Parablepsis

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Parablepsis which comes from the Greek words para- ("beside") and blepein ("to look") and refers to a circumstance in which a scribe miscopies text due to inadvertently looking to the side while copying. (sometimes misspelled as Periblepsis, which would mean "looking around.") This misspelling may be found in Bart D. Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus. Parablepsis is used by textual critics and analysts to describe a condition in which a person handcopying a text accidentally skips over some of it. It may be the result of any number of mistakes and can be quite common when copying large amounts of text.

[edit] Impact

Textual critics acknowledge that parablepsis is a factor in the possible mistranscription of many ancient texts.[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Evangelical Textual Criticism. evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com. Retrieved on 2006-08-15.

[edit] Further reading

  • Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. New York, NY: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-073817-0.