Understanding Texts
--Lecture
Notes for Topics 1.0-
Religion 492
Last revised: 12/31/03
Explanation:
Contained below
is a manuscript summarizing the class lecture(s) covering the above specified
range of topics from the List of Topics for Religion 492. Quite often
hyperlinks (underlined)
to sources of information etc. will be inserted in the text of the lecture.
Test questions for all quizzes and exams will be derived in their entirety
or in part from these lectures; see Exams
in the course syllabus for details. To display the Greek text contained
in this page download and install the free BSTGreek
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Our twenty-first century
has become accustomed to writing electronically. So much so, that to many
young people today the idea of having to write a term paper on even an
electric typewriter seems so ancient as to be unbelievable. Spell checkers,
massive choices regarding fonts both in size and style, automatic formatting
of an electronic document by a computerized version of a required style
guide, programs like BookWhere that can track down hundreds of bibliographic
sources in seconds from libraries all over the world, automatic insertion
of footnotes that always show up in the right places on the hard copy of
the paper, instant generation of properly formatted bibliographies at the
end of a term paper, programs like ViaVoice that allow the student merely
to orally dictate the contents of a paper to the computer so that the computer
converts the oral sound into typed words instantaneously along with simultaneous
spell and grammar checking --- all these conveniences and more enable the
modern student to create written words in great volume using very little
time and effort. Just around the corner for the ordinary PC user lay programs
that will take these composed words and rewrite them against specifically
defined patterns of reasoning in order to make them more complex or less
complex, depending on the targeted readership.
All these conveniences of
our world create growing barriers to clear understanding of the process
of composition of documents in the ancient world. What we can compose in
a few minutes took days and weeks to compose in that world. In the efforts
to clearly and correctly interpret ancient texts, including the sacred
scriptures of Christianity, one is helped by some awareness of how documents
came together in that world so dramatically different than ours. These
materials will attempt a brief overview of some of the key aspects of ancient
text composition.
But first a few technical
terms that will crop up in the discussion. One of the umbrella terms for
a study of this sort is orthography, the study of patterns and ways of
writing. Graphemics is the study of the development of a written alphabet
in a specific language and its connection to distinct phonetical, orally
produced sounds.
1.0.1
Ancient Patterns of Composition
1.0.2
Ancient Orality and Writing
1.0.3
1.0.4
1.0.5
Bibliography
The Laboratory-Didactic
Museum of the Ancient Book
An interesting exploration
of the composition of books in the ancient world.
ANCIENT
BOOK-MAKING OF THE EARLY ROMAN WORLD by Meredith Drye
A helpful overview
of the process of composition by a UNC Chapel Hill professor.
SCHOOLING AND
EDUCATION AT TIVOLI AND IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
A brief, but interesting
overview of educational patterns of young boys in the era of the Roman
Empire.
Graphemics
and Orthography
A gateway into the examination
of the evolution of alphabets of various languages, both modern and ancient.