This chapter exposes the fundamental interpenetration of critical ideas and practices in the editing of texts of both classical and scriptural writings, one of the defining practices of philology, and shows a shared commitment to the return ad fontes. It focuses on one of the giants of philology, Karl Lachmann, and maps the ease with which the founding scholars of the modern discipline of classical philology moved between Greco-Roman texts and the bible. The chapter emphasizes the historical importance of that vast monument of Greek literature generally ignored in the modern discipline of classics, the Septuagint. It goes on to address the issue of authenticity, a key component not just of philology’s pursuit of the faked or corrupt, but also of theology’s commitment to the true word of God, and to show how the search for a source matches the idea of the godlike author.

Meaning directs our attention to things – in Part 1, we called this “reference.” Meaning tracks our activity as sensuous creatures – in Part 2, we called this “agency.” Meanings also hang together, with networks of interlinkage that create coherence, where every meaning is greater than the sum of its parts. In this part, we are going to name this coherence, “structure.” Analysis of the holding together in structures, we call “ontology,” or the philosophy of what things are, their being. We identifying two kinds of binding, two kins of ways in which things hold together in the work: in material structures (the meanings-in things themselves), and ideal structures (the meanings-for those things, the meanings we attribute to them). The process of interconnecting the material and the ideal, we call design. In forensics that analyze ontologies and their designs, we look for specific relations. This is to make our analysis more granular. However, heading the other way, towards ontologies with higher levels of generality, we find ontologies encompassed by more general ontologies, or metaontologies. Structures can nest with in structures.