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  • From: "David Inglis" <david AT colonialcommerce.com>
  • To: <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Letter Collections; Paul's Writing Materials
  • Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 12:46:42 -0800

On Thu, 27 Feb 2003 Matthew Baldwin wrote:

>Hi All:
>
>In response to David Ingles' on-list comments about Paul's writing
materials
>and on the subject of circulating copies of Paul's letters:
>
>As far as I know, there's no evidence in the letters themselves for whether
>Paul used Parchment or Papyrus for writing purposes, but the chances that
he
>used Parchment seem to me to be small. From what I understand about
ancient
>writing materials, if Papyrus was not cheap, then Parchment was a luxury
>item. As Pliny the Elder's comments on Papyrus production and trade
>indicate, its use was widespread in the Roman world for everyday purposes
>and official records. In any case, Parchment did not become widespread
>for Christian scriptures until the fourth century; this reflects the
crucial
>period of the fourth century for the formation of the canon and also the
>increased wealth of the imperial-sponsored religion. Hence the division in
>the manuscript record.
>
>Let me know if I am mistaken about the relative costs of Papyrus versus
>Parchment.
>
Matthew,

I have to admit that my references to papyrus vs. parchment are a bit of a
'strawman', and I'm hoping that someone out there can nail this down for me.
Because this isn't my area of expertise I'm going from limited knowledge, so
I hope there's a good response, as this is something I'm really trying to
get to grips with. I can see a number of possibilities regarding what might
have happened when a letter was 'delivered' to a church:

1) The 'postman' handed over the original.
2) The 'postman' read the letter out loud, and then kept the original.
3) The church made a copy, and the 'postman' kept the original.

Then there are variations, depending on whether the creator kept a copy,
whether the recipients also made a copy, and whether it was a 'round robin.'
It's been suggested to me that the churches wouldn't have had the resources
to make copies (too expensive to get the material, plus difficult and
expensive to get a scribe), but it seems to me that if Paul (for example)
could write a letter in the first place, then the recipients could create at
least one copy if they wanted to.

>Perhaps Ingles' comments were meant to mean that Paul _intended_ to retain
>his copies of letters over the long term? I don't think there's any
>evidence of this. In one case, Paul takes the time and makes the effort to
>instruct his readers to read his letter aloud in worship (1 Thess 5:27).
>This leads us to think, reasonably enough, that this was the usual
practice.

If you are stating that it was usual practice to have letters read out loud
to the recipients, then I have to agree with you. However, whether the
recipients kept the original or not is another question. In Acts 15&16 we
read:

"They sent this letter with them:" (Acts 15:23)
"So when they were dismissed, they went down to Antioch, and after gathering
the entire group together, they delivered the letter. When they read it
aloud, the people rejoiced at its encouragement." (Acts 15:30-31)
"As they went through the towns, they passed on the decrees that had been
decided on by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the Gentile believers
to obey." (Acts 16:4)

On the fact of it this appears to suggest a single copy of a letter, read
out loud to each of the towns. Exactly what "they delivered the letter"
means appears to be open to question. I guess it could mean:

1) Multiple copies, one for town.
2) A single copy, with each town making their own copy if they wanted to.

I prefer the second possibility, mainly because I just can't see the
Jerusalem Council making copies for all the towns. My assumption here is
therefore that "delivered" is in the oral sense, and as "passing on the
decrees" could be performed orally, I don't see any evidence here for the
recipients keeping the original. This also applies to 1 Thes. Does v. 5:27
imply that it has to be the actual physical letter delivered to them? I
don't believe it does.

>I would need some kind of similar level of evidence, such as instructions
in
>a Pauline letter about sending back his copy, if I were going to accept
>Ingles' hypothesis.

This is 'absence of evidence', but is not 'evidence of absence.' I think it
unreasonable to expect to find instructions such as these in the letters
themselves. Instead, IMHO the instructions would have been given to the
'postman.' Take the case of Galatians, for example. There's nothing in
this letter regarding how to deliver the letter, and how to deal with
'delivery' to multiple location. The same applies to 2 Cor. There's
nothing in the letter to suggest how to deliver it "to the church of God
that is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia."

My feeling is that Paul himself probably wasn't interested in keeping copies
of his letters, but that some of his companions (particularly Luke) may have
wanted to. So, one explanation for the 'missing' Paulines is that Paul
wrote them when Luke (or whoever) wasn't on hand to make sure that a copy
was kept. Assuming copies were kept, then whether they were parchment or
papyrus, and whether they were scrolls or codices, someone else needs to
tell me.

Dave Inglis
davidinglis2 AT attbi.com
3538 O'Connor drive
Lafayette, CA, USA




  • RE: [Corpus-Paul] Letter Collections; Paul's Writing Materials, David Inglis, 03/02/2003

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