I have been asked to comment on whether we can get back to the “original” text of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, and I have begun to discuss the problems not just of getting *back* to the original, but also of knowing even what the original *was*. In my previous post I pointed out the problems posed by the fact that Philippians appears to be two letters later spliced together into one. And so the first problem is this: is the “original” copy the spliced together copy that Paul himself did not create? Or is the “original” the product that Paul himself produced – the two letters that are not transmitted to us in manuscript form any longer, to which, therefore, we have no access (except through the version edited by someone else)?
But there are more problems. Here I’ll detail them, in sequence as they occur to me.
In what I am going to be saying now, I will simplify things by assuming that – contrary to what I’ve been arguing – Philippians is just one letter produced by Paul, not two letters later edited together into what we now have. At every point you should be reminding yourself that the problems I am now addressing are *doubled*(or worse) if in fact, as many critical scholars think, Philippians is two letters that have been modified and joined together. But let’s talk about the letter as if it were just one letter. What would it mean to speak of its “original”? (The same will apply to all of Paul’s letters).
Would the “original” letter be the letter that Paul himself produced when he sat down and put pen to papyrus one day to address some problems and issues that had arisen among his Christian converts in the city of Philippi? That would be unproblematic enough. Then all the later copies of the letter would ultimately go back (in a kind of genealogical line) to that letter that Paul produced.
But there’s a problem. There is solid and incontrovertible evidence that when Paul produced some of his other letters he actually dictated them to a scribe who wrote them down. This is clearly the case of his letter to the Romans, which includes a verse that almost certainly has puzzled readers over the years, Romans 16:22, “I Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord.” Tertius??? I thought *Paul* wrote the letter! Well, yes, Paul composed the letter. But Tertius is the one who wrote down the words that Paul composed. Paul dictated the letter to him.
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Personally, I’m inclined to think the version of a letter the person actually *sends* (after having, presumably, given it a last, careful look-over) should be considered the “original,” and any earlier versions that haven’t been torn up should be considered “drafts.” But I realize that even if we agreed on that, there’d be a problem in determining which version had survived.
Of course, the “version” the writer sent might exist in two manuscripts: one that was actually sent, and one he kept for his records! In that case, the one that was written first would technically be the “original,” the other a copy. If you had them both, you could probably say the one in the neater handwriting (almost certainly the one sent) was the copy.
Yes. The problem is that if all the surviving copies derive not from the one he kept but from the one he sent, and the one he kept differed in some ways, then every surviving copy would differ from the original!
Do we know if the cost of papyrus was considered expensive in the ancient world? If so, one would assume letters would be terse and to the point without many language “frills”. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Paul.
It wasn’t terribly expensive, but if you were dirt poor, as most people were (including Paul), it would have been an expense. But he had backers, and so probably had funds to send his letters.
Since we only have later copies of Paul’s letters, I wonder what happened to his “original” letters from 50-60 CE? Presumably Paul was respected by the early Christian groups he helped start and to whom he wrote. One would think they would have saved his letters. Did the papyrus wear out? Were the originals destroyed by people who didn’t like Paul or didn’t like followers of Jesus? Do you have any idea of what might have happened to Paul’s letters from 50-60 CE?
We don’t know! Maybe most of teh communities to which he sent letters didn’t think they were important enough to keep! Hard to imagine — but it’s even harder to think of a better scenario….
Trivial question on stationary; what would be more likely in the 1st century for Paul’s letters, was the original letter likely written on codex or on papyrus?
(This may narrow down the search for the original 🙂 )
The codex is a “form” of book (looks like our kind of books, as opposed to scrolls); papyrus is a writing material. Papyrus could be used for codexes or scrolls. Paul almost certainly wrote on papyrus. I don’t know what form the letters took. Virtually all our surviving copies come from codexes.
I know you address this in your books on forgery and I myself hold that 1-2 Peter was not written by Peter and that Peter could not likely write, but for the sake of people who are reading this post and have not read what you say about this matter, why does the theory of Peter having a scribe for 1-2 Peter not work, if it works for Paul?
I’m not saying that the author of 1 or 2 Peter didn’t use a scribe. But I *am* saying that scribes/secretaries did not write letters for the person who was supposedly actually writing (almost never). (That’s what’s typically argued for the letters of Peter, but I show why it doesn’t work in my books.
I suspect most would think that the original of a text is the first text that was sent off by Paul to where it was supposed to go (as there may have been multiple pre-publication editions/revisions of this blog post as you wrote it, or of a book you wrote, most would see the original as the first official publishers printing of it, not your pre-publication draft copy before you finished your editing or a later edition of the book). I suspect you may ask me with respect to your books about printing errors. So with respect to your books, I suspect most would say what is original is not what you sent as your final version to your publisher, or the version that resulted from the changes your editor made to the final version you sent, but the version that was printed the first time around and sent out (which may have printing errors!).
A larger question for me is when the church at Corinth, for example, received the original could they rightly *interpret* the original. In other words, were they able to *get* to the full true meaning of the original text they received by way of interpretation. As the author of 2 Peter said “Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:15-16).
Yes, I’ve often wondered if, for example, the Galatians could have made heads or tails of what Paul is saying, given the enormous problems highly trained experts today have in understanding the letter. 1 Corinthians is not as complicated, in my opinion. But the same question applies.
And we are taught to consider every word as being inerrant, but which words???
Very complicated indeed.
Maybe the original was the pre-existing word inside Paul’s brain before it became flesh – I mean, papyrus.
Are there reasons to think that the recipients of Paul’s letters really knew what his handwriting looked like? If so, then does that mean that whoever wrote 2 Thessalonians didn’t just falsely claim to be Paul but also forged his handwriting at the end of the letter?
What I mean is did 2 Thessalonians get into the Canon because it was accepted by the recipients as actually being from Paul (based at least in part on the forged signature)?
Not because of the forged signature (no one was looking at the original when the book was put into the canon), but certainly, yes, it was accepted because it was thought that Paul wrote it.
It probably means that he didn’t even send it to the Thessalonians, but simply put it in circulation, claiming that his copy was a copy, not the original (so that the handwriting didn’t change at the end).
Bart:
If you bring the matter of “versions” of a piece of correspondence into the present, you are no doubt aware that some have the practice of retaining various drafts of a letter or memo as the creative process proceeds (easy to do with electronic records). Eventually a final edition will be prepared and despatched to the intended recipient – be it an individual, a department, a customer, or, in Paul’s case, the leadership and congregation of a church.
What is despatched is the original and the drafts have no validity, save as a record of the train of thought of the originator. The use of these drafts in legal matters, or in trying to recreate various options surrounding the topic of the correspondence later on for some reason, is common enough. However, for the vast majority of cases, copies of drafts are so much electonic rubbish of no abiding value of interest to anyone, including the writer.
The same argument can be made in the case of scribe who takes dictation. Paul would have eventually authorised a version for despatch and that would be the official version and the original (at least to my way of thinking). All the other versions would be rubbish and no doubt used to start the next morning’s fire and, obviously enough, we’d have no idea as to their existence.
I think we have to assume something like the above scenario or you have nothing to serve as an anchor. From there unfolds the whole business of copying and refining and splicing and manipulating an original into the version that we presently have.
It is also interesting to reflect that the modern world’s modification of the record for all kinds of motivations is no different in terms of motivation than the ancient. The plethora of sources and volume of material makes it difficult, but such manipulations are routinely attempted and often succeed, at least for a while, routinely. It makes the search for the almost unknowable truth an endless task – but I’ll start spinning down a train of thought without conclusion so I’ll stop now (historians will never be out of work to do). However, my point is an official source document for Paul’s letter would have existed and from it would come the version we have today.
This is a scenario from my own life. I decided to build several elevated garden boxes for my wife. My first box was wonderful, and all sides fit perfect. Then upon making my second box, I started to notice a pattern with the boxes. The lengths of the boards were varying to different degrees. “Why?”, I asked. I took the measurements based on a “sound” and rather expensive tape-measure. Here’s the interesting part: I was using two different tape-measures, based on the location that I was working at the time. Even a variance of 1/64″ can have huge implications after 30 or 40 boards are cut. How did I rectify this? I used ONE template and laid it on top of the uncut board and marked where to cut…amazing! Every board was exactly the same…I had my template. Without this template, I would not have created exact copies. The original scriptures had a template at one time…but it was not used properly each time it was copied. Sans inerrancy.
This line of thought brought me to violins (in my own mind, this made sense). Why is a Stradivarius such a sought after instrument? Its because the original template that it was created from has a sound un-paralleled to any other. We have thousand of copies…some worthless. But the “real thing” can only be determined by an expert.
My point? We need textual critics to help us find the “true” instrument that we seek. Fakes and forgeries are for the pretentious who need people to think that theirs is genuine. The Bible in its current form is not our Stradivarius that most Christians believe it to be; the sound differs greatly from the original template. People like us will believe the truth, with our whole heart, as long as it holds up under intense scrutiny.