The Blackberry Walk

As promised in a previous article, in today's argument we will be discussing Pauline authorship of his epistles. Debates in academia have been continuing, much like with Gospel authorship and dating, since the time of the 'liberal' theological movement began in Germany in the nineteenth century. Since that time, textual critics have had the success of sommeliers: by virtue of their training, they believe themselves to be experts in discerning an authentic document from an inauthentic one; but in reality, given a blind test of two texts, one real, one a convincing forgery, I doubt many could effectively wield their skill. Although it has become popular since the nineteenth century, it isn't as if textual criticism hasn't been present from the very earliest days of the church. The Muratorian fragment was discovered in the eighteenth century, and is believed to be, even by sceptical scholars, to date to the mid-to-late second century; in it is a list of the books considered canonical and allowed to be read during services at that time. The list includes virtually all of the modern books, minus the Epistle of James, both Epistles of Peter, and Hebrews. All of the modern Pauline canon is included (we'll come to Hebrews later). Most interestingly however, the writer explicitly states that two letters of Paul, the Epistle to the Alexandrians and the Epistle to the Laodiceans, are Marcionite forgeries. Marcion, for reference, was influential in the early church for his reading that Jesus is a higher God than evil God of the old testament: Marcion was the first gnostic. He compiled a separate canon consisting of a revised version of Luke's gospel, Paul's epistles, and the forged Pauline epistles mentioned in the Muratorian fragment. That Marcion developed a gnostic view starting from Paul's letters isn't inconceivable. Taken out of context, passages where Paul talks about the curse of the law (Galatians 3) or that the laws makes one sin (Romans 7), can certainly be spun into a gnostic interpretation. Interestingly, the Epistle to the Laodiceans is mentioned in the bible, in Colossians 4:16; however, given the Muratorian fragment's assertion that the Epistle in their possession is a forgery, it is likely Marcion was riffing off this reference. Textual criticism and the attempt to spot forgeries is an ancient Christian tradition. The bible was after all written in Koine Greek: the tradition of history and source criticism is inherited from the Romans and before that the Greeks. Modern critics - despite being a further two-thousand years removed from the events - reckon they have greater insight into Pauline authorship than near-contemporaries of Paul. Out of the Pauline canon, modern critics doubt the authenticity of Colossians, Ephesians, Second Thessalonians, the Pastoral Epistles, and Hebrews. We'll deal with these into three separate sections: the epistles, consisting of the first three epistles listed; the pastorals; and Hebrews. First we'll have a look at the epistles listed. The first question is who wrote Romans? It's a trick question, because even the bible says Paul didn't write it. 'I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord' (Romans 16:22). In the Roman world, letters were rarely written by their authors, but were rather written by an 'amanuensis'. Their services were more extensive than simply being dictated to, and they would also neaten up and polish the work. Given that the Tertius who wrote Romans might not be the same amanuensis Paul relied on to write all his epistles, it would come as no surprise that some of his epistles use different vocabulary to one another. It is a surprise to many a modern textual critic, however; a major argument for the inauthenticity of these epistles is their use of different vocabulary and grammar. If Paul's catchphrase 'Certainly not!' isn't present, many a modern textual critic fail to recognise a Pauline epistle as authentic! The remaining arguments are with regards to the content of the letters. Arguing the theological nuances is well beyond my abilities, so I shan't dive too deeply; suffice it to say, however, that such apparent divergences in theology were only discovered in the modern day, not in the eighteen-hundred years preceding. And then what if the theology contradicts with other epistles? Does Paul giving a different message at a different time to a different church mean it wasn't authored by Paul? Would you recognise my early blog articles and my current blog articles as having been written by the same person? I leave the answers to you, dear reader. Now let's look at the pastoral epistles. These aren't epistles, strictly speaking. An epistle is a specific Hellenic form of letter sent to a group of people rather than an individual. The letter would be delivered by a messenger, and he would later read the letter to the group of people the letter's intended recipients. The messenger would also be learned in the letter's contents, and would be expected to answer questions from the crowd on behalf of the author. Such was the Hellenic tradition of epistles in which St Paul participated. The pastoral epistles aren't really epistles. They're written to individuals, namely Timothy and Titus, not to large groups of people. They aren't authored with the intent of being pronounced to a crowd, but rather are intended to be told to individuals. Reading them, you'll notice the writing is far more prosaic, less emphatic and flashy than the epistles, simply because the writing isn't trying to impress. Many argue the message of the pastorals is very different to the general epistles also; and there is truth in this. But the instruction given to the shepherds and to the sheep is necessarily different. It doesn't originate in some kind of Platonic noble lie, but rather from an understanding of one's audience and how to advise them. Finally we'll look at Hebrews, the black sheep of the canon. The canonicity of Hebrews in the East came early on, but it took time for Hebrews to be accepted in the West (interestingly, an opposite effect occurs with Revelations). Tertullian believed Barnabas to be the author; Irenaeus claimed the author was anonymous; and many modern scholars believe it was written by Priscilla - seemingly the only reason being it's transgressive for a women to have written it. Hebrews doesn't read like an epistle at all. It is without the usual greetings prefacing at the beginning, and Paul doesn't name himself from the start. However, tradition states it was authored by Paul, and knowledge passed down from a contemporary time shouldn't be spurned and superseded by our alleged scientific breakthroughs. The tradition that rings the most true to my ears, however, is the Alexandrian tradition we hear from Clement of Alexandria: namely that Hebrews was originally a sermon given by St Paul in Hebrew, and translated into Greek by St Luke. Scholars have said that the Greek of Hebrews has a similar flow and writing style to Luke's gospel and Acts, so the argument follows. Therefore, although the authorship of Hebrews might not directly have been authored by Paul, there is more than likely to have been Pauline influence in its writing. To conclude, then, Paul is divinely inspired, but he's still just a guy. He wasn't expecting these letters to be crunched by artificial intelligences in order to determine if he was the authentic author. If he had this foreknowledge, I'm sure he would've added far more hooks to anchor these works as his own. He would've also not only have been afraid at the idea of modern man making these AIs, but also deeply saddened that Christendom has reduced itself - and a belief in the biblical canon at all - over whether these letters he sent were authentic. St Paul was the most famous blogger in all of history; and in that respect, though I am not even a pea compared to his stature, I can relate to him. I too get excited about new metaphors and poetic turns of phrases I come up with to explain my ideas or ideas of old. But to the pedantic scholar, such changes of phrases are red meat to their starving eyes, for them to yell that it is evidence of a different author. If I were a forger, the use of the same terminology would be the one thing it would be easy to get right! If I were a forger also, I wouldn't know nor bother lying about the name of Timothy's grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5): it could only serve to jeopardise your work. I watch quite a lot of bible lectures online, and in the comments section there is a growing contingent of Paul-haters. And I'm not sure as to its origin. Some of them are clearly Muslim, but most of them are not, and instead adopt this ancient line of argument that Paul corrupted the pure message of Christ. Paul, being the intellectual blogger of the New Testament, has certainly made enemies. On the liberal wing of the church, he has made enemies decrying certain sins and attitudes towards women they, being swept up by the zeitgeist, don't agree with. And on the far, far-gone evangelical end of the religious spectrum, there's this nutty contingent of Paul-haters, who I reckon dislike him because of his intellectuality. There is a fear and distaste for intellectuals amongst evangelicals, in part because the intellectual wing of the church, and the universities with foster the Western intellect, have become atheist. However, so much of what we understand about how to interpret life of Christ originates with Paul. A bible without Paul would be interpreted with any number of speculative practices. Paul is the first theologian of the intellectual type, a tradition attempted by so many more after him. But it is against Paul's understanding of Christ that all further theologies are tested, because there was a consensus amongst the apostles that Paul was inspired, and that he 'gets it' (Gal 2, 2 Peter 3, Acts 26). Paul was chosen by Christ to explain with his wit and incredible intellect the meaning of His life. Paul, as the self-proclaimed proselytiser to the gentiles, writes not only theology but apologetics, granting context for gentiles what is otherwise a Jewish phenomenon. The symbolism of Christ's life and how His life fulfils the Law can only be understood in relation to the Old Testament; but the worst way to preach is to recommend they read read the entirety of the Old Testament first - and even then much of it is impenetrable. Paul as a Pharisee par excellence translates Christ's Jewish life into a more Greek philosophical framework; and this task hasn't ceased to be useful. To throw out Paul due to some allegedly higher understanding of morality or out of a distaste for intellectualism is to draw the curtains over his window to the past through which historical Jesus can be seen. Paul sets in stone Christ's meaning with abstract nouns when Christ comes to us in contemporary Jewish symbols; and for that service, Paul is invaluable.