Bultmann's 1947 article re: Glosses in Romans

[Peter Kirby]

I have provided a poor man's translation of the article here:

http://peterkirby.com/glossen-im-romerbrief.html

Our own dear Kunigunde may perhaps inform us if I have butchered it too badly.

In summary, Bultmann finds that Romans 7:25b, Romans 8:1, Romans 10:17, Romans 2:1, and Romans 13:5 are marginal notes that intend to summarize the train of thought developed by Paul in brief “sententious” (doctrinal, pithy, gnomic) form, drawn into the body of the text. They may or may not come from a common “Glossator.” Bultmann further finds that Romans 2:16 and 6:17b seem similarly secondary but are simply interpolations, not marginal notes, with the “Editor” that also added the doxology a likely author.

Romans 7:25b. So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Romans 8:1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 10:17. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Romans 2:1. Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

Romans 13:5. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.

Romans 2:16. on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:17b. … you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to.

(The doxology of Romans 16:25-27. Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.)

The reasoning is found in the article: http://peterkirby.com/glossen-im-romerbrief.html

[Blood]

This type of analysis proceeds from the untenable assumption that the scholar knows what "the real Paul" thought and wrote. Something that doesn't make sense to the scholar is then dismissed as un-Pauline, as if everybody knows that "the real Paul" was a perfectly logical and consistent writer and thinker. A similar approach is taken to supposedly separate the "real" sayings of Jesus from the invented ones. It's basically an apologetic approach.

"All such efforts only show that verse 16 is a foreign body in the text, and this is finally confirmed by the striking phrase κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον μου [according to my gospel], which is motivated by nothing, and moreover, would be absolutely inappropriate in the mouth of Paul as a phrase from the judgment of God upon the secrets of men and is also not a specific phrase of Paul."

This sounds like Bultmann was Paul's best friend for 20 years. How does he know what would be "absolutely inappropriate" in the mouth of Paul?

Furthermore, this idea of subdividing the text into dozens of tiny pieces inserted by Interpolator A, B, C and "Glossators" shows the influence of "Documentary Hypothesis Fever" that began to overtake New Testament studies during that time.

[DCHindley]

This type of analysis proceeds from the untenable assumption that the scholar knows what "the real Paul" thought and wrote. Something that doesn't make sense to the scholar is then dismissed as un-Pauline, as if everybody knows that "the real Paul" was a perfectly logical and consistent writer and thinker. A similar approach is taken to supposedly separate the "real" sayings of Jesus from the invented ones. It's basically an apologetic approach.

I'll have to agree with you here. This is the problem inherent in declaring this or that book "authentic" or inauthentic." A critic tries to make sense of, say, the Christological statements in the corpus, but finds that they are hard to reconcile not only with the surrounding materials but with each other as well. So, s/he is forced to restrict the available material from which to draw, and makes all sorts of excuses to justify exclusion of what is too hard to figure out. There are wild and quite imaginative proposals for what the internal politics must have been to produce this authentic and inauthentic materials.

The pastoral epistles mention episkopoi (bishops), which these scholars consider totally foreign to Judaism and must be evidence of later times than Paul's, since otherwise it is not found except in the Ignatian letters and some Hellenistic writings. And yet the sectarian DSS (a century or more before 1st century when Paul is supposed to have wrote) call the leaders of their assemblies the mĕbaqqēr usually translated "Guardian" (Plato's term for the ideological heads of his ideal city state) but really meaning an "overseer" (the exact meaning of Greek episkopos). This factoid was early on considered by some to be one of the things that might allow critics to help revise their theories of early Christian development. In reality, these common sense observations were IMMEDIATELY SHUT DOWN by mainstream scholars as SPECULATIVE and RECKLESS SENSATIONALISM, as if it was part of a nefarious plot to DESTROY the faith of lay Christians (no doubt by Godless Communists)! It is silly overreaction, but despite some modern critics like VanDerkam acknowledging this, most commentaries continue to use the "bishops = late" argument to define the pastorals as "inauthentic." Oh, the Christology (which is pretty sparse in them) doesn't fit their concepts of what makes Paul a "Christian."

Furthermore, this idea of subdividing the text into dozens of tiny pieces inserted by Interpolator A, B, C and "Glossators" shows the influence of "Documentary Hypothesis Fever" that began to overtake New Testament studies during that time.

I'll have to NOT agree with you here. A "Documentary Hypothesis" regarding smaller letters being edited together into the present documents (primarily Romans & 2 Corinthians) would most likely involve blocks of text, not so much "pieces and parts" (although there would be changes or additions by an editor to make the disparate pieces fit together). Perhaps you are referring to the latter kind of changes. Round pegs do not fit into square holes without a bit of trimming and/or filling. But it is easier, of course, to throw it all out as inauthentic, but perhaps not so easy to justify.

DCH

[andrewbos]

This type of analysis proceeds from the untenable assumption that the scholar knows what "the real Paul" thought and wrote. Something that doesn't make sense to the scholar is then dismissed as un-Pauline, as if everybody knows that "the real Paul" was a perfectly logical and consistent writer and thinker. A similar approach is taken to supposedly separate the "real" sayings of Jesus from the invented ones. It's basically an apologetic approach.

The scholar cannot be sure about a "real historical Paul" but he may be able to discern older layers of text that have a different way of thinking, a different philosophical outlook and must have been made by a different person than the ones who added and interpolated later texts.
The underlying older text must have a philosophical base that is more clear and more coherent than what came later.
If the original underlying philosophy is not different enough, then you would be right that such a separation would be made of untenable assumptions.
It takes a thorough understanding of the philosophy of the original author to be able to spot the different persons at work.

In the same manner most people cannot see the very different philosophical background of Q1 and what came later because they don't understand what the originator of Q1 is actually teaching nor do they understand how the way of thinking shifted to later Q.

[Peter Kirby]

Bultmann's argument does not proceed merely from a perceived lack of ideological consistency. Inconsistency of ideas features only very little in this article, if indeed at all. Bultmann sees the explanatory ("exegetical") glosses as summarizing the thought already expressed by Paul (in "sententious" form), not in contradiction to it. (But is this mistake surprising if you haven't really tried to understand the article before launching into some speech expressing tangential, already-held convictions?)

Regarding "my gospel," it is found in Romans 2:16, Romans 14:24, 2 Timothy 2:8.

Regarding "the gospel," "the gospel of God," "the gospel of Christ," "the gospel of our Lord Jesus," twice "a different gospel" or "a gospel contrary to," once "our gospel" and "the gospel of the glory of Christ," it is found in Romans 1:15, Romans 1:16, Romans 11:28, Romans 15:16, 1 Corinthians 1:17, 1 Corinthians 4:15, 1 Corinthians 9:12, 1 Corinthians 9:14, 1 Corinthians 9:16, 1 Corinthians 9:18, 1 Corinthians 9:23, 2 Corinthians 4:3, 2 Corinthians 9:13, 2 Corinthians 11:4, Galatians 1:6, Galatians 1:7, Galatians 1:8, Galatians 1:9, Galatians 1:11, Galatians 2:2, Galatians 2:5, Galatians 2:7, Galatians 2:14, Galatians 3:8, Galatians 4:13, Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians 3:6, Ephesians 3:7, Ephesians 6:15, Ephesians 6:19, Philippians 1:5, Philippians 1:7, Philippians 1:12, Philippians 1:16, Philippians 1:27, Philippians 2:22, Philippians 4:3, Philippians 4:15, Colossians 1:5, Colossians 1:23, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, 1 Thessalonians 2:4, 1 Thessalonians 2:8, 1 Thessalonians 2:9, 1 Thessalonians 3:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:8, Philemon 1:13.

For example, Philippians 4:15 (where it might make logical sense to refer to "my gospel"). You Philippians indeed know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you alone.

This isn't the first argument made (emphasis added - mind you, a barbaric "poor man's translation"):

Two other glosses that I have noticed have a different character. The first is as a gloss already often suspected at 2, 16. The initiative stems first from the fact that the ἐν ἡ ἡμέρᾳ κρινεῖ [on the day when he judges] (or κρίνει) the συμμαρτυρεῖν [bearing witness] the συνείδησις [conscience] and κατηγορεῖν [accusing] and ἀπολογεῖσθαι [defending] the λογισμοί [thoughts] (verse 15) as a procedure referred to, which will one day play in the court, while it must be a phenomenon of the present but as evidence that the Gentiles who lack the law of Moses, but in fact know the law. Many are again the tortured attempts to deal with this offense. Impossible is the parenthesis of verses 14f. or even of 13-15, which wants to connect verse 16 with verse 13 and with verse 12. Then it would have been better for verses 14f. to be emphasized as a gloss (J. White), or to eliminate the problem by transposing ἐν ἧ ἡμέρᾳ [in the day], which clears (Pale), the latter test, but of course has the consequence that the thus-reduced verse 16 stands completely unmotivated. It is also impossible that the ἡμέρᾳ κρίνειν [day when he judges] of God should not be regarded as the day of the eschatological judgment, but as “any day of the present” (v. Hofmann, HE Weber). But it is much better, conversely, to take the ἐνδείκνυνται [show] of verse 15 futuristically (which probably is grammatically possible, of course), and thus the whole verse 16 to be understood as a statement about the future of the Day of Judgment (Lietzmann). Verse 14 and verse 15 belong together as the proof that God’s judgment will one day be given with full justice and that those who are ἀνόμως [lawless] (i.e., without the law of Moses) have sinned. Of this evidence, there is part 1, the factual ποιεῖν τὰ τοῦ νόμου [practice the law], which is also discussed in Heiden, and part 2, the phenomenon of conscience. If you do not want to understand μεταξὺ ἀλλήλων κατηγοροῦντες ἡ καὶ ἀπολογούμενοι λογισμοί [their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them] as a description of the phenomenon of conscience, but instead as the discussion of moral issues in the pagan society, which I think is very questionable, further consider as part 3, precisely this discussion. In any case, the proof is by referring to indisputable facts of the present.

It is thus such that verse 15 speaks of the present and verse 16 of the future, so all that remains is the ability to add an intermediate thought between verse 15 and verse 16: “time will tell on that day. .. “(Jülich, Althaus). But is this supplement really so simple and easy to perform? And does it really eliminate the offense? What meaning would it have to tell anyone nearby about the ordinary phenomena of the present, as evidence regarding the day of judgment?

All such efforts only show that verse 16 is a foreign body in the text, and this is finally confirmed by the striking phrase κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον μου [according to my gospel], which is motivated by nothing, and moreover, would be absolutely inappropriate in the mouth of Paul as a phrase from the judgment of God upon the secrets of men and is also not a specific phrase of Paul. In a sentence from a scribe [glossator] the phrase is understandable; because here it is a simple reminder of 1. Cor. 4, 5, and has no further significance than that they (formulated in terms of the scribe [glossator]) say, “just as Paul otherwise – namely in 1 Cor. 4, 5 – said.”

I am grateful for the characteristic terseness of Bultmann's argument, expressing two or three points in short space and wasting no words on puffery, or else his article would have been much longer, and my job would have been much harder.

Romans 2:14-16
14 For whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law to themselves. 15 They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend them, 16 on the day when God will judge the secrets of human hearts, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus.

Bultmann starts from the way in which vv. 14-15 are speaking of the present and the jarring way in which v. 16 transposes them into the future.

Then he adds the evidence of the words "according to my gospel." The first bit may mean (I am not sure but it would make sense) that it is "absolutely inappropriate" for the judgment of God to be conducted according to Paul's gospel, as if Paul's gospel were the standard by which men are judged by God. That would be inappropriate for Paul anyway but understandable from a later scribe, who could recall 1 Corinthians 4:5 in this context ("He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the motives of hearts"). The 1 Cor 4:5 reference refers to Christ Jesus, so the sense of Romans 2:16 is then that God will judge secrets of human hearts, but not alone, because of what is said according to Paul's gospel, that it shall be done through Christ Jesus.

Finally and only then does Bultmann add that it is not a characteristic phrase for Paul to refer to the gospel as "my gospel," which is otherwise found in the letters regarded as authentic only in the doxology, which is widely regarded as a secondary addition to the Epistle to the Romans.

This type of analysis proceeds from the untenable assumption that the scholar knows what "the real Paul" thought and wrote.

This type of analysis is dramatically simplified and misrepresented for the purposes of this polemic.

Something that doesn't make sense to the scholar is then dismissed as un-Pauline, as if everybody knows that "the real Paul" was a perfectly logical and consistent writer and thinker.

Requires either not looking too closely at the actual form of the argument being made, or outright tendentious misrepresentation.

A similar approach is taken to supposedly separate the "real" sayings of Jesus from the invented ones.

We don't have any letters of Jesus. The comparison is already strained, as text criticism can hope to do more than speculative historical reconstruction.

It's basically an apologetic approach.

Completely ridiculous. Harmonization, trying to bring apparently opposite ideas into agreement, instead of allowing them to stand in genuine opposition, is an apologetic approach and has been the chief apologetic approach since the 2nd century AD. There is also an apologetic interest, of course, to preserve the text of the New Testament as free from interpolation (rather than one to find them).

This sounds like Bultmann was Paul's best friend for 20 years. How does he know what would be "absolutely inappropriate" in the mouth of Paul?

Study, research, reasoning, analysis. No doubt you have not tried very hard to be sympathetic to his analysis, as you leave it at that, without demonstrating any real understanding of the arguments being made and going on immediately to the parody ("sounds like Bultmann was Paul's best friend for 20 years").

Furthermore, this idea of subdividing the text into dozens of tiny pieces inserted by Interpolator A, B, C and "Glossators" shows the influence of "Documentary Hypothesis Fever" that began to overtake New Testament studies during that time.

A devastating argument! How should anyone recover!

[andrewcriddle]

This type of analysis proceeds from the untenable assumption that the scholar knows what "the real Paul" thought and wrote. Something that doesn't make sense to the scholar is then dismissed as un-Pauline, as if everybody knows that "the real Paul" was a perfectly logical and consistent writer and thinker. A similar approach is taken to supposedly separate the "real" sayings of Jesus from the invented ones. It's basically an apologetic approach.

I'll have to agree with you here. This is the problem inherent in declaring this or that book "authentic" or inauthentic." A critic tries to make sense of, say, the Christological statements in the corpus, but finds that they are hard to reconcile not only with the surrounding materials but with each other as well. So, s/he is forced to restrict the available material from which to draw, and makes all sorts of excuses to justify exclusion of what is too hard to figure out. There are wild and quite imaginative proposals for what the internal politics must have been to produce this authentic and inauthentic materials.

The pastoral epistles mention episkopoi (bishops), which these scholars consider totally foreign to Judaism and must be evidence of later times than Paul's, since otherwise it is not found except in the Ignatian letters and some Hellenistic writings. And yet the sectarian DSS (a century or more before 1st century when Paul is supposed to have wrote) call the leaders of their assemblies the mĕbaqqēr usually translated "Guardian" (Plato's term for the ideological heads of his ideal city state) but really meaning an "overseer" (the exact meaning of Greek episkopos). This factoid was early on considered by some to be one of the things that might allow critics to help revise their theories of early Christian development. In reality, these common sense observations were IMMEDIATELY SHUT DOWN by mainstream scholars as SPECULATIVE and RECKLESS SENSATIONALISM, as if it was part of a nefarious plot to DESTROY the faith of lay Christians (no doubt by Godless Communists)! It is silly overreaction, but despite some modern critics like VanDerkam acknowledging this, most commentaries continue to use the "bishops = late" argument to define the pastorals as "inauthentic." Oh, the Christology (which is pretty sparse in them) doesn't fit their concepts of what makes Paul a "Christian."

The term episkopoi (bishops), is found in Philippians 1:1 as well as the pastorals and does not in itself provide an argument against the authenticity of the pastorals.

IMO the church order, taken as a whole, in the pastorals is difficult to reconcile with that in the main Paulines, but that is a different matter.

Andrew Criddle