archibald

Is there a good case for thinking that 1 Cor 15: 3-8 may be an interpolation?

Toto

Yes

stephan huller

The Marcionite version is very different. See Epiphanius's discussion in the Panarion.

archibald

Thank you Stephen. I will do my best to keep an open mind throughout this new thread. Can you elaborate on what the key differences are, or provide a link?

Toto, if you have additional perspective, this is hopefully the thread to spit it out.

Toto

Here is the case: Apocryphal Apparitions: 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 As a Post-Pauline Interpolation (also available here)

The major point is the contradiction between the idea that Paul did not receive his gospel from any man, and this section, which implies that Paul did receive this key piece of salvation handed down from some other Christians.

And then there is the improbable "500 brothers" inserted between the appearances to Peter and to James - which seems designed to downgrade James and exalt Peter.

archibald

Thanks Toto. I couldn't have asked for a better setting out of the case.

Here is my response.

1. I have sincerely tried and tried, and I cannot yet see any contradiction in the text if the verses are omitted. I remain non-plussed.

From the article you linked to:

'Originally 15:12 followed immediately on vv. 1-2. It read, "Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast -- unless you believed in vain. But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?"

2. I do realize that MJers rely heavily on Gal 1 and Paul 'not getting it from any man'. This, it seems, is often lifted out like a gigantic quote mine and dropped in everywhere Paul appears to refer to an earthly Jesus.

What we are being asked to believe then is that Paul did not know anything about Jesus other than what he alleges was delivered to him in a vision. On a very specific occasion, he bigs up his credentials (understandably, since he wasn't one of the original gang*) by reminding his readers that he got his gospel from his oh so incredibly persuasive vision. Big deal. That is exactly what I would expect him to say.

* Btw, before anyone jumps in with, 'Hah. You are assuming stuff about the sect Paul persecuted and then joined', I am not, but I am taking the view that it is more reasonable that the sect were already followers of Jesus.

Incidentally, when the text in 1 Cor 15:1 says that he 'recieved' something, does it say that he didn't receive it during a vision? If not, there doesn't appear to be a contradiction.

3. Regarding the 500 witnesses, this is certainly interesting. I don't consider it anything like conclusive that it has to be a later insertion, but even if it is, it's not central to my interest. To me, it's not that important what that number is. I'm more interested in whether Paul thinks he saw the risen Jesus after anyone else did.

The summary at the end of Price's piece is admirably honest, and worth posting in its entirety.

'By way of conclusion, though I have sought to argue my case in terms of its own logic, I would like to measure my results against a set of criteria for pinpointing interpolations compiled by Winsome Munro from her own work as well as that of P.N. Harrison, William O. Walker Jr., Robert T. Fortna and others. [99]

First, I freely admit the lack of direct textual evidence. There are no extant copies of 1 Corinthians which lack my passage. While the presence of such texts would greatly strengthen my argument, the lack of them does not stultify it. There simply are no texts at all for the period in which I suggest the interpolation occurred. With Walker, however, I believe the prima facie likelihood is that many interpolations occurred in those early days, [100] on analogy with the subsequent, traceable textual tradition, as well as with the cases of other interpolated, expanded, and redacted canonical and non-canonical texts. [101]

Second, as for perceived disparities between the ideologies of the supposed interpolation and its context, I have already sought to demonstrate that the tendencies of the passage, both the catholicizing apologetic and the Jacobean-Petrine polemics, are either alien to Paul or anachronistic for him.

Third, though stylistic and linguistic difference, often a sign of interpolation, appear in the text, they are not pivotal for my argument, since they could just as easily denote pre-Pauline tradition over by the apostle.

Fourth, as I have indicated, it is not rare to find scholars remarking on the ill-fit of the passage in its present context, as Munro suggests we ought to expect in the case of an interpolation. I have suggested that the argument flows better without this piece of text.

Fifth, Munro notes that the case for an interpolation is strengthened if we can show its dependence on an allied body of literature otherwise known to be later in time than the text we believe to have been interpreted. In her own work, Authority in Paul and Peter, she connects the Pastoral Strata with the Pastoral Epistles. I have argued not for direct dependence but for relatedness of themes and concerns with later polemics and tradition on display in works like the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Epistle of Peter to James, and Luke-Acts. These factors would also seem to satisfy Munro's sixth criterion, that of literary or historical coherence with a later period than that of the host document.

Seventh, as to external attestation, though snippets of my passage (including few if any of the "appearance" statements, interestingly) appear here and there in Patristic sources, these citations are indecisive, since writers like Tertulllian and Irenaeus are too late to make any difference, while in my view the date and genuineness of 1 Clement and the Ignatian corpus are open questions.

The eighth criterion is that of indirect textual evidence, minor variations between different texts all containing the body of the disputed passage. [102] Fee notes that a few textual witnesses (Marcion, b, and Ambrosiaster) lack "what I also received" in v. 3. [103] Perhaps a few scribes sought to harmonize 1 Corinthians with Galatians by omitting the words; or else most scribes sought by adding them to subordinate Paul to the Twelve.

Ninth and last, I have provided a plausible explanation for the motivation of the interpolations, both of the list into the apologetic fragment, and of the fragment into 1 Cor 15. The first sought to homogenize Paul and the other apostolic worthies, while the second sought to buttress the argument for the resurrection by adding a passage listing eyewitnesses to it.

Though, as Munro says, the weighing of the evidence and of the various criteria must be left to the judgment of each scholar, I venture to say that the emergent hypothesis, while it can in the nature of the case never be more than an unverifiable speculation, can claim a significant degree of plausibility as one among many options for making sense of the passage.'

Very few of the criteria seem to offer support. We are mostly left with 'it seems like it could be an interpolation'. As such, I would not be surprised if it is not generally seen as such by most historians and academics.

More to the point, even if it is an interpolation, it is not an interpolation which impacts much on the MJ/HJ debate.

dog-on

Archibald,

What, in this passage, leads you to the conclusion, regardless of whether or not it is original, that Paul believed that any of the listed witnessess actually witnessed Christ any differently than in the way that Paul, per his own admission, witnessed Christ?

archibald

Hi.

Well, in the absence of any indication to the contrary, it seems that they are described as having witnessed Christ in the same or a similar way.

As you say, we would be taking the text as uninterpolated at this point.

hjalti

You can't see any contradiction if the verses are omitted? How is that supposed to be an argument against it being an interpolation?

The text in 1Cor 15:1 doesn't anything about Paul recieving something.

dog-on

Sure. However, I do think that the passage may very well be a later addition, as it seems to support a succession of authority that might fit better as a 2nd century concern.