bacht

Robert M. Price, a New Testament scholar at Drew University, considers the Pauline canon problem: how, when, and who collected Paul's epistles to the various churches as a single collection of epistles. The evidence that the early church fathers, such as Clement, knew of the Pauline epistles is unclear. Price investigates several historical scenarios and comes to the conclusion and identifies Marcion as the first person known in recorded history to collect Paul's writings to various churches together as a canon, the Pauline epistles. Robert Price summarizes, "But the first collector of the Pauline Epistles had been Marcion. No one else we know of would be a good candidate, certainly not the essentially fictive Luke, Timothy, and Onesimus. And Marcion, as Burkitt and Bauer show, fills the bill perfectly." If this is correct, then Marcion's role in the formation and development of Christianity is pivotal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Develop...estament_canon


The point is that there is no evidence for Paul's writings until Marcion, so it's possible that some or all of Paul's letters were created in the 2nd C.

andrewcriddle

Clement certainly seems to have known Paul's epistles eg Clement ch 47 Andrew Criddle

bacht

You seem to be right, I don't what Price would say about Clement, maybe he disputes a late 1st C dating?