Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 5:20 pm
And the reasons for editing one's epistle collection differently than the original epistles were edited would not have to be limited to rectifying such grand mistakes. Paul could have added materials he found edifying, fleshed out arguments which had been a bit too bare the first time through, corrected turns of phrase, and waxed poetic in ways his original letters were not.
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But I wonder whether anything might be said for an author like Paul interpolating his own letters sometimes, so to speak. Are there any known examples of this from antiquity? Are there any arguments to be mounted in its favor?
I have often wondered whether some passages are 'self-interpolations' by Paul, but I havn't thought about it in this way, that Paul updated a letter after the original had been sent. I have some thoughts on this. First of all, the notion of self-interpolation by Paul could explain why some passages look like foreign interpolations in the eyes of some, but look genuine Pauline and wholly in line with the surrounding context in the eyes of others. Because self-interpolation could easily result in exactly this, that some passages seem to fit in within the letter and the argumentation but then also at the
same time seems to be foreign when closely examined. The way I have thought about it is Paul changing in the draft letter in his editing process before he sends the letter. I might add that I also apply this suggestion on gMark and the gospels in general: incongruity doesn't have to mean another source, especially when the incongruity is only partial.
When I post lengthy posts here I typically do some editing in the process where I add or delete or change a passage in the middle of it for clarity or something like that. And if I judge that the new interpolation or deletion in the draft text hasn't caused any severe break in the text so as to make it incoherent, then I don't bother to change the surrounding text to make the editing 'smoother'. If people were to examine my posts with the same crazy extreme diligence which we apply to our reading of Paul's letters, then I'm sure my 'interpolations' would be noticed and discussed. At other times I smooth out the text so that the argumentation is preserved the way I want it to be. Sometimes I care more about the smoothing and sometimes I don't care so much, it depends on a number of things.
But as such this would be an analogy for Paul's editing of his
draft letter, before he sends it, and this is how I have sometimes imagined it. Of course it is easier to edit a text on a computer than it would have been for Paul sitting down and working with his scribe. You write:
Paul could have added materials he found edifying, fleshed out arguments which had been a bit too bare the first time through, corrected turns of phrase, and waxed poetic in ways his original letters were not.
I completely agree, but I also think it makes sense to repeat this statement only with the word "letters" replaced with "draft": Paul could have added materials he found edifying, fleshed out arguments which had been a bit too bare the first time through, corrected turns of phrase, and waxed poetic in ways
his original draft was not. Paul sent his letters as circular letters, and I think it's clear that he became very, very aware of the fact that his letter-writing had become more than just letter-writing, it had become preaching reaching
beyond the concrete addressees of the letters, part of his mission. I think the form of his letter that he wrote to the Christians in Rome, i.e. Romans, or its 'genre' (whatever it is), shows that Paul had now embraced and taken command of this role he had gained as a theological tract writer.
But in a letter such as 2 Cor., often viewed as two letters editited together, or even five letters, I think it's acceptable to view it as one letter despite the fact that there certainly seems to be major editing and interpolations, such as for example 2:14-7:4, that seems to be an insertion between 2:13 and 7:5. For Paul may perfectly well have been adding (and deleting) in the course of the process of composition as described above, but this time, perhaps because of him being in a more emotional state or for some other reason, he didn't care so much about smoothing things out as he cared about creating the right impact and message for his addressees, and so in this case he left a more messy text. Some people, of course, don't regard Paul's texts as messy at all but as fine rhetorical compositions, such as a teacher of mine, Troels Engberg-Pedersen. I think it's a mess.
So I think much of the data (i.e. the many problematic and contested passages in his letters) can be explained by Paul's own editing in the draft process. One could view this as 'interpolation' also, because it comes across, in one way or another, as a foreign element inserted into the text, which leaves its traces, but at the same time the 'interpolations' can also be seen to fit in perfectly fine. Of course I don't imagine that there are
no interpolations at all in any of the letters by others than Paul himself, of course there must be.
It's a very stimulating notion that Paul himself may have been engaged in republishing his own letters, and in that case it makes good sense to imagine the situation you describe here. I can't help wonder, though, whether Paul would have certain reservations in this regard, considering his theological point concerning 'the letter and the spirit'. That he would never have wanted his letters to become authoritative in themselves, to become 'Law' (which of course they did). But maybe I'm just transposing Martin Luther back onto Paul!