In trying to figure out what it even means to talk about the “original” text of Philippians (was it what Paul meant to dictate? Was it what he did dictate, if it was different from what he intended? Was it what the scribe wrote even if it was different from what Paul dictated? Was it what Paul corrected after he saw what the scribe incorrectly wrote? Was it the fresh copy that the scribe made even if it was different from the corrected version Paul gave him? What happens if in fact Philippians is two letters that have been spliced together by a later editor, as many scholars believe, rather than just one letter – is the “original” the two different letters originally sent or the spliced together version that Paul did not create but someone else did? Etc. etc.), in trying to figure all this out, several readers have suggested that the easiest way to look at it is that the “original” of Philippians is the letter Paul sent to Philippi, whatever happened, prior to its being sent. Fair enough. But we are still left with the problem that all the manuscripts we have of Philippians are based on the spliced-together edition created after the two letters were received (spliced together a year or two later by someone in the church of Philippi? By someone living ten years later? It’s impossible to say: our earliest copy is from about 150 years after Paul sent the letters!), so that if this critical view (that the letter was originally two letters) is correct, then we don’t have access to the original letter(s) that Paul sent at all! (I should say that most textual critics do not even *consider* this host of problems that I’ve been laying out. Possibly that’s because, well, they throw complications into the midst that no one wants to deal with because there’s simply no way to solve them!) But let’s suppose just for the sake of argument that our letter to the Philippians is just one letter, not two spliced together later, and let’s suppose, again just for the sake of the argument, that what we are going to call the “original” text is the version of the letter that Paul sent to the Philippians after all the dictating, writing, editing, and re-writing was finished. Doesn’t that solve our problems? Well, no, not really. Would that it did! Let’s say (for the argument)... To see this and other posts in full ehrmanblog.org/hypothetical-problems-with-copies-of-philippians/ and join the blog by clicking the Register button!
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 10:18:11 +0000
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