Textual Criticism and Sacred Texts
In Textual Criticism and Sacred Texts: A Comparative Method, Signe Cohen looks at the text-critical scholarship on sacred texts across disciplines. She traces the development of the genealogical method and discusses its role in textual criticism today. The book examines the applicability of traditional text-critical methods to oral texts as well as the roles of translations and commentaries in textual criticism. Cohen then turns to the under-theorized question of the relationship between religion and text-critical scholarship and outlines ethics of textual criticism applied to religious texts. She then discusses how new digital technologies will change the textual scholarship of the future and proposes new ways that scholars can collaborate across sub-disciplines.
Signe Cohen is associate professor of Asian Religions at the University of Missouri-Columbia.