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  • From: "Frank W. Hughes" <fwhughes AT sunbeach.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Disputed Pauline letters
  • Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 20:01:53 -0400

First of all, I want to encourage Ed Krentz to dust off his paper and publish it, by all means.  Thanks, Sheila, for your mentioning my work on 2 Thess.

During my Fulbright year in Göttingen, Germany, 1986-87, I read everything I could find on pseudonymity.  One of the first decisions I made was that it was disingenuous for NT scholars to deal with pseudonymity in other corpora of literature but then to "waffle" on letters such as the Pastorals and the "deuteropauline" letters and not come out and say openly that we are dealing with pseuepigrapha in quite a chunk of the Pauline corpus.  So when I introduce the NT I deal with the "authentic" or "orthonymous" letters of Paul (Rom, 1/2 Cor, Gal, Phil, Phlm, 1 Thess) and then the "pseudonymous" letters (the Deuteropauline,  Col, Eph, 2 Thess; and the Pastorals, 1/2 Tim, Titus) and finally the "anonymous" letter in the corpus, Hebrews.  I also refer to the Deuteropauline letters and the Pastoral letters as the "pseudopauline" letters, just as we speak of the pseudoaristotelian Rhetorica ad Alexandrum or the pseudociceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium.

Years ago I found Markus Barth's commentary on Ephesians quite unconvincing as to Pauline authorship and I do intend to get a copy of his new commentary on Colossians for myself and for our college library pretty soon.  I also don't find Luke Johnson convincing in his new commentary where he defends Pauline authorship for the Pastorals.  But I think both distinguished NT scholars perform a very useful service: they make as good a case as they can make for the Pauline authorship of these letters.  It is good to have that case spelled out in black and white so that the case can be evaluated critically.  I am reminded that historical criticism is the art of arguing what is probable, not merely what is possible.

I argued against Pauline authorship for 2 Thessalonians in Early Christian Rhetoric and 2 Thessalonians (JSNTSup 30; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989).  It was the revised form of my Northwestern University dissertation directed by Robert Jewett.  Bob Jewett supported Pauline authorship in his book The Thessalonian Correspondence: Pauline Rhetoric and Millenarian Piety (FFNT; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987).  I think Bob made as good as case for Paul's having written 2 Thess as can be made.

All best,
Frank W. Hughes
Codrington College
Barbados



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