Sometimes scholars have listed criteria
for finding interpolations by criticizing the style of certain passages. They
assume that such an author as John could write well, and therefore interpolations
may exist where there are (a) compositional difficulties (‘when, then,
the Lord knew that the Pharisees had head that Jesus was making and baptizing more
disciples than John,’ John 4.1), (b) contradiction (‘yet Jesus himself
was not baptizing; his disciples were,’ 4.2), and (c) obscurities. An excellent
example of obscurity occurs in John 4.43-45:
After two days he went forth from
there into Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honour in
his own country. When, then, he came into Galilee the Galileans received him,
having seen everting that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast; for they
themselves had gone to the feast.
What is the sequence of ideas in this
passage? Origen found it so difficult that he was sure it was meant allegorically;
and he may have been right. The difficulty with these three criteria lies in
the assumption that an author (a) never has compositional difficulties,
(b) never contradicts himself, and (c) always writes and intends
to write, clearly. This assumption is not necessarily correct.
Literary critics sometimes pass beyond
these criteria in the direction of historical criticism. They analyse documents
in relation to (1) the presumed author’s life and thought, (2) the known course
of historical events, and (3) the assumed development of early Christian life
and thought. The first of these methods can be regarded as still within the
limits of literary criticism. Passages which are inconsistent with what is
definitely known about an author’s life or thought (as reflected in his
writings) may well be regarded as interpolations. In most instances in the New
Testament, however, not enough is known about these phenomena for us to be able
to say with certainty what is inconsistent with them. The second and third of
the methods go well beyond literary criticism. The fact that something seems unhistorical
to us does not imply that it seemed unhistorical to a New Testament writer or
that, for that matter, he was writing that we should regard as history. For
example, it has often been assumed that the description of the last times in
Mark 13 was written either before or after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 but, in
any event, with closer attention to the book of Daniel than to historical events.
On the other hand, the precise reference to the devastation of Jerusalem by a
hostile army in Luke 21.20-4 has suggested that Luke is writing after the fall
of the city. C. H. Dodd has pointed out, however, that Luke’s reference may
well be derived from Old Testament passages wich speak of the fall of Jerusalem
in 586 B.C. Mark, ten, is close to Daniel; Luke is close to earlier prophets,
and the passage is of no use in dating his book. (Robert M. Grant, Historical
Introduction to the New Testament [New York: Harper and Row, Publishers,
1963], 69)
