Corpus-Paul

[Richard Fellows <rfellows AT shaw.ca>]

David wrote:
> This caused me to think:  Does it matter whether Paul wrote the Paulines
or
> not?  I think the clear answer is *yes*.  My reasoning is simple.  Suppose
> (as above) "there were a kind of writing wherein an author consciously
chose
> to express his/her thoughts through the personality of another? Would that
> still be a lie?" Surely it wouldn't matter whether there was an intent to
> deceive, if the end result was that there was deception.  Unless the
> originals came with some kind of 'disclaimer' then people would be
deceived
> (and perhaps some would say that millions of Christians *have* been
> deceived).  In that case, the end result is a 'lie' or a 'forgery', and to
> call it 'pseud' anything is really missing the point, isn't it?

Does it matter whether Paul wrote the Paulines? This question is beyond the
scope of this list if it deals with present day doctrines or values, as this
list has a historical focus. However, this is the right forum to discuss
whether the PE were forgeries.

One paper which argues that they were forgeries is Eduard Verhoef
"Pseudepigraphy and Canon" Biblische Notizen, Heft 106, 2001. He quotes
Ehrman (The New Testament 343): "Forgers typically added elements of
verisimilitude to their works [...] In a forged epistle, for example, such
comments might include off-the-cuff references to an event that the reader
could be expected to recognize as having happened to the alleged author."

I think it is clear that the author of the PE had read the Corinthian
correspondence and that his texts shows that he misinterpreted it in several
places. In places the PE fit with 1 Cor, but they do so only superficially.
For example, the author has Paul leave Timothy in Ephesus, which accords
with 1 Cor 16:10-11, but Acts 19:22 and 2 Cor indicate that Timothy did not
stay in Ephesus.

The author seems to take small details from the genuine letters and make
plausible extensions to them. But his mistakes betray him. The same is true
of the way the author of Colossians used the names which he took from
Philemon.

Richard Fellows.