Editing Lectio difficilior potior (section)

{{short description|Principle of textual criticism}}
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'''''{{lang|la|Lectio difficilior potior}}''''' ([[Latin]] for "the more difficult reading is the stronger") is a main principle of [[textual criticism]]. Where different manuscripts conflict on a particular reading, the principle suggests that the more unusual one is more likely the original. The presupposition is that scribes would more often replace odd words and hard sayings with more familiar and less controversial ones, than vice versa.<ref>Maurice A. Robinson, "[http://www.reltech.org/TC/v06/Robinson2001.html New Testament Textual Criticism: The Case for Byzantine Priority]", 2001.</ref> ''Lectio difficilior potior'' is an internal criterion, which is independent of criteria for evaluating the manuscript in which it is found,<ref>{{cite journal |first=Emanuel |last=Tov |title=Criteria for Evaluating Textual Readings: The Limitations of Textual Rules |journal=[[Harvard Theological Review]] |volume=75 |issue=4 |date=October 1982 |pages=429–448 esp. pp. 439 ff |doi=10.1017/S0017816000031540 |s2cid=165577319 |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/48032678/Criteria-for-Evaluating-Textual-Reading |accessdate=2012-12-16}}</ref> and that it is as applicable to manuscripts of a ''[[roman courtois]]'', a classical poet, or a Sanskrit epic as it is to a biblical text.

The principle was one among a number that became established in early 18th-century text criticism, as part of attempts by scholars of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] to provide a neutral basis for discovering an ''[[wikt:urtext|urtext]]'' that was independent of the weight of traditional authority.