The Transmission of the Old Church Slavonic Translation of the Books of the Kingdoms: Problems and Prospects of Research

The present study offers fresh insights into the transmission of the complete, non-liturgical Old Church Slavonic translation of the Books of the Kingdoms (1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings in the Hebrew Bible). It addresses several challenging issues of palaeographic-codicological and textual character. The author first reassesses the extent of the manuscript corpus by detecting a series of hitherto untraced testimonies. Second, he demonstrates the need to reconsider the current hypothesis of a Glagolitic origin of the tradition and examines the problem of establishing the original segmentation and layout of the text. Third, he focuses on significant methodological shortcomings of previous research into textual criticism. Finally, he emphasises the importance of investigating relevant grammatical and syntactic archaisms in greater depth, with particular attention to periphrastic constructions. As a result, a new approach to this tradition is put forward, overturning previous understandings of its transmission and enabling new research prospects to be envisaged.