Johnny Skeptic

How certain is it that most New Testament writings that are attributed to Paul were written in the 1st century?

RAFH

About as certain as anything else in the xbook being written by who its claimed wrote it. But certainly more certain that the veracity of most of the other claims in the xbook.

motorhead

Are you talking about the letters considered to be the authentic letters of Paul? I think there's 6 or 7 of them.

S.C.Carlson

The seven so-called "undisputed Paulines" are: Romans; 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. The great major of publishing Paulines scholars can assume the authenticity (though not necessarily the integrity) of these letters without argument. There had been some dispute over these letters by the Dutch radical critics of a hundred years ago (and today among their heirs.)

Three of the disputed Paulines are divided and have non-trivial support in favor of their authenticity are (from most to least): 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians.

There is negligible scholarly support for the authenticity of the three Pastorals (even the British evangelical I. H. Marshall came out in favor of "allonymity"). Some scholars may affirm the Pastorals' Pauline nature (often, out of dogmatic reasons) but they are usually careful to also ground their scholarly argumentation on the less disputed Paulines.

Pauline authorship of Hebrews has almost no serious scholarly proponents today.

Stephen

Amaleq13

"allonymity" = well-intentioned pseudonymity

correct?

S.C.Carlson

Actually, it just means "written by another"; the term does not reach the writer's intentions, per se.

Amaleq13

Then what is the difference from "pseudonymity"?

S.C.Carlson

Marshall uses allonymity very broadly to include both pseudonymity and ghostwriting (or use of secretaries). So it is less specific.

Some critics (e.g. Wayne Brindle of Liberty University) contend that Marshall's allonymity is just pseudonymity under a different name (!) and it won't therefore fly with inerrantists.

Stephen

aa5874

None of the so-called Pauline letters are known to be authenthic, since there are no known verifiable writings from Paul to compare with. All that is known or assumed is that some of the epistles were writing by the same person and others were written by some other person or persons.

The author of 'Romans' introduced himself as Paul, so also did the the author of 'Timothy', it has not been determine, without argument, which one is actually Paul or if any Paul wrote them at all.

And it is difficult for me to believe that an assumption of authencity can be held without argument especially when there is no evidential support for such an assumption.

S.C.Carlson

You're begging the question.

Stephen