Run It Up The "Poll"
I'm conducting a very unscientific poll. I've been thinking about 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus in the New Testament a good bit recently. I've heard the talk about questioning the authorship of those letters and I was wondering what some of ya'll thought about it.
Do you think Paul wrote those letters or did someone write them using his name? (Pseudigraphically) If Paul didn't write the letters, does that mean anything? How does it effect your faith. Has anyone else heard of this?
Feel free to respond anonymously if you want.
Do you think Paul wrote those letters or did someone write them using his name? (Pseudigraphically) If Paul didn't write the letters, does that mean anything? How does it effect your faith. Has anyone else heard of this?
Feel free to respond anonymously if you want.
posted by Bart at 3:35 PM
5 Comments:
Don't know for sure either way if Paul wrote them, or if someone else did. Of course, Paul himself mentions that others have written letters for him (see Galatians, in which he adds at the end in big letters written by his own hand as opposed to the rest of the letter which was written for him). Dictation to a scribe is different than simply writing something and attaching another's name to it. But what if some disciples of a particular figure like Paul wrote letters in his name to some folks after he had died. Let's say they wrote down what they'd heard him preach and teach in their missionary work with him. Would that be any different that, say, My Utmost For His Highest, which was complied by Chambers students later?
In any event, I am not threatened by challenges to "traditional" authorship attribution. I trust the dynamic mystery of the Holy Spirit working in the early church to collect an inspired, authoritative (whatever those words would mean) canon of Scripture. This is not a hill I choose to die on.
Paul.
If he didn't write them, it would shiver a couple things in my mind, but it would not break the bank.
I'm with guy on this one. The simple fact is that it was common practice in the Ancient Near East for disciples of significant figures to write in the name of thier master without indicating that they were doing so.
In other words, what might be considered a lie in contemporary society (i.e. John Doe, a disciple of Paul writing a letter and claiming to be Paul while writing the letter), was well-known, oft-practiced, and considered anything but devious in Paul's world. If anything, it probably would have been considered plagiaristic (if that's not anachronistic) in Paul's world for John Doe to write a letter based on and in the spirit of the teachings and ministry of Paul, and claim it as his own work.
That's not to say I think the aforementioned letters, or any of the "disputed" Pauline epistles were or were not written by Paul...that would require a lot more research than I have heretofore felt motivated to dedicate to the subject. It is simply to say that I believe what is considered a stumbling block to many people today (the idea that Paul didn't actually write some of Paul's letters) simply was not an issue in Paul's world.
It is also the case that in the ancient world people would deviously attribute their writings to figures of respect and authority in an effort to try to legitimize them (as I believe is the case in many of the so-called gnostic gospels). However, the reaction of contemporaries is usually a good indicator of wether a "pseudopigraphal" letter is true to the teachings of the named author, or if it is attempting to exploit the named author in order to legitimize teachings he/she would never endorse.
Example: The early church's rejection of, say the Gospel of Philip, is a pretty good indicator of one of three things:
a. Contemporaries and disciples of Philip refuted the notion that the work could be attributed to Philip because the ideas expressed in the work were not true to the teachings of Philip.
b. The work didn't appear until several generations after the life of Philip, and while no contemporaries or first generation disciples were still living to refute it, the dubious nature of the book (i.e., if Philip wrote it, where has it been for the past two hundred years?) together with its departure from by then (i.e. 2nd or 3rd Century) established tenents of orthodoxy and it's "convenient" support for movements regarded as heretical made the unethical attribution of the work to a disciple of Jesus transparent. (Ding, ding, ding...here's the correct answer, folks!)
c. Those evil, power-hungry early church fathers conspired to suppress the inconvenient truths found in the text, destroying every copy they could find, and if it weren't for the alert thinking of some courageous soul in Nag Hammadi who defied "the man" and hid copies of all the black-listed works we would never even know what the book said (ala DaVinci Code).
The real question is one of authority. From where does the Bible get its authority? From God, right? But how does God bestow authority on the Scriptures? Clearly the biblical writters (Paul or otherwise) didn't know they were writing Scripture, nor did they intend to do so. They didn't presume to be writing on God's behalf, though they certainly felt that what they were writing was faithful to God. Over time more and more authority was invested in their writings by the early church fathers as they began to see the truth and value they held, as well as their wide-spread acceptance throughout the Church. Various bishops would compile lists of authoritative books for their churches to read and study. Eventually consensus began to build among the church fathers as to what works should be on these lists, or "canons," with the general, universal (i.e., "catholic") consensus being arrived at by the end of the 3rd Century or so (in other words, before the "controversial" Council of Nicea).
So, how did God bestow authority on the Scripture? Did He, through the work of the Holy Spirit "inspire" the authors of Scripture? Certainly, though the degree to which and the method by which this inspiration occured is another discussion. But, didn't God also, by the work of the Holy Spirit, "inspire" the early Church fathers to recognize which writings were true and faithful? I absolutely think He did. In other words, the authority of Scripture does not hinge on who wrote it. The authority is the cumulation of the inspirational work of the Holy Spirit throughout the entire process--from authorship, to wide-spread circulation, to ultimate cannonization. This is that "dynamic mystery of the Holy Spirit working in the early church" which guy sites, and which has traditionally been understood as the source of the authority of Scripture. This is orthodoxy.
I have no idea. I am merely the "recipient" of the letters.
The other day my boss asked me to write a quick note to a friend on some of his letterhead. He gave me an idea of what he wanted the note to say. Then the note, all the words and sentences, were penned by me. My boss scribbled his signature at the bottom.
Will my boss' friend question who wrote the note? I don't know. Maybe he'll smile and maybe the message will touch his heart.
1. i don't think paul wrote those letters. scholars who share this opinion base it primarily on the difference in language between these letters and those more widely believed to have been written by paul, but there are also differences in social attitudes and theology.
2. the differences in language do not undermine the authority of these letters for me because biblical authority as i dimly understand it does not entail the belief that authority means endorsing each and every view expressed by the "i" voice in each and every document included in the bible. it means that god gave us 21st century christians the bible god intended us to have at the time god intended us to have it, just as god gave the christians of the fifth century the bible god intended them to have at the time god intended them to have it. all the scripture we have IS god-breathed and "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness," but a lot does depend on INTERPRETATION. an overly rationalistic approach to the latter, in which paul's advice or pseudo-paul's advice is taken as god's advice, obscures and enslaves rather than clarifies and sets free. again, as i dimly see it.
3. having said that, i would also observe that the radical egalitarianism expressed in MOST passages in paul's undisputed letters, voiced casually in the greetings paul gives to women in authority in his churches, implied in the most persuasive interpretations of philemon i've read (this is admittedly more tricky), and most loudly and firmly expressed in the confidence with which he pursued his mission to the gentiles, is in tension with the baptism of rigid roman hierarchies in the household rules in the letters to timothy. that the attitudes expressed in these works directly contradict a whole literature on paul contemporaneous with the timothies and titus (e.g., the acts of paul and thecla) supports the view that the degree of paul's radicality was a matter of controversy in the generations after his death. if forced to choose between spending an afternoon with the author of romans, 1 and 2 corinthians, galatians, etc., or spending that afternoon with the author of 2 timothy, i'd choose the former - who would chastise me, of course, for making such a choice since "we are all christ's."
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