Slavic Texts Editions of Biblical Content: Problems and Perspectives

As regards the editorial work, generally ecdotic practices are examined and different methods of editions are discussed. The reports submitted to the Florentine workshop aimed to deal with editorial issues in a broader perspective, taking into account the cultural context and the scribal production in which the Slavic Bible was passed down. Certainly the focus is still on the problems of textual criticism and linguistic analysis as shown by V. Željazkova’s reflections on Exodus, one of the main books of the Old Testament, and C.M. Vakareliyska’s on the edition of the so-called Gospel of Curzon, a key manuscript for understanding the history of the transmission of the Gospels in the South Slavic area. But even in this case, the question was expanded to the experience of publishing practice, considering the preliminary work and the complex choices that are often not considered in the essays accompanying the editions. The close connection of the Slavic Bible with the corpus of liturgical books makes it extremely important to deal with the editorial practice of these texts, as T. Afanasyeva showed us, reasoning on the edition of the Liturgy of John Chrysostom and the Liturgy of Basil. Attention also shifted to different aspects, showing the complexity of the manuscript tradition of the Church Slavonic Bible. The Glagolitic version in the breviary and the missal according to Latin rite was examined by V. Badurina Stipčević, who suggests that there may once have been a full Croatian-Glagolitic Bible. In the context of the Slavic version of the Gospels, A. Pičchadze indicated the need to consider the very complicated question of the lexical adaptation that occurred already in the earliest phase of the tradition more carefully, while A. Alberti reminded us how important it is to consider the Greek manuscript tradition, which, being so widespread, cannot be dealt with by traditional methods of textual criticism, but forces us to use statistical methods. The reconstruction of the version of the Old Testament books that shows a quantitatively less numerous manuscript tradition may appear easier, but in this case, other factors come into play. We must take into account that these books are often accompanied by commentaries, as M. Dimitrova illustrated about of the Song of Songs. On the other hand, L. Osinkina pointed out that the spread of the Old Testament books is also attested by the quotes that occur both in translated texts and in original works. The spread of commentaries, mostly of patristic origin, inevitably raises the question of the presence of the exegetical tradition of the early centuries in the Byzantine-Slavic area, as shown by B. Danilenko in his work on the Slavic versions of the work of Methodius of Patara.