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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT csi.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Interpolation Solutions
  • Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 03:24:57 -0400


On Jun 2, 1999, Mark Nanos said:

>>Caveat: I would also like to comment that I am not inclined toward
interpolation solutions unless overwhelming "textual" evidence suggests
such tampering. We are of course dealing with texts that are not the
originals, but the decision to make such judgments on the basis of a theory
of what Paul says or not involves a hopelessly circular problem. One must
prove from Paul what is not Paul; but what if you have assumed the opposite
of the historical case and thus argued backwards? Or more likely, have
interpreted Paul in abstracting one point as controlling so that another
seems inconsistent, when it is the abstraction that is in error, at least
when applied to the anomalous case? So I take this material as one piece
and assume that if the interpretation does not work as read, then it is the
interpretation that needs amending, not the text.<<

Circularity is not a problem that affects only followers of interpolation
theories. A great many assumptions used in the building of arguments about
Pauline literature and theology are used because they are traditional or taken
to have greater relative worth than the critical consensus would warrant.
While there is a fairly large pool of consensus positions to help guide us,
most all of us have the bad habit of picking and choosing them in order to
build arguments that will suit our preconceptions. The conclusions of the
arguments based on these assumptions are then in turn used as premises of new
arguments, compounding the error (and consequently reducing the probability of
the correctness of the second generation conclusions). What you are saying,
then, is that you prefer the likelihood of a "false positive" (i.e., accepting
the text at face value) to a "false negative" (i.e., rejecting the face value
of the text), and so have accepted the text as it comes to us as essentially
"Pauline."

Schweitzer had an amusing way of describing the problem raised by Rudolf Steck
and W. C. van Manen's hypothesis of different strata within the epistles.
"[T]he evidence is read into them by the exercise of great ingenuity. ... But
the negative observation which formed their starting-point holds its ground.
Ordinary exegesis has not succeeded in getting rid of the illogical
transitions and contradictions and making Paul's arguments really
intelligible. The impression of a certain disconnectedness is not to be
denied. ... That is the element of greatness in the "Ultra-Tubingen" critics,
that they did not forget the duty of asking questions, when it had fallen out
of fashion among other theologians. To show that [one of the Ultra-Tubuingen]
hypothesis is untenable is by no means to get rid of it, as accredited
theology wished to persuade itself. A few squadrons of cavalry which were
skirmishing in the open [i.e., Bruno Bauer, Allard Pierson & Samuel Adrian
Naber, Steck and van Manen] were cut off; the fortress has not been taken,
indeed the siege has not even been laid." (_Paul and His Interpreters_, 1912,
pp. 136, 138).

It was not clear to me what you meant by "overwhelming 'textual' evidence." I
took that to mean evidence that comes in the form of variant readings that
might suggest that an interpolation has worked its way into the text. But as
David Trobisch points out in his article "The Oldest Extant Editions of the
Letters of Paul," http://www.religion-online.org/new/trobisch_oldest.html
(note, though, that I was today unable to link to this page, so it may no
longer be available online. In any event, it is a slightly edited version of
the first chapter of his book _Paul's Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins_,
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994) there is little direct evidence for the
kind of transmission history that would be required for your confidence to be
confirmed.

Trobisch suggests that rather than individual epistles circulating
independently and widely until reverence for them caused them to be gathered
as a collection, they appear to have only circulated as a single collection
(perhaps with Hebrews added at a later point) with virtually no evidence that
individual epistles circulated independently of the collection.

This, to me, seems to strengthen a hypothesis that considers the epistles as
interpolated versions. If the interpolations were by a single hand then it
would not be surprising to find them published as a collection, and such a
hypothesis would not need to assume that the uninterpolated versions of the
epistles circulated widely, if at all, prior to their publication in an
interpolated form.

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA

PS: Again, my apologies for letting another post slip by with an incorrect
Subject heading in a recent reply to Jon Peter and Andrew Dolan. However, as
it was not intended to continue the debate, I chose not to re-post it under
the correct subject heading "Allegory of Abraham's sons (Gal. 4:21-5:1)."







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