Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

corpus-paul - [Corpus-Paul] Authority in Pauline Churches (was: Ecclesiology in the Pastorals & the DSS)

corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Corpus-Paul

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Jeff Peterson <peterson AT mail.austingrad.edu>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Corpus-Paul] Authority in Pauline Churches (was: Ecclesiology in the Pastorals & the DSS)
  • Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 13:03:04 -0500

I'm not sure how much we disagree here. Successful leadership in virtually any fledgling household-based movement would have to be of the sort you describe. What I have some reservation about is e.g. the use of Gal 3:28 as a basis for imagining that there were no distinctions among the members of Pauline churches at all, but that every individual member enjoyed an equal say in the conduct of church life, discipline, etc. This strikes me as a democratic misreading of a text composed in an authoritarian, hierarchical culture.

Gal 3:28 is a statement about entry and membership in the Pauline communities, not about qualifications for leadership; Paul was insistent that Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women were alike invited to the table of the Lord, but within the community that gathered for his feast, there were clearly distinctions among members. Two indications of this: (1) In 1 Cor 5 Paul exercises his apostolic right to exclude a member who has violated the norms of the community; the expulsion is his judgment (KEKRIKA, v. 3) which is presented to the Corinthians as an action item, not a proposal for discussion. As far as we know, all those recognized as "apostles of Christ" (enumerated in 1 Cor 9:5-6 and 15:5-8) were Jews, so in effect Gentiles were excluded from positions of highest authority in the first Christian generation. (2) In 1 Cor 16:15-16, Paul calls on the membership at large to subject itself to Stephanas' household and other such household leaders. In Philemon we see Paul putting one such leader on notice in full view of the church that meets in his house; but the appeal is addressed by Paul the apostle to his beloved co-worker Philemon, not in the first instance to the church. What Paul would do if Philemon didn't respond positively to his appeal is an interesting question: a letter of rebuke to Philemon, or even an expulsion a la 1 Cor 5 with another member appointed to his role (which may be what's going on in 3 John)? It's doubtful he would encourage the membership to take a survey and nominate a replacement for Philemon.

Where this started was with comparison of leadership structure in the undisputed Paulines vs. the Pastorals; it seems to me there's a lot in common and that the whole question needs restudy with an eye towards small-group dynamics in the ancient context. What modern NT criticism has tended to see when the subject of "authority" comes up is a sort of refracted image of the papacy, which may mislead as much as it informs.

Jeff Peterson


At 7:53 AM -0500 4/9/03, Sheila E. McGinn, Ph.D. wrote:
I find this equation of egalitarian with "unstructured" ubiquitous, and highly problematic. To say that there is reciprocity in a leadership structure and/or that the leadership structure is egalitarian (i.e., that anyone with the gifts for a task is permitted to do it, rather than excluding people on grounds of race, sex, class, etc.) is not the same thing as saying there is NO leadership structure. With the possible exception of Philippi, I see the Pauline churches exhibiting this kind of leadership that is confirmed by and accountable to the community. Sheila McGinn

Jeff Peterson wrote:
Where the argument can be faulted is in its characterization of the Pauline churches as unstructured and egalitarian.

_______________________________________________
Corpus-Paul mailing list
Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul


--
Jeffrey Peterson
Associate Professor of New Testament
Austin Graduate School of Theology
Austin, Texas, USA
From fwhughes AT sunbeach.net Wed Apr 9 15:52:46 2003
Return-Path: <fwhughes AT sunbeach.net>
Delivered-To: corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from name2.sunbeach.net (name2.sunbeach.net [205.214.199.131])
by happyhouse.metalab.unc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3410220042
for <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>;
Wed, 9 Apr 2003 15:52:46 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from sunbeach.net (mail.sunbeach.net [205.214.199.134])
by name2.sunbeach.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA31367
for <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Wed, 9 Apr 2003 15:51:26 -0400
Received: from sunbeach.net [66.205.14.6] by sunbeach.net with ESMTP
(SMTPD32-6.06) id AAC470630066; Wed, 09 Apr 2003 15:55:48 -0400
Message-ID: <3E9479E7.80409 AT sunbeach.net>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 15:52:07 -0400
From: "Frank W. Hughes" <fwhughes AT sunbeach.net>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US;
rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Paul the Author
References: <200304061752.h36Hq2iG009331 AT ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
<3E91D55F.7080804 AT sunbeach.net> <a05100308bab7896d37a8@[64.246.3.151]>
<3E92C99D.1060202 AT sunbeach.net> <a0510030cbab8907dc98a@[64.246.3.151]>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="------------020607010002030906070902"
X-Declude-Sender: fwhughes AT sunbeach.net [66.205.14.6]
X-Declude-Spoolname: D7ac4066.SMD
X-BeenThere: corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1
Precedence: list
Reply-To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Id: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul>,
<mailto:corpus-paul-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/corpus-paul>
List-Post: <mailto:corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul>,
<mailto:corpus-paul-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 19:52:46 -0000


--------------020607010002030906070902
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I think what you have stated is only partially true. There is a range of reasons why people have argued against Paul's authorship of 2 Thessalonians. I traced this debate from Hugo Grotius onward in the first 70 or so pages of my dissertation, "Second Thessalonians as a Document of Early Christian Rhetoric" (Northwestern University 1984). I thought nobody would be interested in that history of scholarship, so I didn't put it into Early Christian Rhetoric and 2 Thessalonians (JSNTSup 30, 1989). But I published a chunk of it in my article, "Thessalonians, First and Second Letters to the," in Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, ed. John H. Hayes (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999) 2.568-72.

Frank W. Hughes
Lecturer in New Testament Studies
Codrington College
Barbados

Jeff Peterson wrote:

Permit me to rephrase: maintaining that 2 Thess is pseudonymous requires answering Malherbe's defense of its Pauline authorship. Stan Stowers anticipated a significant element of this defense with his remark in A REREADING OF ROMANS that many deny 2 Thess to Paul out of distaste for the eschatology of chap. 2 and the desire to avoid attributing this to Paul.

Jeff

At 8:07 AM -0500 4/8/03, Frank W. Hughes wrote:

I have seen it.
Frank+

Jeff Peterson wrote:

Re: [Corpus-Paul] Paul the Author

At 2:45 PM -0500 4/7/03, Frank W. Hughes wrote:

The best example of this approach is Wolfgang Trilling, Untersuchungen zum Zweiten Thessalonicherbrief. His synthetic approach, I think, changed a lot of minds in Germany about the authorship of 2 Thessalonians.


One must see now Abraham Malherbe's AB on Thessalonians, which makes a sober case for Pauline authorship of 2 Thess (not driven by theological commitments, as Malherbe takes the Pastorals as pseudonymous), including response to Trilling's various arguments.


Jeff Peterson


------------------------------------------------------------------------


_______________________________________________
Corpus-Paul mailing list
Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org <mailto:Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul



_______________________________________________
Corpus-Paul mailing list

Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul


------------------------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Corpus-Paul mailing list
Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul



--------------020607010002030906070902
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
I think what you have stated is only partially true. &nbsp;There is a range of
reasons why people have argued against Paul's authorship of 2 Thessalonians.
&nbsp;I traced this debate from Hugo Grotius onward in the first 70 or so
pages
of my dissertation, "Second Thessalonians as a Document of Early Christian
Rhetoric" (Northwestern University 1984). &nbsp;I thought nobody would be
interested
in that history of scholarship, so I didn't put it into <i>Early Christian
Rhetoric and 2 Thessalonians</i> (JSNTSup 30, 1989). &nbsp;But I published a
chunk
of it in my article, "Thessalonians, First and Second Letters to the," in
<i>Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation</i>, ed. John H. Hayes (Nashville:
Abingdon, 1999) 2.568-72.<br>
<br>
Frank W. Hughes<br>
Lecturer in New Testament Studies<br>
Codrington College<br>
Barbados<br>
<br>
Jeff Peterson wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mida0510030cbab8907dc98a@%5B64.246.3.151%5D"> <style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
--></style>
<title>Re: [Corpus-Paul] Paul the Author</title>

<div>Permit me to rephrase: maintaining that 2 Thess is pseudonymous requires
answering Malherbe's defense of its Pauline authorship. Stan Stowers
anticipated
a significant element of this defense with his remark in A REREADING OF ROMANS
that many deny 2 Thess to Paul out of distaste for the eschatology of chap.
2 and the desire to avoid attributing this to Paul.</div>

<div><br>
</div>

<div>Jeff</div>

<div><br>
</div>

<div>At 8:07 AM -0500 4/8/03, Frank W. Hughes wrote:</div>

<blockquote type="cite" cite="">I have seen it.<br>
Frank+<br>
<br>
Jeff Peterson wrote:<br>

<blockquote type="cite" cite="">Re: [Corpus-Paul] Paul the
Author</blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite="">At 2:45 PM -0500 4/7/03, Frank W. Hughes wrote:<br>

<blockquote type="cite" cite="">&nbsp;The best example of this approach
is
Wolfgang Trilling,<i> Untersuchungen zum Zweiten Thessalonicherbrief</i>.
&nbsp;His synthetic approach, I think, changed a lot of minds in Germany about
the authorship of 2 Thessalonians.<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><br>
</blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite="">One must see now Abraham Malherbe's AB
on Thessalonians, which makes a sober case for Pauline authorship of 2 Thess
(not driven by theological commitments, as Malherbe takes the Pastorals as
pseudonymous), including response to Trilling's various
arguments.</blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><br>
</blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite="">Jeff Peterson</blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><tt><br>
</tt></blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite=""> <hr size="4" width="90%"></blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><tt><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Corpus-Paul mailing list<br>
</tt><a
href="mailto:Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org";><tt>Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org</tt></a><tt><br>
</tt><a
href="http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul";><tt>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul</tt></a><tt><br>
&nbsp;</tt><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><br>
</blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Corpus-Paul mailing list</blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org";>Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org</a></blockquote>

<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul";>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul</a></blockquote>

<div><br>
</div>

<pre wrap="">
<hr width="90%" size="4">
_______________________________________________
Corpus-Paul mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org";>Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul";>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>

--------------020607010002030906070902--




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page