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corpus-paul - Re: Colossians Pauline?

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  • From: Daniel Streett <danstreett AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Colossians Pauline?
  • Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 18:41:15 -0700 (PDT)


Moon,

As E.R. Richards (The Secretary in the Letters
of Paul) and J. Murphy-O'Connor (Paul the Letter
Writer) explain in their respective works,
ancient amanuenses had, in many cases, a great
degree of freedom in choosing how to phrase,
even structure, the correspondence they handled.

While some were merely scribes, appreciated for
their swiftness with the stylus, others were
highly educated in rhetoric, etc. and were
relied upon by their masters/employers to render
intelligible their often disjointed oral dictation.

Cicero's amanuensis, for instance, was sometimes
instructed to write letters, in Cicero's name,
from scratch, with Cicero supplying only the main
idea he wanted to get across. Of, course, it is
assumed that he would approve the final copy.

Another helpful source in this area is E. E.
Ellis' _Making of the New Testament Documents_
published by Brill.

Daniel R. Streett, student
Yale Divinity School

--- moon-ryul jung <moon AT sogang.ac.kr> wrote:
> When amanuenses are used to compose letters, are they
> supposed to construct sentences rather than
> to dictate what they heard?
> Daniel wrote:
> > IMO, research into the use of amanuenses for the
> > composition of ancient letters has all but
> > totally invalidated the traditional arguments
> > from vocabulary and style, leaving only the
> > weak and subjective criterion of "theological
> > differences" to determine authenticity.


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