Aorist of epistle in I Cor 5 ?

Brian E. Wilson (brian@twonh.demon.co.uk)
Tue, 11 Nov 1997 07:39:50 +0000

>Mark Goodacre wrote - SNIP -
>
>it occurs to me that there are three
>possibilities:
>
>1. 1 Cor. 5.9 and 5.11 are both 'epistolary', i.e. 'I write in this
>letter . . . I now write [emphasising the point, or meaning 'I write
>in addition . . .]
>
>2. Neither are epistolary. This is Carlton Winberry's view and the
>consensus, 'I wrote . . . but rather I wrote' or something similar
>(RSV).
>
>3. 1 Cor. 5.11 is an epistolary aorist but 1 Cor. 5.9 is not. 'I
>wrote in my letter . . . but now I write [in this letter]'.
>
>The minimalist in me makes me lean towards option 1 -- I am not too
>keen on the multiplication of hypothetical documents and as a
>methodological principle like at least to begin by attempting to
>make sense of the data by means of the documents we do have.
>Likewise, the apparent content of the letter referred to in 1 Cor.
>5.9 looks very much like the content of 1 Corinthians. But I am a
>little troubled by the NUN DE in 5.11 for this interpretation which
>makes me lean more towards option 3. I wonder what others make of
>this?

I wonder whether ** minimalist ** is not what is meant here, but rather
** minimist ** ? According to the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary,
"Minimalism" is a political term to do with minimizing governmental
intervention in society. "Minimism" is used in theology and is about
minimizing a dogma or theory.

I am not sure whether ** to make sense of the data by means of the
documents we have ** can really be held to be ** a methodological
principle ** ? In this context, surely the documents we have are the
data. How can the data make sense of the data? We should distinguish
between documents and theories about documents. They are not the same.

I wonder also about being ** not too keen on the multiplication of
hypothetical documents **. This looks like an appeal to Occam's Razor -
that hypothetical entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. It
should be remembered, however, that Occam's Razor states that where two
hypotheses successfully explain the same set of data, and are the same
except that one uses one or more additional hypothetical entities not
used in the other, then, and only then, the hypothesis not using the
unnecessary extra hypothetical entities is to be accepted. The options
above, however, respectively suppose zero, two and one epistolary
aorists. They are therefore not the same theories with their only
difference being the presence or absence of additional hypothetical
entities. It would seem that Occam's Razor is irrelevant in this
context, therefore.

Looking at the three options in turn, I feel that we have so little
information that any of these explanations is possible, and that none of
them is at all unlikely. In particular, the fact that option 3 implies
that Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthians which has not survived makes
it more, rather than less, probable. By far the majority of books
written in the early centuries have been lost. Papias wrote a book
called the Exegesis of the Logia of the Lord. We have quotations from
it in other writings, but this work of Papias itself has not survived.
Similar indications of lost books are common. I think that it is very
probable indeed that Paul wrote more than two letters to the
Corinthians, though this does not mean that I favour option 3. For it
is nothing short of a miracle that what we know as I Corinthians and II
Corinthians have been handed down to us, and were not themselves lost.
BRIAN E. WILSON