Mon Apr 1 20:05:27 1996

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Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 09:05:23 +0800
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From: rmoore@central.murdoch.edu.au (Richard K. Moore)
Subject: autographs versus archetypes
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What working hypothesis ought a textual critic have for any 'autograph' of
a NT writing?  Is there the expectation that in a longer document such as
Romans (about 28 A-4 pages if written out by hand today) there would be
absolutely no (unintentional) errors of any kind whatever?  Even with
computer technology, including spell and grammar checkers) modern
tertiary-trained students are not, in my experience, able to achieve this
even for much shorter documents.  Few books, even the most scholarly, are
without any unintentional errors.  It would be surprising if there were
absolutley no errors in any of the original compositions of the NT, and
naturally, the possibility of error increases with the increase in length
of a document.
The point being made gains force when the purposes for which the NT
writings came into being are taken into account.  To stay with Romans, for
example, Paul and Tertius no doubt saw their task as that of writing to
Christians at the heart of the Empire; it would never have occurred to them
that they were engaged in writing Holy Scripture or that their letter would
be studied in 2000 years time.  Here indeed is a double standard:  to
accept that everyone else makes (unintentional) errors when composing
longer documents, but not the NT authors!  The view that the autographs
themselves were completely free of (unintentional) errors is itself a faith
statement.
(This situation, indeed the whole history of the transmission of the text
of the NT, far from being a threat to a committed Christian, beautifully
illustrates how God, in his grace, delights to use the weak and foolish
things of this world to shame the strong and the wise; it is not just the
copyists and modern scholars who are involved here, but the original
authors).

Richard K. Moore,
Head of New Testament Department, Baptist Theological College of Western
Australia;
Lecturer, Murdoch University.

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