pharoah

I agree. Assuming that Paul wrote the pastorals, it would be very odd that he knew of Luke (and presumably the other gospels), but yet saw fit to quote them only once in all his epistles. The more likely explanation to me is that the authors of I Timothy and Luke both used a common source for that quote, namely Q.

JEST2ASK

WOW ... I am impressed ... the spectrum of ideas, the questioning of methodology and political / scholarship bias ... basically all generated by a seemingly innocent observation ...

I should likely "Duck" :wave: after posting this ...

dost

Hello everyone.

Thank you for your response praxeus.

First, the authorship of the Pastorals - actually I was surprised to learn that there are also conservative scholars around who do not accept Pauline authorship. One prominent conservative scholar that comes to my mind right now is Bruce Metzger. Also, one of the most recent commentaries on the Pastorals is by Howard Marshall, a well-known conservative scholar from my country, the UK. Marshall's commentary is over 900 pages and he engages in considerable detail with the arguments of those who defend Pauline authorship, only to conclude that the Pastorals are unlikely to have been authored by Paul. Please see: I. H. Marshall, Philip H. Towner (Collaborator), The Pastoral Epistles: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary (International Critical Commentary Series), 2004, T. & T. Clark International.

Second - pseudonimity - I understand your objections towards pseudonimity. If the author claims to be Paul but was not Paul, then clearly he was lying. I guess this is the main reason why some scholars try to defend the authorship of these and other writings (2 Peter for instance). Marshall, on his part, concludes that the Pastorals are not pseudonymous but allonymous - that is, "...writing in another person's name without intent to decieve ..." (p. 84). He argues that somebody close to a dead person may continue to write as, they thought, he would have done. Marshall concludes (p. 92):

"... the PE belong to the period shortly after the death of Paul. They, especially 2 Tim, are based on authentic Pauline materials whose extent cannot now be traced precisely, and they may well have been produced in a group which included Timothy and Titus themselves. . . . Their composition was accordingly in no sense deceptive, in that it was known that these were fresh formulations of Pauline teaching to take account of the changing situation. Nevertheless, with the passage of time the origins of the letters were forgotten and they were assumed to be from Paul himself."

So we can either conclude that the author was deceptive, or, other explanations can be offered according to which, although the author was not Paul, he was, nonetheless, not being deceptive when he claimed to be Paul.

Basically, my point is that it's not just a question of liberals vs conservatives, you will also come across respected conservative scholars who dismiss direct Pauline authorship. Therefore, at the very least, we may say that there are reasons to doubt the traditional authorship.

The first person statements, as for as I know (and correct me if I am wrong), are also to be found in non-canonical Christian writings. Therefore, such statements by themselves mean nothing...that's the reasoning I have often come across.

Third, did Paul have access to written gospels? I think there are strong reasons to doubt this. It is more probable that Paul is dependent upon oral traditions and he refers to these traditions on various occasions. Never do we find him mentioning written gospel documents. Also interesting, as some have noted, is the fact that Paul does not refer to gospel material precisely when one would expect him to do so if he possessed copies of written gospels. Now you may state that the verbal similarity between 1 Tim 5:18 and the sentence is Luke 10:7 is proof that the author was quoting Luke. However, Donald Guthrie, probably the most prominent conservative scholar, in his commentary on the Pastorals, states that the agreement in wording is no reason to suppose that Paul is quoting from Luke. Similar statements are to be found in other conservative commentaries on the Pastorals, including the one by Gordon Fee, who writes:

"The formula the Scripture says technically introduces only the ciªtation of Deut. 25:4. If Paul wrote (or dictated) these words, then Luke's Gospel had almost certainly not yet assumed written form. Many would argue that by using the formula Scripture for a saying in the Gospels a later pseudepigrapher thereby betrayed himself. But in this case that will hardly work, since the term Scripture meant only the OT for Chrisªtians until the end of the second century. Even a writer at the end of the first century is not likely to have referred to a word of Jesus as "Scripture," even though, of course, his words were fully authoritative for them . . . Very much as Mark says, "it is written in the prophet Isaiah" (1:2), and then cites Malachi and Isaiah, Paul writes, the Scripture says and cites "Scripture" itself, but then adds another authoritative word without necessarily meaning the term Scripture to apply to it. It is altogether possible, as A. E. Harvey has argued, that the second citation was something of a proverb. However, Paul almost certainly intends to be citing what for him was already known to be a saying of Jesus."

[Gordon D. Fee, 1 And 2 Timothy, Titus - New International Biblical Commentary. Based on the New International Version. Revised edition 1988. Hendrickson Publishers. p. 134]

Certainly, some conservative commentators do argue that the author, Paul, quoted a line from his copy of Luke, but many other conservative commentators would say otherwise. Therefore, scholars from different viewpoints and backgrounds generally agree that: the author, be it Paul or whoever, is unlikely to be citing from a copy of Luke. I find this to be the more persuasive case...though I agree that the possibility cannot be dismissed of quotation from Luke if we place the Pastorals towards the close of the first century.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble....all the best to everyone..

Steven Avery

Personally I think 'conservative scholar' is simply a mis-appellation for any a scholar who believes the Pastorals and 2 Peter are forgeries. (Other reasons too, but that is sufficiente to be outside the category). Howards view of 'unlikely' might be more nunaced than Metzgers, but similar.

Right, and the idea of allonymous writings is floated to try to give an out. It really makes no sense. Unless the material was actually dictated by the person at hand, its a lie and forgery, straight and simple. The skeptics often see that clearer than the believers.

You see how strained this stuff is. Well, maybe Timothy was right there, but Paul wasn't...

duhhh

Now these folks would have to create a deliberate forgery redaction scenario, without a thread of textual evidence, a deliberate deception to claim no deception.

1Timothy 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope;

2Timothy 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,

Titus 1:1
Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;

Which is a very confused reasoning. Any such writings were rejected as scripture, and one major reason would be because the early believers could tell the fraud. Perhaps the letter arose in 200 AD, or had some transparent fabrication. In such a case the first person saluatation simply was viewed as another aspect of the fraud. Note that we have lots of early pastoral references in the second century by the early church writers, while the other writings generally have none.

According to 1 Timothy, most definitely. The quote is at the top of the thread.

Which makes little sense, as discussed earlier. Any simple understanding must be that he is quoting Luke. Other scenarios are far more difficult, even more especially for a 'conservative' who should accept that graphe = scripture == the written Word of God.

There is no such limatation in the Greek. Fee is offering a strained interpetation, a grammatical technicality, wrongly applied.

Why ? Because Fee dates Luke late ?

Thanks for showing how untrustworthy is Fee. I knew a bit, but this is far worse. What about Peter's usage re: Paul's epistles.

Oops. That is simply an modern version error (compare with KJB, Geneva, Luther, etc). Professor Maurice Robinson took up Fee's challenge on that verse to demonstrate why the 'Isaiah' reading is incorrect. Note the circularity, assuming his own liberal theories to propagate other liberal theories.


A strained theory, made worse by appealing to the Markan textual error. It may be 'possible' to offer the idea that the second verse is not *necessarily* scripture, but it is not the clear and simple reading.

And the clear and simple reading is butressed many-fold by the simple fact that Luke does in fact have those precise words in what, at some early time (we are only discussing whether early enough) was precisely considered as Scritpure by the NT believers.

And the alternative backward 'coincidence' (Paul linked the saying to scripture without getting it from Luke.., and Luke coincidentally later included the same writings as scripture) is so unlikely that some folks strain to have Luke put the verse in *because* of the statement by Paul. Oh, what a web...

A weak theory, for a number of reasons.

End of Fee
========================
Would you agree that the possibility cannot be dismissed if Luke is c. 50 AD. and Timothy is a bit past 60 ?

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

dost

Hello praxeus

Let me apologise for my very late reply. I have been quite busy with my projects and assignments at the university. I will try to briefly comment upon some of the points in the spare time that I have.

Pseudonymity – I actually agree with you and do not accept the suggestions which try to argue against deception by appealing to allonimity etc. If an author pretends to be someone who he isn’t, then that is deception. Having considered the arguments back and forth pertaining to the authorship of the Pastorals, I have to conclude that it is quite unlikely that Paul is the author (although for 2 Tim one can argue for the presence of authentic Pauline fragments). In the case of 2 Peter, it is even more unlikely that the claimed author was the actual author. It is, therefore, hard for me to avoid the conclusion that the actual authors were being deceptive when they claimed to be someone else. Obviously, Christians cannot accept this and usually two routes are taken 1. The pastorals are not pseudonymous; 2. Pseudonymity is not deception but an acceptable ancient writing method. I personally find both proposals problematic. So while I would not go along with Marshall on allonimity, I find his arguments against Pauline authorship to be persuasive.

First person references – I was trying to say that first person references by themselves prove nothing. If we are to go along with first person references, then many other writings would also have to be accepted as authentic. Why? Well, because the author claimed to be the apostle Peter or Thomas, and so it must be true. So this argument to defend authenticity is quite weak. Now you argue that writings of fraudulent authorship were rejected whereas the authentic ones were accepted. Well, mistakenly at least four writings were accepted as authentic (1 Tim, 2 Tim, Titus and 2 Peter) by the early Christians. Others of fraudulent authorship were accepted as genuine by some for some time and eventually rejected. So? Could the early Christians really separate the fraud from genuine writings all the time? I doubt that.

Did Paul have access to written gospels? – Your answer is in the affirmative, based on 1 Tim. 5:18. In response to the comments made by Fee (“Very much as Mark says, "it is written in the prophet Isaiah" (1:2), and then cites Malachi and Isaiah�), you wrote:

“That is simply an modern version error (compare with KJB, Geneva, Luther, etc). Professor Maurice Robinson took up Fee's challenge on that verse to demonstrate why the 'Isaiah' reading is incorrect. Note the circularity, assuming his own liberal theories to propagate other liberal theories.�

I just had a look at a standard book on New Testament textual criticism, Metzger’s “Text of the New Testament� (the latest edition co-authored with Prof. Ehrman), and according to it Fee is indeed correct. The earlier, therefore more original, reading is the one that states “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet.� Later scribes, sensing a difficulty, changed the text with a general statement (p. 264 of the latest edition). See also the Alands book on textual criticism, they say the same. There is another interesting example, where Matthew (27:9) attributes to Jeremiah a quotation that actually comes from Zechariah. And so we learn that it is not necessary that an author actually quotes from a source he has just introduced. In fact, he can add material that is not to be found in the introduced source. This is the same point raised by Tuckett and Gregory in the PDF article which discusses methodology that I mentioned in my previous posts. Bearing this in mind, it is rather far-fetched to assert that “Paul� quoted from a copy of Luke’s gospel.

In my mind I am picturing Paul travelling great distances propagating his views and opinions, having arguments with rivals, all the time having a written copy of the gospel of Luke tucked right under his arms and all he does is quote one line from it. That is a bit of a stretch I think. There are a great many places where it would have been only logical for him to actually quote from written gospels, assuming he had any, but he does not. Instead, what he refers to at times are described as information that he acquired from other Christians, thus in an oral tradition. In other words, Paul had access to stories about Jesus orally and he tapped into this oral stream at times. Our canonical gospels were composed after Paul’s death and so he could not have quoted anything from them. You ask if Paul could have quoted from Luke if we place it in the 50’s and the Pastorals in the 60’s, so that Paul is writing 2 Timothy when Luke has already been in circulation for around a decade. In this scenario, certainly, the possibility cannot be dismissed – Paul quoting from written Luke. Yet the whole scenario is quite unbelievable and overly stretched. Since Luke is based on Mark and Mark is placed in the 60’s, then, realistically, Luke must be placed even later – how later is another question. It is therefore more probable that Luke was composed after Paul’s passing away.

Finally, I agree with Guthrie that the agreement in wording is no reason to suppose that Paul is quoting from Luke. Many of us are familiar with terms such as “to be or not to be� and “may the force be with you, always� and other even longer liners. Someone using these lines may not ever have read Shakespeare or even seen a Star Wars movie in their life. Yet some sayings have become very popular and they are preserved in our minds and repeated by people despite the lack of familiarity with the actual source. It seems more probable to me that Paul is mentioning a well-known saying attributed to Jesus at the time after quoting from “scripture� – the Jewish Bible (whatever its scope). There is nothing of a “strain� involved here.

Regards

Steven Avery

You don't use Metzger or Aland to check Fee. Textual birds of a feather.

You do better to engage brain and read the Professor Robinson article and compare to Metzger, Fee, etal

The rest I'll try to get back to after work (including the circular summary on accepting forged authorship), the authorship issues and Matthew 27:9. I think there are a couple of points that need conceptual help I'll point out for now that Matthew 27:9 does not use the word scripture, or even written. Daniel Wallace as well tries to use Matthew 27:9 as a cover for any alexandrian text error, as well.

On Paul quoting Luke. I'll probably not go too much into the aphorism discussion in depth again. When you have the same words, and no knowledge of the supposed aphorism being used in those words elsewhere, it is more a cover argument than anything else. The same words virtually requires some type of direct dependence, even more so when a dependence is actually declared.

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

dost

Hello again,

Brief comments while I await for your upcoming post.

1. I didn't say that the word "scripture" or "written" was used at Matt. 27.9, but only that the author names a source and attributes certain words to it whereas in fact those words are to be found in Zechariah. That was my point, namely, that it is not necessary for an author to quote or allude to material found within an introduced source.

2. Metzger and the Alands are authorities in the field of New Testament textual criticism, so is Fee, and the vast majority of their colleagues agree with them as to which is the earlier reading. I didn't mean to say that Metzger named Fee specifically, but only that he also says Isaiah is the early reading. I am unfamiliar with Robinson's arguments and would be quite interested to see what he has to say and keep an open mind. Perhaps in your next post you will share his arguments with us.

3. We simply have a few sources and details available from the first century, with much material obviously lost. So, with sparse data at hand, it is not quite effective to argue that Paul was not quoting a popular saying attributed to Jesus because we don't find others doing the same in that period. Further, let's face it, the sentence in question has what, something like seven words? Does this really demand nothing less than direct dependence upon a written document?

Regards and best wishes.

Steven Avery

And, unlike you, I have found this position quite easy to understand, apply and defend, on 2 Peter and the Pastorals. In fact, what surprised me most the squishy-softness of most of the against Pauline and Petrine arguments, they turn to mush on cursory examination, (with a couple of exceptions where rubber meets road).

Prove ? Well, to start, nothing could "prove" to a hardened skeptic position, so the term itself is curious. However, with a heurmeneutic of respect for the NT writings they offer both consistency and evidence for the authorship, very much so. And this combines with the issues mentioned by Glenn Miller and many others, that the early church was quite vigilant on this very question, rejecting again and again as inauthentic manuscripts with dubious first-person claims. Even marking and separating the writer in one case, if I have my memory right. Maintaining a high standard.

Whoops I really would not expect you to get quite this circular here, perhaps in honor of the ice skating super-twirls. Think this one through a bit more, s'il vous plait.

On another thread we mentioned a grand total of about 3 or 4 books that had minor, extremely minimal, support as NT scripture, by anybody in the church anywhere, other than the current canon. And that was minuscule. And do any of these have some similar first person claims as 2 Peter and the Pastorals ?? Please give even one example.

Right. Or at least one gospel, Luke, which he recognized as scripture/graphe.

amazing.. Hopefully you can you understand that Professor Robinson was replying to the Metzger/Fee position, analyzing with a depth far beyond anything either of them had ever written about the verse. Your simply dropping Metzger/Aland as the appeal to authority simply shows the depth of slavish acceptance of alexandrian and Metzgerian positions, often very, very weak positions (note: Mark 1:2 isn't very weak, which is precisely why Professor Robinson took the challenge, it was offered by Fee as one of two 'best cases' against his Byzantine Text position). This blind alliance on the weird W&H/Aland/Metztger reasonings, false paradigms, and deceptive parsings arises again and again in modern textcrit circles.

I'm going to stop at this point for now, and try to return before too long.

Shalom,
Steven

Amaleq13

= Poisoning the well

"heurmeneutic of respect for the NT writings" = Begging the question

= Appeal to authority

I look forward to reading some rational arguments that are not flawed by fallacies.

Steven Avery

Just taking one Amaleq note here as a good example, its a chuckle that he would consider a reference to a particular indepth and very fine couple of articles by Glenn Miller as an "appeal to authority" (as if the name comes with a Harvard PhD and brings scholarly shudders at the very mention) while he has been blithely ignoring the frequent references to Bruce Metzger as an appeal to authority by person after person on this forum, even as a way to avoid concern for the substantive analysis of modern textcrit positions (as happened above and is a primary technique here ... "but look, Bruce Metzger agrees").

Especially since I am very willing to go into the actual points in the various articles on pseudonymity and have done so on other forums, and gave a summary of the major points here from Miller (my memory) without any protestation or contestation.

Oops.
The very opposite of an appeal to authority.

And even more so as Dost has defacto agreed with the major point that they make (pseudonymity is a kind word for forgery and fraud) while disagreeing on early church praxis and vigilance. And my specific questions to Dost to follow up on that remaining agreement gap is one part of my post that Amaleq simply sneakily "snipped" in order to try to pull a rather sad and tawdry branding technique.

This type of stuff is actually very helpful, as it shows the intellectual dishonesty of many lists of supposed fallacies, as they are themselves a way to avoid discussing substantive issues.

Dost, to his dialog credit, unlike Amaleq, seems to at least understand that there are substantive issues being discussed substantively.

And yes, gasp, perhaps this is discomfiting to a hardened skeptical position (oh, no, how can he say something like that.. simply because it is a true and accurate representation of some here, would you prefer "hard-shelled skeptic position?", anyway it is a very mild 'poisoning' of any wells for this forum perhaps like black pepper or tomato.).

Discomfiting to see a really sincere discussion about issues of the NT authorship, a discussion where a concept like "hermeneutic of respect" is in fact considered worthy of validity.

Actually it is foundational, with what eyes do we view the text ...

And as we have discussed elsewhere, many claims of a supposed methodological neutrality are transparently phoney, being skeptically imbued with textual errancy endued and all authorship issues a priori skewered, to faciliate the rejection of the simple and clear words of the text.

Shalom,
Steven Avery