Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
rgprice
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Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Post by rgprice »

How many scholars have looked for evidence or tried to make a case that multiple works of the NT have a common writer/editor/redactor?

Obviously there is the case of Luke and Acts, but what linguistic evidence has been put forward to support the theory that the writer of Luke/Acts also wrote the Pastorals?

What about other works? We know that many of the Gospel shows evidence that their endings have been changed. Is there evidence that a single person wrote/revised the endings?

Interestingly, Luke doesn't appear to have had many or any redactions. Yet when we look at John and Mark, both appear to have been redacted. I'm not sure of the case with Matthew. Now, if Luke was not redacted, but John and Mark were, this implies that the writer of Luke may have been the redactor of John and Mark, because they would have had no need to redact their own work. Of course there needs to be much more to the case than that.

What about evidence that all of the interpolations in the Pauline letters were by the same person? Evidence that the writer of Luke/Acts is the redactors of the Pauline letters, or against such a proposition?

Was the writer of 2 Peter the final editor of the NT, or did 2 Peter come too late, i.e. most of the works of the NT were already edited before 2 Peter came along?

Almost certainly, if we follow Trobisch's proposition that the NT was created in the middle of the 2nd century by a single editor or small number of editors, who choose the titles of the works and arranged them, then certainly we must suspect that such a person also edited the material, possibly engaged in some degree of harmonization, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Post by Giuseppe »

To my knowledge, Paul-Louis Couchoud was surely the first, or one of the first, to assume that the author of 1 Clement was one and the same as "Luke" (= the corruptor of Marcion).
It is probably for that that I don't see particular originality in the hypothesis.

For reference, see the relative chapters on Creation of Christ, available online.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Post by neilgodfrey »

It would be a most courageous scholar who would attempt to argue for a common editor across all NT works. However, a more limited but most important work is:
  • Munro, Winsome. Authority in Paul and Peter: The Identification of a Pastoral Stratum in the Pauline Corpus and 1 Peter. Cambridge Cambridgeshire ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
rgprice
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Re: Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Post by rgprice »

It would be a most courageous scholar who would attempt to argue for a common editor across all NT works.
What about the endings of all the Gospels? They share quite a bit in common despite some differences.

John 21 was clearly added by a later writer. Is there no case that the writer of John 21 also redacted Mark 16, both of which place authority in the hands of Peter?
zekers
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Re: Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Post by zekers »

The title of this thread rang of the NA-UBS and PCPCU editorial staff for some reason.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Post by neilgodfrey »

rgprice wrote: Sun Oct 10, 2021 8:31 am
It would be a most courageous scholar who would attempt to argue for a common editor across all NT works.
What about the endings of all the Gospels? They share quite a bit in common despite some differences.

John 21 was clearly added by a later writer. Is there no case that the writer of John 21 also redacted Mark 16, both of which place authority in the hands of Peter?
Should we expect to find common stylistic fingerprints in that case? The longer ending of Mark has all the signs of entwining threads from Luke and Matthew if I recall correctly. But if John is engaged in some kind of dialogue with Mark as some scholars think, then we don't need to bring in a third party to explain their shared reference to Peter at their ends.


(It's also possible that the odd-looking "double-ending" of John's Gospel was a literary artifice.)
ABuddhist
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Re: Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Post by ABuddhist »

neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:26 am (It's also possible that the odd-looking "double-ending" of John's Gospel was a literary artifice.)
Why would someone want to make the ending seem crudely expanded? Not that I am condemning such a theory, but I am surprised that such a theory has been proposed, and I would love to read reasoning for it.
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Irish1975
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Re: Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Post by Irish1975 »

rgprice wrote: Sat Oct 09, 2021 6:31 am if we follow Trobisch's proposition that the NT was created in the middle of the 2nd century by a single editor or small number of editor
His argument for there having been a specific editor/publisher is based on certain consistent (or in some cases, universal) patterns that appear in the oldest manuscripts—
  • use of the Nomina Sacra and the codex format
  • peculiar titles and peculiar arrangement of the collection
  • anti-Marcion purpose of Acts, the Judaized Gospels, the Catholicized Pauline corpus
  • cross-refences between books
    • mention of “Mark” and “Luke” in Gospel titles and in Colossians, Philemon
    • “letters” by the pillars named in Galatians 2:7-9 (where Cephas = Peter)
  • concluding remarks for each of the four major collections
    • John 21:20 (“four Gospels are enough”)
    • Paul’s farewell in 2 Timothy
    • Peter’s farewell in 2 Peter
    • warning against additions/deletions in Rev 22:19

This is a sketch of what I remember. It is important to read the book in order to appreciate the argument in full. I don't know any rival theories of a general editor, nor have I seen any thorough critiques of this thesis from the conservative side--and it would be great if anyone could refer me to any such discussions.

But it should not be overlooked how poorly traditional theories of the collection explain something so basic as the title "To the Hebrews." It is obvious that this text was not addressed to anyone that might have gone by the name "Hebrews." No deep or prior knowledge of Judaism or the OT is presupposed, much less that the audience should actually be persons of Palestinian origin or conversant in Hebrew. Nor is this text a letter, even though it ends as though it were a letter. So if it makes no sense that the author would have given it this title, and it also makes no sense that multiple early witnesses would have happened upon it independently, it seems the only sensible explanation is to hypothesize some early editorial authority or publisher.
neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:26 am Should we expect to find common stylistic fingerprints in that case?
I don't see why we would. Diversity of authorship is a conceit of the collection. There are intertextual echoes and references that may or may not have been intentional.
rgprice
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Re: Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Post by rgprice »

@Irish

Right, and I'm saying, if someone did all of that, then why should we assume that they stopped there? Should we assume that John 21 was written by someone prior to its inclusion in the anthology, or should we consider that the person who made the anthology may also be the same person who wrote John 21? And Teeple indicates that the person who wrote John 21 edited the entirely of John. In other words, whoever wrote 21 revised the entire work, making other additions throughout.

What if that is the compiler of the NT? And if so, why would that person only have revised John? Would that same person not also have revised other materials as well? Mary Magdalene is introduced consistently at the ending of every Gospel across the collection, and didn't exist in Marcion's Gospel. Did the compiler of the NT create this consistency?

Why should we assume that whoever compiled the NT didn't also revise every work contained therein?
perseusomega9
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Re: Evidence of a common editor across NT works?

Post by perseusomega9 »

I'm sure they did. These editorial features also just so happen to show up at the same time Polycarp went to Rome and he and the Pope made kissy-kissy but agreed that each other's respective community can celebrate Easter according to their tradition but other than that, full communion!
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