Subject: Re: NT Interpolations - request for help.

From: "Kevin W. Woodruff" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 08:35:40 -0400 (EDT)

Dear Jeremy:

Although I hold to the authenticity/authority of all the books in the
Protestant canon, my guess would be that someone who doesn't would say that
the Pastoral Epistles, "contain Pauline tradition" or " is representive of
the Pauline school of thought" and therefore is worth of retention. The
problem with spotting interpolation is that like beauty, an interpolation is
in the mind of the beholder. Unlike TC which deals with real and documented
ommissions/additions to the text, spotting interpolations is a matter of
circular reasoning. We say that Paul wrote a certain corpus and we know this
because we have Pauline writings, but when something differs in style or
thought, we immediately say that this differs from what Paul has written
previously, consequently it could not be by Paul. One of the best defenses
of the authenticity of the Pastroal Epistles is in  Donald Guthrie's
_New Testament Introduction_

At 09:35 AM 6/6/96 +0100, you wrote:
>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
>
>
>
>
Kevin W. Woodruff
Reference Librarian
Cierpke Memorial Library
Temple Baptist Seminary
Tennessee Temple University
1815 Union Ave.
Chattanooga, TN 37404
423/493-4252 (phone) 423/493-4497 (FAX)
[email-masked]