Did Paul sometimes interpolate his own epistles?

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DCHindley
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Re: Did Paul sometimes interpolate his own epistles?

Post by DCHindley »

Stefan Kristensen wrote: Mon Jan 15, 2018 3:22 am Thanks for this Ben, and DCHindley for the Trobisch bits. It is very enlightening. One can definately imagine Paul also creating a letter collection in an effort to 'catholizise' his message and preaching. I can't help but wonder how he would fit it into his theological understanding of himself and his mission. What would have been his deliberations and considerations in such an undertaking? He definately regarded himself as a very special and even important servant of God and Christ in the whole divine salvation plan of the last days, and if he actually chose to create a 'catholic' letter collection from his private letters that would mean he believed it was part of God's greater plan.

What were the motivations for people like Cicero or Pliny to create letter collections of their own private letters? They obviously enjoyed publishing literary works, but did they regard themselves as serving the greater good of human society through their authorships or something like that? Did they think of themselves as kind of teachers for human society, and in that capacity they deemed it good to create letter collections? Or was it merely popular demand? Do we have any suggestions as regards to this, from Trobisch for example? And how should we compare the motivations of Cicero and of Paul in creating their letter collections?
I think that folks like Cicero were motivated by a desire to be remembered for a long time, but in their own terms. So, Cicero starts with letters where he saved a copy for whatever reason (70 letters, he says), and with more he got from a friend who liked to save letters he received, we actually have that collection. It is honed razor sharp with charm, style and wit. However, like many collections, it disappeared without a trace in medieval times, only to pop up near the beginning of the Renaissance but expanded by other book-collections, to a total of 1,300 or so letters. Cicero probably did not have a hand in editing many of them for publication, as the discoverer was appalled by the poor style and base motivations of the man that many of them exhibited. I can see one of his former political allies/opponents, though, saying in reaction to hearing the Cicero edited letter collection: "Hell! That ain't the Cicero I knew! Summon my librarian, slave, and bid him to collect his letters to me, that som'fo'bitch, and we shall put them out to set the record straight! Ha!" Apparently lot of folks did the same.
Anyway, I can see it is not a bad explanation for many of the problems in the letters of Paul to suggest that he himself edited them, perhaps into a collection, perhaps for the sake of 'catholizising'. But as for 2 Cor. particularly, I think the theory is not really that good, if we look for an explanation as to why for example 2:14-7:4 might be an interpolation. It just seems a strange way to edit letters together?
Similar to Cicero's letters, the NT collection was an edition consisting of previous collections (two addressed to congregations, the third to individuals), only the first of which Trobisch thinks was edited by Paul himself, IIRC. You gotta admit, though, that the first four books, right at the head of the Pauline corpus in most manuscripts, the collection he thinks has the highest probability of being edited directly by Paul, do seem larger, more complex, and contain the proportionally greater portion of doctrinal statements. I don't know, though. To me, size and complexity like that would suggest a *long and involved manuscript development history*, not just a nip and a tuck for presentation and image purposes as Trobisch suggests.

As for interpolations (oh god, here it comes!), I think interpolations of the kind I have been suggesting are pretty consistent throughout the whole corpus (chunks of commentary about dogma, often weaved into an original text, not just added to it), so I'd have to place this stage late in the collection's history that looks something like this:

LC1(Edition consisting of numerous letters addressed to congregations distilled into 4 artificial letters to three congregations: Rom, 1&2 Cor, Gal)

LC2(Edition consisting of 5 letters addressed to congregations, Eph, Phil, Col, 1&2 Thes)

[LC1+LC2] "Unified Letters to Congregations" Edition. This is a later stage of development where LC2 is appended to LC1 at the rear end.

LP1(Edition of 4 letters addressed to individuals, 1&2 Tim, Titus, Phlm)

[[LC1+LC2]+LP1] Final Edition. The already published "Unified Letters to Congregations" edition had the Letters to Individuals" edition appended to it at the end.

[[LC1+LC2]+LP1]int is the Edition we have in the NT, which was the edition of the corpus above that had been interpolated with Christ dogma (IMHO).

That would mean a pretty convoluted development history, but don't we already have that with the gospels? That's 5 distinct published editions (aside from counting the publication of the initial letters by placing them in the "mail") even before a Christian got ahold of it (in my POV) to add his (or her, I'm an equal opportunity interpolator hypothesizer) Redeemer Christ dogma.

So if, as I theorize, the Redeemer Christ dogma did not develop until a period no earlier than after the rebellion of 66-73 CE, lets just guess 10-20 years (or 83-93 CE), any real Paul, the "gentile accommodator" as I see he saw his role as being, must have existed before the war, maybe several decades before the war. Internal indicators I see in them suggest the Caligula affair about 39 CE, and Queen Helena of Adiabene's attempt to fulfill her Nazirite vow in the Jerusalem temple about 50 CE. When and how he may have died are not known, other than for part of the time he was under guard and was heading to Rome, presumably for trial before the emperor.

If the procurator of Jamnia has succeeded in securing Herod Agrippa, the story that can be teased out of these letters of Paul could just as easily have been Agrippa's own story, traveling to Rome to have the emperor Tiberius deal with him. It all ended up the same - he was able to secure his audience, and present his case for forgiveness and reconciliation. It would have been easier - and cheaper - to allow himself to be arrested and sent to Rome at government expense, rather than making a run for it as he did. However, Agrippa could not endure the humiliation of being dragged as a prisoner and made the dash out of the harbor and borrowed again in Alexandria in order to be able to make the case before Tiberius as a free man (the debt to the emperor himself was not forgotten, though, and he borrowed even more to pay that back). Paul seems just as bull-headed and determined as Agrippa was to achieve his goals on his own terms. Unfortunately for Paul, Agrippa had better connections than he did. Agrippa ends up king, Paul ends up, well, dead or exiled.

Them guys ... :?

DCH
Stefan Kristensen
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Re: Did Paul sometimes interpolate his own epistles?

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

DCHindley wrote: Mon Jan 15, 2018 8:02 am
Stefan Kristensen wrote: Mon Jan 15, 2018 3:22 am Thanks for this Ben, and DCHindley for the Trobisch bits. It is very enlightening. One can definately imagine Paul also creating a letter collection in an effort to 'catholizise' his message and preaching. I can't help but wonder how he would fit it into his theological understanding of himself and his mission. What would have been his deliberations and considerations in such an undertaking? He definately regarded himself as a very special and even important servant of God and Christ in the whole divine salvation plan of the last days, and if he actually chose to create a 'catholic' letter collection from his private letters that would mean he believed it was part of God's greater plan.

What were the motivations for people like Cicero or Pliny to create letter collections of their own private letters? They obviously enjoyed publishing literary works, but did they regard themselves as serving the greater good of human society through their authorships or something like that? Did they think of themselves as kind of teachers for human society, and in that capacity they deemed it good to create letter collections? Or was it merely popular demand? Do we have any suggestions as regards to this, from Trobisch for example? And how should we compare the motivations of Cicero and of Paul in creating their letter collections?
I think that folks like Cicero were motivated by a desire to be remembered for a long time, but in their own terms. So, Cicero starts with letters where he saved a copy for whatever reason (70 letters, he says), and with more he got from a friend who liked to save letters he received, we actually have that collection. It is honed razor sharp with charm, style and wit. However, like many collections, it disappeared without a trace in medieval times, only to pop up near the beginning of the Renaissance but expanded by other book-collections, to a total of 1,300 or so letters. Cicero probably did not have a hand in editing many of them for publication, as the discoverer was appalled by the poor style and base motivations of the man that many of them exhibited. I can see one of his former political allies/opponents, though, saying in reaction to hearing the Cicero edited letter collection: "Hell! That ain't the Cicero I knew! Summon my librarian, slave, and bid him to collect his letters to me, that som'fo'bitch, and we shall put them out to set the record straight! Ha!" Apparently lot of folks did the same.
Makes sense, that it was the desire to be remembered, on their own terms. They were celebrities, after all. I think Paul can also be regarded as having been a celebrity in his own life-time within the Christian circles, but his motivation would have been something entirely different from the desire to be remembered right, and instead the desire that the message, God's saving gospel, would be effective in converting as many as possible. Unless it was the way, you suggest, of course, that Paul was not the 'Paul' of the Christian letters we have.
Anyway, I can see it is not a bad explanation for many of the problems in the letters of Paul to suggest that he himself edited them, perhaps into a collection, perhaps for the sake of 'catholizising'. But as for 2 Cor. particularly, I think the theory is not really that good, if we look for an explanation as to why for example 2:14-7:4 might be an interpolation. It just seems a strange way to edit letters together?
Similar to Cicero's letters, the NT collection was an edition consisting of previous collections (two addressed to congregations, the third to individuals), only the first of which Trobisch thinks was edited by Paul himself, IIRC. You gotta admit, though, that the first four books, right at the head of the Pauline corpus in most manuscripts, the collection he thinks has the highest probability of being edited directly by Paul, do seem larger, more complex, and contain the proportionally greater portion of doctrinal statements. I don't know, though. To me, size and complexity like that would suggest a *long and involved manuscript development history*, not just a nip and a tuck for presentation and image purposes as Trobisch suggests.

As for interpolations (oh god, here it comes!), I think interpolations of the kind I have been suggesting are pretty consistent throughout the whole corpus (chunks of commentary about dogma, often weaved into an original text, not just added to it), so I'd have to place this stage late in the collection's history that looks something like this:

LC1(Edition consisting of numerous letters addressed to congregations distilled into 4 artificial letters to three congregations: Rom, 1&2 Cor, Gal)

LC2(Edition consisting of 5 letters addressed to congregations, Eph, Phil, Col, 1&2 Thes)

[LC1+LC2] "Unified Letters to Congregations" Edition. This is a later stage of development where LC2 is appended to LC1 at the rear end.

LP1(Edition of 4 letters addressed to individuals, 1&2 Tim, Titus, Phlm)

[[LC1+LC2]+LP1] Final Edition. The already published "Unified Letters to Congregations" edition had the Letters to Individuals" edition appended to it at the end.

[[LC1+LC2]+LP1]int is the Edition we have in the NT, which was the edition of the corpus above that had been interpolated with Christ dogma (IMHO).

That would mean a pretty convoluted development history, but don't we already have that with the gospels? That's 5 distinct published editions (aside from counting the publication of the initial letters by placing them in the "mail") even before a Christian got ahold of it (in my POV) to add his (or her, I'm an equal opportunity interpolator hypothesizer) Redeemer Christ dogma.

So if, as I theorize, the Redeemer Christ dogma did not develop until a period no earlier than after the rebellion of 66-73 CE, lets just guess 10-20 years (or 83-93 CE), any real Paul, the "gentile accommodator" as I see he saw his role as being, must have existed before the war, maybe several decades before the war. Internal indicators I see in them suggest the Caligula affair about 39 CE, and Queen Helena of Adiabene's attempt to fulfill her Nazirite vow in the Jerusalem temple about 50 CE. When and how he may have died are not known, other than for part of the time he was under guard and was heading to Rome, presumably for trial before the emperor.

If the procurator of Jamnia has succeeded in securing Herod Agrippa, the story that can be teased out of these letters of Paul could just as easily have been Agrippa's own story, traveling to Rome to have the emperor Tiberius deal with him. It all ended up the same - he was able to secure his audience, and present his case for forgiveness and reconciliation. It would have been easier - and cheaper - to allow himself to be arrested and sent to Rome at government expense, rather than making a run for it as he did. However, Agrippa could not endure the humiliation of being dragged as a prisoner and made the dash out of the harbor and borrowed again in Alexandria in order to be able to make the case before Tiberius as a free man (the debt to the emperor himself was not forgotten, though, and he borrowed even more to pay that back). Paul seems just as bull-headed and determined as Agrippa was to achieve his goals on his own terms. Unfortunately for Paul, Agrippa had better connections than he did. Agrippa ends up king, Paul ends up, well, dead or exiled.

Them guys ... :?

DCH
Very interesting attempt at a reconstruction for the stages of the development of the letter collection, though I don't agree with your suggestion concerning the whole interpolations thing. But of course this kind of editing/interpolating could account for the way 2:14-7:4 may have been inserted in 2 Cor. Either we need a more extensive interpolation theory such as yours, DCHindley, or else if Paul was indeed the (Christian) author of 2 Cor., I think the most likely theory is that Paul himself inserted 2:14-7:4 into his letter, either before or after it was sent. Otherwise I just can't see why anyone would do it.
perseusomega9
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Re: Did Paul sometimes interpolate his own epistles?

Post by perseusomega9 »

Goulder has argued that 1 and 2 corinthians are multiple letters combined, using the many correspondences indicated in those books (e.g. Paul's sorrowful letter), interspersed with some of the arguments/letters that opposed him. I could see that proposal working alongside Trobisch's thesis where Paul collects these letters into a larger block and removing some irrelevant details at that point in time (this doesn't preclude someone else from doing the same either). While I find these arguments compelling, I still feel there is a later layer(s) of proto-catholic editorializing going on resulting in the texts we have today.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Did Paul sometimes interpolate his own epistles?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

perseusomega9 wrote: Thu Jul 25, 2019 7:03 am Goulder has argued that 1 and 2 corinthians are multiple letters combined, using the many correspondences indicated in those books (e.g. Paul's sorrowful letter), interspersed with some of the arguments/letters that opposed him. I could see that proposal working alongside Trobisch's thesis where Paul collects these letters into a larger block and removing some irrelevant details at that point in time (this doesn't preclude someone else from doing the same either). While I find these arguments compelling, I still feel there is a later layer(s) of proto-catholic editorializing going on resulting in the texts we have today.
And we do have evidence of letters being combined and split in epistolary collections. The later layer of pastoral/proto-catholic editing is something I am seeking more information about, but it seems highly likely to me that such a thing happened, the most easily defensible example being 1 Corinthians 14.34-35. If that fairly obvious insertion left only a bit of a ripple in the manuscript tradition, it seems likely that there might well be at least some that left no ripple at all. And the motivation for interpolating the Pauline corpus would be immense in many quarters, as evidenced by, for example, the existence of pseudo-Pauline epistles.
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