Doug Shaver

It is my understanding that outside of evangelical and fundamentalist circles, the scholarly consensus is against Pauline authorship of the pastorals. Practically all of the scholars holding that consensus accept Jesus' historicity, so it's not as though questions about their authenticity are motivated by any wishful thinking on the part of mythicists.

I don't have to the relevant competence to form my own opinion on the pastorals' provenance. On that issue I am at the experts' mercy. If the academic mainstream says they're not genuine, that works for me until I find a good reason to think the mainstream has made a mistake. I will be glad to explain, though, why Holding fails to convince me that the mainstream is wrong about this.

I don't know whether this is a straw man or just a mistake, although I have read enough apologetic literature to have a strong suspicion. I have never seen it suggested that the writer of any pseudonymous work ever chose the ostensible author's name at random.

This begs several questions about the early church and the early distribution of the epistles. It doesn't matter how easily first-century Christians could have been led to believe Paul wrote them if most Christians prior to the late second century didn't even know they existed.

It should not matter to anybody who is not committed to inerrancy. The burden of proof for any claim is on the person making the claim. Given a live dispute, the default position is not for either side but for suspended judgment.

Holding is an inerrantist. There is nothing whatsoever that he cannot conceive if it must be conceived in order to defend the Bible's consistency.

I don't expect all personal letters to contain mysticism. I expect the amount of mysticism in a personal letter written by a mystic to depend on the subject of the letter. If the writer is expressing his religious views, and if he espouses a mystical religion, then I expect to see mysticism in the letter.

It is true that some skeptics cannot get their acts together. Just a few weeks ago in another forum I had a run-in with someone who quoted a passage in Acts to prove a point that clearly assumed the historical truth of the passage -- after he had declared with some vehemence that the author of Acts was a liar.

Nevertheless, the Bible's consistency cannot be proved by noting the inconsistency of some people who do not accept its inerrancy. If Acts is historically accurate at least with regard to Paul's activities, and if the pastorals contradict Acts with regard to Paul's activities, then it is unlikely that Paul wrote the pastorals.

Believing as I do that Acts is not history but fiction, it has no relevance for me in any discussion about whether Paul wrote the pastorals. However, some of Holding's comments on this point bear some mention.

Paul's reference to Arabia is in Gal. 1:17, and this is all he says: "I went away to Arabia and then came back to Damascus." Although he says nothing about the purpose of his trip there, it seems unlikely to have been a missionary journey. We don't know how long he stayed, and he says nothing about doing anything calculated to attract attention.

We know good and well what he would have been doing in Spain if he had gone there. We can also stipulate that the enterprise could have been a failure. Maybe he didn't win enough converts to form a Christian community viable enough to sustain an institutional memory of its founding. Maybe his flock failed to win any more souls for Christ after Paul left, and when they died the Spanish church died with it, not to be reborn until the next missionary came to Spain, whenver that was. I guess it's possible. But it strikes me as far unlikelier than Holding would care to think.

I do not know, and Holding does not say, why I should automatically disbelieve any idea advanced by Tubingen and the history of religions. It is an observed fact of human social nature that significant change in a religious institution does not occur rapidly except when there is an urgent need. And even given such a need, a rapid response as drastic as a major organizational change would have aroused furious debate, and we should expect some mention of the controversy to have survived. If the controversy had erupted during Paul's lifetime, it seems hardly credible that he himself would have declined comment on it.

This is flagrant question-begging. It assumes that (a) there was a primitive consensus among first- and second-century Christians and (b) it is accurately represented in the surviving documentation.

If we had good independent evidence for Pauline authorship and had to explain why Marcion left them out of his canon, that explanation might work. But as long the question is whether Paul wrote them, Marcion's omission is most parsimiously explained by supposing that he thought the answer was no.
This is a worthless argument until Holding tells us (1) who thinks it likely and (2) why they think so. Until he does, the statement counts exactly as much as anybody's bare assertion that "it is thought likely that the pastorals were not written by Paul."

Yes, it may. Or it may not. "Could have happened" does not imply "must have happened." P46 is not the only relevant datum. If it were, consistency would force us to declare Philemon inauthentic, but there is evidence against the pastorals' authenticity that does not apply to Philemon. Taking that evidence into consideration, the pastorals' omission from P46 cannot be dismissed as a simple anomaly.

Holding tries to claim that the context makes this clear, the context being II Tim. 2:2. From the ISV:

Note: What you have heard, not What I am about to tell you. This is one of inerrantists' favorite apologetic tricks. You say the magic word CONTEXT, and then any sentence in the Bible means whatever you need it mean to make a contradiction go away.

Hmmm. Let's see here . . . I don't know whether Holding is married, but suppose he told his wife: "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are fat"?

I have no idea old Timothy actually was, and neither does Holding or anybody else. The point is that Paul talks about him elsewhere more or less as an equal -- if not chronologically, at least in terms of ministerial experience. It is apparent from Paul's letters to the Corinthians, Philemon, and Thessalonians that Timothy was a colleague of similar stature to his own, not a trainee or intern.

Here is the referenced passage:

Anybody who wants to is welcome to search the entire second chapter of I Timothy for a clue signalling a redirection of the parenthetical remark from Timothy to any third party. They may also search the chapter to any reference to heretics or heresies.

I wouldn't doubt for a moment that some people infer things far beyond what stylistic evidence can justify. But that doesn't mean nothing can ever be reasonably inferred from style.

Ah, so we can indeed draw inferences from style. OK. Hold that thought.

So, do the stylistic differences imply Lucan authorship or not? Holding wants it both ways. The differences imply that Luke wrote the pastorals, but they do not imply that Paul did not write them.

I'm OK with the idea that a writer will adjust his style up to a point for different readers, but there are limits to the kinds and degrees of changes that are consistent with this hypothesis. It can be entirely reasonable to say that a writer known to have written X almost certainly would not have written Y, no matter what the differences between the readerships of X and Y. I cannot say whether the majority of scholars are correct in saying that the author of Romans would not have written the pastorals, but Holding's essay does not present a shred of specific evidence against their judgment.

Ben C Smith

Very good observation, Doug.

Ben.

pharoah

Let me throw 4 more verses at you.

Clearly the writer or writers of Ephesians and Colossians understood principalities and powers as being heavenly creatures, probably demons. I would argue that this was the way that Paul used and understood the phrase. On the other hand, the writer of Titus couldn't possibly have meant demonic creatures. I would argue that he borrowed a Pauline phrase but completely misunderstood its usage. At the very least, this suggests that the authors of Colossians, Ephesians and Titus can't be the same person.

Ben C Smith

Using two other letters of dubious authorship (both of which I myself, for example, would regard as spurious) in order to determine genuine Pauline usage is quite precarious.

Yes, that is what it would suggest, but at most, not at least.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

IMO the principalities and powers in Ephesians 6:12 are more clearly malevolent (as distinct from limited and imperfect) than anything we find in references to principalities and powers in Colossians. (Or for that matter anywhere else in the NT)

Andrew Criddle

TedM

Hi Doug.

Understood. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.


Ok, lets see..


If Holding really meant 'at random' I agree. I am not reading it as literally as you---I think the words 'at random' could be removed and his point would be the same.

Re: early church easily fooled
I"m not sure Holding was referring to 1st century only. He wrote that with Miller's long article in mind, so may have meant it in general to apply regardless of the time one chooses for it to have first appeared among Christians.

Re: internal claim for authorship
Holding is talking about not ignoring arguments in favor of authenticity, of which authorship claim is one (though not a big one IMO)..


Re: his opinion of what Paul can conceive re the law
Perhaps but this doesn't address his various arguments on this matter which speak in part to the critical question: Is this out of Paul's character?



In general, I agree. Do you have specific places where you would have expected mysticism instead of what is there?


May I ask why?


I'm not sure what controversy you think would have existed (I assume related to organizational structure) during Paul's lifetime that he would have mentioned it in places other than the Pastorals. Can you elaborate?


Re; his quote of Oden ref Marcion canon
Isn't the scholarly consensus that there was a primitive consensus among the church of what was authentic during Marcion's day and that it differered from Marcion's canon?


Re: Things Marcion would have frowned on
I"m not sure why you say that if the Pastorals were full of stuff Marcion neither liked nor needed, as Holding argues.


Re: speculation about Marcion's disciples possibly including Pastorals
I agree, and think this argument is counter to the arguments Holding makes for exclusion.

RE: suggestion that the P46 scribes left out personal letters
We can't know if P46 explicitly excluded the Pastorals due to lack of knowledge, determination of inauthenticity, or the suggestion Holding gave. However, holding did give some evidences for earlier knowledge, and there is not evidence of early determination of authenticity. Dismissing Holding's argument IMO requires an examination of the weight of his evidences for both earlier knowledge and an earlier hierarchy than existed at the time P46 was put together.

Re: Holding claim that Paul is not giving advice to Timothy outright
I agree, Holding went too far, though it is true that he is listing things that Timothy should entrust to others also from (2 Tim 2:14, and 4:4)

Re: Holding's claim that Paul wasn't saying Timothy was young.
I agree. Holding went too far here too, being too literal. The implication is that Paul was saying Timothy was 'young' in some sense at least. Still it isn't a problem for his argument about Timothy's relationship to Paul.


I dont' think that is apparant at all, given the arguments that Holding gave--which you do not address.


Re: who Paul was saying "I am not lying" to. Holding says others
I agree. It is best understood as directly to Timothy, though Paul may have considered that some others would also be reading the letter. The question is: if it was directly for Timothy only, is that unlikely for Paul to have done? I addressed that in a post to Ben.


I"m not sure Holding said that. He said that "word choice and writing style are NOT suitable criteria for saying a person did or did not write a particular piece of literature, especially when we are dealing with writings as small as the Pastorals". I think that Holding has chosen his words poorly.


I think Holding would say the differences suggest a Lukan influence, but that does not imply a lack of Pauline authorship.

I plan to look at that some next.


In summary while you have pointed out some reasonable objections to what Holding said in his article, I am not really clear as to why you reject quite a few of the related arguments as being insufficient, since you didn't address many of them.

ted

Doug Shaver

I have read enough of Holding's stuff to have, I think, a good idea what his intentions were. He was attacking a straw man, and he knew it was a straw man.

Holding's essay was about the pastoral epistles. Regardless of anything Miller might have said, the question of how easily early Christians could have been fooled is irrelevant unless we're talking about first- and second-century Christians.

He is talking about inerrancy. The pastorals are in the Bible. The Bible is inerrant. Therefore, as far as Holding is concerned, if the writer claimed to be Paul, then the writer was Paul.

I agree that strictly speaking, the author's claim to be so-and-so is evidence that he was so-and-so. And, if we had zero evidence to the contrary, we should tentatively infer that the author was in fact so-and-so. But it is still and always a weak argument, and it takes only a little bit of contrary evidence to justify doubting the author's claim.

I might or might not be not qualified to judge. Most people who certainly are qualified say it is. I'm prepared to say they're wrong, but I need a better reason than Holding's personal assurance that they are.

I can't give you chapter and verse off the top of my head. My point was to defend the principle of the argument against Holding's cavil about what Paul had to be mystical about. The answer is: his religion.

Human nature. Some things just don't get forgotten if they really happen -- especially the kinds that get remembered even when they don't happen. Christians in India think Thomas brought Christianity to that country, and he was probably not even a real person. Even if he was real, there is zero evidence aside from late patristic tradition that he went to India.

You asked for comments on Holding's essay. As I explained at the beginning of my earlier post, I am not competent to have an independent opinion on whether Paul wrote the pastorals. I am relying on the consensus of the scholarly community. Holding says the consensus is wrong. All I said I was going to do was explain why I find his argument for that proposition to be inadequate. I don't have time for the kind of investigation or detailed analysis that you're now asking for.

So far as I am aware, that scholarly consensus exists only among evangelical and fundamentalist scholars.

There is not to my knowledge any documentary evidence from the first or second century on Christian beliefs in general about authoritative literature. There is no canonical document for which even its existence is unambiguously attested before the middle of the second century, never mind any assertion about what Christians in general thought about it. The "primitive consensus" was affirmed retroactively after the doctrinal wars were over and the winners commenced to writing the history of those wars.

Because the principle of parsimony must be applied to all the relevant evidence, not just one datum. The question is whether Paul wrote the pastorals. If the weight of the evidence overall is against Pauline authorship, then the simplest explanation for Marcion's omission is that he knew Paul didn't write them. A not-improbable alternative is that Marcion was unaware of their existence.

Holding is asking me to dismiss the arguments of experts. They have already conducted an examination of the weight of Holding's evidence plus, I strongly suspect, a lot of evidence that Holding has never even heard about.

You and I must differ on what is apparent to us.

On this particular point, I saw no arguments of Holding's worth responding to. If you will tell me which ones you think are cogent, I'll deal with them.

I've read a lot of his stuff. If you're trying to say he wouldn't be such a fool, I respectfully disagree.

I think that is inconsistent with the following.
Now, as long as Paul accepted responsibility for the document's message, then I'm OK with crediting him with authorship no matter who the scribe was or how much liberty he could take with vocabulary, style, etc. The question is whether we have good reason to accept Paul's authorship.

Most scholars do not accept it, and one -- but only one -- reason they do not is the stylistic differences between the pastorals and the uncontested epistles. A defense of Pauline authorship must argue either (1) that the differences are not significant enough to indicate separate authorship or (2) that Paul superintended their composition by someone else who was allowed to write in his own style. It cannot argue both at once, and my point was that Holding seems to be trying to do just that.

Anyway, I have some problems with the scribe hypothesis.

For one thing, Holding cites only one source for his claim that scribes were permitted the kind of liberties we're talking about. I don't know that they weren't, but I'm not believing they were just because Holding found one person who said they were. It seems highly unlikely, prima facie.

For another, even if the average person in those days allowed scribes to, in effect, edit their work, Paul was no average person. He might have been an average writer, but the average writer hates to have his work edited by anybody. The notion that someone with Paul's ego would have allowed a scribe to "improve" his writing is ludicrous.

I picked the ones I could answer quickly, because thinking about Holding's blatherings is not my idea of fun. The less time I can spend doing it, the better.

TedM

That's fine. I just didn't find much in your reply that explains why you find his arguments to be inadequate because you failed to really address his arguments and chose instead to focus on some comments you felt were misleading or incomplete, including 3 in his opening (pre-response) paragraphs. Clearly you don't like Holding's approach and have decided (as you state above) to not really look into his arguments in any detail as a result. While I appreciate your comments if you really prefer to rely on the scholarly conscensus then there is no need for us to converse here any further about Holding's article. My hope was that someone here would have the desire to address in greater depth Holding's arguments against the specific arguments that make up the scholarly conscensus.

My impression is that SOME experts find un-Pauline characteristics in 6 or 7 differents respects within the Pastorals. What I don't know is whether MOST experts are in agreement on the arguments which are within their area of expertise or whether they debate the evidences. If they are debated, then it may be the case that a major influence on the CONSCENSUS is the sheer NUMBER of different questionable issues.

The reason why a large number of questionable areas that are debatable among experts is not a sufficient reason to favor inauthenticity is that there there may be another explanation as to why they are not similar to other works of Paul, and Holding has given such an explanation: The audience was different, the timing was different, and the writer had a different influence.

IF the expert opinion is based on the assumption that the pastoral were written at the same time and to the same people and by the same hand as the letters Paul wrote to his recent converts at churches he established, then we have a granny apple to gala apple comparison. Such an assumption is not valid, and so the arguments that should have the most weight are those that don't rely on an assumption of those similarities.


Doug, Holding may indeed by an inerrancist , but it isn't clear to me that he was doing anything more in that sentence than what I said--talking about not ignoring positive evidence.

RE law
Holding gave more than a "personal assurance". He provided a similar scripture in Romans 7


Re Spain
I'm not sure 'human nature' is a good enough reason to assume that just because Thomas was associated with the Christian beginnings in India (though he may not have gone at all), Paul would be associated with those in Spain had he really gone. It is a reasonable hypothesis, but there are many factors that could have kept it from happening--one being what Holding suggested-- that Paul's mission flopped.


Ok. I haven't looked into the word choice differences and styling difference enough to know whether a change here and there would have caused Paul to throw a fit or not..


I'll repeat the sentiment expressed in the OP for others, with a modification: What response by Holding to typical arguments against the pastorals do you find unpersuasive, and why? Feel free to choose just one if you'd like.

It seems the skeptic crowd is more than willing to go against the scholarly conscensus when it agrees with their point of view, such as we see over and over again with the the mythicist believers, but is very willing to accept the scholarly conscensus when it comes to rejecting the authenticity of the Pastorals. To me, Titus and 2 Timothy seem quite authentic, and 1 Timothy perhaps less so, on the surface. If anyone here would like to pick apart the actual guts of any of Holding's arguments against the scholarly conscensus, consider this a challenge to do so.

ted

Gamera

The problem with this is that the whole methodology of stylistic analysis has no baseline, assuming such a baseline could even be determined.

Differences exist between any two texts, even texts by the same author. Those differences in the same author may be the result of intellectual development, subject matter, age, pure randomness, new influences, and any number of other factors. So to say, "we must explain the differences" in the pastorals, requires first the establishment of a baseline for discerning what degree of differences are meaningful. I doubt if such a baseline can be determined, but the point is those who make stylistic analyses haven't even reached this threshold. They make impressionistic claims that the differences that exists are meaningful, when in fact they haven't really made a study of the level of differences one would expect in different texts by the same author as a baseline.

And even if such a baseline existed, it would presumably have to involve numerous texts are at least longwinded ones. Any such baseline would hardly apply to the meagre literature of the NT.

I would be willing to bet that I could pick and choose a few letters you have written, do a stylistic analysis and thereby conclude there are significant differences proving you didn't write them.

Stylistic analysis is conceptually adrift.

Ben C Smith

Your skepticism as to arguments based on stylistic features is noted. How then would you authenticate the text(s) in question?

Ben.

(Please note also that I was speaking not only of style but also of vocabulary and subject matter.)