a subdiscipline of philology or classical studies and of biblical criticism and exegesis, textual criticism is the sum of all methods and techniques used to try to recover surviving texts in a form as close as possible to their original form. In doing so, it works hand in hand with hermeneutics. It is based on the historical recognition of Humanism that in the course of their transmission, texts are deli…

Cite this page
Walther, Gerrit, “Textual criticism”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 08 December 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_028797>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20220831



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