Subject: Re: Original Text

From: Jim West <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 19:03:48 GMT

At 06:30 PM 1/15/97 +0000, you wrote:
>  If I may be so bold, I would be
>interested in getting your personal thoughts on what the 'original text' is
>(or 'texts' are).  
>Deb Anderson
>
>

The putative "original text" is that text which the author or authors of a
Biblical document put to paper (or, more probably, papyrus or vellum).

Jim

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
Petros TN

[email-masked]

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From: "James R. Adair" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 01:22:07 -0500 (EST)

These are the answers I've seen so far.

> Biblical document put to paper (or, more probably, papyrus or vellum).

Jim gives us a pretty standard answer, but his use of the word "putative" 
suggests he has reservations that he has not gone into in his post.

Next, Robert B. Waltz opined:

> The term "original text" is not a problem; everyone (or nearly
> everyone) will agree that it is the autographs circulated by the
> authors. (A few might argue for "the text originally promulgated
> by the church," but -- given that the canon was not even settled
> by the fourth century -- there probably never was such a text.)

Similarly, Kevin W. Woodruff said:

> I would define "the original text" as synonymous with "the autographs", the
> writings as first penned by the biblical author (Moses, Isaiah, The four
> Evangelists, Paul etc.)

Jean VALENTIN, however, clearly has doubts about this definition:

> In any case, if such a thing ever existed, it is lost and all our
> reconstructions remain reconstructions. Personally, I find we're on more
> solid ground when studying the development and diversity of the tradition
> than when trying to reconstruct a remote original... I must avow my
> perplexity when facing these questions.

I would argue for a more nuanced answer to the question, "What is the 
original text?"  Is there always _an_ autograph?  For some books, 
particularly in the NT, I think there is.  For example, I suspect that 
the letters of Paul (probably even the disputed ones) for the most part 
had one agreed-upon original form.  That is, when it came time to copy 
Galatians, the entire letter, probably written on papyrus, was produced 
and copied word for word (at least that was the intent).  Even with the 
letters of Paul, though, there is some room for doubt that a _single_ 
autograph existed.  After all, it's well-known that the addressee in the 
letter to the Ephesians _may_ have been originally left blank, and it has 
also been suggested that the 16th chapter of Romans was a sort of cover 
letter to the epistle.  Did the "original" include this cover letter?  
And what about 2 Corinthians?  If, as many commentators have suggested, 
it consists of what were originally two or more independent compositions, 
what do we mean when we talk about the "original" of this book?  We 
probably mean the state of the text that was actually copied, whether or 
not there were constituent parts of this "original" that might have 
circulated independently at some point in time.

If the Pauline letters, of which I think it generally makes sense to talk 
about original texts, raise questions about the actual definition of 
"original text," what about the Synoptic Gospels?  If Mark was really a 
source for both Matthew and Luke, is it somehow "more" original than 
these?  I would say no, because we have to draw a distinction between 
literary development and textual transmission.

But where does one stop and the other begin?  Emanuel Tov discusses this
problem in his _Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible_, and perhaps the
problem is clearer in the OT.  What do you do with books that don't have a
single author?  It's probably reasonable to say that the existence of
Pentateuchal sources does not interfere with our search for an original
text of Genesis, since composition _may_ have been completed before
textual transmission began.  However, it is not clear that the same can be
said of a book like Samuel.  In the story of David and Goliath, the MT
includes many verses not present in the LXX, detailing things like how
David met Saul (he was bringing food to his brothers in the camp) and
Saul's question concerning the identity of David.  It seems as though one
version of the story without these components was already circulating when
someone added the additional material, then began circulating that
version.  Similar comments can be made about Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  And
what about Daniel and Esther?  With many OT books it is difficult, if not
impossible, to make a sharp distinction between an author of a work, a
reviser of the work, and a copyist of the work (who might also revise it). 

All this is to say that the term "original text," at least for many
biblical books, is not as straightforward as one might imagine.  If we are
to continue to use the term, I would say that the "original text" (and I
would use the quotation marks) means "that state of the text that was the
genealogical root of all extant copies" (i.e., the archetype, not
necessarily the autograph, although they may be the same in some cases). 
In those cases where composition overlaps with the beginning of 
transmission, we have the paradox of more than one "original text."

Finally, I would add that I think that the "original text" is a valid 
goal for the textual critic, but there are other valid goals as well, 
including (1) a description of the transmission process (as Jean Valentin 
has noted), (2) the archetype of a particular text-type, (3) the 
archetype of a particular version, (4) the earliest recoverable form of 
the text (which may or may not be equivalent to the "original text," as 
defined above), and (5) the form of the text used in a particular region 
at a particular time.  This is obviously just a representative list, not 
an exhaustive one.  And one last point: I agree with Bob that we need to 
recognize that our reconstructions are just that; we shouldn't put _too_ 
much faith in our own creations, since, as Bill Petersen has pointed out 
before, the data from which we work (not to mention our methodology!) is 
limited.

Jimmy Adair
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <-----------------

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From: george howard <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 97 08:34:27 EST

TC-list. However one defines 'original text' it should take into
consideration the possibility of more than one draft of a biblical book.
E. Tov emphasizes this point in his recent work on textual criticism of
the Hebrew Bible.
                      George Howard
                      UGA

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From: george howard <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 97 08:51:51 EST

TC-list. All the comments about what the 'original text' is have been
good. The issue is still difficult. J. Adair writes: 'If we are to
continue to use the term, I would say that the 'original text' . . .
means 'that state of the text that was the genealogical root of all
extant copies.' We need to consider, however, that more than one edition
or draft may have influenced the textual transmission of a given biblical book.

                                    George Howard
                                    UGA

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From: [email-masked] (Ulrich Schmid)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 97 20:54:00 +0100

Some (especially from the OT camp) contributing to this discussion raised 
considerable doubts concerning the "original text". Maybe things look different 
with respect to the two parts of the Bible. Maybe even within the NT (or the OT) 
things look different with respect to different books. But at least one thing 
seems to be beyond dispute: If there is a textual transmission, we can 
legitimately ask for the archetype of this transmission, which may or may not be 
the/one autograph of a single (or a group of) author(s). However, the quest for 
autographs should not be confused with the quest for the archetype of a textual 
transmission, as James Adair clearly set out. 

When assessing the archetype of a textual transmission, we usually try to 
reverse the process of dissemination and corruption making our way back as far 
as possible. At a certain point we have to stop due to lack of further evidence. 
And precisely at that point we have to pause in order to outline, first of all, 
a theory of the archetype, again, not to be confused with the quest for the 
autograph. The whole matter, simple as it looks like in theory, is complicated 
by the fact that in Biblical studies we are dealing with collections of books 
subdivided into various subcollections. As far as I can see, within NT textual 
transmission we are lacking any substantial MS evidence prior to existing 
collections. Therefore, to my mind, the first thing we have to do is to work 
with one of the collections (e.g. the Corpus Paulinum) addressing the question: 
How far can we go back in identifying further subcollections that are either 
displayed by textual transmission or to be conjectured in order to make sense of 
it? 

With respect to the Corpus Paulinum textual transmission displays two distinct 
collections of letters: The canonical 14-letter collection and a pre-marcionite 
10-letter collection. In order to make sense of the corruption of transmission, 
I conjecture one further "pre"-pre-marcionite collection: Gal 1/2 Cor Rom of 
which a defective copy is to blame for a great deal of plunder (ending of 
Romans). This conjectured collection fits perfectly well to David Trobisch's 
first edition of Paul's letters. Trobisch assumes that Paul himself made this 
first edition, and I'm happy with that. By implication we are dealing, thus, 
with two autographs or two different settings of authorship: the genuine setting 
of Gal, the Corinthian correspondence, and Rom and the (different, but 
nevertheless) genuine setting of the edition "all in one". We have every reason 
to believe that the textual transmission of Gal, 1/2 Cor, Rom ultimately goes 
back to the latter -and, the latter is an autograph, too.  

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster