[1] A distinction is to be made, at least in principle, between a ‘gloss’ and an ‘interpolation’. A gloss is a brief explanatory note or comment, usually written in the margin or between the lines of a manuscript; an interpolation is foreign material that is actually incorporated into the text of a document. At times, however, glosses were written into the texts by copyists, in which cases the glosses became interpolations. An interpolation might involve either additional material composed by the author of the document in question (inserted either by the author or by someone else) or material composed by some other writer (inserted either by the author of the document in question, by the writer of the interpolated material, or by someone else). In this paper, however, ‘interpolation’ refers to material both composed and inserted by someone other than the author of the document in question (the writer and the interpolator, however, may or may not be the same person).

[2] Considerable attention has focused upon 2 Corinthians 6. 14–7. 1; other passages proposed as possible interpolations include Romans 3. 24–26; 5. 7–6; 13. 1–7; 16. 25–27; 1 Corinthians 11. 3–16; 13; 14. 33b–36 (or only verses 34–35); 1 Thessalonians 2. 13–16 (or only verses 14b–16); and 5. 1–11. See, e.g., Grossouw, W. K. M., ‘Over de echtheid van 2 Cor 6:14–7:1’, Studia Catholica, 26 (1951) 203–6;Google ScholarFitzmyer, Joseph A., ‘Qumran and the Interpolated Paragraph in 2 Cor 6:14–7:1’, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 23 (1961) 271–80;Google ScholarGnilka, J., ‘2 Cor 6:14–7:1 in the Light of the Qumran Texts and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs’, in Paul and Qumran, ed. Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome (London: G. Chapman, 1968) 48–68;Google ScholarBetz, Hans Dieter, ‘2 Cor 6:14–7:1: An Anti-Pauline Fragment?’, Journal of Biblical Literature 92 (1973) 88–108;CrossRefGoogle ScholarTalbert, Charles H., ‘A Non-Pauline Fragment at Romans 3:24–26?’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 85 (1966) 287–96;CrossRefGoogle ScholarKeck, Leander E., ‘The Post-Pauline Interpretation of Jesus' Death in Rom 5. 6–7’, in Theologia Crucis - Signum Crucis: Festschrift für Erich Dinkier zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Andresen, Carl and Klein, Gunter (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1979) 237–48;Google ScholarKallas, James, ‘Romans XIII.1–7: An Interpolation’, New Testament Studies 11 (1964–1965) 365–74;CrossRefGoogle ScholarKäsemann, Ernst, Commentary on Romans, trans. and ed. Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980) 421–8 (on Romans 16. 25–27);Google ScholarWalker, William O. Jr., ‘1 Corinthians 11:2–16 and Paul's Views Regarding Women’, Journal of Biblical Literature 94 (1975) 94–110;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCope, Lamar, ‘1 Cor 11:2–16: One Step Further’, Journal of Biblical Literature 97 (1978) 435–6;CrossRefGoogle ScholarTrompf, G. W., ‘On Attitudes Toward Women in Paul and Paulinist Literature: 1 Corinthians 11:3–16 and Its Context’, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 42 (1980) 196–215;Google ScholarTitus, E. L., ‘Did Paul Write I Corinthians 13?’, The Journal of Bible and Religion 27 (1959) 299–302;Google ScholarFitzer, Gerhard, Das Weib schweige in der Gemeinde. Über den unpaulinischen Charakter der mulier-taceat Verse in 1. Korinther 14 (Theologische Existenz Heute, n.F. 110; München: Kaiser Verlag, 1963);Google ScholarPearson, Binger A., ‘1 Thessalonians 2:13–16: A Deutero-Pauline Interpolation’, Harvard Theological Review 64 (1971) 79–94;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSchmidt, Daryl, ‘1 Thess 2:13–16: Linguistic Evidence for an Interpolation’, Journal of Biblical Literature 102 (1983) 269–79;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Friedrich, Gerhard, ‘1.Thessalonischer 5, 1–11, der apologetische Einschub eines Späteren’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 70 (1973) 288–315.Google Scholar

[3] E.g., Hawkins, Robert Martyr, The Recovery of the Historical Paul (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1943);Google ScholarO'Neill, J. C., Paul's Letter to the Romans (Baltimore: Penguin Books, Inc., 1975);Google ScholarThe Recovery of Paul's Letter to the Galatians (London: SPCK, 1972)Google Scholar, and Munro, Winsome, Authority in Paul and Peter: The Identification of a Pastoral Stratum in the Pauline Corpus and I Peter (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series, 45; Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

[4] Furnish, Victor Paul, ‘Pauline Studies’ (unpublished paper presented at Southwest Regional Society of Biblical Literature meeting, 1979) 7.Google Scholar

[5] Recently, Winsome Munro has made an important contribution on the latter point with her discussion of five criteria that, in their cumulative effect, are helpful in identifying interpolations. The criteria are those of ideology, style, context, literary dependence, and coherence. The first three were suggested by the work of Robert Tomson Fortna in attempting to distinguish between earlier source and later redaction in the Fourth Gospel. See Munro, , Authority in Paul and Peter, 21–25;Google Scholar and Fortna, , The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series, 11; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) 15–21.Google Scholar See also O'Neill, J. C., Paul's Letter to the Romans, 11–22;Google Scholar and The Recovery of Paul's Letter to the Galatians, 1–15Google Scholar; as well as Hawkins, Robert Martyr, The Recovery of the Historical Paul, 1–20.Google Scholar It is clear, however, that much work is yet to be done before it can confidently be claimed that a set of ‘firm and convincing … criteria … to aid in the identification of … interpolations’ has been established (Victor Paul Furnish, ‘Pauline Studies’, 7–8). For some preliminary work along these lines, we Walker, William O. Jr., ‘Evidences of Interpolation in the Pauline Corpus’ (unpublished paper presented at annual Society of Biblical Literature meeting, 1984)Google Scholar, abstract in Richards, Kent Harold and Wiggins, James B., eds., Abstracts: American Academy of Religion, Society of Biblical Literature, 1984 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1984) 263–4.Google Scholar

[6] Keck, Leander E., Paul and His Letters (Proclamation Commentaries: The New Testament Witnesses for Preaching; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979) 15.Google Scholar

[7] Keck, Leander E., Paul and His Letters, 15.Google Scholar

[8] Keck, Leander E. and Furnish, Victor Paul, The Pauline Letters (Interpreting Biblical Texts; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984) 50.Google Scholar

[9] See, e.g., Evans, C. F., ‘The New Testament in the Making’, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1:Google ScholarFrom the Beginnings to Jerome, ed. Ackroyd, P. R. and Evans, C. F. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) 240–1Google Scholar, who suggests ‘that some at least of the letters, so far from being preserved intact by constant use, had been allowed to fall into oblivion, had lost their context through neglect, and were in a state of disarray until a particular arrangement was imposed upon them when they were given currency as a collection …’ On the other hand, we, e.g., Keck, Leander E. and Furnish, Victor Paul, The Pauline Letters, 50:Google Scholar ‘On the whole, viewing the formation of the corpus as a gradual process creates fewer problems of historical reconstruction than does seeing it as a deliberate act to recover Paul after neglect.’ My own view is that, whatever the prior stages in the process may have been, at some point there must have been a deliberate act or process of collecting and editing the letters.

[10] Keck, Leander E. and Furnish, Victor Paul, The Pauline Letters, 50.Google Scholar

[11] Knox, John, Chapters in a Life of Paul (New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1950) 18.Google Scholar

[12] MacDonald, Dennis Ronald, The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1983) 89.Google Scholar

[13] See n. 1 above.

[14] The principal exceptions are Romans 16. 25–27 and 1 Corinthians 14. 34–35. Some manuscripts place Romans 16. 25–27 at the end of chapter 14 and others at the end of chapter 15. Similarly, some manuscripts place 1 Corinthians 14. 34–35 at the end of chapter 14 (i.e., after verse 40). Cf., however, Ellis, E. Earle, ‘The Silenced Wives of Corinth (I Cor. 14:34–5)’, in New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis: Essays in Honour of Bruce M. Metzger, ed. Epp, Eldon Jay and Fee, Gordon D. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1981) 213–20Google Scholar, who suggests that 1 Corinthians 14. 34–35 was added as a marginal gloss by (or at the instruction of) Paul himself before the letter was sent to Corinth.

[15] See, e.g., MacDonald, Dennis Ronald, The Legend and the Apostle, 86:Google Scholar ‘The text of the Pauline letters that lies behind all the extant manuscripts bears signs of harmonization with the Pastorals. That is, all extant manuscripts of the corpus contain interpolations from a scribe who knew the Pastorals and who altered the text of Paul's own letters to conform with them. I shall call this text the archetype, but by this I do not mean that every variant in the corpus ultimately is a deviation from this one text. There probably never was an archetypal text in this sense. Rather, I mean that, for whatever reason, no manuscript omits these interpolations which crept in after the Pastorals were added to the collection.’

[16] Barrett, C. K., A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Harper's New Testament Commentaries; New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1968) 14.Google Scholar

[17] The Chester Beatty papyrus known as P⁴⁶ - originally containing Romans, Hebrews, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians - probably dates from the first half of the third century.

[18] See, e.g., Metzger, Bruce M., The Text of the New Testament Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1964) 201, n. 1.Google Scholar

[19] See, e.g., Meeks, Wayne A., ed., The Writings of St. Paul: Annotated Text, Criticism (A Nor-ton Critical Edition; New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1972) 149–213, and, for a short summary, 149–50.Google Scholar

[20] See, e.g., Wiles, Maurice F., The Divine Apostle: The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistles in the Early Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), esp. the ‘Epilogue’.Google Scholar

[21] See, e.g., Smith, Morton, Jesus the Magician (New York, etc.: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1978) 1–2;Google ScholarPagels, Elaine, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, Inc., 1979) xvii–xix;Google Scholar and Vööbus, A., ‘Syriac Versions’, in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, supplementary vol., ed. Crim, Keith et al. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1976) 851.Google Scholar

[22] Cf., e.g., Bauer, Walter, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, ed. Kraft, Robert A. and Krodel, Gerhard (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971) 147–94 and esp. 160–7.Google Scholar

[23] See, e.g., O'Neill, J. C., Paul's Letter to the Romans, 14:Google Scholar ‘Admittedly it is hard to see how various additions made to different manuscripts at different times should have produced such a uniformly attested text. How do a paragraph added in one manuscript and an explanatory note added in another come together in the one recognized text? The answer must be that at various stages in the transmission of the text powerful editors collected together as many manuscripts as possible and made a standard edition which became the one uniformly copied thereafter in that part of the church.’