2025 Undergraduate Research Showcase

Filling in the Blanks: Textual Critique in Comestor's "Tobit"

Document Type

Student Presentation

Presentation Date

4-15-2025

Faculty Sponsor

Karen Wadley

Abstract

The Historia Scholastica Project consists of the transcription and translation of Boise State University’s copy of Peter Comestor’s twelfth century Historia Scholastica. The Tobit project joins with the greater goal of producing a comprehensible and accurate translation of Boise State’s fifteenth century incunabulum copy of the work located in the Albertsons Library which is both accessible and informative to the larger Boise State community.

To date, this Latin cohort has translated 230 lines out of 730 total lines. By May 2025 we anticipate a total of 300 lines. Our translation process utilizes Jacques-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Latina volume 198 as a tool for textual criticism and comparison. In addition to transcription, textual comparison, and translation, our cohort has directed our research towards a historiographical analysis of Tobit, endeavoring in our methodology to examine Comestor’s treatment of historicity as it applies to the content, context, and composition of Tobit. Our research approach in this has been twofold: first, surveying scholarly sources that record similarities and discrepancies in Tobit’s content and historical context, and second, conducting an inquiry into Comestor’s sources. Conclusively, we hope to produce an accurate translation of this chapter — and an informed analysis of its historiography — that will serve as a foundation for current and future Boise State members interested in the Historia Scholastica Project.

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