Subject: NT Interpolations

From: Jeremy Duff <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 09:38:54 +0100

Thanks for the replies to my posting on NT interpolations. 

I am familar with the arguments about the authorship of particular works,
general views of pseudepigraphy and canonization and whether a particular
bit of text is an interpolation or not. Nevertheless people views on these
matters are always of interest to me, so thanks.

On the matter of the relationship between canon and interpolations the
replies and bibliographical notes have been useful but there is still a
query in my mind. It seems that the replies I got differed on the
fundamental point.

There was a position advocated by some people, which I will quote from Bob
Waltz (also supported by Carlton Winbery and Maurice Robinson)

-------------
But the church could not canonize the text; it could not even
produce a uniform text. So even though ever Bible after the
fifth century contained the same books, they didn't contain the
same texts.

The goal of textual criticism is to obtain the original form of
the books that were later canonized. If, somehow, there had been
a form of the books that had been canonized, we might try to look
for that. But no such form ever existed.
-------------

I can understand this - the church canonized whole books, not a text.
Therefore text criticism tries to obtain the original form of the books that
were later canonized. If I understand this view correctly it means that
thinking a certain book is an "interpolation" into the canon is by
definition invalid since it the book was accepted in the canon (this view of
the canon I am familar with). Nevertheless this view also accepts that
within a book, interpolations (i.e. pieces of the text we find in some or
all of our manuscripts which we do not think were in the original form of
the book) are removed, since it is the original form of the books later
canonized that we are after. Although one might disagree with Fee's
arguments over 1 Cor 14.33-34, this view would agree with him in saying that
if this in an interpolation then it ought to be removed from the text.

However, this view seems diametrically opposed to the view of Metzger
(reported by Mike Holmes), the way in which most bible editors work
(according to Ulrich Schmid). To quote Metzger

(Canon of the NT, p.270)
--------
There seems to be good reason, therefore, [early Church attestation] to
conclude that, though external and internal evidence is conclusive against
the authenticity of the last twelve verses as coming from the same pen as
the rest of the Gospel, the passage ought to be accepted as part of the
canonical text of Mark.
---------------

The final words reveal the disagreement "canonical text" - but the view
described above denies that this exists. If I understand the view mentioned
above correctly it would say that the church only canonized "Mark" not a
particular text of Mark and so if we are convinced that these verses were nt
part of the original text we should remove them from Mark, and hence we do
end up removing them from the canon.

Similarly Ulrich Schmid said 

--------------
I do not know of any currently held concept of canon....where canon is
related to the oldest available Textform of individual NT writings in a way
that scholarly progress would automatically affect the shape of the canon.
--------------

But is this not (at least very close to) the concept of canon supported by
Bob Waltz and others? For them scholarly progess in obtaining the original
text would  affect the shape of the canon because passages identified as
interpolations would be removed from the text and hence the canon.

I can quite understand that there could simply be two different views of the
goals of text criticism, each of them used by different scholars. This would
be no great surprise to me, and the elucidation of the two viewpoints is
useful to my own thinking. Is this the case that there really are two
different views of the goals of text-criticism as I have described above or
have I misunderstood one or both of these positions ?

One a separate point, Ulrich Schmid was right to pick me up on "the Pauline
canon". What I was meaning was "the set of texts written by Paul". One could
suggest that an interpolation of a paragraph into a text within the  "the
set of texts written by Paul" is similar to the interpolation of a whole
text into the  "the set of texts written by Paul". Obviously, from what I
have written above, I can see that this "similarity" depends on a particular
view of the canon and text-criticism. Hence the main section of my posting
above, trying to elucidate the different views. My sloppiness has thrown up
a red herring on this point, I think, it is the views of text criticism and
canon I am interested in.

Thanks

=========================================

Jeremy Duff
D. Phil. Student
Jesus College, Oxford