Lectio difficilior potior

"Lectio difficilior potior" (Latin for "the more difficult reading is the stronger") is a main principle of textual criticism. Where different manuscripts conflict on a particular word, the principle suggests that the more unusual one is more likely the original. The presupposition is that scribes would more often replace odd words and hard sayings with more familiar and less controversial ones, than vice versa (Carson 1991). It will readily be seen that "lectio difficilior potior" is an internal criterion, which is independent of criteria for evaluating the manuscript in which it is found, [Emanuel Tov, "Criteria for Evaluating Textual Readings: The Limitations of Textual Rules" "The Harvard Theological Review" 75.4 (October 1982, pp. 429-448) especially pp 439ff.] and that it is as applicable to manuscripts of a roman courtois or a classical poet as it is to a biblical text.

This principle has some wider everyday application. If one wants to determine the correct spelling of a name, and finds conflicting versions, it is often the more "difficult" one that is correct, not the one that is most widely used. For example, a British politician was correctly named Peter Alexander Rupert Carington, Baron Carrington — the family name has only one "r", the peerage title two. However, a Google search, which can often be useful to determine such matters— where there were no definitive authority such as "The Complete Peerage"— might find:
*"Peter Alexander Rupert Carington" - 32 hits
*"Peter Alexander Rupert Carrington" - 79 hitsChoosing the "more common" spelling would thus be wrong in this case. However, even without definite knowledge of what the correct spelling is, Carington is to be preferred because it is clearly the more unusual. If Carrington were correct, there would hardly be such a high incidence of the particular misspelling Carington. But the reverse is not surprising, since people might easily consider the unusual name Carington a mistake and falsely "correct" it, though the principle "lectio difficilior potior" suggests that the unusual spelling "Carington" is less likely to be adopted and transmitted.

The principle was one among a number that became established in early eighteenth-century text criticism, as part of attempts by scholars of the Enlightenment to provide a neutral basis for discovering an "Urtext", independent of the weight of traditional authority. The principle was first laid down by Johann Albrecht Bengel, in his "Prodromus Novi Testamenti Graeci Rectè Cautèque Adornandi", 1725, and employed in his "Novum Testamentum Graecum", 1734. [Noted in an observation by Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener in "A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New testament" (E. Miller, ed. 1894:vol. ii, p. 247) by W.L. Lorimer, ""Lectio Difficilior", "The Classical Review" 48.5 (November 1934:171).] It was widely promulgated by Johann Jakob Wettstein, to whom it is often attributed. [E.g. by H. J. Rose in "The Classical Review" 48 (126 note 2, corrected by Lorimer 1934.]

Many scholars considered that the employment of "lectio difficilior potior" such an objective criterion that it would override other evaluative considerations. [Tov 1982:432.] The poet and scholar A.E. Housman challenged such reactive applications in 1922, in the provocatively-titled article "The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism". [ [http://cnx.org/content/m11803/latest/ "Proceedings of the Classical Association" 18 (1922), pp67-84.] ]

On the other hand, taken as an axiom, the principle "lectio difficilior" produces an eclectic text rather than one based on a history of manuscript transmission. "Modern eclectic praxis operates on a variant unit basis without any apparent consideration of the consequences," Maurice Robinson (ref.) has warned, suggesting that to the principle "The reading which would be more difficult as a scribal creation is to be preferred" should be added a corollary, "difficult readings created by individual scribes do not tend to perpetuate in any significant degree within transmissional history"." (Robinson 2001).

Robinson, as a noted proponent of the superiority of the Byzantine text-type, the form of the Greek New Testament that is found in the largest number of surviving manuscripts, would use this corollary to explain differences from the Majority text as scribal errors which were not perpetuated because they were known to be errant or that existed only in a small number of manuscripts "at the time". The majority of textual-critical scholars would explain the corollary by the assumption that scribes tended to "correct" harder readings, and thus cut off the stream of transmission, so that earlier manuscripts would have the harder readings and later ones would not; hence they would not see the corollary principle as being a very important one for bringing us closer to the original form of the text.

However, "lectio difficilior" is not to be taken as an absolute rule either, but as a general guideline: "In general" the more difficult reading is to be preferred," is Bruce Metzger's reservation. [Italics supplied. Bruce Metzger, "The Text of the New Testament", II.i.1, p. 209] "There is truth in the maxim: "lectio difficilior lectio potior" ('the more difficult reading is the more probable reading'), write Kurt and Barbara Aland. [Aland, "The Text of the New Testament", pp. 275-276; the Alands' twelve basic principles of textual criticism are reported on-line at [http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/text_crit.html www.earlham.edu] .] But for scholars like Kurt Aland, who follow a path of reasoned eclecticism that is based on evidence both internal and external to the manuscripts, "this principle must not be taken too mechanically, with the most difficult reading ("lectio difficilima") adopted as original simply because of its degree of difficulty". [Aland 1995, p. 276.] . And Martin L. West cautions, "When we chooose the 'more difficult reading' … we must be sure that it is in itself a plausible reading. The principle should not be used in support of dubious syntax, or phrasing that it would not have been natural for the author to use. There is an important difference between a more "difficult" reading and a more "unlikely" reading." [West 1973, p. 51.]

Notes

See also

* Bayes' theorem

Further readings

* [http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol06/Robinson2001.html Maurice A. Robinson, 2001. "New Testament Textual Criticism: The Case for Byzantine Priority"]
* [http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/cbmw/rbmw/chapter6.html#ref8 D. A. Carson, 1991. "Silent in the Churches"] in "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism", Wayne Grudem and John Piper, eds. (Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood).
* Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, rev, ed. 1995. "The Text of the New Testament an Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism"
* Martin L. West, 1973. "Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique applicable to Greek and Latin texts" (Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner)