Corpus-Paul

["Frank W. Hughes" <fwhughes AT sunbeach.net>]

> . . . the undeniable practice of pseudonymity at
> that time,
> just that I want to be just as critical toward any theory put forward
> as I
> am with the view that it replaces). I'm puzzled how people can be so
> confident, when at least some arguments that used to be offered against
> the
> Pauline authorship of the disputed letters have gradually been eroded.
What I'm puzzled about is the fact that we seem not to be bothered in the
least by referring to the pseudonymous letters of Plato or the pseudo-Ciceronian
Rhetorica ad Herennium or the pseudo-Aristotelian Rhetorica ad
Alexandrum, et cetera, not to mention pseudonymity in Jewish apocalyptic
literature, but we get very bothered by pseudonymity in Paul and other
NT writers.  This is similar to my puzzlement that nobody has any
problem identifying rhetorical elements in letters by Cicero or especially
Demosthenes; yet when we identify some of the same rhetorical features
in Paul's letters, all hell breaks loose!

Frank W. Hughes
Codrington College
St. John, Barbados