Corpus-Paul

[LARRY SWAIN <theswain AT sbcglobal.net>]

Some years ago, Eugene Lemcio wrote an article
speculating that Ephesus was the site that gathered
the NT canon, or at least the gospels, Johannine
letters, and Pauline letters together.  For this
discussion, all it would take is one community asking
the others for copies of their letters, and there
seems to have been enough communication between
Pauline churches to assume that they did indeed have
at least some idea that other letters existed.

Larry Swain
UIC




--- David Inglis <david AT colonialcommerce.com> wrote:
> Stephen Carlson wrote:
> 
> >At 09:31 AM 2/20/03 -0800, David ATTBI wrote:
> >>Please could I ask listers whether they think the
> evidence points to the
> >>recipients keeping copies or not.
> >
> >I would think so to a certain extent if Trobisch's
> idea is right
> >that the letter collection expanded in three or
> four stages--the
> >new letters had to come from somewhere.
> 
> Stephen,
> 
> This is where Trobisch and I part company - I can't
> see any evidence for an
> 'expansion' process such as he describes.  However,
> I do believe that there
> probably was a single 'expansion'.  First, I'd like
> to ignore Hebrews.  I
> believe that the migration of Hebrews from it's
> 'size order' position in P46
> to its current position after Philemon indicates
> that it's status as a
> Pauline was in doubt from very early on.  Once
> Hebrews is taken out of the
> picture, then, as Trobisch (IMHO rightly) points
> out, the uniformity of the
> Pauline ordering in the MSS weighs very heavily
> against 'partial
> collections' having been put together by Paul's
> churches.
> 
> However, my reading of the evidence of Marcion and
> P46 suggests that there
> was an initial '10 letter' collection (everything
> apart from the Pastorals).
> According to Epiphanius Marcion's collection
> contained (in this order): Gal,
> 1&2 Cor, Rom, 1&2 Thes, Eph, Col, Phm, Php
> (Tertullian swapped Phm and Php).
> P46 contains Rom, Heb, 1&2 Cor, Eph, Gal, Php, Col,
> 1 Thes, and (most
> likely) 2 Thes as well.  In other words (apart from
> Hebrews) the same 10
> Paulines.
> 
> Most information I have read regarding Marcion
> claims that he actually
> excluded the Pastorals from his collection.  However
> this is basically a
> conjecture (I've not seen any evidence supporting
> this assumption), and it
> is just as likely that he never knew them.  The idea
> that they were not
> actually excluded by Marcion is supported by the
> fact that later Marcionites
> *did* use the Pastorals.
> 
> So, I think we do have enough to indicate that a ten
> letter collection
> existed.  As for the change of order from Marcion to
> P46, I can make a good
> case for Marcion's order being chronological (a
> subject for a different
> thread if anyone's even interested).  Then, when
> Marcion was excommunicated,
> either the Church wanted to distance itself from
> Paul's letters afterwards,
> or at least wanted to disassociate itself from
> Marcion as much as possible.
> As a result, the Church had to come up with a new
> order if they were going
> to continue to use the Paulines, and size order
> would have avoided many
> arguments.
> 
> Finally, given that the Pastorals were written to
> individuals (assuming you
> believe they are genuine) then they may well not
> have been collected and
> published until after Timothy and/or Titus had died
> and their possessions
> (including the letters) passed on to someone else. 
> As a result, they would
> have been added to the previous 10 letters later on,
> and most likely added
> at the end.
> 
> >On the other hand, I can
> >well imagine that on[c]e a letter collection was
> circulating, it
> >would have pushed out and suppressed the demand for
> individual
> >letters rather quickly and effectively.
> 
> Makes sense to me.  However, this doesn't explain
> the overwhelming
> 'popularity' of Romans in the early centuries (at
> least, as based on extant
> MSS).  This (please correct me if I've got it wrong)
> is the list of MSS
> (excluding full collections) containing the various
> Paulines from the
> 2nd-4th centuries:
> 
> Rom           P27, P40, P113, 0220, P10, 0221
> 1 Cor         P15, 0185
> Eph           P49, P92
> 1 Thes        P30, P65
> 2 Thes        P30, P92
> Php           P16
> Titus         P32
> Phm           P87
> Gal           None
> 2 Cor         None
> Col           None
> 1 & 2 Tim     None
> 
> I know this is a different issue, but does anyone
> have a good explanation
> for this?
> 
> Dave Inglis
> davidinglis2 AT attbi.com
> 3538 O'Connor Drive
> Lafayette, CA, USA
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Corpus-Paul mailing list
> Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
>
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul