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corpus-paul - Re: Onesimus and Onesiphorus

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  • From: Steve Black <sblack AT axionet.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Onesimus and Onesiphorus
  • Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 23:27:47 -0700


Steve Black wrote:
[snip]
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".

Steve,

I don't want to sound 'picky', but just how do we know this? In other
words, do we have a large number of people admitting that they did this,
or people stating that they knew someone who did, or is there some other
actual evidence? Alternatively, are we in the position when many genuine
document are declared pseudepigrahic just because they are 'different' in
some way?

There's a pretty good chance, for example, that Enoch did not actually write the books assigned to him:-)

Are you suggesting that every text that claims to be written by "person-X" must therefore be written by "person-X"? (whoever person-X might be - whether it is Moses, Paul, Barnabas, James, Thomas, the twelve, or whoever). This would certainly simplify things. It would be great if a judge could simply ask the defendant if they were guilty or not. (they would lie, would they?!?) If we are to judge authenticity - where would you suggest we start if "differences" are not to be considered? Similarities?


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?

Isn't this irrelevant? Who ever said any of the gospel writers ever
intended to produce a historical record?

OK - so if it isn't history but creative fiction - why would we be at all surprised that this same form of fiction is also in the pastorals? Why do will call it "forgery" there - but not in the equally fictive gospel accounts?



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.

This is faulty reasoning. These points should not be connected like this.
For example, the theology issue is independent of the language issue. In
fact *all* the issues stand and fall on their own, and *cannot* be 'added
up' in the way you appear to be doing. If there is a satisfactory Pauline
explanation for each issue then it doesn't matter how many issues there
are, the answer is still Pauline. This is why juries aren't allowed to
know defendants criminal records - so that each case is treated on it's
merits.

Cumulative evidence is significant when each individual piece can really stand on its own. When the explanations needed to sustain a belief in Pauline authorship need to be piled one upon another upon another - for me the credibility for such a model is seriously eroded. When with one simple change in paradigm - considering the different theology, and the different language, and the different church structure and the different social situation - when all these require a great deal of extra-textual theories piled upon each other to sustain Pauline authorship - when this model is compared to a pseudepigraphical model and suddenly each and everyone of these elements "simply makes simply sense" - with one very simple move - it requires more intellectual *effort* than *integrity* for me to continue to hold onto the older model. Add to this the fact the the practise of pseudepigrapha was very common.

No this is not final and absolute proof - such things are rarely obtained. I probably will not change your thinking. I can say for my self that I used to hold to the authenticity of the pastorals - for me when I changed my thinking it is an issue of personal intellectual integrity.


--
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




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