August 2004

PROBLEM

Paul’s First Epistle to the Thessalonians is dated by nearly all NT scholars at around A.D. 50. However, the four verses from 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 have been regarded by several scholars as a post-A.D. 70 interpolation for historical, theological, or form-critical reasons,[1] contrary to all extant Greek MS evidence.[2] Even Pearson, who believes one should turn to theories of interpolation only as a final option, suggests that “the historical and theological difficulties in 1 Thessalonians 2 are such that one must begin again to entertain such a hypothesis.”[3]

On the face of it, such a hypothesis would seem possible, yet improbable. Given the sizable number of MSS available to the textual critic, it would be reasonable to expect some trace of an original and easier reading to survive among the Greek MS traditions, though it is of course a possibility that such a reading (without 2:13–16) could be entirely lost to a more difficult, problematic reading twenty years older. Yet taking into account the presumed reluctance of most copyists to tamper with their Vorlage and considering the possibility that even variants that developed in first generation copies of MSS may be preserved in separate textual traditions,[4] it would seem the interpolation theory should be advanced with caution and adopted with reluctance.

Nevertheless, the doubts concerning 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 persist. With this article I will contribute to the discussion by demonstrating that P⁴⁶—the earliest papyrus MS of 1 Thessalonians—included the passage. This MS, dated c. A.D. 200 and included in a codex of Pauline writings, suggests that at the time of its copying the text of 2:13–16 already enjoyed a stable position in the Pauline corpus. Although this does not prove that the text of 2:13–16 is original to Paul, it pushes back external evidence for the existence of the verses into the late second century while currently the earliest extant MSS that read for those disputed verses, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, are from the fourth century.

METHOD

The first problem with P⁴⁶ is that the only extant verses of 1 Thessalonians are on two non-sequential page fragments, the first containing the end of Colossians and 1 Thessalonians 1:1 on its front and traces of 1:9—2:3 on its back (fol. 94).[5] The second fragment has 1 Thessalonians 5:5–9 on the front and 5:23–28 on the reverse (fol. 97).[6] Since the two leaves that originally contained chapters 3 and 4 are lost, at first glance it appears impossible to determine if 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 was present in P⁴⁶. However, due to the length of the debated passage and the condition of the fragments, a careful analysis reveals whether or not the verses were contained in one of the missing leaves. The method of this reconstruction and analysis is presented below.

First I selected a standard Greek text from which to reconstruct the missing text of P⁴⁶. The only viable options were the Textus Receptus and the critical text of Nestle-Aland²⁷. For the purpose of this study minor variants between these texts are of little consequence, since a difference of even a whole line of additions or omissions would not affect the final determination of whether the whole of 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 was present in the original P⁴⁶. I have therefore decided to use the more commonly accepted NA²⁷ as the standard, making the reasonable assumption that the original text of 1 Thessalonians in P⁴⁶ was fairly similar to that edition.[7]

Second, I determined the average number of characters per line in this part of P⁴⁶.[8] By filling in gaps with NA²⁷, I reconstructed the text of the missing portions of the first fragment (fol. 94^r and 94^v), modifying the text of NA²⁷ to include nomina sacra regularly used in P⁴⁶ as well as known spelling variations in the MS.[9] I then counted the number of characters reconstructed between two letters that appear on opposite sides of the actual fragment.[10] The letter e in the partial word umein (1 Thess 1:1) at the bottom left corner of 94^r is matched on the opposite side by the u of the abbreviated qu (1 Thess 2:2).[11] Between these two letters in the reconstructed text there are 1,063 characters.[12] Kenyon has pointed out that in P⁴⁶ “the number of lines on a page varies between 25 and 32, but tends to increase as the MS. progresses.”[13] My personal examination revealed that toward the end of the MS the average is actually between 29 and 32. Since I was working with close estimates anyway and since this study could accept a margin of error as great as a whole line of text, I safely estimated that fol. 94 had 30 lines of text per page. This renders an average of 35.4 characters per line of text.

Third, I estimated how many lines the text of 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 would have occupied had it been present in the missing leaves of P⁴⁶. Using NA²⁷ as the base text and contracting all nomina sacra regularly used by the scribe of P⁴⁶, the debated text would have consisted of approximately 522 characters. Dividing 522 by the average number of characters per line (35.4), I concluded that 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 would have taken up 14.75 lines of text, virtually half a page in P⁴⁶.

Fourth, I examined a full-sized facsimile of the actual fragments of P⁴⁶ to ascertain where both 1 Thessalonians 1:1 and 5:5 are positioned on the leaves. Due to the nature of the extant fragments, this is relatively easy to determine. By projecting the text of Colossians from the penultimate leaf to the final fragmentary leaf where that epistle ends and 1 Thessalonians begins, I determined within a one line margin of error upon which of the thirty lines of the leaf 1 Thessalonians began. The reconstruction of fol. 94 below demonstrates this:[14]

[top of fol. 93^v]

According to this reconstruction, 1 Thessalonians begins on or about the thirteenth line of the page (fol. 94^r).

Finally, I established upon which line of the page the words of the next extant fragment lie (fol. 97). A close examination of the fragment made this positioning certain, as one can easily discern that the first visible character in the fragment is at the top corner of the page.[16] Therefore, 1 Thessalonians 1:1 begins on the thirteenth line of the recto side of leaf 94 and the beginning of 1 Thessalonians 5:5 (pan[te"]) falls on the first line of the recto side of leaf 97.

Having established this, I could then approximate the missing pages of P⁴⁶ by projecting the standard NA²⁷ outwards from the thirteenth line of the first page, dividing up the letters into lines consisting of 35.4 characters and onto pages of 30 lines each.[17] The hypothetical reconstruction in the Appendix includes 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16. If the verses were actually included in the original missing leaves of P⁴⁶, then 5:5 in the reconstruction would fall near the first line of the front of the leaf. If the verses were missing from the original pages of P⁴⁶, then the addition of these lines in the reconstruction would cause a shift forward by approximately 14.75 lines, placing 5:5 not at the top of the leaf, but in the middle of the page.

The result of the reconstruction was revealing. In the hypothetical text of the missing leaves of P⁴⁶, the first word of 1 Thessalonians 5:5 ( pan) fell in the center of line 27 of fol. 96^v, three and a half lines earlier than it does in the actual extant fragment (line 1 of fol. 96^r). Therefore, it can be demonstrated that 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 was almost certainly part of the original P⁴⁶, even though the leaf on which that text was originally written is lost today.

IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION

Establishing that 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 was included in the original complete P⁴⁶ places the external evidence for the reading at least as early A.D. 200, the date of that MS. Although the text type in that papyrus has been characterized as “free,”[18] and the scribe regarded as a “blunderer,”[19] one can discern no pattern of variants in the text that would suggest the scribe of P⁴⁶ was interested in anything other than preserving the MS tradition of the exemplar.[20] Nor does it appear that the tradition of his exemplar would be characterized as grossly unreliable. Therefore, while I can comfortably declare with relative certainty that 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 was among the MS tradition in A.D. 200, it seems reasonable to push this tradition back at least into the late second century, or even earlier.

Although this early testimony of P⁴⁶does not prove the passage in question to be originally Pauline, Vaganay notes as a general principle: “It would be right to be wary of a variant which does not emerge until the fifteenth or sixteenth century, for example, and to pay more attention to a variant in a papyrus from around AD 200.”[21] This principle of textual criticism speaks even louder against variants that have no Greek textual evidence, either early or late.

As it stands, the abiding theory of interpolation at 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 depends strictly on intrinsic evidence, “the most subjective element in the methodology of textual criticism.”[22] The subjectivism of the evaluation of intrinsic evidence is highlighted when one encounters the variety of opinions regarding which of the verses in 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 are authentic and which are interpolations.[23] Of course, disagreement among scholars does not prove any or all of the hypotheses false, but the critic ought to tread even more cautiously when he realizes that the “most subjective” among the elements of evidence in a problem like 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 is the element upon which the entire argument depends.[24] In spite of the bold but tenuous assertions to the contrary,[25] the burden of proof still lies with the proponent of an interpolation hypothesis in 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16.

Nevertheless, the jury is admittedly still out. By this article I have briefly reopened the case to admit additional evidence from the testimony of P⁴⁶—a witness heretofore silent. I remind interpolation advocates of the precariousness of a hypothesis that rests strictly on internal evidences against all other considerations. However, while the arguments from external evidence have been strengthened by this study, a final verdict on the authenticity of 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 patiently awaits the discovery of another even earlier MS of 1 Thessalonians, and hopefully one made out of stronger stuff than that crumbly P⁴⁶!

APPENDIX:

A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE LOST LEAVES OF P⁴⁶

This reconstruction of the lost leaves of P⁴⁶ highlights the characters from the extant fragments of 1 Thessalonians in bold bracketed characters, beginning the reconstruction with line 13 of fol. 94^r. Since I was only interested in the approximate amount of space the characters would have taken and not in the content itself, I did not re-organized the reconstruction to conform to the extant text as it appears in the fragments. Also, in order to maintain a consistent average of characters per line, I have had to divide words unnaturally.

The number on the left is the line number (1–30 lines per page). The number on the right indicates the number of characters in that particular line, averaging 35.4 characters per line. The first two lines (13 and 14) of fol. 94^r are reconstructed as they would have appeared in the original MS and the hypothetical reproduction itself begins on line 15.