Sarai

Hi again, everyone. I have been perusing the net trying to find information on the chronology of Paul's letters, but I'm more confused now than I was when I started. There's a lot of disagreement out there over which letters are genuine and their dates! I'm not interested in apologetics, but I'm pretty new to all this and I'm not familiar enough with biblical scholars to know which ones have a theological ax to grind. So I'm not sure which scholars to disregard and which to value. Can anyone help me out here? Thanks so much for any guidance you can give me.

Sarai

Amaleq13

Have you browsed through http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/?

Sarai

Amaleq13--What a fabulous site, it fits the bill exactly. Looks like I have a lot of reading to do. There's such a treasure trove there I fear I'll get distracted. Oh well, that's fun, too!

Thank you very, very much!
Sarai

schilling.klaus

the dates given their are charlatanic nonsense.

Klaus Schilling

Sarai

Hi Klaus,

I'm genuinely interested by your comment. Could you explain further why you consider the dates there "charlatanic nonsense"? And also, what dates you feel are accurate and why?

Best regards,
Sarai

Amaleq13

Klaus hasn't shown himself to be terribly interested in actually supporting the many and repeated assertions he makes so I'll let you know that the views he supports are not accepted by very many scholars.

Kirby's website is a great place to start your search.

aa5874

First of all, the history of "Paul", as written in Acts, appears to be fictional. The author of Acts seems to be not credible, many events with respect to the Apostles including Paul are far-fetched and are clearly without veracity. Without any external corroboration, Acts therefore is useless for any serious chronological guide.

Next, the Epistles have more than one author using the name "Paul", according to some scholars, and this complicates the problem with "Paul" even more and when coupled to the fact that neither Philo, Josephus nor Justin Martyr made any mention of "Paul", then the chronology of the letters and "Paul" himself becomes very doubtful.

Sarai

Thank you, Amaleq13--I'll heed your warning and take your suggestion to spend some time on Mr. Kirby's site.

Hi aa5874--You've spelled out quite nicely the problems I've encountered. My main interest in reading Paul has been to try to glean from it what I can regarding the "Judaisms" that were current in the first and early 2nd century (prior to the Bar Kochba Rebellion). That's why I'm attempting to find some sort of chronology to them. Any suggestions you might have would be very gratefully accepted!

Sarai

Toto

I'm guessing that Klaus is referring to the Dutch Radical school, which views "Paul's" letters as second century propaganda. I think that earlychristianwritings links to some articles along those lines.

You can read more about that on Herman Detering's site, or some other friendly sites.

radicalcritik

I recommend starting with 3 essays there:

Robert. M. Price: The Evolution of the Pauline Canon

and

Van Manen and the Dutch Radicals, Eduard Verhoef, USA, 2000.

as well as

The Fabricated Paul

Sarai

Wow, toto--thank you so much for all the links. I will clean my glasses and get started!

Sarai