 Codex Manesse showing typical scribal notes | |
| Field | Textual criticism,Philology |
|---|---|
| Origin | Latininterpolare (to refurbish or alter) |
| Key people | Richard Bentley,Karl Lachmann,Brooke Foss Westcott,Fenton John Anthony Hort |
| Purpose | Addition of non-authorial material to a text during transmission |
Interpolation in manuscript traditions is the addition of non-authorial wording to a text after its initial composition. The added material can be a singlegloss, a phrase, a verse, or a larger passage. Interpolations arise through marginal notes that migrate into the text, throughharmonization across parallels, through doctrinal or ideological expansion, or through deliberate literary revision.
Identifying and evaluating interpolation is a core task oftextual criticism in classical, biblical, rabbinic, Islamic, and medieval corpora. The presence or absence of secondary text affects editions, translations, and interpretation, so editors document decisions about probable interpolations with transparent criteria and source-based argumentation.[1][2][3][4]
Works that illustrate the phenomenon range from the gloss atJohn 5:3b–4 and thelonger ending of Mark to thepericope adulterae and theComma Johanneum, each traced by editors through manuscript distribution and stylistic seams.[5][3][6][7] Beyond theNew Testament, scholars debate the expandedIgnatian long recension, stratified layers in theBabylonian Talmud, and cumulative growth in theMahābhārata, examples that show how interpolation reshapes religious, legal, and literary canons across cultures.
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Interpolations originally may be inserted as an authentic explanatory note (for example, [sic]), but may also be included for fraudulent purposes. The forged passages and works attributed to thePseudo-Isidore are an example of the latter. Similarly, the letters ofIgnatius of Antioch were interpolated byApollinarian heretics, three centuries after the originals were written. Charters and legal texts are also subject toforgery of this kind. In the 13th century, a medieval romance, theProseTristan, inserted another prose romance, theVulgate Cycle'sQueste del Saint Graal, in its entirety in order to reinterpret the Quest for theHoly Grail through the optics of the Tristan story.[note 1]
However, most interpolations result from the errors and inaccuracies which tend to arise during hand-copying, especially over long periods of time.[citation needed] For example, if ascribe made an error when copying a text and omitted some lines, he would have tended to include the omitted material in the margin. However, margin notes made by readers are present in almost all manuscripts. Therefore, a different scribe seeking to produce a copy of the manuscript perhaps many years later could find it very difficult to determine whether a margin note was an omission made by the previous scribe (which should be included in the text) or simply a note made by a reader (which should be ignored or kept in the margin).
Conscientious scribes tended to copy everything which appeared in a manuscript, but in all cases scribes needed to exercise personal judgement. Explanatory notes would tend to find their way into the body of a text as a natural result of this subjective process.[citation needed]
Textual critics combine internal evidence, examining whether disputed wording matches an author's characteristic vocabulary, style, and meter, with external evidence from manuscript families to identify interpolations, using principles likelectio brevior potior (the shorter reading is preferable) andlectio difficilior potior (the more difficult reading is preferable) as helpful guidelines rather than absolute rules, while tracing how readings spread geographically and chronologically to distinguish original text from later additions that often reveal themselves through conflation of earlier alternatives or through patterns that suggest scribal harmonization rather than authorial composition.[1][4][2][8][9][10]
Ancient literary culture depended on hand-copying. Copyists addedglosses andscholia to explain rare words, to align parallel passages, or to guide performance and teaching. Over time, some notes entered the body of the text. Classicalphilologists developed internal tests for detecting secondary strata, for example inconsistency with an author's vocabulary or metrical practice, and external tests, for example the distribution of readings among early witnesses.[1][2]Alexandrian scholars marked suspicious lines with critical signs, for example theobelus, to flag wording thought non-authorial inHomeric poems.[2][8]
Late antique and medieval manuscripts are rich in marginal and interlinear annotation. The line betweenparatext and text was porous in classroom and liturgical settings, which increased the risk that glosses would pass into the main text in later copies. For theHebrew Bible, Israeli textual criticEmanuel Tov describes pluses, harmonizing additions, and glosses in theMasoretic,Greek, andLatin traditions, and emphasizes the need to distinguish explanatory notes from authorial text.[11][12]
Renaissance and early modern critics developed systematic tools to sift primary from secondary text. English classicistRichard Bentley and German philologistKarl Lachmann advancedstemmatic methods that reconstruct family relationships among manuscripts, which help locate conflations and expansions in later branches.[13][14] Debates over stemmatics continued in the twentieth century, with Italian classical philologistSebastiano Timpanaro defending analytic stemma-building and urging attention to historical plausibility.[15]
Homeric scholarship debates secondary lines and book-level growth. British classical philologistMartin Litchfield West used diction and formulaic systems to identify lines that resist Homeric usage and may be secondary.[16] InLatinepic, the so-called Helen episode atAeneid 2.567–588 has been judged by many editors to be non-Virgilian on stylistic and manuscript grounds, though the case remains debated.[2]
Notable examples among the body of texts known asOld Testament pseudepigrapha include the disputed authenticity ofSimilitudes of Enoch and4 Ezra which in the form transmitted by Christian scribal traditions contain arguably later Christian understanding of terms such asSon of Man.[17][18] Other texts with significant Christian interpolation include theTestaments of the Twelve Patriarchs[19] and theSibylline Oracles.[citation needed]
According to textual criticism scholarship, theNew Testament contains two major later additions:Mark 16:9–20 and thePericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11). Modern critical editions also identify approximately fifteen to twenty shorter interpolations at the verse level, which are typically bracketed or relegated to footnotes. Examples includeJohn 5:4,Acts 8:37, and theComma Johanneum (1 John 5:7–8).[20][21] The Hebrew Bible shows evidence of extensive redactional development, particularly visible in theBook of Jeremiah, where theSeptuagint version is approximately one-seventh shorter than theMasoretic Text and arranged differently.[22][23]
Thelonger ending of Mark, Mark 16:9–20, is absent from the earliest Greekcodices. Thepericope adulterae, John 7:53–8:11, appears in different locations or is missing from early witnesses. American New Testament scholarBruce M. Metzger summarized the committee's view that the pericope's "non-Johannine origin" is likely, based on internal and external evidence.[5][6] TheComma Johanneum,1 John 5:7–8, entered the printed Greek tradition from theLatin Vulgate. Dutch New Testament scholarH. J. de Jonge reportsErasmus's later inclusion to "avoid slander", a strategic concession during controversy.[7][3]
The explanatory note atJohn 5:3b–4 describes the stirring of the water at thePool of Bethesda. The wording is absent from the earliest Greek manuscripts and is believed to have originated from marginal or lectionary notes that were later incorporated into the main text.[5]
Printed editions stabilized certain interpolations by spreading them widely. TheComma Johanneum enteredErasmus's third edition in 1522 after controversy over its omission, then circulated through theTextus Receptus and early vernacularBibles.[7][3]
Notable disputed examples in the works ofJosephus include Josephus' sections onJohn the Baptist andJames the Just which is widely accepted,[24][25] and theTestimonium Flavianum, which is widely regarded as at best damaged.[26]
Sometimes interpolation crosses the line into outrightforgery. This happens when someone takes an authentic work, adds substantial new material, and then presents the expanded version as if it were entirely original. The letters ofIgnatius of Antioch offer a clear example: alongside the seven authentic letters, there exists a much longer collection that includes additional correspondence and greatly expanded versions of the originals. Scholars universally recognize this "long recension" as a later fabrication. AsWilliam R. Schoedel puts it, we're dealing with an "expanded version of the seven letters" that someone created to advance their own theological agenda under Ignatius's borrowed authority.[27]
In theBabylonian Talmud, AmericanTalmudistDavid Weiss Halivni argued that an anonymousstammaitic layer organizes and expandsAmoraic material, a thesis refined by AmericanJewish studies scholarJeffrey L. Rubenstein. They identify stylistic and structural markers that signal later intervention.[28][29]
Roman law scholarship debates whether sixth-century compilers altered classicaljuristic writings by inserting explanatory or harmonizing material. British legal historianBarry Nicholas introduces the issue for students of Roman law, while English legal scholarTony Honoré analyzes the compilers' techniques and the character of the anthology. German-born legal historianFritz Schulz provides a broader history of Roman legal science that contextualizes the debate. Critics of aggressive interpolation-hunting warn against overdiagnosis and prefer limited, source-based claims.[30][31][32]
In the study ofhadith transmission,Arabicidrāj names the insertion of non-prophetic wording by a transmitter or scribe into a report. AmericanIslamic studies scholarJonathan A. C. Brown surveys how hadith critics diagnose such additions and mark them in editions.[33]
Old Frenchepic shows extensive expansion across branches with theChanson de Roland surviving both in anOxford manuscript and in later rhymed redactions such asChâteauroux and Venice 7. The CV7 version introduces new episodes and substantial expansions that reframe the narrative arc, which provides a dossier for analyzing growth across witnesses.[34][35]
The longoral and written transmission of theMahābhārata andRāmāyaṇa shows a history of expansion and interpolation. Indian textual criticV. S. Sukthankar's Prolegomena to theBhandarkar Critical Edition outlines principles for distinguishing archetypal readings from later growth. BritishIndologistJohn Brockington surveys these processes and their implications for interpretation.[36][37]
FromOrigen andJerome toBentley andLachmann, critics worked out methods for recognizing secondary material.Lachmannian stemmatics privileged shared error and genealogical reconstruction. American New Testament scholarEldon Jay Epp later urged caution about the very idea of a single "original text" and recommended attention to textual plurality.[1][14][38]
Somemedievalists, notably French literary historianJoseph Bédier, criticized what he called "abominable genealogical trees" and argued that complex traditions resist neatstemmata. Others refined stemmatics and combined it with local judgment and an awareness of authorial revision.[39][15][2]
Interpolation analysis influences editorial practice, translation policy, and interpretation. Editors may exclude material identified as secondary to present what they consider the author's original text, while recording suspected interpolations in critical apparatus or notes to preservereception history. Editorial decisions typically balance internal and external evidence, with editors documenting their reasoning to allow readers to evaluate disputed cases. When analyzing passages in religious or culturally significant texts, scholars employ neutral terminology and careful documentation of sources.[2][3]
American New Testament scholarBart D. Ehrman revived debate about theological motivation, while other editors attribute many pluses to routine scribal habits. British New Testament scholarMichael W. Holmes highlights that claims of "theological corruption" must be weighed against ordinaryharmonization and explanatory glossing.[40][9][10] Modern genealogical modeling and digital collation tools have transformed how scholars understand textual transmission, shifting focus from seeking single archetypes to mapping the complex networks through which expansions and interpolations gradually entered living traditions.[40]
avoid slander
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abominable genealogical trees