Editing Philology (section)

=== Textual ===
{{main|Textual criticism}}
Philology also includes the study of texts and their history. It includes elements of [[textual criticism]], trying to reconstruct an author's original text based on variant copies of manuscripts. This branch of research arose among ancient scholars in the Greek-speaking world of the 4th century BC, who desired to establish a standard text of popular authors for both sound interpretation and secure transmission. Since that time, the original principles of textual criticism have been improved and applied to other widely distributed texts such as the [[Bible]]. Scholars have tried to reconstruct the original readings of the Bible from the manuscript variants. This method was applied to classical studies and medieval texts as a way to reconstruct the author's original work. The method produced so-called "critical editions", which provided a reconstructed text accompanied by a "[[critical apparatus]]", i.e., footnotes that listed the various manuscript variants available, enabling scholars to gain insight into the entire manuscript tradition and argue about the variants.<ref name="GB1" />

A related study method known as [[higher criticism]] studies the authorship, date, and provenance of text to place such text in a historical context.<ref name="GB1" /> As these philological issues are often inseparable from issues of interpretation, there is no clear-cut boundary between philology and [[hermeneutics]].<ref name="GB1" /> When text has a significant political or religious influence (such as the reconstruction of Biblical texts), scholars have difficulty reaching objective conclusions.

Some scholars avoid all critical methods of textual philology,<ref name="GB1" /> especially in historical linguistics, where it is important to study the actual recorded materials. The movement known as ''[[New Philology (medieval studies)|new philology]]'' has rejected textual criticism because it injects editorial interpretations into the text and destroys the integrity of the individual manuscript, hence damaging the reliability of the data.<ref name=":1" /> Supporters of new philology insist on a strict "diplomatic" approach: a faithful rendering of the text exactly as found in the manuscript, without emendations.