Orthodox_Freethinker

Could you please cite a specific passage?

Toto

In case you can't click on that link, here's the pertinent part from I Tim on ECW:

Further reasons are listed at that link.

You may argue that Paul did write the Pastorals, but you would have to examine the mainstream case and show why it is wrong - you can't just assert against the evidence that the Pastorals read like Paul's other letters, when they don't.

Chris Weimer

I once championed this case, but Peter Kirby's statistical results made this hypothesis very doubtful.

http://eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?t=1240&start=25

Steven Avery

Ahh... so we see in response the typical skeptic circularity.
Let's review.

a) Did Paul have any such passage ?
b) Sure, here is what Paul said.. he knew Luke, as scripture
c) Oh.. but Paul didn't write those epistles of Paul.

Nobody here directly addressed (b), a defacto acknowledgment that Paul does in fact have a very strong passage about the written gospel, not only a quote, but also a reference to it as graphe (scripture), a word that the NT uses again and again for what we call canonical scripture.

A perfect example of the edifice of sand upon which the skeptics build their analysis, assuming their own skeptical constructs as a given, making sweeping pronouncements without even acknowledging the presups involved against the simple statements of the Bible text, and then always looking to buttress their case from some liberal scholarship, as they did here, thereby diverting from the simple, clear question that was actual asked and answered.

Hmmm..

As for the arguments on the Pastorals, most of them are incredibly "soft" (I know of about seven soft arguments them that I have heard. Often they have the same circularity, first denying the simple history of the church, as given in the NT in Acts, and then attacking the Pastorals based on such unstated presups) Here is a a quick discussion on the "harder" attempts to make the Pauline epistles a later forgery.

The manuscript and historical evidences for an early Pastorals are often given as arguments against Pauline authorship, yet they are actually excellent FOR the epistles .. That was a key part of my JesusMysteries dialog, discussing early church writer references, papyri, early manuscripts.

Stylistic/literary evidences, especially those based on mathematical analysis of the number of words used, calculating how many were used before by the writer, are well-known to be incredibly squirrelly and unreliable as a measure of authorship, especially on shorter writings. Clearly, there can be multiple very sensible explanations for such situations (assistance in writing, change of subject matter, change in conditions) and such arguments can make writings known to be from the same person look as if they were from multiple authors.

And there is often a circularity involved in the methodology as well, since any writer's material will have variations. So you go to the writings with the most variation from the "norm" and simply declare them "abnormal", or as in this case, from a different time and author. Without any real evidence (such as a real historical anomaly). The triablogue blog below makes this point well, and I extracted a quote for your perusal.

Leaving the only one "hard" evidence being the chronological question. However, this one also, as A. T. Robertson and others have shown, is also not particularly difficult.

In the post above apparently most of the other "evidences", all soft, are summarized as -

"the Pastorals are of all the texts in the New Testament the most distinctive representatives of the emphases of emergent Catholocism."

And this truly makes no sense at all. Do you see Marian worship ? The doctrine of the Trinity ? Trans-substantiation ? Papal infallibility ? Apocryphal references ? Latin Vulgate type language ? What in the world is the analyst talking about ? To call such a nothing and vaporous argument as "overwhelming" ?

What I found it comes down to is largely insipid argumentation, such as the fact that the widows were being cared for in the church, or that there were deacons and elders. I was truly flabbergasted when I saw these arguments seriously floated as 'scholarshp'.

Note that such church activities and structure is supported throughout the NT, even in Luke's history in Acts, where Stephen was already involved in the care of widows, before his stoning, or where Luke gives the history of setting up deacons and elders in the churches.

So again the same type of circularity as mentioned above is the key, rewrite the history of the church, and then accuse a couple of particular epistles when they don't match your rewrite !

As mentioned recently, I discussed all this on JesusMysteries a while back, and have posted the URL's of the discussion, and I will conclude by sharing with you a few of the better sources on the Net with material discussing the authorship and dating of the Pastorals.

http://www.mbts.edu/Resources/Journal/wilder.pdf
A Brief Defense of the Pastoral Epistles’ Authenticity - Terry L. Wilder

http://www.dabar.org/NewTestament/Berkhof/Pastepi.htm
The Pastoral Epistles - AUTHORSHIP Louis Berkhof (1915)

http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1337
1 Timothy: Introduction, Argument, Outline - By: Daniel B. Wallace
A surprisingly good overview.

http://www.dabar.org/NewTestament/Berkhof/Pastepi.htm
The Pastoral Epistles - AUTHORSHIP Louis Berkhof (1915)

http://www.ccel.org/contrib/exec_out...1ti/1ti_00.htm
The First Epistle to Timothy - Introduction - Mark Copeland
A good list of early church writer references, which itself is still missing a good number of additional entries. The Justin Martyr reference is not confirmed, the others all are.

http://www.pastoralepistles.com/
A blog by Rick Brannen

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004_...e_archive.html
"The very contrast between genuine and deutero-Paulines assumes a circular standard of comparison inasmuch as it identifies a core corpus of "authentic" letters in advance of the comparison. It then selects a set of letters that falls outside this control group, and which are related in style and subject-matter (Colossians/Ephesians; the Pastorals). By definition, this set is more dissimilar to the core corpus than it is to the set since its members were singled out on account of their similarity.?"

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/...e-bible-3.html
Who wrote the Bible?-3 4. Pauline epistles.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Amaleq13

This is not an example of circular reasoning because the conclusion that Paul is not likely the author of Timothy is not dependent on the claim about the apparent reference to Luke. In other words, the claim would only be correct if the rejection of Pauline authorship of Timothy was because of the apparent reference to Luke as scripture. As your summary shows, this is clearly not the case and other reasons are typically given as the basis for the conclusion.

To avoid this problem, the original question needs to be stated more specifically:

Question: Does Paul have such passage in any of the letters accepted as genuine by the majority of scholars?

Answer: No, but there is a phrase which suggests Luke was known and considered scripture in a letter traditionally attributed to Paul but generally rejected as pseudonymous by modern scholarship.

Steven Avery

First, the answers were very misleading. There was no indication that the person asking the question had any view that any Pauline letters were not from Paul, when the initial "no" answers were given. He didn't say remotely "outside the Pastorals, does Paul ever ....". Some of you probably think none of the letters were from Paul, others only about five, (and some here say all). There is no agreement on that in the skeptic view anyway.

Simply put, the term Pauline epistles, or the letters of Paul, in common parlance, should refer to all the epistles called the Pauline epistles, unless the QUESTIONER phrases it differently.

So now, a little late, you have rewritten the question to YOUR satisfaction above, but that was NOT the questioners question. Ergo, such a rewrite becomes face-saving gamemanship at best.

The circularity is a GENERAL and ONGOING circularity on this forum. We see it all the time, it permeates the forum, and it really degrades the forum as well.

None of your presups as the ones above are proven, they all are against what the NT actually declares, yet skeptics here have the chutzpah to use this liberal scholarship as a starting point in discussion because they throw out a few names. Big deal... sheesh. Did you even READ ANY of the articles I shared defending the Pastorals ? Do you really care about understanding the issues ?

There are all sorts of realms of scholarship. It seems that the folks who know the NT best are generally far more conservative than the textual liberals that you embrace. The skeptics here are always ASSUMING a type of liberal/skeptic scholarship, a type of 'scholarship' that would make any inerrant position irrelevant anyway. Personally, I would simply go home rather than play by rigged rules.

And ultimately that is what this discussion really comes down to.
A true inerrancy vs. skepticism.

It is circular for skeptics to continually come into the middle of a discussion with a ton of their presups, even if they disguise them by scholar-picking the ones they want.

Whether the scholars split 7-3 or 1-9 or 5-5,
the real issue is .. not dueling scholars .. or majority 'scholars' (who themselves come to question with loads of intellecutal and spiritual baggage).

The real issue is what is the truth.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Chris Weimer

That has never been nor will ever be the real issue. We can never know with 100% certainty anything, only relatively assured on certain things. In the case of the Pastorals, we're more sure that Paul didn't write them and less sure that he did (overwhelmingly, I might add).

However, you have a lot of prior explaining to do if we're going to argue epistemologically.

Amaleq13

None of this is relevant to the fact that no circular reasoning was being applied.

It is simply disingenuous not to acknowledge that the sole affirmative example does not come from one of the letters that virtually all scholars attribute to Paul.

No face-saving is necessary. I rewrote the question to avoid the extra problem of questionable authorship.

I do not expect you to admit your "circular reasoning" error but this gross generalization is certainly beneath you.

:rolling:

I try to follow RATIONAL scholarship but the conclusion is the same.

Terrible Heresy

Hmm, no one ever seems to step up and say this in these debates. I dunno if I am the only one who is not too familiar with the scholarly opinions or what, but I would like someone to actually back up thier assertion.

One side says that most scholars reject those epistiles as being written by Paul.

The other, correct me if I am wrong, does not seem to deny this, but claims all these sources are unreliable, liberal scholars. Yes?

Can we go further into this issue, because as someone who is not up on the opinions, this debate rests a lot on this issue. I know you guys are used to going back and forth on this subject(I am guessing) but I am not.

Amaleq13

Not if that is "my" side you are describing. I've been referring to the epistles that are accepted by all scholars.