Corpus-Paul

[Licia Kuenning <Licia AT compuserve.com>]

Tom Roche's comments,

> I am a classicist/ ancient historian, and I have to say
> that it is manifestly true that NO other series of ancient
> Greco-Roman texts has been subjected to anything,
> anything, like the hypercritical dissections, deconstructions,
> and reinterpretations, as has the various New Testament
> books, all the while when it is also manifestly true that the
> number of ancient mss for the NT and parts thereof simply
> dwarfs, by several score times, the number of any such
> mss we possess for any other Greco-Roman texts, most
> of which are also far younger.

put me in mind of something C.S. Lewis wrote 40 years ago:

   "I have learned in other fields of study how transitory
   the 'assured results of modern scholarship' may be, how
   soon scholarship ceases to be modern.  The confident
   treatment to which the New Testament is subjected is no
   longer applied to profane texts.  There used to be English
   scholars who were prepared to cut up _Henry VI_ between
   half a dozen authors and assign his share to each.  We
   don't do that now.  When I was a boy one would have
   been laughed at for supposing there had been a real Homer:
   the disintegrators seemed to have triumphed forever.  But
   Homer seems to be creeping back.  Even the belief of the
   ancient Greeks that the Mycenaeans were their ancestors
   and spoke Greek has been surprisingly supported.  We may
   without disgrace believe in a historial Arthur.  Everywhere,
   except in theology, there has been a vigorous growth of
   scepticism about scepticism itself."

I have a good deal of sympathy with this view.  That said, the
Q hypothesis seems harmless to me provided we don't put more
weight on it than it will bear.  It doesn't seem incompatible
with a conservative handling of the texts.

Licia Kuenning

Licia AT compuserve.com
kuenning-licia AT voicenet.com