Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants in either manuscripts or printed books. Ancient scribes made alterations when copying manuscripts by hand. Given a manuscript copy, several or many copies, but not the original document, the textual critic might seek to reconstruct the original text (the archetype or autograph) as closely as possible. The same processes can be used to attempt to reconstruct intermediate versions, or recensions, of a document's transcription history. The ultimate objective of the textual critic's work is the production of a "critical edition" containing a scholarly curated text. COUNT 5
QSN1 What type of documents does a textual critic usually analyze? ANS1 a manuscript copy, several or many copies, but not the original document QSN2 What is the goal of the textual critic? ANS2 the production of a "critical edition" containing a scholarly curated text. QSN3 What is the proper name for textual scholarship? ANS3 philology QSN4 Why are there differences in ancient copies of the same text? ANS4 Ancient scribes made alterations when copying manuscripts by hand QSN5 What do textual critics call a revised edition of a text? ANS5 recensions