Corpus-Paul

[Carlton Winbery <winberyc AT popalex1.linknet.net>]

>Mike Thompson wrote:
>> [snip]
>
>> If 2Cor was compiled in Corinth, why did the collective memory there allow
>> bits to be put in a misleading order? If 2Cor was compiled somewhere else,
>> would the leadership and congregation in Corinth be happy with something
>> that differed from what they had?
>
>While I agree with most of this post, I think this is a red
>herring.  We know the Corinthians lost at least one of
>Paul's letters and have no idea what the state of
>preservation was for the others.  Maybe such a compilation
>was the best anyone could manage?  While I find the
>"collage" theory largely convincing, I am most bothered by
>the lack of the formal elements of a letter in the various
>fragments.
>
>David Barr
>
I agree with David in that what has been said so far ask questions as
though someone carefully put these parts together. It reminds me of a
scenario I heard as a student. Do you think Paul said to Timothy one day on
the road, "Remind me to set down and write some Holy Scripture before I go
to bed tonight." We assume certain motives on the part of the first
copiests when such probably was not the case. The first copiests were
probably just Christians (maybe about C.E.100 per Goodspeed) who wanted
copies of whatever they could find from Paul not trained copiests.
        If we judge from the compositional work of the redactors of the
gospels, we can see considerable adaptation and rounding off of episodes,
including changing details to accommodate the merging of stories and
documents. Who is to say that a Christian who wanted the essence of what
these documents said would not adapt the ending of II Cor. 9 and the
beginning of what we call chapter 10 so that they fit reasonably yet with a
rough transition. The question of the order is discussed in detail by V.
Furnish with some good questions of the order accepted by others. I am in
the process of looking at every reference that he made in his arguments
against the order of chs. 10-13 followed by chs 1-9. I am not convinced yet
that he is right but I have a number of his references to check out.
However, I can say now that some kind of partitioning is certainly not to
be eliminated by such arguments about how or why someone would fuse these
letters or parts of letters together. It would be nice if the collector(s)
had given us information about why and how, but that was not their
interests.


Dr. Carlton L. Winbery
Foggleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
winbery AT andria.lacollege.edu
winberyc AT popalex1.linknet.net
Ph. 1 318 448 6103 hm
Ph. 1 318 487 7241 off