Corpus-Paul

[Steve Black <sblack AT axionet.com>]

> ... I do not regard the Pastorals as forgeries; that is a
>  > highly loaded term with implications of moral turpitude. I hold that
> >  they are letters written by later followers of Paul to address a new
>  > situation. They are pseudepigrapha, a type of writing that honors the
>  > one they name.
>
> I'm at all not happy with this distinction.  The Pastorals are not just
> written in the style of Paul, or to honor him.  That could be easily done
> without all the personal details.  If not actually by Paul, then they are
> deliberate creations intended to make the readers think they were written
> by Paul, i.e. forgeries.

One has to start with the fact that writing in the name of an another 
was a *very* common practice in the ancient world. I haven't done 
actually any number crunching - but it seems as one surveys the 
available literature from this time that we have more 
pseudepigraphical material than we do "authentic". This means that 
the norms regarding intellectual ownership and the modern morals 
regarding the use of the name of another are not the same. So 
although I agree that the pastoral are attempting to "deceive", this 
deception cannot be measured using modern standards if one wants to 
understand the phenomenon of pseudepigrapha correctly.

I believe that the clear distinction because writing "fact" and 
writing "fiction"  was not very clear - or certainly not as clear as 
it is to us. Much (all?) of what they wrote as "history" we would 
probably feel more comfortable calling "historical fiction". What 
serious historian would write a scholarly piece in the narrative 
style of the gospels? I see this same ancient "creativity" at work in 
pseudepigrapha. The use of words like "forgery" which although 
technically accurate are absolutely anachronistic.

Regarding the authenticity of the pastorals. For me its a question of 
cumulative evidence. The different theology reflected in the 
pastorals could be "explained away" (although I am always deeply 
suspicious whenever anything starts to be "explained away") were it 
not also for the fact that the language is also very different from 
Paul- then add also the social / political situation reflected in 
these letters which is also very different - and THAN ALSO add the 
stage of ecclesiastical development which is also very different - 
any of these by themselves would make me deeply suspicious that Paul 
was not the author - but put together the matter is clinched for me. 
Thus the conservative position may present unwelcome *heat* - but it 
does not provide anything (from my point of view) as far as unwelcome 
*light* goes. I suspect that we would all be of this opinion were it 
not for the fact that these documents are part of the NT canon. This 
is exactly where I see the role of "conservatism" at work in this 
conversation.


--
Steve Black
Vancouver School of Theology
Vancouver, BC
---

Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right...

-Robert Hunter From SCARLET BEGONIAS