Schnelle, "The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings"

a brief review

Valuable insights

Weaknesses

1. Schnelle argues that 2 Corinthians and Philippians were each originally single letters, but the multiple letter solutions as advocated by Bornkamm ^[1] or more recently by Duling & Perrin ^[2] are closer to the truth. My analysis of the relationship between structure and papyrus pages suggests that when Paul's letters were assembled, some of the sheets (probably written on one side only) seem to have been accidentally displaced. After examining many options, this eventually led me to conclude that 2 Corinthians (less 6:14-7:1 which is widely recognized as an interpolation) and Philippians each originally consisted of three letters. They are set out below in chronological order.
   • 2 Corinthians
     1. The defensive letter (2:14-6:13 plus 7:2-4 plus 7:13b-8:24) on 11 pages
     2. The severe letter (10-13) on 9 pages
     3. The letter of reconciliation (1:1-2:13 plus 7:5-13a plus 9:1-15) on 7 pages
   • Philippians
     1. The thankful letter (4:1-20) on 1 page
     2. The joyful letter (1:1-3:1a plus 4:21-23) on 6 pages
     3. The farewell letter (3:1b-4:9) on 3 pages
2. Schnelle claims that there were two pre-synoptic written sources, namely Q and Deutero-Mark. Both of these are hypothetical and historically unattested.
   • Schnelle rightly argues that Matthew and Luke both contain several doublets in each of which one member is in a Markan context and the other is not. He implies that the members not in a Markan context provide evidence for Q. But he fails to observe that one of them to which he refers, Mt 5:29-30, (// Mt 18:8-9) is not actually assigned to Q! He also assumes that the material common only to Matthew and Luke derives from a single source. But its variety of outlook and literary style make it virtually indistinguishable from Matthew as a whole, so it has no real character of its own. Indeed its narratives and lengthy parables look more like a random selection of Matthean pericopes. They are best explained as the non-Markan pericopes which Luke chose to copy from Matthew - see Pericopes wrongly assigned to Q.
   • His posited Deutero-Mark is highly dubious for seveal reasons. For example, it assumes that a modern scholar should be able to work out in every case why a later gospel writer omitted a passage from Mark. This confidence is unjustifiable.

Overall Assessment

References