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  • From: Zeba Crook <zeba.crook AT utoronto.ca>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul's Gospel
  • Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 13:53:24 -0400



John Lupia wrote:

> Zeba Crook wrote:
>
> > It's one thing to do the work and arrive at a non-consensus opinion about
> the
> > authenticity of possibly non-Pauline letters, but to pretend there is no
> consensus, or
> > to suggest that that consensus has been built on and perpetuated by poor
> scholarship
> > (especially when all you're doing is reintroducing canonical or
> traditional "evidence")
> > disqualifies you from being taken seriously as a responsible scholar, if
> responsible
> > scholarship partly entails at least the ability to portray accurately the
> state of the
> > field.
>
> I am unclear what sparked such an emotionally charged response to a posting
> that referred to a highly authoratative study that scientifically analyzed
> the Pauline corpus and published test results that show that they were all
> written by the same author:
> Kenneth J. Neumann, The Authenticity of the Pauline Epistles in the Light of
> Stylostatistical Analysis. SBLDS, no. 120. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990.
>
> I still recommend this work and suggest to anyone interested in the question
> of the authorship of St. Paul for the entire Pauline corpus that this is a
> study that is essential. This study does not contain canonical or
> traditional "evidence" but is a scientific and mathematical analysis that
> measures elements of linguistic usage. How this disqualifies me from being
> taken seriously as a responsible scholar is rather curious? Best wishes for
> you Zeba.
>

This post was not nearly as emotionally charged as you propose. It was,
however, a
response to your proven track record on this list of acting like the
established
results of academic Biblical scholarship are a sham, and that you alone have
access to
the Truth. I do not mean to say that anything within scholarship is closed,
but
consensus exists on most matters for very good reasons, and is the result of
very good
work. It seems if you are going to march to your own drummer, some sense of
perspective might be in order. Otherwise you risk sounding like a member of
the Flat
Earth Society.

The Neumann book is important, but it's poor scholarship to think his book
suddenly
proves the authenticity of the debated letters. The only thing it has shown
is that
arguments of style and vocabulary do not prove anything one way or another.
This means
such arguments cannot be used to disprove authenticity, nor can they be used
to prove
it. There are, however, other reasons left for doubting the authenticity of
these
letters.

Cordially in Secular Humanism,

Zeb

***
(apologies for not attaching this to my last post)

Zeba Antonin Crook (Ph.D. Cand)
University of St. Michael's College
Faculty of Theology
81 St. Mary Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5S 1J4

(416) 964-8629
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~zcrook/






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