mikem

Having read through the posts on this thread, nobody as far as I can see has raised the possibility that at least some of the Pauline letters may have been written by secretaries rather than Paul himself. I believe this was quite common at the time. The question then is whether the secretaries were simply recording what was dictated, or maybe worked from notes.

IF the latter, might this not account for stylistic differences?

On another point, as to whether the pastorals reflect a much later 2nd century church order, I'm not so sure that's the case. Acording to Acts, the church got it's organizational structure sorted out pretty early on. In this respect it was no different to any other religion at the time, and it would have been surprising had it not done so, and the idea of laying on of hands as a means of conveying authority and power was not uncommon.

Gamera

This is one more layer of analysis that current stylometrics has failed to take
into consideration, casting more doubt on the methodology.

Toto

How would that account for the differences in theology and ideas?

Vorkosigan

Because it isn't a question yet. It is a bunch of poorly written, poorly thought out and selective nonsense from apologetic websites, that attacks literature that is almost a century old.

There is no baseline for determining authorship, because we have no text of Paul's that we know for certain was by him. Instead we have several groups of texts within the Pauline corpus. Stylometrics can tell us which texts fall into what groups -- they group the six authentic texts in one, the pastorals in another, for example. That's all. Authorship has to be determined some other way. All the stats do is provide analysis that groups texts together.

So -- as usual -- your question misunderstands the problem. If you want to argue that "Paul" wrote the Pastorals, you'll get no argument from me since I don't know who wrote them. If you want to argue that the same person wrote the six authentic letters and the Pastorals, that's where we differ, since they are so obviously written by different individuals, according to all the information we have available.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Probably because everyone in this discussion is aware of two salient facts (1) Paul did use a secretary, we know this because he said so. (2) Pauline style is found even in texts composed by a secretary. Hence it is not an explanation of the different style of the Pastorals.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Gam, I'm not talking about what you are talking about.

Wiki is here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge

Think of it as knowledge not codified in formalized ways. No one is privileging anything.

Michael

mikem

It wouldn't. I don't think style would affect theological content. If anything, the reverse. I explain below that I think that the pastoral epistles are not primarily about explaining/defining theology. And I don't think that Paul used a secretary. These are not letters written to churches, after all, but personal letters.

mikem

It is not a complete explanation no, but it needs to be given it's due weight. I think the following points will indicate why I think that what you call "Pauline style" appears even in texts composed by a secretary. I also think that of all his letters, Galatians, the Pastorals, and probably Philemon, were composed and written by Paul without without an intermediary.

We know Paul used a secretary for some of his letters because he implies as much in 1 Corinthians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians. And in Romans the secretary identifies himself. We do not know whether Paul used secretaries for the others, including the Pastorals, although 2 Thessalonians implies that using a secretary was his normal practice.

However, Galatians 6:11 indicates I think, that Paul wrote this letter himself. The phrasing is unique to this epistle, and is significantly different from his formula in other epistles. Given the seriousness of the matter he was addressing, it would come as no surprise that he wanted to impress upon it's recipients that this was no ordinary letter mediated by a third party, or even dictated but came directly from Paul's hand. It is no surprise either that this should be Paul's most vituperative letter. A secretary writing at Paul's behest, unless he was being dictated to, would be more circumspect.

A secretary could have done one of two things, either take down dictation, or acted on instructions as to what Paul wanted to say. We don't know that at different times Paul didn't use both methods. Additionally, if he was using fellow believers as secretaries, they would have been people familiar with his teaching, and could be trusted to write on his behalf. Paul would probably have vetted the letter himself before it was sent off. And surely if Paul was using fellow believers, (as Romans 16:22 indicates), might there not have been some discussion as to how to frame particular points?

A similar situation exists in the English Civil where the job of drafting a reply to a letter of complaint for example from a member of Parliament to a Chief Executive of a government agency would have been given to someone of a lower grade, familar with the procedures of the agency who would draft a reply, which would then be vetted by his superiors and signed by the Chief Executive. The sentiments convey what the Chief Executive wants to convey, but the words are not his own.

I think that such an arrangement, with Paul giving general guidance as to the contents of a letter, and then vetting it before it was sent, would account for differences in style and vocab. Not forgetting either, that he would have had different people to act as his secretaries, each with their own personal style.

Whereas most of Paul's letters were addressed to churches, the Pastorals were addressed to a single individual. This in itself will ensure that the tone of the letters will be different. A comparison of the pastorals with the letter to Philemon is instructive. Here too we have a letter written to an individual, a warm, gracious and tactful letter, and one generally acknowledged to have been written by Paul. Context and recipient make a difference to tone and style.

I didn't mean for this to go on so long, but some things don't occur to you until you actually start writing - maybe that happened to Paul while he was working on letters? Or to his amanuensis? Is there not a passage in Josephus somewhere where he describes how he would read portions of his work in progress to his Roman patron and friends? This was not uncommon practice was it not in Roman society? Perhaps Paul would have read portions of his "work in progress" to his hosts - fellow believers. And who is to say that suggestions were not made, turns of phrase recommended, new ideas suggested, and that Paul incorporated these into his letters.

Finally. In the pastoral epistles, Paul is not writing for primarily theological purposes. His concern is with church order, and preserving right doctrine, rather than explaining it, as he does elsewhere. He is exhorting, rather than presenting an argument, as he does in Romans for instance, or 1 Corinthians 15. Although the difference in style between the pastorals and other epistles is clear, there are I believe continuities too. However it seems to be the gist of this threads that the differences are so great that these epistles could not have originated with the Paul who wrote the epistles generally agreed to have been written by him. I don't think that solely on the grounds of stylistic difference, the case is irrefutable, for the reasons given.

TedM

Exactly! That's why that until linguistic analysis can be used to show AUTHORSHIP it should be given no weight to the authorship question, ESPECIALLY when there are other factors present that might account for differences from the other writings. The right answer with regard to linquistics should be agnosticism.

Not sure yet. I may answer that in another thread, preferring to stay on topic here.

ted

Gamera

This is pure equivocation. To say stylometrics tells us a group of texts is written by author X and another set of texts isn't, is an authorship issue. To determine that, you need a baseline that shows what level and type of difference are relevant to authorship. It doesn't matter if the author is Paul or Joe Bloe. The issue is on what basis can stylometrics tells us text A is by one author, and text B is by another.

So I've asked the precisely correct question, and you haven't been able to answer it.

True to focus on these proposition and tell us how stylometrics has dealt with them:

1. Any two original texts are different, even texts by the same author.

2. Therefore difference in itself cannot determine whether any two text are by the same author or not.

3. To determine that requires a baseline, setting forth the level and types of differences that are indicia of different authorship, and that can only be determined by an extensive statistical study of texts by the same authors.

4. Further, such a baseline would have to take into consideration different practices of authoris in different cultures and times; in particular the practices of authors in classic cultures.

5. No such studies have been done, rendering stylometrics a mere exercise in subjectivism.

Tells us precisely where these proposition are dealt with by stylometrics. I don't think you can. I think you'll avoid the questions, once again.