Subject: Re: Roman's Doxology

From: Jim West <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 09:14:45 -0500 (EST)

At 03:00 PM 4/15/97 +0100, you wrote:

>However, the main difficulties have not been accounted for, yet:
>1. If the location of the (concluding) doxology after chapter 15 was original, 
>why would most of the MSS place the doxology after chapter 14 with chapters 
>15+16 still to follow?

This is the great mystery.  Perhaps for the same reason (unknown) that the
Johannine pericope about the adulterous woman "floats"; that is, various
scribes attempted to solve the problem in various wasy- just as we are.

>2. Within the latin textual tradition we have evidence that the doxology once 
>was placed after chapter 14 with nothing left to follow.

Perhaps because the scribe simply stopped (?).

>3. The marcionite version of Romans ended after chapter 14 without the
doxology. 
>BTW-- the marcionite version is half a century older than P46.
>

I have a great deal of trouble trusting Marcion.  He definitely had an axe
to grind.

But, as you say, many of these issues are Literarkritik.

>Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

Jim

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
Adjunct Professor of Bible, Quartz Hill School of Theology
[email-masked]

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 13:31:54 -0400 (EDT)

> scribes attempted to solve the problem in various wasy- just as we are.

Ulrich and I happen to agree about the doxology of Romans being originally
at the end of ch.14, though certainly for different reasons.  

However, in light of Jim's comments above, the situation in Romans as he
seems to explain it is that he favors one of the "floating" positions as
original, as opposed to the mass of MSS. By making an analogy to the
pericope adultera, he then should argue that the Johannine passage also is
"original", but _only_ when found in a minority location (e.g. Lk. 21.38); 
otherwise there is no point to be gained by appealing to a passage which I
certainly feel Jim would _not_ consider original in any form. 

The big question (as Ulrich stated) in both situations remains how the
vast majority of MSS happened to place either the Romans doxology or the
pericope adultera in their single precise location had any other form been
their predecessor. I would suggest that the Romans situation demonstrates
that not only can the earliest MS (P46) be quite wrong, but also the
Alexandrian, Western and Caesarean (?) traditions, and also that a similar
conclusion can be drawn in regard to the pericope adultera. 

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 97 20:03:23 +0100

[quoting Schmid:]

>scribes attempted to solve the problem in various wasy- just as we are.

To my mind, this is only a mystery, if we do not include all of the relevant 
data into the whole framework. The "floating" pericope about the adulterous 
woman is in no way comparable, as far as I can see, for most of the various 
positions of this pericope seem to be due to lectionary systems (there was a 
recent article on that which I fail to recall right now).

>Perhaps because the scribe simply stopped (?).

Why? Again, a mystery only to those who prefer P46.

>I have a great deal of trouble trusting Marcion.  He definitely had an axe

What do you mean by "trusting Marcion"? You are not willing to trust him as a 
textual witness?
Marcion especially with respect to the ending of Romans usually serves as a deus 
ex machina being charged for having erased Rom 15-16. However, taking all the 
relevant data into account this scenario seems to be most unlikely as, e.g., 
Harry Gamble (The textual history of the Letter to the Romans: Studies and 
Documents 42, 1977) has shown. In my own dissertation on Marcion und sein 
Apostolos. Rekonstruktion und historische Einordnung der marcionitischen 
Paulusbriefausgabe: ANTF 25, 1995) I reaffirmed Gamble's judgement (IMHO), yet 
differing on the conclusions to be drawn from this position. 

>But, as you say, many of these issues are Literarkritik.
[Only minutes later in a second post]
>Yet the textual question can only be resolved with the help of higher 
>criticism.

>(this means that the disciplines are intertwined by necessity; one cannot be
>used in isolation or a distorted picture arises.)

I totally agree in that we can not ignore higher criticism in textual questions. 
However, textual questions, in my mind, should be addressed first of all 
according to their own simple agenda:
1. Gathering all of the relevant data.
2. Judging them according to "rules" pertinent to textual matters.
3. Applying Occam's razor.

With respect to the ending of Romans my own picture is the following:
- The whole messed up textual situation is basically due to contamination of two 
different forms of Romans (A = Rom 1,1-16,23 + B = Rom 1,1-14,23+16,25-27). 
- B resulted in a mechanical break-off after 14,23 with the doxology added 
lateron.
- The mechanical break-off presumably took place within a small edition of Gal 
1/2 Cor Rom (= C) that lateron was expanded to a ten letter edition: Gal 1/2 Cor 
Rom (lacking chapters 15-16, but including the doxology) 1/2 Thess Laod(=Eph) 
Kol Phil Phlm. This ten letter edition was used by Marcion, but it had its 
impact on tradition apart from Marcion's (mis-)use of it.

Now, applying the above mentioned three-point-agenda to my hypotheses reveals 
the following:
1. Personally, I think that I included all the relevant data. However, in order 
to falsify my hypotheses, I need data that can be not accounted for within this 
framework.
2. Mechanical break-off (and supplementation) at the beginning/end of MSS is one 
of the most widespread features in textual transmission. Conflation is also 
germane to textual transmission. The same goes for corrections of various sorts. 
In short: Nothing within my hypotheses is unparalleled from a textual viewpoint. 
3. I only need three different entities: A, B, C. A and B are displayed by 
transmission itself, only C is postulated. However, C is not necessary to 
account for the messed up textual situation _after_ A and B. C only accounts for 
the existence of B, to my knowledge, in the most compelling way, again, 
according to textual matters. My hypotheses only needs one basic assumption with 
respect to editorial activities: making somehow sense of a situation when A 
meets B (or subsequent editorial activities).
To sum up: The mysteries P46 advocats have to face simply disappear. 
Literarkritik is not directly involved, but could be added.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster