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  • From: "Fabrizio Palestini" <fabrizio.palestini AT tin.it>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles
  • Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 16:51:43 +0200


Dear John

Thank you for your detailed response!

You have interpreted my previous list of passages about paleography and
papyri only in a negative way, but my intention wasn't polemical:


<< Fabrizio, palaeography is an area that requires many years of research.
One
cannot pick it up in a few months without making serious errors in judgment.
It is an area of specialization that requires IMHO at least a decade of
erudite study to make serious palaeographic assertions. So, caution should
be given when reading critisms of experts by non-specialists. This is a
point I already made in my previous post. >>

I agree with you. Exactly for this reason I only offered to you passages
without my comments (I am not able to do them!), and with links so that you
could say me what do you think.
My intentions was only to underline the possibility of dissimilar positions.
Doesn't it appear clear? If it is so, excuse me.


<< I would point
out that the senior scholarship of Metzger, Fee, Ehrman, Epp, Holmes, Geer,
and Elliot, with all due respect, is not simply dismissed and over ridden by
a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford who has, perhaps, some new insights. I would
like to read that paper and examine the evidence myself. However, I think
it is going to be miraculous to completely refute the evidence compiled by
Kim.>>

Again, exactly for this reason I gave you the entire passage. I didn't want
to refute Kim article, only to show the possibility of a dissimilar
position.
Being absolutely not competent in this field, I can't simply take for good
Kim's or others' arguments, but only be extremely cautious regarding the
whole affair, don't you agree with me?
So I offered you a small range of position in this direction, obviously not
to refute Kim, only to have a better sketch of the situation and your
comments.
Wallace's note may be interesting, isn't it? Don't you wonder about the
student's arguments?

Even Watz consideration is absolutely generic, not polemical against Kim.

But from now on (until I'll be proper informed, maybe within some years!)
I'll stop this discussion before being massacrated by you!

<< As for my carefully reading of the various articles you cited I think the
real problem lies not with me but in the extremely poor scholarship of the
authors... >>

If you wrote this considerations against me there haven't been problems, I'm
not a specialist! And I don't take offence!
But these heavy assertions are directed against as serious scholars as you,
I think, so I believe that you'd directly write them your observation.
These are the e-mails:

Dr. theol. Hermann Detering,
hdetering AT foni.net

Darrell J. Doughty
Institute for Higher Critical Studies
Drew University, Madison, NJ, 07940
ddoughty AT drew.edu



<< First, according to which papyrological study or method does he deduce
the size of
the papyrus required? Then what papyrological specimens does he present as
evidence of comparative epistolary size in the first century? >>

You can refer to:

Otto Roller, "Das Formular der paulinischen Briefe. Ein Beltrag zur Lehre
vom antiken Briefe". Stuttgart, 1933, S. 30



<< First, Giuseppe Ricciotti, Paul the Apostle, (Milwaukee: Bruce Publ. Co.,
Alba I. Zizzamia, trans., 1953, of the original: Paolo apostolo: biografia
con introduzione e illustrazioni. Roma, 1946) "The physical act of writing
letters like those of Paul was a long and heavy labor which we find it hard
to imagine today. . Since Paul probably devoted only the hours of the
evening or the nighttime to his letters (for he worked by day to earn a
living), and since a scribe [Paul seems to have dictated most of his
letters.] ordinarily could not work more than two or three hours at a
stretch (he wrote crouched on the ground and holding the paper on a tablet
in his left hand), we must conclude that ordinarily Paul's epistles were in
the writing several weeks. . The longest epistle, that to the Romans, which
contains 7101 words, required fifty sheets [of papyrus] and more than
ninety-eight hours' writing time." (pages 144ff). >>

These are interesting observations.

<< In the field of papyrology we distinguish between documentary papyri and
literary papyri. Common letters exchanged in antiquity are classed as
documentary papyri. The epistles of St. Paul are literary papyri. They are
not common letters of exchange but lengthy exhortative letters laden with
theological instructions and doctrine. In this sense the comparison I gave
to Diogenes Laertius Epistle to Herodotus is more appropriate. To compare
St. Paul's epistles' length, say for example, to a letter of inquiry
regarding the sale or purchase of property shows a serious lack of knowledge
regarding documentary papyri and epistolary documentary types.>>

The point is: apart from Romans and 1Clement, are there other "literary
papyri" of similar size which could be received as authentic letters - and
not as purely literary works?
Van den Bergh van Eysinga, Deissmann and others have written a lot about
this (see e.e. vdBvE Oudchristelijke brieven).

<< If St. Paul could easily have written the epistle
to the Romans in 2 weeks then any other epistle would have been completed in
a shorter span of time. >>

"Easily" is not Ricciotti's idea!
Apart from the fact that "more than ninety-eight hours' writing time" is
absolutely not "easily" completed in 2 weeks, besides the physical act of
writing there is the mental act of ideating the complex and articulated
discourses of these letters.

Of course, if your idea of Paul is that of a legendary man, powerful in
deeds and speech and literary compositions, this is possible.
But if Paul (and Clement) is a normal man, like you and me, his works need
more time.

But perhaps you think that Paul wrote only in an instinctive way, with the
aid of the Holy Spirit.
For a realistic human being, a time of one or two months (instead of 2 or 3
weeks) for the ideation, correction, writing and delivery of very complex
literary works as Romans or 1Clement is a realistic hypothesis.
Of course, 2 weeks are not impossible (nothing is impossible!), but it seems
to me that this last assumption was somewhat a strain, a fine example of
apologetic historicizing.


<< As for Detering's very
inept knowledge regarding the amount of time it took for the dissemination
of information in antiquity I refer you to Thompson (1998) as well as an
extensive bibliography that amply demonstrates that Detering is extremely
ill informed.>>

Again, you'd offer these harsh observations directly to Detering himself.


When I'll have the possibility, I have the intention to offer a positive set
of evidences on this matter (marcionite origin of the Pauline Epistles),
because the discussion is incomplete without a background to compare with
the classic ones.
It will be a difficult work for me, but our discussion need this.
I can no more simply extract passages from other works.

-----------------------------------------

David Hinley wrote me that perhaps I misunderstood your letter about a
marcionite origin of 1Clement etc: excuse me, I have many troubles with
English!!
What was your idea, in that passage?

I must thank you for the great amount of interesting and detailed evidences
and references you gave me.
I take on a difficult job with you! Congratulations for your vocational
training!

Best regards
Fabrizio Palestini





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