TedM

Holding seems to favor strong Lukan influence, but finds much fault in the arguments against authenticity. As usual, he makes a number of good points. Any comments on this?

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/pastorals.html

Please avoid making generic attacks on Holding. I'm interested in substantive analysis of his arguments in this article.

TedM

If the Pastorals are authentic to Paul, they contain the EARLIEST writing which places Jesus in a historical setting which agrees with the later gospels, and establishes more clearly than anything else the idea that Paul knew Jesus to be a historical person whose death was only a few years prior to Paul's conversion experience:

And, it also includes the clearest testimony by Paul of Jesus as having been a wise teacher:

That's why the authenticity of 1 Timothy is a critical issue relating to the historical-mythical Jesus debate.

Does anyone here care to take on Holding on this topic?

ted

Chris Weimer

Peter Kirby demolished the notion, which even I found appealing once, that Luke wrote the Pastorals here.

TedM

Thanks Chris, but I must confess I don't understand how it works. The first post refers to choosing 2,3,4,5,6 and then he presents results. What happened to 00, 01, and 07? I don't get it. As for Luke and the Pastorals, on the page you linked to I saw no such comparison. He did compare Luke, Acts, and Paul in some way, and it seems he didn't get expected results. Kirby commented:

So, from what I see there is no demolishing at all to the Luke wrote Pastorals theory.. Sorry if I'm just being dense here..

ted

Peter Kirby

Of seven documents, each with presumed united authorship, there can be 1-7 authors. So 0 is out. 1 is "out" for analysis in that there is only one permutation, as is 7; at most they can be compared with the hypotheses of more or less authors, but not within themselves for the most likely permutation. So you are left with analysis of 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 possible authors, and a comparison of the permutations of attributions with those numbers of authors to be attributed with documents

I have not yet made the method and its assumption clear for the general reader (or especially precise for the specialist). As such, I am hesitant to talk about (or dismiss) the possibility of any kind of "demolition" (which is not my motivation here) from such a method. I want to revisit stylometry this summer. I will probably end up presenting a refinement and extension of methods that I have used in the past, which could have different assumptions and different conclusions, when I am satisfied with its presentation beyond use as explorations. I do not want to be footnoted here yet.

regards,
Peter Kirby

TedM

Thanks Peter! I'm sure quite a few of us look forward to what you come up with. Take care,

ted

rlogan

If you are going to trot out gratuitous praise for this imbecile then I should hope you might not bar others from a general observation.

I haven't read Peter's work on this, but there has been some statistical analysis out there for a good while.

http://www.asa3.org/asa/PSCF/1971/JASA9-71Nieboer.html

There are some generally acknowledged problems such as the church heirarchy being too developed for Pauline period. But the general statistical idea is that there is too much unique material in the pastorals and not enough intersection with language from the remainder.

Oh, and if I forgot to mention:

Holding is an idiot.

Toto

Ted - which of his points do you think is any good?

He seems to brush aside obvious differences in style and content by claiming that Paul could write in a different style if he wanted to. I don't see any analysis that impresses me.

TedM

A bunch of them, but I'm more interested in specific objections others have here to his specific points.

He presents specific arguments about this, which I think you have boiled down to a generality. Which specific arguments do you have a problem with?

I'm going to bed.

take care,

ted

Toto

I could reprint the entire article as being problems - but is this really an answer to the wildly different view of the law in the Pastorals versus the consensus genuine letters?Or this: These are the words of someone who is determined to show that the Pastorals could have been written by Paul, however disparate the style and content. Give me one reason to take this seriously.

And on the Lukan influence = the general argument that the author of Luke-Acts wrote the Pastorals is an alternative to the idea that Paul wrote them - based on liberal scholarship that sees Luke-Acts written a few generations after Paul's letters. But I bet Holding wants to argue that Luke the physicians was reading over Paul's shoulder and suggesting a word.

I don't think Holding is an idiot, unless he really thinks that he has put together a real argument on this issue.