Date: Sun, 05 Apr 1998 00:40:18 -0500
From: Michael Grondin <mgrondin@tir.com>
To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
Subject: Re: Patterson on stratification

In the spirit of Paul Miller, let me put another of Patterson's passages
on the record. The following excerpt (from page 102 of GTJ) immediately
follows his list of catchwords:

>      To assess the significance of this feature of Thomas' structure, 
> it is important to recognize that the use of catchwords is itself an 
> organizing principle, with its own internal logic. Its nature is 
> essentially mnemonic: a catchword in saying "A" calls to mind a 
> similar word in saying "B," something in saying "B" suggests something
> in saying "C" that is to come, and so on.

At this point, let me stop to point out that Patterson is ignoring
catchwords which occur between non-adjacent sayings, and is drawing
conclusions based strictly on his preceding list, which includes only
examples of adjacent catchwords. Thus, the only "organizing principle"
that he sees at work is a sequential one. If one were to look also at
the non-adjacent catchwords, one might very well see another organizing
principle at work, such as the four "seek-and-find" quadrants that
Davies points to in GTCW.

> The significance of such a pattern in Thomas may be assessed 
> variously. For example, an editor might have organized the collection
> in this way to facilitate its memorization... Alternatively, one could
> well imagine an editor assembling these sayings simply as he or she
> remembered them, catchwords triggering the recollection of each new
> saying. In this case the catchwords will not have been part of any
> conscious design on the part of the editor, but simply the result [of]
> his or her own process of remembering. The occasional gaps where no
> catchwords are to be found suggest the latter.

It may be noticed that here, Patterson is favoring a view quite close to
Davies' recently-expressed "oral aggregate" view, except that Patterson
speaks of an individual editor, whereas Davies seems to be imagining a
group effort. What can be said in favor of either of these views is that
they certainly account for the data, in general (this is an important
qualification). My own experience with what are called "brain-storming"
sessions indicates that the resultant list of ideas coming out of such a
session has many similarities with what we find in GTh: redundancy, one
idea suggesting another one, lack of any discernible order, etc. And the
"scribe" at these "brainstorming sessions" sometimes simply reproduces
the list of ideas exactly as it occurred (although when I myself have
been "scribe", I've tended to organize the list, get rid of duplication,
etc.) So I do not reject these scenarios out of hand. In fact, you can
probably convince me of just about any theory concerning the original
formation of GTh. All I really care about is what the Coptic redactor(s)
did - and why.

But just out of curiosity, let's see how "occasional" are those
"occasional gaps" that Patterson mentions. The following adjacent
sayings are NOT listed by him as having catchword-connections:

2 -> 3
4 -> 5
6 -> 7
10 -> 11
11 -> 12
13 -> 14
14 -> 15
15 -> 16
16 -> 17
17 -> 18
19 -> 20
23 -> 24
24 -> 25
29 -> 30
30 -> 31
31 -> 32
32 -> 33
33 -> 34
34 -> 35
36 -> 37
37 -> 38
38 -> 39
39 -> 40
40 -> 41
41 -> 42
42 -> 43
43 -> 44
44 -> 45
45 -> 46
46 -> 47
47 -> 48
48 -> 49
49 -> 50
52 -> 53
53 -> 54
54 -> 55
56 -> 57
58 -> 59
61 -> 62
62 -> 63
65 -> 66
66 -> 67
67 -> 68
69 -> 70
70 -> 71
71 -> 72
72 -> 73
75 -> 76
76 -> 77
79 -> 80
80 -> 81
81 -> 82
82 -> 83
85 -> 86
86 -> 87
87 -> 88
88 -> 89
89 -> 90
90 -> 91
91 -> 92
92 -> 93
93 -> 94
94 -> 95
95 -> 96
101 -> 102
102 -> 103
104 -> 105
106 -> 107
107 -> 108
108 -> 109
111 -> 112
112 -> 113

Let's see - my count is 72 adjacent sayings which do NOT have catchword
connections. But wait - that's over half, isn't it? I can hardly believe
my calculator. 63.7% of the 113 possible connections DON'T have a shared
catchword? More adjacent sayings DON'T have one than do? Well, I guess
the word 'occasional' has taken on a whole new meaning for me.

Mike