Corpus-Paul

["Mike Thompson" <mbt2 AT cam.ac.uk>]

--On Mon, 17 May, 1999 9:32 pm -0500 "Carlton Winbery"
<winberyc AT popalex1.linknet.net> wrote: 

>>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.

I think a date of 100 for the first copiests is dubious and out of touch
with the real world. Have you seen my article, 'The Holy Internet:
Communication Between Churches in the First Christian Generation' in R
Bauckham (ed), _The Gospels for All Christians_ (Eerdmans, 1997)?

>       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.

Sorry, but I didn't mean to imply that questioning who or why did the fusing
is a knock down argument for partition theories. I think these are bits of
the equation that need to be considered, that's all. The best hypothesis is
the one that accommodates the most data and helps resolve the most
questions. Many questions will remain unanswered for lack of data. But I
don't think sufficient attention has been paid by the NT guild to the
question of communication in the early church.

I am uneasy about theories that depend on a lone collector/assimilator
making significant changes in the letters (unless it's Paul or someone very
close to him) because that assumes that churches were more or less isolated
communities. IMHO they were in touch more than we think. One does not have
to believe that Paul was conscience of writing 'Holy Scripture' to think
that he and others valued what he dictated and took steps to preserve it.

Cheers,

Mike Thompson

============================================================================

Michael B Thompson                          Telephone (0)1223-741066 (study)
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