Subject: NT Interpolations - request for help.

From: Jeremy Duff <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 09:35:44 +0100

I wonder if I could pick the list's collective brain.

I am doing a D.Phil. here in Oxford looking at Pseudepigraphy among the
early Christians (until about 200 A.D.). While I have been thinking about
this, I have become interested in what I see as an anomaly in NT scholarship
/ text criticism . I am sure that I am not coming up with anything new but
if anyone could comment on it, or point me to suitable literature which
discusses it, I would be very grateful. I am aware that in HB textual
criticism there is talk of finding the "final form of the text" not the
"autograph" and I guess there might be some insights here to help me.

The anomaly is as follows:

Most NT textual criticism (I think) works to try to get back to the
autograph - removing both accidental changed to the text and also purposeful
interpolations etc. If we think 1 Cor 14.34-35 is not by Paul - that is it
is a later interpolation into the text - then we cut it out from the text
and hence from the canon. Fine, but, much NT scholarship has decided that
the whole of 1 Timothy is not by Paul - it is a later "interpolation" into
the Pauline canon. Nevertheless most NT scholars assert that it should stay
in the canon. We can speculate about how or why it got in there but
nevertheless it is (by hypothesis) not 'by' Paul (I know that there is a lot
packed into the word 'by' here but I don't think that is of the essence here
- it is later compositions were are looking at  here not secretaries,
fragments or the like). Why is it seen as reasonable to cut out little
interpolations but leave in big ones?

Any comments or directs to literature on this would be appreciated.

Thanks.

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

Jeremy Duff
D. Phil. Student
Jesus College, Oxford

---

From: [email-masked] (Ulrich Schmid)
Date: Thu, 06 Jun 96 17:49:38 +0100

>Most NT textual criticism (I think) works to try to get back to >the autograph 
- removing both accidental changed to the text and >also purposeful 
interpolations etc. If we think 1 Cor 14.34-35 is >not by Paul - that is it is a 
later interpolation into the text - >then we cut it out from the text and hence 
from the canon. 

Do you know of any edition/translation of the NT where 1 Cor 14.34-35 is cut out 
from the text? Even the _mulier adultera_ story to my knowledge is not cut out 
from the text or the longer ending(s) of Mark. If in editions/translations the 
mentioned texts are sometimes put into brackets or typed smaller or hesitations 
were expressed that they presumably did not belong to the oldest form of the 
writings, it was the editor's coice to do so. Up to now I fail to see how these 
operations result in cutting the mentioned texts out from the canon. This to my 
mind is quite a different thing depending on different concepts of canon. I do 
not know of any currently held concept of canon -but I am open to new insides- 
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.

>Fine, but, much NT scholarship has decided that the whole of 1 >Timothy is not 
by Paul - it is a later "interpolation" into
>the Pauline canon. Nevertheless most NT scholars assert that it >should stay in 
the canon. 
>We can speculate about how or why it got in there but nevertheless >it is (by 
hypothesis) not 'by' Paul (I know that there is a lot >packed into the word 'by' 
here but I don't think that is of the >essence here - it is later compositions 
were are looking at here
>not secretaries, fragments or the like). Why is it seen as >reasonable to cut 
out little interpolations but leave in big ones?

I must confess that I do not fully grasp what the point is therein. What is "the 
Pauline canon" (first sentence) in relation to "the canon" (second sentence)? 
BTW I do not know of "the Pauline canon". What I know is the Corpus Paulinum as 
part of the New Testament as part of the Christian Bible. Within the Corpus 
Paulinum there is even one writing (letter?), Hebrews, transmitted that does not 
even claim to be written by Paul. The Corpus Paulinum is in itself simply 
speaking a 14-letter edition. Presumably other editions existed too, but which 
can properly addressed to be "the Pauline canon"?

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster