Doug Shaver

I gave some reasons. I understand you think they are not good enough to support my position.

His approach is circular. He assumes inerrancy and argues for inerrancy from that premise.

My preference is to spend my research time on issues that are most important or interesting to me.

The kind of critique you seem to be asking for is something few people can do in their spare time.

That is basically the argument from ignorance. There always may be an explanation that is consistent with what orthodox Christians have always believed. It is not my position, and I don't think it would be the position of any reputable scholar, the there is no way Paul could have written the pastorals. I understand it to be the scholarly consensus that it is unlikely that he wrote them.

There is a difference between ignoring positive evidence and concluding after an appropriate evaluation of all the evidence that the positive evidence is outweighed by the negative evidence.

Speculation about things that could have happened is not evidence. The absence of evidence for a Pauline mission to Spain is a fact. The most parsimonious explanation for that fact is that he never went there. The lack of evidence does not prove that he never went there, but it provides a reasonable justification for believing that he never went there.

I don't claim to know enough about the man to have a good idea how much a scribe could have edited his prose before he threw a fit. We're not talking about any certainties here. We're talking about what a person not committed to inerrancy can reasonably suppose.

I believe I've already done that. If the object of this exercise is to convince you personally that Holding is full of crap, I don't have the time.

I am willing to tentatively accept the scholarly consensus whenever I am unaware of a good reason to think that the consensus is mistaken. I have believe I have a good reason to question the consensus on the historical Jesus. I have seen no good reason to question the consensus on the authorship of the pastorals.

TedM

I"m interested in the value of his arguments, and not his assumption of inerrancy.

Don't people here have a lot of free time? Ok, if not a lot, can't someone actually address even one of Holding's complete response to one of the 7 objections to the authenticity of the Pastorals?


Holding argues that it is based on questionable assumptions, even when it comes to the statistics. I think he makes some good arguments and no one here seems to want to challenge them.

I think it is only reasonable justification if we should reasonably EXPECT something other than silence. I'm not convinced that such an expectation IS reasonable, and would prefer an agnostic viewpoint since we really have no strong evidence of how/where Paul's spent his time after he was first a prisoner in Rome.

I think Holding presents many 'good reasons' to question the consensus. I am questioning the consensus because I have carefully read Holding's article and he not only raised some interesting points--including those revealing the questionable assumptions of scholars, but quotes others who have done so. In addition, I see in other readings indications that there was at one time a kind of close-minded herd mentality in accepting the very rudimentary statistical work performed in 1921 by Harrison in the formation of a 'conscensus'. This DOES make me question today's consensus, as does a 'gut feeling' from reading the pastorals that they do contain legitimate information.

I am doing some further work, focusing on the statistical work to understand just how strongly the scholars should have and still should rely on it in forming their overall conclusions.

ted

Gamera

Good question.

First, they claim to be by Paul. There is a whole universe of writings out there which do not purport to be by Paul. That narrows it down considerably.

Second, later authorities, of various degree of reliability, but all of them closer in time to Paul than us, attributed them to Paul. This is important because many of these authorities were in fact quite sensitive to the issue of epigraphia and pseudographia (indeed their whole enterprise was often to distinguish authentic writings from inauthentic writings), and they had at their disposal a whole array of analytical tools that we now lack (like asking "where the heck did you get this ms?" and what does so and so who knew so and so whose granddad knew so and so think about this).

Finally -- and here is the only use of stylistics I think is legitimate -- based on the universe of mss whittled down through the above two steps, none of them are so stylistically divergent as to suggest on their face that they are not by the same author. If 1 Cor were written in the style of Faulkner, and 2 Cor written in the style of Hemmingway, I think that should give us pause. But none of the stylistic variances in the Pauline canon are like that (and of course even the proponents of multiple authorship don't expect that since their assumption is that the authors are trying their darndest to imitate the style of "Paul."). To discern differences in the Pauline canon involves micro-analysis of the type that has not been baselined as between what a single author might be expected to produce in different texts.

By the way, as an afterthought, how could the imitators imitate the style of "Paul," unless there was a Paul, who actually produced texts to be imitated, and that begs the question, if Paul was worth imitating, why weren't his mss worth preserving.

Ben C Smith

This sounds familiar....

Good start. However, 1 John does not claim to be by John, yet many conservatives think John wrote it, and 3 Corinthians does claim to be by Paul, yet most conservatives would deny Pauline authorship.

Later authorities of varying degrees of reliability also attributed 3 Corinthians to Paul.

All right, then, you have your three steps. 3 Corinthians passes the first (it claims to be by Paul) and the second (later authorities attributed it to Paul). Does it pass the third? Is it close enough stylistically to be counted as genuine? Here is the English text:

Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, to the brothers in Corinth, greetings!

Since I am in prison, I am not surprised that the teachings of the evil one are quickly gaining ground. My Lord Jesus Christ will quickly come, since he is rejected by those who falsify his words. I delivered to you from the beginning what I received from the apostles who were before me, who were at all times together with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Lord Jesus Christ was born of Mary of the seed of David. The holy spirit was sent from heaven by the father into her, that he might come into this world to redeem all flesh through his own flesh, and that he might raise up from the dead we who are fleshly, just as he has shown himself as our example. Since man was molded by his father, man was sought for when he was lost, that he might be quickened by adoption into sonship. The almighty God, who made heaven and earth, first sent the prophets to the Jews, that they might turn from their sins; for he had determined how to save the house of Israel, therefore he sent a portion of the spirit of Christ into the prophets, who at many times proclaimed the faultless worship of God. But since the prince who was unrighteous wished to be God, he laid hands on them and killed them, and so all the flesh of men were bound to passions. But God, the almighty, who is righteous and would not repudiate his own creation, sent the holy spirit to Mary the Galilean, who believed with all her heart, and she received the holy spirit into her womb that Jesus might enter the world, in order that the evil one might be conquered by the same flesh which he held sway, and be convinced that he was not God.

For by his own body Jesus Christ saved all flesh and brought it to eternal life through faith, that he might present a temple of righteousness in his own body, through whom we are redeemed. These are not children of righteousness but of wrath, who reject the providence of God, saying that heaven and earth and all that is in them are not the works of the father.

They are themselves therefore children of wrath, for they have the accursed faith of the serpent. From them turn away, and flee from there teaching! For you are not sons of disobedience but of the church most dearly beloved. This is why the time of the resurrection is proclaimed.

As for those who tell you there is no resurrection of the flesh, for them there is no resurrection, who do not believe in him who has risen. You men of Corinth must understand that they do not know about the sowing of wheat or other seeds. That they are cast naked to the ground and when they have perished below and are raised again by the will of God in a body and clothed. The body is not only raised up, but abundantly blessed. And consider not only the seeds, but nobler bodies.

You know how Jonah the son of Amathios, when he would not preach in Nineveh but fled, was swallowed by a whale and after three days and three nights God heard the prayer of Jonah out of the deepest hell, and no part of him was corrupted, not even an eyelid. How much more, you of so little faith, will he raise up you who have believed in Christ Jesus, as he himself rose up? And if, when a corpse was thrown by the children of Israel on the bones of the prophet Elisha, the body of the man rose up, so you also who have been cast upon the body and bones and spirit of the Lord will raise up on that day with your flesh whole.

But if you receive anything else, do not cause me trouble; for I have these fetters on my hands that I may gain Christ, and his marks on my body that I may attain to the resurrection form the dead. And whoever abides by the rule which he received by the prophets and the holy gospel, he shall receive a reward and when he has risen form the dead shall obtain eternal life. But, to him that turns aside from them, there is fire with him and those who go before him in the way, since they are men without God, a generation of vipers; from these turn away in the power of the Lord.

May peace, grace and love be with you. Amen.

It may also be interesting to try the epistle to the Laodiceans. Is that one Pauline? Jerome said that it was rejected by all, but that judgment is belied by its presence in a great many Latin manuscripts.

I think there was a Paul who actually produced texts to be imitated which were in fact worth imitating; and I think his manuscripts were preserved.

That does not mean that some of the epistles preserved for us are not spurious.

Ben.

S.C.Carlson

And critical scholars.

More specifically, 3 Cor. even made it into the Armenian New Testament for quite a while.

Stephen Carlson

Vorkosigan

Was it Thrid Cor, or the reply from the Corinthians that got into the Armenian NT?

S.C.Carlson

Metzger's book on the canon indicates that it was 3 Cor. itself. That letter was extracted from its context in the Acts of Paul and circulated separately.

Vorkosigan

I see the problem, they were both in it, according to Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle...thians_to_Paul

"Such an appeal to combat heresy is likely the work of an orthodox forger, attempting to create a biblical basis for their counter-arguments to their docetic and gnostic enemies. Despite having been widely recognised as forgeries in ancient times, for a period this Epistle and its response appeared in the Armenian Bible."

I was reading up on it earlier to make Ben's reply to Gem.....but he beat me to it.

Michael

Doug Shaver

I think otherwise, and I've offered a sample of my reasons. It doesn't hurt my feelings if you don't find them acceptable.

andrewcriddle

Metzger has another discussion in his The Early Versions of the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk) p 161 which says of the Armenian Bible http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bib...enianlist.html which may or may not be reliable says IIUC that of three important Armenian lists of the NT canon, one includes neither, one includes both, and one includes 3 Corinthians but not the Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul.

Andrew Criddle