What do Syriac/Antiochene Exegesis and Textual Criticism have to do with Theology?
[14] In this paper we will look at the pre-modern attitudes towards Scripture held by the Antiochene exegetes, specifically the Syriac Fathers, to see if, ironically enough, recent textual-critical scholarship might be able to bring to light a more nuanced understanding of the scriptural text—one that has greater continuity with this pre-modern perspective. Pre-modern interpreters conceptualized Scripture in a way that recognized its divine transcendence while taking seriously its wording or textuality, thus paying careful attention to the littera while avoiding the dangers of literalism. Recent textual-critical studies illustrate that the Scriptures were textually pluriform in the ancient world. Textual criticism, when applied to the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, reintroduces a pre-modern understanding of Scripture that holds that the authoritative status of a text does not rely upon its specific textual form but rather upon a more transcendent understanding of the text itself. It
