Corpus-Paul

["David Amador" <TheVoidBoy AT sprynet.com>]

I have appreciated greatly the contributions of John Hurd to the discussion
begun (?) by Frank Hughes, and Yander Gillihan's citations which are of
great interest to me.

One of the difficulties I have with the arguments Dr. Hughes has offered in
his excellent book was that they partake in a Perelmanian "begging the
question."  His conclusions, that the deutero-Pauline epistles are worthy of
discussion in their own right, is an excellent one, but the question for me
was, why do we can 2 Thessalonians "deutero"?  It was an assumption based
upon Wrede's (and others') work that allowed Dr. Hughes simply to pick up
where the rest of historical scholarship had let off.

I have an issue with statements that Galatians and Romans were rhetorically
effective pieces of rhetoric, while, by implication, 2 Thessalonians was
not?  I suspect the latter implied conclusion is based upon a traditional
historical-critical approach (that its pseudonomity was not effective enough
to escape detection?), than upon a non-comparative reading of 2
Thessalonians itself (which, apparently, is worth studying since the
deuteropaulinists were "creative writers and theologians in their own
right").  I'm still not sure why the distinction.

I also wonder about the "differing" eschatologies, since one would be very
hard put to pin down a single, consistent eschatology in Paul.  I Cor seems
pretty clear, but doesn't exactly match that of 1 Thess.  And the so-called
"realized eschatology" that is such a bug-a-boo for Colossians can be found
in 2 Cor as well.  What is this big difference?  Nothing that a change in
argumentative (and not just rhetorical) situation can't easily accomodate.

Finally, the issue is not really one of history at all, but of orthodoxy -
what can and cannot be used to appeal to the authority of "Pauline"
theology.  Interestingly, with all this history being discussed, very little
about its implications has been addressed.

I agree with Jim Hester, but extend his comment beyond the question of
dating Galatians to include much of the historical-critical enterprise
around Paul, "For what it is worth, I don't care and hope that we can
abandon such ultimately futile pursuits!"  A rhetorical pursuit would prove
much more fruitful

-David Amador, Ph.D.
Santa Rosa, CA