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  • From: Daniel Streett <danstreett AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Colossians Pauline?
  • Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 21:25:33 -0700 (PDT)


Jim,

Fine. Barth, who has authored three volumes
in the Anchor series (and numerous other
volumes, is not a top scholar,
while Rev. Hughes, who has published a
smattering of journal articles, is. If you
say so. I have not read Hughes' work on
pseudepigraphy, though I find it hard to
believe that rhetorical analysis can be
determinative in questions of authorship.
If anything, I find textlinguistic, or
"text-immanent", methodologies
to be supportive of authenticity in
most cases (cf. the works by S. Porter
and J. Reed).

In any case, surely, you won't deny the
honorific - 'top scholar' - to James Dunn! I
find his arguments even more convincing than
Barth's. Just today I read his section on 1:
24-29, where "Paul" strongly suggests that
*he* is the "end-time prophet" ushering in the
eschaton by filling up the messianic woes
and completing the preaching of the gospel
"to every creature under heaven" (v23).
Hmmm. Shades of Rom 11, perhaps?

Now, surely, it would be absurd for a
pseudepigrapher to make such a claim for the
apostle, now dead and gone, the eschaton yet
to arrive. So goes Dunn's argument.

In Jesus studies, it's called the "criterion
of embarrassment" and it indicates a high
likelihood that the material is authentic.
Paul's expectation of an imminent parousia,
indeed one brought on by his very work, is
surely an embarrassment.

Daniel Streett, student
Yale Divinity School

--- Jim Hester <hester AT jasper.uor.edu> wrote:
> To each his own, but I have a small quarrel with designating Markus Barth as
> "top scholar." Good, perhaps, but not quite "top..." The story around Basel
> was that Karl Barth was so irritated that Heinrich Ott got his chair that he
> refused to have anything to do with the University. Our seminar with him met
> in a room situated over a restaurant/bar near his home. In order to soothe
> the feelings of the old boy, the University invited his son to be Professor
> of New Testament.
>
> I'll stick with Frank Hughes' assessment. Frank's extensive work on the
> rhetoric of pseudonymity in early Christian literature gives very real
> weight to his judgment.
>
> Jim Hester

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