Dittographs

[USU78]

Here is a classic example from Jubilees:

22. And as for all the worshippers of idols and the profane

There will be no hope for them in the land of the living;

And there will be no remembrance of them on the earth;

For they will descend into Sheol,

And into the place of condemnation will they go,

As the children of Sodom were taken away from the earth

So will all those who worship idols be taken away.

23. Fear not, my son Jacob,

And be not dismayed, O son of Abraham:

May the Most High God preserve thee from destruction,

And from all the paths of error may He deliver thee.

24. This house have I built for myself that I might put my name upon it in the earth: it is given to thee and to thy seed for ever, and it will be named the house of Abraham; it is given to thee and to thy seed for ever; for thou wilt build my house and establish my name before God for ever: thy seed and thy name will stand throughout all generations of the earth.

Notice what's happened here: The document comes from a holograph, believed to be by the hand of a single scribe. The red section in the second clause of verse 24 is repeated, the repeat being bolded in green. As you can see, it's an easy mistake to make if you're copying line after line after line of a text. After even a brief break (maybe just long enough to reink your quill), your eye searches for the place in the document you're copying from that matches where you stopped. If you get the wrong line, you can either skip or repeat sometimes whole sections of texts.

This phenomenon is significant because of the mysterious KEP, the papers that folks like Brent Metcalfe think are the working papers for the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price. He hopes by establishing that the papers are oral dictation papers to establish that JSJr didn't know Egyptian and is, therefore, no prophet. Brian Hauglid, and like-minded folks, hold that the KEP can be many things, but not evidence of oral dictation and are, therefore, irrelevant to the question of JSJr's bona fides as a prophet. As evidence that the KEP are copies and not dictation, Hauglid and others point out dittographs in the KEP, like the Jubilees text above.

So . . . whaddya think?

[Who Knows]

Your example doesn't make sense to me. What word did the scribe leave off at, before glancing back to the source to figure out where he needed to start up again? I don't see any similar wording that would cause him to believe that he should write the highlighted line.

But I agree, that looks like an error - just for the reason that the text as written doesn't make any sense.

Anyways...

As evidence that the KEP are copies and not dictation, Hauglid and others point out dittographs in the KEP, like the Jubilees text above.

I haven't seen any dittographs pointed out like the example you gave.

A question - Is it always possible to determine if a dittograph exists without knowing what the underlying text said, or what the intent of the scribe was?

Also, if you don't know if a document is a copy, and if you don't know if a certain writing was an error, can you conclude that something is a dittograph?

[cksalmon]

So . . . whaddya think?

I think I'd like to see examples of dittograph in KEP prior to rendering judgment.

Best.

CKS

[William Schryver]

So . . . whaddya think?

I think I'd like to see examples of dittograph in KEP prior to rendering judgment.

Best.

CKS

I have cited two examples from Ms. #2 of the KEP. You can see them in the thread in the Pundits forum. One is the entire paragraph I cited most recently. The other I cited earlier. It consists of the words "gods of the land" on the 2nd page of Ms. #2.

[Who Knows]

I think I'd like to see examples of dittograph in KEP prior to rendering judgment.

I think I'd like to see my questions answered first.

[USU78]

I think I'd like to see examples of dittograph in KEP prior to rendering judgment.

I think I'd like to see my questions answered first.

I think you misunderstand my purpose in starting this thread. I'm only reporting here in summary form what the 2 sides are claiming. If you want the guts, go to the pundit forum thread, and you can see what supports/fails to support their conclusions.

The ultimate issue is whether the KEP at issue support or do not support the proposition that they were dictated by JSJr to the various people whose work is preserved, or whether what we have is copywork.

If the former, then it gives credence to the proposition that the extant JS Papyri fragments are more likely to be the source of the BoA. If the latter, then we don't know much of anything about how the BoA was produced.

That's all. We cannot do more than that with the KEP.

But then, I suspect who knows already knew that.

[Who Knows]

USU: I agree with you.

However, my questions were independent of the KEP.

Let me ask them again:

Is it always possible to determine if a dittograph exists without knowing what the underlying text said, or what the intent of the scribe was?

Also, if you don't know if a document is a copy, and if you don't know if a certain writing was an error, can you conclude that something is a dittograph?

(I'm using the term dittograph to mean an error)

[USU78]

USU: I agree with you. However, my questions were independent of the KEP. Let me ask them again:

Is it always possible to determine if a dittograph exists without knowing what the underlying text said, or what the intent of the scribe was?

Also, if you don't know if a document is a copy, and if you don't know if a certain writing was an error, can you conclude that something is a dittograph?

(I'm using the term dittograph to mean an error)

As to your 1st question, which is quite interesting now that I'm clear, I'm not entirely sure. What if the document being copied has identical language appearing in consecutive paragraphs, for example? Is the so-called "dittograph" merely a rhetorical device? In the abstract, I think it's possible, especially in a more oral and not so literary tradition for the same phrase to be repeated again and again.

As for the KEP, however, we have at least some kind of control: the BoA itself. If phrases or words are repeated on the KEP that aren't repeated in the BoA, then copyist error is the best explanation.

As to your 2nd question, it is not materially different from the 1st.

Both go to the difficulty of reverse engineering a Q from a copy.

[Who Knows]

As for the KEP, however, we have at least some kind of control: the BoA itself. If phrases or words are repeated on the KEP that aren't repeated in the BoA, then copyist error is the best explanation.

A couple of issues with that:

- The BOA was produced after the KEP

- The KEP don't match up perfectly with the published BOA - there are differences.

So, given the above, we don't know the exact wording of the supposed missing mss. that was being copied.

It just seems like circular logic to me:

"This item in the KEP is a dittograph because the KEP are copies, and because there's a dittograph, the KEP are copies."

And as far as what you said here:

If phrases or words are repeated on the KEP that aren't repeated in the BoA, then copyist error is the best explanation.

How do you figure? Why wouldn't ordinary revisions be the best explanation? ie., the BOA was dictated, then some editing was done to arrive at the final edition (as represented by the subsequent KEP mss (1,4) that are a closer match to the final BOA than the mss. in question (2,3))?

[Benjamin McGuire]

Just a note -

If you are looking for examples and discussions of Dittography, you will probably get further by searching on the terms which describe the condition of the source text which leads to additions and subtractions in a scribal copy -

Homoioarcton and Homoeoteleuton.

Ben

[William Schryver]

Just a note -

If you are looking for examples and discussions of Dittography, you will probably get further by searching on the terms which describe the condition of the source text which leads to additions and subtractions in a scribal copy -

Homoioarcton and Homoeoteleuton.

Ben

Ben underscores the importance of recognizing, in the case of the dittograph on p. 4 of Ms. #2, that it is the location of the instances of "Haran" (the homoeoteleuton) that facilitates the dittograph.

A fairly simple definition of homoeoteleuton is: "same ending". Depending on the circumstance, a homoeteleuton can result in either dittography (repeated words) or haplography (omitted words).

In the case of the dittograph on the final page of Ms. #2, the word "Haran" is the common ending of the paragraphs in question, and the initial paragraph in the abschrift (the copy) contains the word "Haran" on a line by itself, thereby facilitating the scribe having looked to match a single word in the exemplar (the document being copied), instead of a phrase.