manuscript tradition.48 The “rules” cannot be and never are applied mechanically, however. In the final analysis, textual criticism is neither science nor art, but a form of divination, i.e., a pseudo-science in which the honest practitioner does not fully believe. Accordingly, although we proceed as if attempting to reconstruct the original, our aspirations must be considerably humbler. More often than not, the result of our labors is a spectrum of possible readings, some not even attested but rather