Thu Apr 11 20:06:09 1996
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From: Maurice Robinson
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Subject: Re: archetype and autographs
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On Thu, 11 Apr 1996, Timothy John Finney wrote:
> It occurs to me that there is an important difference between the multiple
> collections model of Maurice Robinson and the single collection model
> which I reiterated (someone else must have already said it). The
> difference is that the multiple model gives multiple independent early
> witnesses to each component (i.e. autograph or copy of autograph), whereas
> the single model does not. Therefore, the multiple model would, all other
> things being equal, give a greater chance of recovering the autographs
> than the single model, which would only allow recovery of its own
> archetype which is the collection and not the autographs.
This much is of course helpful to my own position, and I appreciate the
slight nod in that direction.
> I am indebted to Maurice for his quote of Tertullian (who was writing a
> full century after the collection seems to have been made) which favours
> the multiple model. Nevertheless, I venture to say that Occam's razor
> favours the single model. (Occam's razor: The hypothesis which explains
> the given evidence with the least (in number and difficulty) assumptions
> is best.) I say that it is a lesser assumption that one person made the
> collection than a number of people or churches acting simultaneously. A
> kind of early canon would also be required for the multiple model,
> otherwise one would expect different sets of Pauline Letters in different
> MSS.
Occam's Razor cuts both ways (a terrible pun), and I have myself argued
that the hypothesis which offers the least amount of difficulties is that
which should be presumptively favored.
I can agree that, in the _absence_ of a recognized "canon" of Paul's
letters (disregarding theological or inspirational issues, but dealing
only with the primary issue of recognizing a basic "Pauline Corpus" as in
some way authoritative), the single model hypothesis would seem more
likely, and then the issue would become the date at which the single model
was created or collected, and how many intermediate steps may have
intervened between the autograph and that initial formation of the corpus
collection.
However, if (as I obviously believe) the notion existed of some
"authority" residing in the letters of Paul from the earliest stages or
very close thereto (as noted in e.g., 2Pet.3.15-16), then the multiple
model once more becomes the better hypothesis under Occam's razor. If
there were an early concept of significance regarding Paul's letters, the
Tertullian scenario becomes more likely than the alternatives, and it
would be most logical for various churches to each secure their own
copies of the Pauline epistles which were so recognized. Although Paul
certainly wrote other epistles, e.g. to the Corinthians and to the
Laodiceans, either these were lost or destroyed, or for a significant
reason they were not considered authoritatively Pauline or Pauline but
not authoritative.
Even within the single model hypothesis occurring at a later date, there
would be no necessary reason why the one creator of the 14-epistle
collection would suddenly be imbued with inviolability in the contents of
that collection. The text itself differs regarding texttype within the
Pauline Corpus -- why could there not be multiple Pauline collections,
some of which possessed only the longer epistles, some which contained
only the prison epistles, some which included everything but the
pastorals, and (especially) some which contained everything except Hebrews?
The single-model hypothesis does not prevent any of this from occurring,
unless one desires to endow that original collector with infallibility
which all churches subsequently recognized. All in all, I still
maintain that the multiple model not only best fits the historical
situation, but also accords with the spread and development of texttypes
within the Pauline Corpus without key errors spread among MSS of all
texttypes, which should normally be the result if the archetype were
founded at a point remote from the autographs.
> Perhaps obvious primitive errors do not exist because they were corrected
> by copyists who were used to correcting transcription errors.
This once more argues from silence for primitive errors which underlay
significant portions of the text but are not present in our extant MSS,
versions or fathers (or, alternatively, not in our Greek MSS, but
preserved in versional or patristic witnesses alone). Under the single
model created remotely from the autograph, it would become highly
unlikely that errors which already permeated the later archetype of the
corpus would be independently and systematically eliminated by all
scribes of all texttypes. Cross-comparison and correction can go so far
as to restore the text of the archetype, but would be unlikely to go
beyond that archetype (assuming that the archetype and the autograph were
unidentical).
> How did you correct my errors? The "text
> is obvious" in the first case, but did I intend to write "where not so"
> or "where it is not" or "where it is not so"? (Actually, I intended to
> write what I did.)
But in that case, there was _no_ primitive error, but what was actually
intended, and which made sense within the context, though still liable to
correction by later revisionists. Genealogical study of MSS which are
known to be closely related (e.g. f1 f13 f1424, F-G, etc.) always tends
to find commonly-held errors among the MSS comprising such a group. It
would be asking too much to assume that the case of the Pauline Corpus
would be so different from what we see elsewhere.
> Yes, this is a problem. Yet F.F. Bruce was bold enough to list what he
> thought may be a number of primitive corruptions in Hebrews.
Bruce was a pessimist or an optimist, depending upon your point of view.
I still want to see a place where _only_ the supposition of a primitive
error can make sense out of the text we possess and where the existing
text is otherwise incomprehensible or in utter error.
_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina
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