Source: https://bible.org/article/1-thessalonians-213-16-interpolation
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 02:01:12+00:00

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Is 1 Thessalonians 2.13-16 an Interpolation?
Conjectural emendation normally refers to an addition to the text that has no manuscript (or versional or patristic) support. Such an emendation comes from the mind of an exegete who feels compelled to alter the text since it makes little sense as it stands. However, conjectural emendation can also refer to other kinds of textual alteration besides addition. Substitution, transposition, and omission are also conjectural emendations.
The doctrine of preservation states that the text of the Bible has been preserved in one or more of the external witnesses. In its most extreme form, this doctrine states that the majority of Greek MSS have preserved the text of the original.
a. But is it a true doctrine?
In my article, “Inspiration, Preservation, and New Testament Textual Criticism,”1 I argued that (1) the doctrine of preservation is recent (first articulated in anything resembling a semi-official ecclesiastical document in the Westminster Confession of 1646);2 (2) the major texts used to support cannot really be used to argue for it; (3) the view is bibliologically schizophrenic in that it does not work for the Old Testament (since OT scholars have to employ conjectural emendation in a few places). In short, this doctrine fails at the historical, exegetical, and empirical levels.
b. If not true, what can we say about the preservation of the text?
Whether a particular passage needs conjectural emendation of any sort cannot, in principle, be argued against on theological grounds. Otherwise, we would have to argue against all such conjectures in the OT when there is a definite need for such in a few places. If we argue against conjecture in the NT, then, on theological grounds, we are in danger of adopting a Marcionite view of the text!
Applied to our present text, it should simply be noted that 1 Thess 2.13-16 is not omitted in any MSS, versions,6 or fathers, as far as modern scholarship is aware. And since these verses are found in early and widespread witnesses such as A B D F G H I P Y 0208 0278 33 1739 Itala Syriac Coptic Origen Athanasius Jerome Augustine Chrysostom et plu, all of the evidence is on the side of inclusion. Unless there is no rational explanation for the inclusion of the verses, then we should let the text stand as is and interpret it as best we can.
Among those who wish to believe or claim that Mark’s Gospel was inspired by the Holy Spirit, that it is God’s Word, I am not aware of any who are prepared to believe that it could have been God’s intention to terminate the book with εφοβουντο γαρ.
The logic of this verse has often been noted as being the opposite of what the author intended. Rather than spend much time on the matter, however, suffice it to say that some NT scholars have suggested that the order of the objection needs to be reversed: instead of “But someone may well say, ‘You have faith, and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works’ ” (NASB), James’ argument is: “But someone may well say, ‘You have works, and I have faith’.” This then is followed by James’ rebuttal (which is preserved for us in v 18): “Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works’.” Pfleiderer and others offered this conjecture, which is also found in itff. Admittedly, this is one of the thorniest exegetical problems in the NT, for James’ overall argument seems to be that works are necessary, while v 18, as it presently stands, has the interlocutor arguing that James’ view is that faith is necessary. The logic of the whole passage seems confused. This may well be one place in which a conjecture should be urged. In its favor are the following points: (1) unlike the omission of 1 Thess 2.13-16 and 1 Cor 14.34-35, there is some textual support for this view (one Itala MS);18 (2) the Greek witnesses for the catholic letters are not nearly as strong as the witnesses for the Gospels or Paul; hence, the likelihood of the necessity for conjecture increases with the catholic letters; and (3) the logic of the conjecture is compelling, while the wording of the text is quite problematic, creating exegetical gymnastics by many a scholar who is trying to defend the author’s coherence.
At the same time, the conjecture is such an obviously correct interpretation of the matter that one wonders why, if it represents the original wording, scribes did not correct their exemplars early on? Surely some early scribes would have double-checked the wording of their MSS against their exemplar once the seeming illogic of the wording became apparent. If so, their very hesitancy to alter the text in the direction of “you have works, and I have faith” seems to show that this wording was not in their exemplar. At this stage, we should probably affirm with the bulk of NT scholars that the point of v 18, regardless of the wording, is fundamentally the same: the author is arguing that faith and works cannot be divorced from one another.
Although we are convinced of no theological arguments against conjectural emendation in 1 Thess 2.13-16, without corroborative textual evidence, we need to regard the interpolation theory as a last resort. We now turn to exegetical arguments in its behalf, recognizing that the burden of proof rests on the shoulders of those who wish to athetize the text.
There are five or six basic arguments used in support of seeing these four verses (or parts of them) as an interpolation. We will offer these in canonical order, since they neatly fall out that way, followed in each case by a brief critique. Birger Pearson has stimulated the discussion the most by being the first to articulate at some length that all four verses were inauthentic. We will focus on his arguments.
(11) As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, (12) urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.
Pearson notes that, in agreement with Robert Funk, vv 11-12 introduce an ‘apostolic parousia,’ but the parousia does not begin until v 17. In this reconstruction, one thing that Pearson fails to recognize is that in v 11 Paul and Silas are regarded as fathers, while in v 17 they are regarded as orphans. Thus, although it could be argued that they belong together in some sense (as we have argued when discussing the textual problem of v 7), to insist on the juxtaposition as Pearson does adds yet a second mixed metaphor in close proximity to the ‘metaphor in distress’ in vv 7-8. In other words, Pearson’s solution compounds the metaphor problem that is already found a few verses earlier. Although Paul is not altogether consistent with his metaphors, nowhere does he mix them as rapidly as the interpolation theory would necessitate (assuming that nhpioi in v 7 is authentic).
Again, Wanamaker notes (31): “That Paul was incapable of the scurrilous ad hominem attack against the Jewish people in v. 15, as Pearson believes, is questionable (cf. Phil. 3:2).” One might add that, in the historical context painted in Acts 17, one could well imagine the apostle feeling pretty beat up by fellow Jews, causing him to reflect on what other Jews in Judea had done to the Lord Jesus. In short, the statement here fits well with Paul’s temperament and the historical situation assumed in Acts.
Schmiedel et alii regard this line as a vaticinium ex eventu—i.e., history written as though it were prophecy. The event in view is the destruction of Jerusalem, an event that took place twenty years after Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians.
Okeke notes that “it is mainly the theology of this pericope that makes it suspect as a later interpolation” (127); he then proceeds to argue that the theology conforms to Paul.
See Wanamaker’s discussion above, in response to the first point.
Both the apocalyptic theology of Paul and Matthew 24/Mark 13 seem to share some oral tradition. Only if one is predisposed to reject the Olivet Discourse as a later invention,31 or that Paul could not have learned of the Lord’s teaching on the matter before it was inscripturated in the Gospels, would there be a reason to see 1 Thess 2.13-16 as verbally dependent on the Olivet Discourse. But not only are the parallels at certain points conceptual rather than verbal,32 but if Paul took Jesus’ prophecy seriously, then he may well have mimicked it here. We will discuss the intricacies of this point in our exegesis of the text.
These were noted earlier. Although no papyri yet attest to this portion of the letter,34 1 Thess-alonians nevertheless has early and widespread witnesses, none of which omit these four verses.
Although the arguments for the interpolation view are impressive, they are not decisive. In the end, there is nothing in these verses that Paul could not have written, and the external evidence is unanimous in favor of them being authentic. In such an instance, we must acknowledge their authenticity and interpret them as well as we are able.
1 “Inspiration, Preservation, and New Testament Textual Criticism,” in Grace Theological Journal 12 (1992) 21-51 (reprint of article in New Testament Essays in Honor of Homer A. Kent, Jr. (ed. Gary T. Meadors; Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1991): 69-102.
2 The lack of ancient support for this doctrine is not in itself telling; however, this coupled with the fact that the biblical texts used to support it are so used only at the expense of solid exegesis, and that the OT text requires in a few places emendation, is a strong argument against it.
3 It should be noted as well that the Westminster Confession was framed by Protestants who were embroiled in debate with Roman Catholic scholars. The Catholics were speaking of the Protestant Bible—principally the Textus Receptus that stood behind all translations—as a “paper Pope.” More than one scholar has pointed out that the Westminster divines were defending the TR, arguing implicitly that its readings preserved the original.
4 Kurt and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament, 297.
5 This is not to say that these views are necessarily wrong, but that they lack sufficient evidence to be compelling. The Alands preface their remarks by noting that “the competence of New Testament textual criticism is restricted to the state of the New Testament text from the moment it began its literary history through transcription for distribution. All events prior to this are beyond its scope” (297). Thus, such compositional theories (and we may include Raymond Brown’s five-stage composition of John in this) need to be qualified as belonging to the realm of the pre-literary stages. (For a discussion of this point passim, see D. B. Wallace, “John 5,2 and the Date of the Fourth Gospel,” Biblica 71  177-205.) Further, if evidence is forthcoming, it needs to be reckoned with. Thus, Philip Comfort has recently argued that John 21 shows evidence in some of the early papyri as having been added to the Gospel. Whether his argument proves convincing or not, this is certainly the kind of corroborative backing that is needed to make out a convincing case.
6 However, a lone Vulgate MS omits the last sentence of v 16 (ἔφθασεν δὲ ἐπ ᾿ αὐτοὺς ἡ ὀργὴ εἰς τέλος).
7 For a thorough examination of Payne’s evidence, and a denial of the validity of his argument at this text, see Jeff Miller’s 2000 DTS master’s thesis. This has now been published, in modified form, in JSNT: “Some Observations on the Text-Critical Function of the Umlauts in Vaticanus, with Special Attention to 1 Corinthians 14.34-35,” J. Edward Miller, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 26 (2003): 217-36.
Some scholars have argued that vv. 34-35 should be excised from the text (principally Straatman, Fee, Payne). This is because the Western witnesses have these verses after v. 40, while the rest of the tradition retains them here. There are no mss that omit the verses. Why, then, would some scholars wish to excise the verses? Because they believe that this best explains how they could end up in two different locations, that is to say, that the verses got into the text by way of a very early gloss added in the margin. Most scribes put the gloss after v. 33; others, not knowing where they should go, put them at the end of the chapter. G. D. Fee points out that “Those who wish to maintain the authenticity of these verses must at least offer an adequate answer as to how this arrangement came into existence if Paul wrote them originally as our vv. 34-35” (First Corinthians [NICNT], 700). In a footnote he adds, “The point is that if it were already in the text after v. 33, there is no reason for a copyist to make such a radical transposition.” Although it is not our intention to interact with proponents of the shorter text in any detail here, a couple of points ought to be made. (1) Since these verses occur in all witnesses to 1 Corinthians, to argue that they are not original means that they must have crept into the text at the earliest stage of transmission. How early? Earlier than when the pericope adulterae (John 7:53-8:11) made its way into the text (late 2nd, early 3rd century?), earlier than the longer ending of Mark (16:9-20) was produced (early 2nd century?), and earlier than even “in Ephesus” was added to Eph 1:1 (upon reception of the letter by the first church to which it came, the church at Ephesus [c. ad 60])—because in these other, similar places, the earliest witnesses do not add the words. This text thus stands as remarkable, unique. Indeed, since all the witnesses have the words, the evidence points to them as having been inserted into the original document. Who would have done such a thing? And, further, why would scribes have regarded it as original since it was obviously added in the margin? This leads to our second point. (2) Following a suggestion made by E. Earle Ellis (“The Silenced Wives of Corinth (I Cor. 14:34-5),” New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis, 213-20 [the suggestion comes at the end of the article, almost as an afterthought]), it is likely that Paul himself added the words in the margin. Since it was so much material to add, Paul could have squelched any suspicions by indicating that the words were his (e.g., by adding his name or some other means [cf. 2 Thess 3:17]). This way no scribe would think that the material was inauthentic. (Incidentally, this is unlike the textual problem at Rom 5:1, for there only one letter was at stake; hence, scribes would easily have thought that the “text” reading was original. And Paul would hardly be expected to add his signature for one letter!) (3) What then is to account for the uniform Western tradition of having the verses at the end of the chapter? Our conjecture (and that is all it is) is that the scribe of the Western Vorlage could no longer read where the verses were to be added (any marginal arrows or other directional device could have been smudged), but, recognizing that this was part of the original text, felt compelled to put it somewhere. The least offensive place would have been at the end of the material on church conduct (end of chapter 14), before the instructions about the resurrection began. Although there were no chapter divisions in the earliest period of copying, scribes could still detect thought breaks (note the usage in the earliest papyri). (4) The very location of the verses in the Western tradition argues strongly that Paul both authored vv. 34-35 and that they were originally part of the margin of the text. Otherwise, one has a difficulty explaining why no scribe seemed to have hinted that these verses might be inauthentic (the scribal sigla of codex B, as noticed by Payne, can be interpreted otherwise than as an indication of inauthenticity). There are apparently no mss that have an asterisk or obelisk in the margin. Yet in other places in the NT where scribes doubted the authenticity of the clauses before them, they often noted their protest with an asterisk or obelisk. We are thus compelled to regard the words as original, and as belonging where they are in the text above.
9 A paper circulated to members of the Majority Text Society, September, 1988.
12 For a lengthier response, see my “Inspiration, Preservation” article.
13 So much so that W. R. Telford could argue, “While a number of scholars would still adhere to the view that the Gospel originally extended beyond 16:8, more and more are coming to the opinion that it was intended to end at 16:8, and that it does so indeed, in literary terms, with dramatic appositeness” (“Introduction: The Gospel of Mark,” in The Interpretation of Mark, ed. W. R. Telford [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985] 26). Cf. also C. S. Mann, Mark: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Vol. 27 in the Anchor Bible (Garden City: Doubleday, 1986) 659 (“Mark did indeed finish his gospel at v. 8, and . . . he had a specific and well-defined purpose in doing so”); R. P. Meye, “Mark 16:8—The Ending of Mark’s Gospel,” BibRes 14 (1969) 33–43; H. Anderson, The Gospel of Mark, in the New Century Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976) 351–54; H. Paulsen, “Mark xvi. 1–8,” NovT 22 (1980) 138–70; N. R. Petersen, “When Is the End Not the End? Literary Reflections on the Ending of Mark’s Narrative,” Interp 34 (1980) 151–66; T. E. Boomershine and G. L. Bartholomew, “The Narrative Technique of Mark 16:8,” JBL 100 (1981) 213–23. Among those who are evangelicals (in the strictest sense of the word—i.e., inerrantists), a number of authors antedating Pickering’s essay held to this view: cf., e.g., N. B. Stonehouse, The Witness of Matthew and Mark to Christ (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1944) 86–118; W. L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 582–92; J. D. Grassmick also seems to lean toward this view (Mark in the Bible Knowledge Commentary [Wheaton: Victor Books, 1983] 193–94). See now the bibliographic data in Clayton Croy, The Mutilation of Mark’s Gospel, where the author demonstrates that the intentional ending at v. 8 view emerged as the predominant view of this Gospel in the 20th century.
14 E. Best, Mark: The Gospel as Story (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1983) 73.
17 See n. 13. Besides literary criticism, another argument could be used to support the view that the gospel ended here: only if Mark’s Gospel were originally published in codex form (in which case the last leaf could have possibly fallen off) could one argue that the ending of Mark was lost. But if, as extrabiblical parallels are increasingly showing to be more likely, the Gospel was originally written on a scroll, then the last portion of the book, being at the center of the scroll, would be the least likely portion of the book to be lost.
18 I have not yet checked B. Aland, K. Aland, G. Mink, and K. Wachtel, eds., Der Jakobusbrief, Section IV, Part I of Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997), which has a complete collation of all extant witnesses on this verse. Perhaps other witnesses will also turn up from an examination of the Editio Critica Maior.
19 See in particular Birger A. Pearson, “1 Thessalonians 2:13-16: A Deutero-Pauline Interpolation,” HTR 64 (1971) 79-94. Many of these advocates are also listed in Okeke’s article, passim, as well as Wanamaker, 29-33.
22 G. E. Okeke, “1 Thessalonians 2.13-16: The Fate of the Unbelieving Jews,” NTS 27 (1981) 127-36.
30 See in particular Okeke’s article, as well as Wanamaker, 29-33..
32 Pearson has a nice discussion of the parallels (92-93), though he underscores only on the verbal parallels.
33 Pearson, 93, n. 71.
34 Although an excellent case has been made by Michael Svigel that P46 originally had this pericope in it. The MS lacks most of 1 Thessalonians, but Svigel has reconstructed the text by noting the number of lines per page and letters per line that the papyrus consistently had. He argues that P46 should be given a vid at this juncture.

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