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A difficult sentence

Posted by ESC on July 01, 2003

In Reply to: A difficult sentence posted by Miri Barak on July 01, 2003

: Dear friends,
: I have a very unclear sentence, I hope you'll be able to help me. It concerns a passage from Genesis and its subject is the final form of this passage. I need only the sentence between stars ** (down below):
: "I shold stress that I do no regard an over-riding concern for the final form of the text as precluding acceptance of the possibility that some, if not much, of the material, has been incorporated into the final form largely because it has become traditional. We do not have to suppose final authors of our texts being actively engaged in the precise wording or arrangement of every part to their material; **Final form criticism - if it may be so designated - makes only the assumption of authorial intention in the end-redacors**, and authors obviously have many different styles of handling their material.

: Most unclear to me is the clause: if it may be so designated
: Many thanks
: miri

I don't understand it either. Two things:

1. Could the word be redactor as in (from Merriam-Webster online):

Main Entry: re·dact
Pronunciation: ri-'dakt
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin redactus, past participle of redigere
Date: 15th century
1 : to put in writing : FRAME
2 : to select or adapt for publication : EDIT

2. The sentence makes more sense if the last "dash" is moved:

Final form criticism - if it may be so designated - makes only the assumption of authorial intention -- in the end redactors and authors obviously have many different styles of handling their material.

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