D. F. McKenzie’s “Providential Version” and the Biblical Paradigm

Abstract

In his essay on the history of the Treaty of Waitangi, “The Sociology of a Text: Oral Culture, Literacy, and Print in Early New Zealand”, D. F. McKenzie invokes a markedly theological language, culminating in his claim that it is best to think about the Treaty of Waitangi using the concept of an ideal text — and in terms of what he intriguingly terms a “providential version” — rather than thinking about the Treaty of Waitangi as reducible to its various differing versions in circulation. McKenzie’s secular version of providence and transcendence offers an important corrective to narrow forms of historicism and materialism operating in textual studies. This article argues that the history of the Bible’s reception — informed by the tension between “the Bible” as a transcendent unity and as an indeterminate collection of individual texts — constitutes an important context for McKenzie’s “providential version” metaphor. The article contends that the idea of transhistorical and transcendent totality encompassing textual diversity exemplified by the history of the Bible’s reception plays a vital role in McKenzie’s essay.