OSTROG BIBLE OF 1581 AND MOSCOW BIBLE OF 1663: LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF THE BOOK СORRECTION

Abstract

The article critically rethinks a number of provisions about the Ostrog Bible of 1581 and the Moscow Bible of 1663, which unreasonably dominated in scientific literature for two centuries. The author refutes the opinion that the work of the Ostrog Bible Commission on the four Gospels consisted only in “careful copying” of the original text of the handwritten Gennady Bible of 1499. It is established that when preparing the Ostrog Bible for publication, the language of the gospel text was subjected to a purposeful book correction at the spelling and grammatical levels. It is proved that the idea of the Moscow Bible as a literal reprint of the Ostrog Bible is not justified. Аt the Moscow Printing yard, the biblical correction was aimed at bringing the main linguistic parameters of the source text in accordance with the system of norms of the Moscow edition of Meletius Smotritsky’s grammar of 1648. It is revealed that in comparison with the new Testament books of the Moscow Bible, the Psalter correction covered a larger set of grammatical positions and thus had a deeper character.