the scribe as interpreter: a new look at new testament textual criticism according to reader

315 Pages·2014·6.94 MB·English

THE SCRIBE AS INTERPRETER: A NEW LOOK AT NEW TESTAMENT
TEXTUAL CRITICISM ACCORDING TO READER RECEPTION THEORY
by
PHILIP WESLEY COMFORT
submitted in accordance with the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY
in the subject
THEORY OF LITERATURE
at the
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA
PROMOTER: PROF R C GRABE
JOINT PROMOTER: DR J H PETZER
NOVEMBER 1996
Contents
Prefa ce . . . • . . • . . • . • . . • . . . . • . . . • . . i
Section One
Reader Reception Theory and New Testament Textual Criticism
Chapter One
Literary Theory and New Testament Textual Criticism • . . • 1
Chapter Two
Application of the Theoretical Paradigm . • . . . . . . . . 31
Chapter Three
The Horizon of Expectations of Christian Egyptian Scribes • 74
Section Two
Analysis of Gospel Manuscripts From Egypt . . . . . . . . . 92
Chapter Four
An Examination of Scribal Reception through an Analysis of
Significant Singular Readings of Papyrus 45, a Gospel
Manuscript from Aphroditopolis, Egypt • • • . • • • . 100
Chapter Five
An Examination of Scribal Reception through an Analysis of
Significant Singular Readings of Papyrus 66, a Johannine
Manuscript from Jabal Abu Manna, Egypt . . 152
Chapter Six
An Examination of Scribal Reception through an Analysis of
Significant Singular Readings of Papyrus 75, a Gospel
Manuscript from Jabal Abu Manna, Egypt . • • • . . • 227
Chapter Seven
Observations and Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 6 6
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 9 5
Photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 9 8
i
Prefa ce
The purpose of this thesis is to show that reader
reception aesthetics can be applied to the field of study
called New Testament textual criticism, inasmuch as
reception theory provides a different approach to
explaining textual variants. The reception theory I have
implemented focuses on the interaction between the scribe
and the text, as the scribe engaged with the written text
as an active reader and thereby became a co-producer of a
new, personalized text. For normal readers, this
interaction would usually have only been a mental
interchange--that is, nothing of the interaction would
have been recorded. But for scribes, who produced
manuscript copies as they read, this interaction was often
recorded in the form of singular textual variants (i.e.,
variant readings found only in one manuscript}. These
scribes left a written record of how they had actually
"read" the text differently from any one before them or
after them.
Literary theorists tell us that the written words as
interpreted by an actual reader or readers is the literary
text. In other words, while the words on the page remain
constant, the aesthetic object (which is the concretized
literary text) is subject to change. For printed literary
works, it is true that the words on the page remain
constant; but this is not so for ancient literary works
(in manuscript form) because the wording was also changed
as the concretization changed. As such, ancient
manuscripts provide an excellent source for studying
individual concretizations in a historical context. By
studying the singular variants in these manuscripts, we
can attempt to understand the producer of that text--the
scribe--as an actual reader. This is where the literary
ii
theories of Jauss are so helpful, for Jauss focused on
actual historical readers who brought with them their own
"horizon of expectations" to the text, which also has its
own horizon. The process of reading brings a meeting of
the two horizons, which can result in frustration or
fusion. When scribes were frustrated by the text they
read, they could adjust their horizon of expectations to
that of the text or they could change the text to satisfy
their expectations. These changes often involved the
filling in of perceived gaps or blanks in the narrative.
The literary theorist, Wolfgang Iser, helps us understand
how the text itself prompts such blank-filling. These
blanks were often filled in with creative, individualized
readings.
In this thesis I implement the theories of Jauss and
Iser (which are detailed in the opening chapters of this
thesis) in an effort to determine whether literary theory
might be useful in providing an additional or perhaps an
alternative means of analyzing and understanding textual
variants. To accomplish this goal, my thesis is divided
into two sections: the first section deals with the
literary theory of reader reception as it pertains to
Christian Egyptian scribes living in the second and third
centuries A.D.; the second section provides a detailed
analysis of the actual receptions and textual variants
produced by three Christian Egyptian scribes--i.e., those
who produced the Gospel papyrus manuscripts known as P45,
P66, and P75.
The first chapter of the first section provides a
rationale for utilizing the literary theories of Hans
Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser in the study of New
Testament textual criticism. In the second chapter I apply
their theoretical paradigms to New Testament textual
criticism--especially of the Gospels, which are the main
focus of my study. In the third chapter, I have attempted
iii
to describe the horizon of expectations of Christian
Egyptian scribes living in the second and third centuries.
This chapter provides a general sketch of what constituted
their literary lives as Christian scribes living in Egypt.
This generalized picture serves me well in my attempt to
reconstruct the specific portfolio of each of the three
scribes (analyzed in chapters four through six), which
should then furnish some details for adjusting the
generalized picture or coloring it in.
The second section is devoted entirely to the study
of the reader receptions of three specific scribes as
manifest in singular variants (i.e., these are variant
readings that appear in no other manuscripts and therefore
must be the creation of the scribe). The fourth chapter
deals with the individual receptions of the scribe of P45,
who produced a codex containing all four Gospels and Acts
somewhere around 200 A.D. The fifth chapter focuses on the
singular variants of the second-century scribe of P66, a
codex containing the Gospel of John. (In this chapter I
also analyze the work of another scribe who worked on this
manuscript--the corrector. But his role is minor.) The
sixth chapter presents an analysis of the singular
variants of the scribe of P75, a codex written around 200
A.D., containing Luke and John. The purpose of analyzing
the individual receptions of these three scribes is to
formulate specific observations about each of their
concretizations and thereby gain knowledge about each of
'
their transcriptional idiosyncrasies. Furthermore, the
analysis could shed some light on what aspects of reader
reception these scribes may have shared in common. This
final analysis constitutes the final part of this thesis-
chapter seven.
1
Section One
Reader Reception Theory and New Testament Textual
Criticism
Chapter One
Literary Theory and New Testament Textual Criticism
thesis involves a merging of two discipl Ines rarely
Thi~
associated and not easily combined. The disciplines are
reader-reception criticism and New Testament textual
criticism. The very essence of textual cr~tlcism would
seem to defy any appropriation of reader-reception
criticism. but that Is because textual criticism is usually
perceived as dealing only with the text and not the reader.
However. textual criticism could benefit from the same
kind of Influence ·that has happened recently in literary
studies. As many literary critics have shifted their focus
from the text itself readers of.the text In an attempt
to~the t~
comprehend plurality of Interpretation. so textual critics
could analyze variant readings in the textual tradition as
being the products of different "readings" of the text
created by the scribes who produced them. Reader-
receptioA theory can serve as a balance to textual
criticism because It adds a new perspectlve--the reader·s.
And I n t he case o f New Tes t amen t t ex t u a I s t u d I es . i t
provides a tool for studying the activity of scribes as actual
readers.
Reader reception theories have come to the fore in the
past thirty years. The change of focus in I iterary theory to
the reader exhibits a significant shift from text-oriented
studies (as presented in formal ism and structural ism) to
studies concerned with the dynamic relationship between
2
the reader and the text. The focus has shifted from the
autonomy of the text to the interact I on between the text
and the reader. such studies concentrate on how the text
affects the reader and how the reader a new
ma~es
con tr I but Ion In the process of concret izlng a 11 terary text.
'Reader, reception theories were given a proper theoretical
' .
foundation by the literary theorists. Wolfgang Iser and
Hans Robert Jauss. both of the Unlyerslty of Constance In
Ge r many . I s e r de v e 1 op e d t h e c o n c e P t o f · t h e Lm p I i e d r ea de r
t 0 . s t u d y t he i n t e r a c t i on between t he t ex t
and reader, whereas Jauss developed the theory of the
aesthetics of reception according to diachronic shifts In
the horizon of expectations of historical readers. These
two theories are very pertinent to my study of variant
seadlngs created throughout the course of the textual
transmission of the New Testament text because they
provide the theoretical constructs for· an investigation of
actual reader receptions.
The purpose of Jauss' worl<, In particular. Is to provide
•'/.
theories that'facllltate the empirical study of the reception;·
of I lterary worKs. According to Jauss (1989:123-124). the
Constance school was completely oriented at f lrst on
problems of reception or effect. then evolved more and
more Into a theory of literary communication. In his own
words, evolution of their theory was as follows:
~auss•
Foremost for me was the question concerning the
experience of art, or what could be called aesthetic
p r ax I s . wh I ch u n de r I I es a I I man I f es t a t I on s o f a r t as
productive (poiesls), activity
actlvl~y rec~ptive
and communicative activity (Katharsls).
(alsthesls)~
F r om t h I s I t f o I I owed t ha t t h e an a I y s I s o f t h e I mp I I e d
reader had to be supplemented by the analysis of the
historical reader. and the reconstruction of the
Immanent horizon of expectations, which the worK
Implies or anticipates. had to be supplemented by the
reconstruction of the social horizon of experience,
which the reader supplies or brings from his or her
3
own historical "Lebenswelt" (I ife world). The classical
dichotomy of fiction and reality resolved into the
dialectical relationship of theme and horizon.
Jauss' observation seems to indicate that the school first
developed the notion of the Implied reader (In lser's
paradigm). and then the real. historical reader (In Jauss•
paradigm). Real readers are historical, flesh and blood
readers. They are not the same as the "impl led reader."
who is the reader envisaged In the mind of the author and
ev9Ked to respond to the worK by a succession of I iterary
clues. Actual readers grasp the Intended perception of
the text from the clues given. and actual readers
concretize the physical artefact as an aesthetic object.
Actual readers can be described on the basis of
documents constructed from social and historical
Knowledge, as well as from I lterary conventions of the
time.
In my forthcoming ana·1ys1s of three Egyptian Christian
scribes CP45. P66. P75) I will attempt to reconstruct ~heir
horizon of expectation by treating them as actual historical
readers in Jauss•s sense of the term. I will attempt to
explain their textual practices by abstracting the process
of reading underlying their decisions to introduce
This means that I will be illustrating a process of
variants~
reading-whereby the variants may be interpreted as
tndlcat'lons that actual readers were trying their best to
comply with textual constraints in an attempt to determine
textual meaning. As such. these scribes can be viewed as
actual readers who were trying to comply with the
instruction of lser•s implied reader (in the sense of both
textual construct and structured act) as being that reader
that would ideally meet all textual requirements and that
would exhaust textual meaning.
The scribes of P45, P66, and P75 were actual readers,
4
who have I e f t f or us a I e g a c y of some of t he I r r ea c t I on s t o
the written text of the New Testament by changes they
made i n t he t ex t as t hey r ea d i t . F o r mode r n I i t e r a r y wo r Ks
(since the time of printing), the words on the page remain
cons tan t : but th I s I s not so for an c I en t I I t er a r y wo r Ks ( I n
manuscript form) because the wording was also changed
as the concretization changed and scribes sought to fill In
perceived gaps. These provide an excel lent
docum~nts
source for studying ancient reader reception of the New
Testament text.
lser•s Textual Indeterminacy
Wolfgang lser's observations about reader-reception are
applicable to scribal-reception, inasmuch as scribes
actively participated in textual meaning through
concretlzatlon. Textual critics can gain great
understanding about textual variants by studying this
concretizatlon process, especially as It applies to textual
Indeterminacy and the fill Ing of textual
gaps~
But before I launch into a discussion about lser's
concept of textual Indeterminacy it must be noted that
Iser was indebted to Roman lngarden, a Pol lsh
phi who did intensive studies in the cognition of
losop~er
I I t er a r y- wo r Ks . I n garden ' s v i ew was that a I i t er a r y wo r K
was not ·autonomous but was an intensional object that
depended on the cognition of the reader. As an
i n t en s i on a I ob j e c t . a I i t e r a r y wo r K can n o t f i I I I n a I I t h e
deta·ils; the-· reader is-required to do this .. During the
reading process. the reader must concretize the gaps by
using his or her imagination to give substance to textual
omission and/or indefiniteness. Since this substantiation
is a subjective and creative act, the concretlzation will
assume many variations for different readers.