u/flippythemaster

Hi there!

I’m looking for a critical edition (that is, a version which features annotations and notes, and essays if you’ve got em) of the Bible and Quran which, as the title says, seek to ground the letter of the text in the history of the various manuscripts, etc. that came to become the version we see today.

I grew up Catholic and so have plenty of Bibles that feature extensive notes but all of which are focused on teaching about theology, rather than the history of the text itself. I’m also interested in reading the Quran in a similar manner.

Does such a thing exist? I’ve been made aware of John Barton’s History of the Bible and that’s on my Amazon wishlist but if I wanted to tackle the books themselves in a less theologically slanted manner, what are my options?

(And alas I’m only fluent in English so unfortunately it has to be a translation.)

Even setting aside silly trends like “unaliving” and the like, if someone writes out a swear word with an asterisk it’s difficult to take them seriously.

If you’re going to swear, swear. If you’re NOT going to, there are OTHER ways to express yourself. Unless you have the vocabulary of someone who’s six years old you CAN find another word. And I’m not against a classic minced oath like “Jimminy Christmas” or “Cripes” or “Galdarn”because there’s a kind of creativity to finding words that sound similar to but are distinct from swear words.

I’m specifically talking about adults who elect to add censoring asterisks to their own text.

For example, “glad” comes from an Old English word which means shining or radiant. This word was applied metaphorically to mean happy but eventually just came to mean happy without people understanding the metaphorical meaning.

Share some examples!