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What would it even *mean* to say that we have an “original” letter of Paul to the Philippians?
In my previous two posts I began answering a series of questions asked by a reader about how we got Paul’s letter to the Philippians. In my previous post I explained why some critical scholars maintain that the letter was originally two separate letters that have been spliced together. That obviously makes the next question the reader asked a bit more complicated than one might otherwise imagine. And it’s not the only complication. Here is the reader’s next question:
QUESTION: Do you agree that the first copy of the letter written by Paul to the Philippians was also an original?
RESPONSE: First off, my initial reaction that I gave a couple of posts ago still holds. I’m not exactly sure what the reader is asking. If he’s asking whether a copy of the original letter to Philippians is itself an original of Philippians, then the answer is no. It is not the original. It is a copy of the original. Big difference. But what if this copy was exactly like the original in every single respect – with no differences of any kind: wouldn’t it then be the original? No, then it would be an accurate copy of the original. But it would not be the original.
But the question does raise an important and virtually insoluble other problem – or set of problems. What, in the case of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, would it even mean to call something (a papyrus manuscript with writing on it) the “original.” Or rather, what would the “original” be – how could we imagine it? There are so many problems that it is hard to know where to begin.
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Is it possible that the current version of Paul’s letter to the Philippians was created out of circumstance rather than by pure choice? For example, what if Paul wrote two (or more) letters to the Philippians, which were prized and shared among the congregation, but over time, each original became degraded/damaged through overuse? Could it be that our editor/redactor simply took what remained of each original letter and combined them into one manuscript? In other words, did it necessarily have to be an act of intentional redaction or could it be more of an effort to preserve what remained of Paul’s now partial letters to the community? I’m not sure what difference this would make to our current understanding of Philippians, but just trying to think through possible scenarios.
Possibly, thought the torn fragments would almost certainly seem to be obvioulsy not entire letters.
Hi Dr. Ehrman! Do we know much about the practice (if it was one) of combining multiple letters into one document? Was this common in antiquity? For example, when Roman administrators wrote letters back and forth to clarify administrative issues, did anyone ever compile (sections of) multiple letters into one, in order to create something like a “quick reference guide” for administrative policy?
Another question: did letter writers commonly date their letters in antiquity? I find it striking that in Philippians, the letters have not been combined in chronological order, which would be the obvious order (to me). Perhaps the cut&paste editor no longer knew what the correct chronological order was? Perhaps he only had fragments of the letters available to him, which were already missing the dates (if they ever had them), and that’s why he created one document that would appear “tidier”. Thank you!
Not that I’m aware of. But there would have been no reason to combines portions of the letters of Roman officials or Cicero, say; in the case of Paul’s letters these were being treated as authoritative texts and so one coul imagine someone wanting the main points of several letters put together into a compact form.
And no, letters were not normally dated.
But isn’t it more likely that the “splicer” combined damaged or incomplete copies of Paul’s surviving letters rather than that he deliberately mutilated complete letters? Wouldn’t we expect the beginning and/or the ending of the letter to be the easiest part to have been lost?
As with 2 Cor maybe the “splicer” combined fragments to preserve what he had available.
I”m not sure how we would calculate which is more probable. If htere were only fragments, it’s a bit odd that they begin and end in full sentences.
Bart, long-time fan, first time commenter. This is probably the wrong place to ask this, but I was worried if I posted it on the blog you did about John Shelby Spong a long time ago, it might get buried. Anyway, my question was regarding his book “Resurrection: Myth or Reality”. Just curious if you’ve read it. I admire Spong. The book is a fascinating read. I’m curious, do Spong’s objections to a physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus line up with yours? I’ve heard some people refer to Spong as “fringe” (shrug) and wasn’t sure if his arguments opposing a physical resurrection are at all similar to other scholars.
I”m afraid I haven’t read it. (I don’t read many trade books on the NT). I’m not sure from what you say whether Spong is objecting to an *actual* physical resurrection or if he’s claiming the Gospels do not protray a physical resurreciton. I’m not a Christian and I don’t believe bodies are ever raised from the dead, so my objections to an actual one are fairly straightforward and scientific. It doesn’t happen. But the Gospels and Paul certainly claim it happened, and if he says otherwise then I would disagree with him.