Corpus-Paul

[Carlton Winbery <winberyc AT popalex1.linknet.net>]

>It seems to me that one of the facets of our discussion(s) of pseudonymity
>and the canonical Pauline corpus deserves to be unpacked further.  To wit:
>what evidence is there that pseudonymity was an accepted device in the
>developing church in the first century?  (And yes, I'm assuming the
>existence of a generally "orthodox", homogenous body of Christianity from
>the earliest days.)

I would begin to answer this question by alluding to 2 Peter and the works
in M.R. James, NT Apocrypha. Obviously these were produced by people who
saw themselves as Christian. Perhaps the quotation of Enoch in Jude also
suggests some acceptance. Its hard to think that many literate people
actually thought the writer was seventh generation from Adam though I am
sure that some accepted just that. I heard Metzger's presidential address
in Atlanta at the SBL meeting in 1971 on Literary Forgeries and Canonical
Pseudepigrapha (published in JBL 1972). I agree with him that a
pseudepigraphical writer did intend to deceive for the sake of his point
but did not see this as fraudulent. We cannot say that no one was taken in
by it, but many would want the writing that they agreed with on other
grounds to be apostolic and in the final analysis this led to canonicity
for some pseudonymous work. Surely the author of the last 12 verses of Mark
thought it was not unChristian to add such an ending even though some of
what he put in the mouth of Jesus he knew were not factually spoken by him.

>There is a group of studies of which I'm aware which attempt to answer this
>question on the basis of roughly contemporaneous evidence--Donelson, Meade,
>even Bauckham's commentary on 2 Peter in the WBC series.

Meade is an excellent analysis of this phenomena in the early church.

>The general read I get from these is that there may have been forms of
>non-deceptive pseudonymity that were accepted in the early church (i.e., 2
>Peter is a testament, pseudonymity was accepted in testamentary literature,
>ergo 2 Peter could have been accepted as a document with non-deceptive
>pseudonymous authorship).  But there is no evidence (apart from the oft
>assumed pseudonymity of the PE, etc.) that the church accepted non-deceptive
>pseudonymity in the production of letters.  Correct or incorrect?
>
>If my understanding is correct, then aren't many left where Donelson
>was--i.e., trying to justify intentionally deceptive pseudonymity?

I have my doubts about the usefullness of the phrase "non-deceptive." If
people were not taken in by this device, then what effect would it have for
influencing people, what purpose for the device? It seems reasonable that
most people who read such works either accepted them as genuine or rejected
them mostly on other theological grounds. There was an extensive practice
of the device by both Christians and Jews as is witnessed to by the
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha and the Christian writings that are obviously
pseudonymous.


Dr. Carlton L. Winbery
Foggleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
winbery AT andria.lacollege.edu
winberyc AT popalex1.linknet.net
Ph. 1 318 448 6103 hm
Ph. 1 318 487 7241 off