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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles
  • Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 21:57:23 -0400


Fabrizio Palestini says:

>>In the Journal of Higher Criticism's
(http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/) and in Hermann Detering's
(http://www.hermann-detering.de/) sites I found an enourmus amount of
material regarding an extremely interesting hypothesis: the
pseudonimity of the entire Pauline Canon, actually a marcionite
product of the second century successively redacted by a catholic
editor.

Apart from the soundness of this idea (in my opinion heavily detailed,
but obviously only a theory to be compared with the others), it seems
to me that few, if any, enter upon the line of reasoning of the
proponents to counter them. I didn't be able to find any critic review
or book or post (in this list or in others) on this argument.

Could anyone offer me reasonable evidences against this hypothesis?<<

I think you will find that such hypotheses are exceedingly unpopular.
That is why they are not discussed. Why? I suppose that they take away
much of the mystery and romance of the Pauline epistles. After all,
those contrasting, interweaved concepts about justification and
salvation are great mysteries to be solved, and many hope that the key
to God's romantic salvation story exists somewhere in that tangle. If
they search hard enough, and creatively enough, someday the secret may
be cracked ...

My main exposure to the Dutch Radicals has been through Albert
Schweitzer's _Paul and His Interpreters_ (out of print, but IMHO even
better written than _Quest_). It seemed to me that the first to really
question their integrity (Allard Pierson & S. A. Naber) were reacting
to the seams and aporia that had been enumerated by F. C. Baur and
expanded upon by Bruno Bauer. Come to think of it, the idea was very
unpopular even then.

However, they did not totally reject the Pauline letters, but
considered the antinomian ideas (phrased according to early Christian
Jewish messianic expectations) to be original, to which milder, more
conciliatory ideas have been overlaid. I am not so sure what the "more
conciliatory" ideas were that Schweitzer refers to, unless they were
the Christological ones.

Many of the writers whose essays are available in the Journal of
Higher Criticism have latched upon the direction of van Manen, in
which the consistency of the account in Acts is contrasted to the
incoherent story that can be reconstructed from the Epistles. If the
seemingly inconsistent story elements in the letters are attributed to
made-up details employed by Paul's school in order to legitimize the
teachings they contain, then all the epistles (or at least some of
them) could conceivably be fabrications.

The whole idea, then, of defining "undisputed/genuine" versus
"disputed" letters seems to have come in reaction to this threat. The
undisputed letters, though, are considered so because they have the
most developed Christology. To consider them genuine at least
preserves something of the tradition of Paul was a major formative
figure in early Christianity.

Those who propose an origin for a letter collection at the hands of
Marcion propose either cut-up versions of genuine letters or
semi-Gnostic fabrications that were "Judaized" in some way. If the
former, why presume that the version Marcion cut up was the original?
Why not a "marked up" version? Rumors that the Pauline letters were
only recently published and the subject of editorial activity,
especially if the letters were previously unknown, may have encouraged
Marcion to try to "reclaim" what he felt were the original parts. Yet
if Marcion rather fabricated them whole cloth, and they were later
Judaized, why do not the Christological and antinomian portions
congenial to Marcion's theology form a consistent undercurrent in
those 10 epistles? Van Mannen's reconstruction of Marcion's version of
Paul's letter to the Galatians is no more consistent in the ideas
expressed than the canonical one.

But where does that leave us?

Respectfully,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA






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