In which the White Man is Quoted by a Scholar

As frustrating as it has been for me not to see my posts engender scholarly interaction in the comments section, I have received some hints over the years that they are not totally disregarded among those whose names grace their own publications. The latest of these appears to be Philip B. Payne, the very scholar who first identified umlauts in Vaticanus. Lately he has been called upon to defend his identification of these scribal marks as "early," that is, having been added to the manuscript before all but a handful of the other extant manuscripts for any given passage were produced. Other theories place the addition of the umlauts (now known as distigmai) in the middle ages or even as late as the end of the manuscript era.

Identifying the distigmai as "early" allows him to make such statements as:

"Although Vaticanus does not include John 7:53–8:11, its distigme is the earliest evidence for this text after John 7:52. Similarly, although Vaticanus does include 14:34–35, its distigme here is the earliest manuscript evidence for a text that omitted these verses."

The foregoing is a quote from his article, "Responses to Questions about 1 Cor 14:34-35 as an Interpolation."

I previously posted on this topic here. What's interesting about Payne's article is that he quotes me in it:

"The White Man wrote on Oct. 16, 2009:
'Note, however, that Dd F Gg support ὑμῶν after γυναῖκες alongside Byz against NA-27, so it's really just cherry-picking to count them as unequivocal evidence for removing the verses entirely."

He responds with:
"My point is not that Dd F Gg [this should be Dd Ee Ff Gg, per Fee] give unequivocal evidence for removing the verses entirely, but that they exemplify two features common to interpolations: the[y] put these verses into a different location in Paul’s text than most other manuscripts, and they add to the extraordinarily high number of textual variants in these verses."

He then goes on to respond to my questioning of his assertions which I raised on Oct. 16 at the Evangelical Textual Criticism Blog, which were:

1. Scribes copying the manuscript later would
a) naturally assume that the text in the margin was inadvertently omitted and
b) so insert those verses into the text.

2. All manuscripts of the Western Text-Type put these two verses after 1 Cor 14:40. (how about dem o x z vg?)

3. Such divergent positioning is one of the hallmarks of interpolations.

4. There is no comparable instance of any other manuscript of any of Paul's letters of a scribe rearranging Paul's argument with a significant block of text in this way.

5. we know that it was contrary to scribal convention for a scribe to take the liberty to change the order of Paul's argument simply because he thought a different ordering of the text would make better sense.

6. no scribe of any surviving manuscript (and there are thousands) of any of Paul's letters ever did anything like this in any other passage of Paul's letters.

7. In every other instance where Bishop Victor corrected the text of Codex Fuldensis,
a) surviving manuscripts support his rewriting of the text, and
b) he is known for preserving the readings of ancient manuscripts

His answers to all but the last of these begged the question by referring back to assertions made by CBT member Gordon Fee, the originator of the Interpolation Theory.

Well, I appreciate Dr. Payne's belated response. It appears from it that any quibble I have over this theory is really with Dr. Fee, but it may astound my readers to hear that, all in all, I think it's a pretty reasonable theory. It still strikes me as supported mainly by allegation rather than deduction, so I'm far from convinced. But I'm certainly willing to entertain the idea that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 was not part of Paul's epistle at the time he signed off on it, and welcome further investigation and discussion.

But does it matter? Those evangelical scholars like Drs. Payne and Fee, who consider the Pericope Adultera an interpolation, nonetheless recognize it as an authentic record of Jesus' words and deeds. So, if this passage accurately reflects Pauline doctrine, it makes no difference to us today whether it was originally canonical or not--or does it?

It appears that that question has yet to be addressed, as only those already committed to an egalitarian interpretation of Scripture have yet proposed that 1 Cor 14:34-35 is non-canonical.

UPDATE: I have since addressed the question, in the longest series of posts on this blog. It starts here.