Biclustering Readings and Manuscripts via Non-negative Matrix Factorization, with Application to the Text of Jude

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel application of non-negative matrix factorization to cluster manuscripts and readings in textual criticism, effectively addressing contamination and co-dependence issues, demonstrated through analysis of the Jude epistle.

Contribution

It introduces an unsupervised NMF-based method for simultaneous clustering of manuscripts and readings, improving textual family identification in biblical studies.

Findings

Clusters match established textual families

Effectively handles manuscript contamination

Provides interpretable mixture models

Abstract

The text-critical practice of grouping witnesses into families or texttypes often faces two obstacles: Contamination in the manuscript tradition, and co-dependence in identifying characteristic readings and manuscripts. We introduce non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) as a simple, unsupervised, and efficient way to cluster large numbers of manuscripts and readings simultaneously while summarizing contamination using an easy-to-interpret mixture model. We apply this method to an extensive collation of the New Testament epistle of Jude and show that the resulting clusters correspond to human-identified textual families from existing research.