Subject: tc-list re: no original? (with apologies)

From: Jim West <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 08:30:34 -0400 (EDT)

I appreciate David and Larry's responses.  I am quite aware that the Gospels
and the Pauline materials are different and must be handled differently.  I
am also aware that tc is a different discipline than redaction criticism.
But my question remains unanswered.  So I will try to put it more plainly.

A few years ago a friend read a paper at the Southeastern regional meeting
of the SBL.  In question time one observer said something like "yours was a
good paper until you began to talk about the "original text".  There is no
original text".

But surely this is impossible.  Even in the Gospels somone wrote something.
It might have been copied later and even edited by someone else- but there
was an original text!  Again, even in the gospels the analogy of a
shakespearean play breaks down.  The gospels were not taken to theater to be
approved or disapproved by the crowds- they were sent, even at their
earliest date, to believing communities who saw them as authoritative texts
about Jesus; and there seems to be little likelyhood that the congregation
hissed and that the author changed a line or two to meet their fancy.

So my humble question remains- if there is no original, where does tc
attempt to lead (if not simply to a "history of the text"; which I agree
with Larry, is a valid pursuit)?  If there is an original text, then it
seems appropriate that tc seeks to recover it- not just for the benefit of
believing communities, but also for purely scholarly purposes.  Ad fontes!,
you'll recall, was the cry of the humanists.  But what if there was no
source, no "original text"?  Where did the spring of tradition that we call
biblical texts come from?

I apologize that I simply cannot fathom the suggestion that the Biblical
texts are "without father or mother".  I do not believe it of Melchezidek
and I do not belive it of texts either.

Thanks,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West

Adjunct Professor of Bible,
Quartz Hill School of Theology

[email-masked]

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 08:22:38 -0500 (CDT)

>good paper until you began to talk about the "original text".  There is no

I would actually put it the other way: There are *too many* original
texts. Since the question is about Paul, let's take 2 Corinthians.
It appears that there may have been as many as three stages in its
composition:

1. Paul wrote at least 2, perhaps 3, conceivably 4 letters to Corinth
2. The damaged remains of these letters were combined to produce a
   single document
3. This document was incorporated into the Pauline corpus as
   2 Corinthians

Now which are we to reconstruct? #1 is out of reach, but #2 and #3
are both reasonable targets.

Or take Jeremiah in the OT. There are two significantly different
versions (MT and LXX). Both have defenders. Which do we reconstruct?
The MT, which is the "final word" of the synagogue, or LXX, which
may well represent the oldest surviving version of the text -- or
even some "original word" of Jeremiah, now lost in literary tradition?

Examples of this sort could be multiplied; many works seem to have
gone through multiple stages of editing. This provides a basis for
arguing that there is no "original text."

But I personally don't think that's the problem. I think this person
simply heard that the *autographs* of the various documents have
not survived (obviously true), and that no extant manuscript represents
THE original text of the autograph (not certain, but most of us think
it true).

I personally don't see a great difference between reconstructing the
"original text" and the "earliest possible text." Chances are that
they are not the same (no two critics agree on everything, and even
if they did, there are still primitive errors). But the "earliest
possible text," even if it never existed in exactly the form we
recreate it, is a reasonable approximation of the original The
distinction shouldn't bother anyone.

IMHO, of course....

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

"The one thing we learn from history --
   is that no one ever learns from history."