Nomad

In this set of essay/posts I wish to focus on the question of the authenticity and probable dating of the three epistles popularly known as the Pastorals; namely 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. With the possible exception of 2 Peter, the scholarly consensus is probably firmer against genuine authorship of these three letters than any other book of the New Testament. Yet, as I have researched this question I have come to question the reasoning behind such a conclusion, and wish to present my findings to the members, and invite comment. I will do so by addressing the arguments for three broad categories into which the arguments themselves can be grouped. Needless to say there is some overlap between and among these groups, and I do not expect anyone to subscribe to all of these arguments, but it is my hope that I will cover off the majority of the most powerful objections to Pauline authorship of the Pastorals. The groups I will examine are (a) 2nd Century forgeries, (b) late 1st Century pseudonymous, and (c) genuine "fragments" of Paul's writing contained within redacted letters, probably dating to shortly after Paul's death.

Without having conducted any kinds of scientific surveys, I am going to begin with the assumption that the vast majority of scholars would place themselves in one of these three groups (albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm). As each has its problems, I will present my objections to each in turn, offer my own conclusions on possible authorship, then invite responses. As a final note to my introduction, I will be treating the Pastorals as a complete unit, recognizing that some support authenticity for 2 Timothy, but not 1 Tim or Titus. I do not mean to dismiss these arguments entirely, but wish to confine my discussion as much as possible, and therefore will not be discussing this possibility here.

In order to keep these posts to a manageable length, I will be offering my essay in sections. This one will address the question of vocabulary and style found in the Pastorals. The next (Part 2) will take a look at the question of historical difficulties found in the Pastorals, as well as how well the ecclesiology and soteriology compares to Paul's earlier writings, other 1st Century documents, and those of 2nd Century Fathers and Apologists. At that point a firmer conclusion can be drawn as to the plausibility and probability of the Pastorals being 2nd Century forgeries. My third post/section will then examine the evidence for pseudonymous authorship from the last quarter of the 1st Century (as favoured by Raymond Brown, for example), as compared to evidence that Paul himself wrote the Pastorals towards the end of his life (c. 63-64 CE), possibly with the help of an amanuensis. It is my hope to cover off the arguments for 2nd Century authorship theory *before* moving on to this last section. I recognize that this could become a cumbersome discussion, but given the complexity of the topic, I feel that this will offer us the best opportunity for a full examination of all of the issues and evidence involved.

THE PASTORALS AS 2nd CENTURY FORGERIES

A good number, if not a majority, of scholars subscribe to this theory. According to this argument, the literary style and language, theology and church structure points more closely to a 2nd Century setting than to that of the first. Adherents of this position also point to what they see as serious historical difficulties found within the Pastorals themselves.

The first, and possibly strongest argument against Pauline authorship is that the Pastorals rests on stylistic and linguistic grounds, and therefore these objections must be addressed. Very simply, if it is established as a fact that the Pastorals contain a number of words (called the Pastoral Hapaxes, or simply Hapaxes) that cannot possibly have existed prior to Paul's death, then Pauline authorship is impossible. We do know, for example that there are many words and expressions found no where else in Paul's letters, and sometimes not even in the rest of the NT Canon. Further, it has been argued that these Hapaxes (as well as a number of expressions found only in the Pastorals) can be found in both the Early Fathers of the 2nd Century, and even the writings of non-Christian writers in the 2nd Century. On this basis, it is reasoned that the Pastorals are more probably 2nd Century documents, making Pauline authorship, impossible. How convincing is this argument?

THE HAPAXES

Clearly if some of the words and expressions found in the Pastorals did not exist prior to Paul's death, then the question is settled. Just as we will not find a reference to the "space shuttle" in the writings of Winston Churchill, a word or phrase foreign to Paul's time makes it prima facie obvious that he could not have written that word, and therefore, that letter containing it. On this basis, this question must be addressed.

There are 175 Hapaxes found in the Pastoral letters. Neither Paul, nor any other NT author uses them. Of these, 60 are used by 2nd Century Apostolic Fathers, and another 32 were used by the Apologists of this same period. Superficially this evidence appears to be impressive, but closer examination raises serious questions. For example, of the 60 Hapaxes used by the Fathers, 28 occur only once *among all of these authors in this entire period*! According to Donald Guthrie, "(D)uring the period 95-170 CE, there happen to be no more than forty-five of the Pastoral Hapaxes which occur in more than one (2nd Century) author." (_The Pastoral Epistles_, [Grand Rapids: Inter-Varsity Press, 2nd Edition, 1990 ], pg. 227). Further a total of only 17 are found in more than one of the early Fathers' works! The argument that the author of the Pastorals was therefore sometimes falling back on common 2nd Century vocabulary becomes extremely suspect, and should be rejected. Fatal to this argument, furthermore, is the fact that of these common words, ALL BUT ONE can be found in the LXX. Finally, 22 of the Hapaxes not found among any of the 2nd Century authors are also found in the LXX. Given that we find in Paul a deep attachment to, and knowledge of, the Septuagint, this should not come as much of a surprise. Most importantly, this shows that most, if not all, of these words were known and in circulation in the first half of the 1st Century, in other words, during Paul's lifetime.

Before we reject the 2nd Century vocabulary of the Hapaxes, however, we should also address the fact that 57 of them *can* be found in the non-Christian writings of this period, ranging from Josephus (95 CE) to Marcus Aurelius (170 CE), and that a number of them occur quite frequently. The problem, however, is that it cannot be shown that any of these words were unknown in the 1st Century, or even the early 1st Century (Guthrie, pg. 228 ). As we can see, to say that the Pastorals cannot be from the 1st Century because it contains many words not found anywhere else in 1st Century writings of the NT is circular reasoning at best.

We are then left with the fact that Paul did not use any of these words anywhere else in his letters. How much weight should we give to this argument? Perhaps the simplest manner to address this question is to look at some of his other (including undisputed) letters and see how often he uses a Hapax not found anywhere else in the NT. Here again I will rely upon Guthrie's statistical analysis:

"If the number of these Hapaxes which occur also in the second-century writers is expressed as a percentage of the total number of Hapaxes in each Epistle, the results are as follows: Romans 25.2%, Galatians 34.4%, Colossians 24.2%, 1 Thessalonians 30%, 2 Thessalonians 50% and Philemon 60%." (Guthrie, pg. 230-1) The Pastorals as a whole have a percentage of 34.9%. Clearly this argument fails. And what of the 130 words found in the Pastorals and non-Pauline NT? Well, to look at two of the undisputed letters, Romans has 148 such words, and 2 Corinthians has 100. Based on the evidence, we cannot use the Pastoral Hapaxes to demonstrate 2nd Century authorship.

MISSING PAULINE WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

The reverse argument, however, that many phrases and words common to the other Pauline letters are not found in the Pastorals, must be addressed as well. Here we will run into considerable difficulty in the use of statistical analysis of the data. Can we assume that the other Pauline's represent the sum total of Paul's vocabulary? And more importantly, do they represent a large enough sample of Paul's vocabulary and writing style to make significant judgements as to the authenticity of the Pastorals? Finally, how often would we have to find these expressions, and in how many letters, before we would call the word or expression "typical" of Paul's style? Given that most sceptics are willing to grant no more than seven "undisputed" Pauline letters (1 Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 & 2 Corinthians, and Romans) I would say the answer is no. Even if we expanded out list to include the remaining letters (2 Thessalonians, Colossians and Ephesians) the difficulty in drawing up an acceptable list of distinctly Pauline expressions or words becomes highly problematic. I can think of at least two solid reasons why we would not expect to find these expressions in the Pastorals:

1) With the exception of Philemon, all of the other letters are addressed to churches, rather than close disciples/friends of Paul. Speaking personally, my writings to my friends is very different from formal essay presentations, or even general correspondence with strangers and acquaintances. How unlikely is it that Paul simply varied his style based on his audience?

2) Paul is known to have used an amanuensis in at least some of his undisputed letters (e.g. Romans 16:22, see also 1 Cor. 1:1; 16:21, not to mention in the disputed letters Col. 4:18, 2 Thess. 3:17), and we cannot know how much (or little) stylistic and linguistic freedom Paul gave to these "ghost writers", let alone the degree of liberty one who wished to pass himself off as the apostle would take in such matters. Would such a person be more, or less, likely to imitate Paul's general style? And to what extent, and how confident should we be in our assumptions and conclusions?

On the basis of the above arguments, I think we need to be cautious in our demand to see arbitrarily chosen stylistic and linguistic markers that will distinguish "authentic" writings from pseudonymous and forged letters.

As a final point on this topic, it should be noted that 2 Timothy 4:11 lists Luke as Paul's only remaining companion, and that others have commented on the stylistic similarities between the Pastorals and Luke/Acts. Without necessarily endorsing the hypothesis that Luke was the amanuensis of the Pastorals, I do not think that this possibility should be ruled out. Keeping these objections in mind, I will now turn my attention to some of those stylistic differences.

PAULINE STYLE AND THE PASTORALS

Here again I will depend on Guthrie's critique (Guthrie pg. 236-240), especially of an analysis of the Pastorals given by P.N. Harrison in _The Problem of the Pastorals_. First, Guthrie addresses the list of 112 particles, pronouns, prepositions, etc. found by Harrison in the 10 Pauline's but not in the Pastorals. Of these, 58 can only be found in one or two letters, making them non-sequitors. Of the remainder, only the longest letters, Romans and 1 Corinthians have more than 50, and interestingly, so does 2 Corinthians, one of the disputed letters. Guthrie notes that Colossians and 2 Thessalonians (two more disputed letters) have only 20 of these articles, but more importantly, when all of these Epistles are looked at together, "the same Epistles, furthermore, lack between them no less than 59 of the 112 particles, etc." (Guthrie pg. 237). Guthrie continues: "An even more obvious weakness about Harrison's list is the exclusion of all those which occur in the Pastorals. A parallel list can be compiled showing some ninety three additional particles, pronouns and prepositional forms, of which all but one are found in the Pastorals and all but eight in the other Pauline group. Romans has seventy-three, 1 Corinthians seventy, 2 Corinthians sixty, Galatians sixty-four, Ephesians fifty-four, Philippians fifty-seven, Colossians forty-six, 1 Thessalonians forty-six, 2 Thessalonians forty-five and Philemon thirty-two.""(Guthrie pg. 237). He then concludes, after a detailed look at the remainder of Harrison's examples that: "In summing up the stylistic position, the two main criticisms of Harrison's mass of statistics may be stated in the following way. It has been shown in the first place that the same arguments could equally well prove the non-Pauline character of undisputed Pauline Epistles, and secondly that these statistics take no account of mood and purpose. Even when two Epistles such as Romans and Galatians deal with allied themes they share only twenty-five of Harrison's 112 particles, etc. Whereas the closely connected Colossians and Ephesians have only six in common… Lock's opinion that the Pastoral style is close to Paul than to any other New Testament writer would seem to be amply justified." (Guthrie pg. 239 ).

As for arguments based on the fact that the Pastorals use some different words or expressions to mean the same thing as concepts found in the other Pauline Epistles, I do not find these arguments convincing at all. Variation in speech or writing is hardly unknown, and given the limited number of samples available to us (between seven and ten authentic incidental letters), we should not be putting much confidence in this line of reasoning. At most, we can say that unique expressions like CHARIN ECHO instead of EUCHARISTEO, and DESPOTAI instead of KYROIO is, in Guthrie's words, "unexpected." By themselves, however, such unexpected expressions do not add to the weight of evidence in favour of a 2nd, as opposed to 1st Century authorship.

CONCLUSION ON VOCABULARY AND STYLE

To wrap up this section of my presentation, we can see that there is considerable justification in rejecting arguments against Pauline authorship based on the Pastoral Hapaxes, missing words and expressions found in the other Pauline Epistles, and missing particles, etc. from those same Epistles. More importantly, using these arguments to justify a 2nd Century dating of the Pastorals is unwarranted, and should be rejected. Such a late date for the Pastorals, then, will need to rest on other arguments, such as the sorteriology and ecclesiology of these letters. If they can be shown to represent the situation of the 2nd Century Church better than that of the 1st Century, then the argument is settled in favour of forgery. On the other hand, if they suggest Pauline influence, but a situation more indicative of the late 1st Century, then we will have to conclude in favour of pseudonymous authorship. Finally, if the concepts can be reconciled with the Chruch as it was known to Paul himself, then we would have to lean towards authenticity in the letters. Therefore, I will turn my attention in my next post to those arguments. In the meantime, I invite comments or questions on this section, and with luck we will be able to cover off both sets of arguments in a reasonably coherent manner.

Thank you, and peace.

Nomad

Nomad

In my opening post I showed how the evidence indicates that the wording, even when not typical of Paul himself, was known in the 1st Century, and perhaps most importantly for the purposes of this study, can often be found within the LXX. On this basis, we have no reason to reject 1st Century authorship of these letters, and we must therefore turn to other possible evidence for a late writing and see if it can secure confidence in a 2nd Century date. After all it is indisputable that many of the words and phrases used are found in 2nd Century, thus, this late a dating is not prima facie impossible. In order to better decide with greater confidence the most probable date range for the Pastorals, we must study and compare the theology, ideas, and historical clues to see if they fit better in a 1st or 2nd Century setting. It is the purpose of this essay to examine such a possibility. Only after this question is settled will I then turn (in Part III of this series ) to whether or not the Pastorals could have been produced by Paul himself, sometime in the mid-60's, or if it most probably dates later than this (i.e. ca. 80 ), necessitating a conclusion that the documents must be pseudonymous.

Basically, historical evidence falls into the following categories:

1) Internal evidence about the life and activities of Paul himself compared against the rest of the Pauline corpus and Acts (and including "incidental" that I will discuss toward the end of this essay );
2) External evidence from the 2nd Century that reflects the more developed theological thought and church structure than can be found in even the late 1st Century;
3) External evidence that testifies to Pauline authenticity (or against such authenticity ), and how strong such evidence is;
4) Related to (2) above, any anachronisms that would demonstrate conclusively that a person who had died no later than 65-66 CE could not have known about them, leaving us with no choice but to reject authenticity of the letters, and propose pseudonymous authorship.

CLEAR ANACHRONISMS

Of these four criteria, the last is the easiest to deal with, and therefore I will do so quickly. Very simply, none of the passages in these three texts contain knowledge of any concepts or historical events that could not possibly have been known prior to 66 CE. There is no evidence of knowledge of the destruction of Jerusalem and the resulting Diaspora of both Jews and Christians. We do not see the letters quoting from any of the Gospels (as Ignatius does with Matthew, or Marcion from Luke ). Nor do we find acknowledgement of the growing authority (let alone supremacy!) of Rome (i.e. 1 Clement, Ignatius' Letter to the Romans 1:1, Hermas' The Shepherd 2.4.3 ), or even of bishops can be found within the Pastorals. On the other hand, some might point to Paul's statement of his own imminent death found in 2 Timothy 4:6-8, but this is not convincing. The key expression, "[F]or I am already on the point of being sacrificed," closely echoes an expression found in Philippians 2:17. Application of such an expression to himself by Paul should not surprise us, and even less so as his motive is clearly to inspire a close disciple, as well as possibly even to justify himself and the value of his work. Needless to say, this same thought could have occurred to a close disciple writing in his master's name and shortly after Paul's death. On this basis we need not place too much weight on his particular expression, except to note that it's presence here is not anachronistic. After all, Paul has already seen (or heard of ) the martyrdom of Stephen, James, the brother of John, and James, the brother of Jesus. He may also have heard of Peter's own death. Regardless, death for the sake of the Gospel was not something that would have been entirely unexpected for Paul, given his many prior sufferings for this same message. If he was writing at the time of Nero's persecutions, and especially if he was writing from Rome where that persecution was most powerfully felt, we can safely assume that Paul could, and would, have seen the approaching certainty of his own death. Given his past willingness to hold himself up as an example to others (1 Cor. 7:7; 11:1; Phil. 3:17 ), it is not a stretch to see him doing something similar with a trusted disciple of his own as that end grew nearer. As we can see, there are no anachronisms that would settle the question for us, so we should turn out attention to the other three pieces of evidence and see what we can learn from it.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE (PAUL'S LIFE AND ACTIVITIES)

One of the most problematic issues faced by the proponent of authenticity of the Pastorals centres on Paul's movements as described in these letters, and those of his other letters, and especially as found in the Book of Acts. At the same time, how much support does this evidence provide for the advocates of 2nd Century authorship?

Without a doubt, if the Pastorals are authentic, they must have been written at the end of his life. For example, 2 Timothy 1:8, 16-17 speaks of a second imprisonment, in Rome, and which he expects may well end in death (4:6-8). Contrast this with the only imprisonment found in Acts (28:16), in which Paul is merely under house arrest in which he has considerable freedom both of action and assembly (28:17, 30-31) Nor does he face a death sentence (28:18 ). Obviously, if 2 Timothy is from Paul, either Acts is completely wrong (highly implausible ), or Paul is facing his second and final imprisonment. On the other hand, as we have seen above, there is insufficient information within 2 Timothy (or the other Pastorals) to indicate certain knowledge of Paul's fate. Thus, it would be to overstate the case to use this evidence to conclude that post-Pauline authorship is more probable. Based on how Acts ends (with Paul preaching openly and uninhibited ), and contrasting that with Paul's final martyrdom during the reign of Nero (less than 2-3 years after Acts' ending ), we should expect that a second imprisonment did take place. The question remains as to whether or not Paul could or did write any letters at this time, but one cannot rule this possibility out entirely.

The next problem is the locations Paul describes in his letters here, and how they might be reconciled with what we know again from Acts and the other Paulines. From 1 Timothy 1:3 Paul instructed Timothy to "remain in Ephesus" while he himself went on to Macedonia. Yet, there is nothing in the Greek word POREUOMENOS (to go/depart), nor the surrounding text, that requires us to think that Paul himself went to Ephesus, or that, if he did, that he stayed there very long. I do not see why anyone would insist on such a reading.

Next, in Titus 1:5 (together with Paul's familiarity with the situation on the island ) first glances would suggest an otherwise unknown trip to Crete. Yet, once again the evidence is not conclusive. Very simply, the expression "I left you (Titus) in Crete…" need not imply that Paul stayed for any great length of time in Crete, or even that he stopped there at all. His familiarity with Titus' situation could be due to frequent correspondence, or reports from others. Some of it also appears to be known largely from the reputation of the Cretans themselves (Titus 1:12), and could have lead Paul to work from assumptions about the character of the people in Titus' church.

A final difficulty in chronology presents itself when comparing 2 Timothy 4:21 and Titus 3:12. In the case of the former, Paul is clearly intending to spend his (final?) winter in Rome. In Titus he tells us that he will winter in Nicopolis (Epirus?). On this basis, the Pastorals, if authentic, could not have been written in the same year, thus requiring the proponent of authenticity to insist on a minimum of 18 months to two years to have elapsed. If Acts ends in 62 CE, then we have barely enough time, since Paul could not have long survived the terror instituted by Nero in 64. Thus, the upper time limit for Paul to write all three letters is also about 2-3 years. There is little room to maneuver. On its own this is not a strong argument against authenticity, but it would add to a cumulative case for pseudepigraphy.

Interestingly, for the above case to have any real force, one must accept that Acts is (a ) basically historical regarding the life of Paul, and (b ) more or less complete in its telling of the high points of Paul's life. The fact is that even if Acts is 100% accurate, it is still only a selective and fragmentary account of Paul's life and travels. The sceptic therefore finds himself in the curious position of defending the historicity of Acts *against* a potentially authentic Pauline letter, and this is traditionally the opposite of how scholarship has approached past conflicts between Paul's letters, and the Book of Acts.

One final argument from possible external evidence (largely vague references found in 1 Clement) is that Paul did not travel East to Macedonia, or Ephesus, or Crete at all during this period of time, but rather, went West (to Spain? ), as he had intended based on Romans 15:24. Quite simply, if Clement is right, and Paul went to Spain, then he would not have had time to do all of the things he reports to us in the Pastorals. Only one (or neither ) of these sources can be right about Paul's final years, since one cannot reconcile the geography of a Spanish mission with that of the Pastorals. All that I can say here is that we lack independent confirmation of either Clement's report, or even of the Pastorals. On this basis one cannot decide which report is more probable without looking at other evidence. In my opinion, Clement's story should be treated as legendary, as we have no independent evidence to support him (either in the form of reputed reports from Paul, or from any of his companions ). In the case of the Pastorals, we at least have the internal evidence of the letters themselves. If they are established as authentic, then we can accept their story on Paul's travels as being largely legitimate.

THEOLOGY OF THE PASTORALS

In this section we can compare the evidence of their soteriology and ecclesiology and compare it against both the other Pauline's (and other 1st Century documents ), and against that of known 2nd Century theologians. If the evidence points to more similarities with the latter group, then we can be more certain that they were authored at this time. On the other hand, if they more closely reflect Pauline thought, or at least, 1st Century thinking, then we can reject a later dating as improbable.

SOTERIOLOGY OF THE PASTORALS

To quote from a source that accepts Pauline authenticity, Daniel Wallace: <a href="http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/1timotl.htm" target="_blank">http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/1timotl.htm</a>

"Although the author is concerned with the doctrine of salvation—indeed, this seems to be the driving force behind the writing of these letters (cf. especially 1 Tim 1:11)—the way in which the author speaks of this doctrine is decidedly un-Pauline. Essentially, there is a creedalism, an objective air to the pastorals with regard to soteriology that is largely lacking in the homolegomena."

Raymond Brown speaks of when we compare the theology and ethics of the Pastorals with the undisputed Paulines, that "[F]amiliar Pauline terms (law, faith, righteousness) appear but with a slightly different nuance." (Brown, _Introduction to the New Testament_ (1998 ) pg. 664 ). Yet he also notes that "[O]verall the same differences can be found in the other Pauline letters but not in so concentrated a manner. In the Pastorals there is an unusual amount of polemic, often stereotypical." (Ibid. pg. 664 ).

But defenders of authenticity are not without their rebuttals on this point. Basically they appeal to the difference in the nature and purpose of letters addressed to churches (as is the case with the undisputed Paulines ), and those that would be sent to individuals chosen to succeed Paul himself. As I noted in my previous post on using vocabulary and style to suggest pseudepigraphy is highly suspect and open to challenge. As Wallace notes, quoting from Gordon Fee: <a href="http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/1timotl.htm" target="_blank">http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/1timotl.htm</a>

"The basic reason for this kind of "objective" reference to the gospel, however, lies in the nature of these letters in contrast with the others. The other letters (excepting Philemon, of course) were written to churches, to be read aloud and apparently to function as authority as though Paul himself were there. Therefore, it was necessary for him to reiterate the truth that was to correct or stand over against their waywardness. In this case, however, the letters are written to those who themselves both know fully the content of Paul's gospel and are personally to take the place of authority in these churches that his letter had earlier done. This latter phenomenon is totally overlooked in scholarship. It is almost as if the real objection were that Paul should write such letters at all." (Wallace, citing G.D. Fee, _1 and 2 Timothy, Titus_ [New International Biblical Commentary ], pg. 16 ).

Guthrie echoes this objection:

"The writer (of the Pastorals) declares that Christ gave Himself for our redemption, that we are justified not by our own righteousness but by faith in Christ, that God called us by His grace before the world was, and that we are destined to an eternal life on which we can enter even now. These are no mere perfunctory echoes of Pauline thought." (D. Guthrie, _The Pastorals_ (1990), pg. 46).

Guthrie admits that similarity of theology does not prove authenticity, but it does (even keeping in mind Brown's comment of variation in nuances) argue against insisting on a 2nd Century date for the Pastorals.

As to Brown's objection that the Pastorals appear to be more "stereotypical" (orthodox) than we would find in the other Paulines, I find this line of reasoning somewhat question begging. The letters are addressed to church leaders who are no more than 1 or 2 generations removed from the original apostles. As these apostles (including Paul himself ) faced imminent death, how unreasonable is it to suggest that their thoughts would turn increasingly to preservation of their sound teachings and doctrines, especially by passing this on to chosen successors?

Finally, one should not ignore the evidence of clearly Judaic thinking still present in the Pastorals, and which would argue against a purely Hellenistic theology (and therefore late date). Terms applied to God, for example, that are also found in Jewish thought include: `Ruler' or `Potentate' (2 Macc. 12:15, `King of kings and Lord of lords (Exodus 26:7, 2 Macc. 13:4), God the Savior/salvation (Deut. 32:15, 2 Sam. 22:3, Isaiah 43:3, 45:21).

As with the stylistic argument, I do not see sufficient evidence here to suggest 2nd Century authorship, and would point, instead, to a date no later than the last third of the 1st Century, probably prior to 90CE (when the Gospels would have been completed ).

ECCLESIOLOGY IN THE PASTORALS

Though much discussed, this argument has struck me as one of the weakest made against the Pastorals and a 1st Century date. Brown, for example, claims it is too "simple a picture" to compare the Pastorals to the bipartite structure found in the Didache (c. 100 CE ) and 1 Clement (c. 95 CE ), or the tripartite structure of Ignatius (c. 110 CE ), but I do not see why this is simplistic. Surely if the Pastorals are contemporaneous with (or even later than!) the thoughts found in these writings, we should see such structures, at least in more than mere embryonic form. EPISKOPOS (overseers), PRESBYTEROS (elders ) and DIAKONOS (deacons ) are found in the Pastorals, Paulines, and/or Acts, and in the case of the Pastorals, the words are used interchangeably (Titus 1:5-7 ). Further, the specific "job descriptions" are hardly exceptional or detailed, as we find, for example, in the writings of Ignatius. There is some detail as to how a deacon is to be chosen in 1 Timothy, but specific duties are not listed. There is no way to read the Pastoral epistles and conclude that the bishops ruled his community, nor even that each community was restricted to a single bishop. In effect, the picture of the church we find in these letters, when compared to Ignatius or 1 Clement is one of a primitive church (in the Pastorals), and a more advanced one (in the early Fathers).

Arguments that the Pastorals were written specifically to refute Marcion are hardly any more convincing. If this was the purpose, then the author went out of his way to be extremely vague, as he never once engages the arguments for docetism or gnosticism as it was taking shape in the early to mid 2nd Century. Their absence from Marcion's canon need hardly surprise us, given that they invest the church and its leaders with being the "pillars and foundation of the truth." More likely is Tertullian's claim that Marcion knew of and rejected these letters, exactly because they went against his interests. Certainly Marcion showed no aversion to editing or removing anything that ran counter to his own thinking.

As for the argument that Paul was not interested in church government, Acts 14:23 has Paul and Barnabas appointed elders to all of the churches in southern Galatia. In Philippians Paul specifically greets the bishops/overseers and deacons. Quite simply, the case is overwhelmingly against the structure of the 2nd Century church being read into the Pastorals. The church in these letters is of a far more primitive nature, though moving towards such a
structure.

THE LIST OF WIDOWS

An objection could be made that the “enrollment” of the widows (or widow’s list) of 1 Tim. 5:9 represents a later development in Church that, one that post dates Paul, but here we should again look at the specific evidence of what 1 Timothy says, and compare it against other evidence.

1 Timothy 5:9-11a Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband; and she must be well attested for her good deeds, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the feet of the saints, relieved the afflicted, and devoted herself to doing good in every way. But refuse to enroll younger widows;

Notice that no specific duties are listed for these older widows. Nor is a structure indicated. In fact, from verse 3 the author appears to be distinguishing between what he sees as “real” and “false” widows. The only fixed rule is that they must be at a minimum of 60 years of age, the age at which an ancient was definitely considered to be a senior citizen, and that she had only one husband, and that she has brought up children. Verses 4-8 list her moral duties, including responsibility to children and grandchildren, prays, lives beyond reproach, and provides for her relatives. This differs significantly from the much more detailed list of duties assigned to widows by the time of Ignatius, suggesting, at most, that their role was less developed at the time of 1 Timothy.

In fact, from Acts 9:39-41 we can see the widows performing one other function, that of public mourners. This is certainly not inconsistent with the instructions given to Timothy, and indicates that a special role for widows (probably carried over from Jewish mourning traditions) was already known to early Christians. And from 1 Corinthians 7:8 we see Paul identifying them as a separate group of individuals within the Church at large. Very simply, there is insufficient evidence from 1 Timothy that the widows, or even the enrollment of widows was an innovation that postdates Paul. We cannot argue from the silence of Paul in his other occasional letters on this point, and if we accept that Acts 9 is more or less historical concerning the role of widows as mourners (something I believe to be perfectly reasonable), then we need not be surprised that they are mentioned as an identifiable group in this specific Pastoral letter.

EXTERNAL EVIDENCE FOR AUTHENTICTY

The earliest probable reference to the Pastorals is found in Polycarp, with further allusions in Justin Martyr, Heracleon, and possibly Clement of Rome. Irenaeus (c. 170 CE) explicitly references them, and attributes authorship to Paul. They are also found in the Muratonian Canon, and while they are absent from P46, this is a collection of letters addressed only to churches. P32, which dates to the same period, includes Titus. Given that the external evidence for Pauline authenticity is at least as good as for any other epistle (excepting Romans and 1 Corinthians), I would agree with Guthrie that the burden of proof falls to those that would reject 1st Century authorship, and even that they are non-Pauline (Guthrie, pg. 18-21).

INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE "INCIDENTALS"

One final argument against a late dating for these letters is simple, incidental passages that suggest basic authenticity. Any proponent of fictitious authorship, or even later 1st Century pseudepigraphy needs to account for them. Why, for example, in 2 Timothy 4:13 does Paul ask Timothy to bring him the cloak he left with Carpus in Troas?

Arguments that this was inserted to make the letter "seem" more authentic are simply incredible. Other examples of clearly pseudonymous writings have no such incidentals. Why would this author scatter them throughout his? The simpler solution is to suggest that Paul wrote these parts, but the problem with accepting this thesis is that it makes overall authenticity of the Pastorals more likely. In my opinion, an aversion to accepting authenticity is hardly a sound reason for rejecting these passages as authentic. Clearly this kind of sceptical argument is merely circular.

CONCLUSION

Based on an examination of the internal and external evidence of the Pastorals, and a comparison against the other Paulines and Book of Acts, the case for 2nd Century authorship of 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus is obviously far from proven. The weight of evidence is clearly against it, and greatly favours a 1st Century setting. The vocabulary, style, theology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and historical reports consistently point away from the 2nd Century. Having established that 1st Century authorship is most plausible, it is now possible to examine the claims of pseudepigraphy by a disciple of Paul, writing perhaps in the 80's vs. genuine authorship by Paul himself as he approached the end of his life. That will be the subject of my next essay. It is my hope to have this done by the weekend. In the meantime, I invite questions on the first two parts of my thesis.

Peace,

Nomad

Steven Carr

Nomad writes 'Just as we will not find a reference to the "space shuttle" in the writings of Winston Churchill, a word or phrase foreign to Paul's time makes it prima facie obvious that he could not have written that word, and therefore, that letter containing it.'

Is Nomad saying that the words 'space' and 'shuttle' did not exist in the time of Winston Churchill? Or that Winston Churchill never used the words 'space' or 'shuttle' anywhere in his writings? ie that they are Hapaxes.

This is what he does when he then goes on to look only at unique words in the Pastorals, ignoring how 'Paul' uses them.

Perhaps Nomad has only chosen the methodology which is guaranteed to produce the right result.

Steven Carr

Nomad writes about words found in Paul 'The problem, however, is that it cannot be shown that any of these words were unknown in the 1st Century, or even the early 1st Century (Guthrie, pg. 228 ).'

I'm curious how anybody could ever show that a word was unknown earlier.

Did 1st century writers ever write 'I would call this an X, but that word has not been invented yet.'? Now that would be proof that the word did not exist in the 1st century.

Steven Carr

Nomad writes 'If the number of these Hapaxes which occur also in the second-century writers is expressed as a percentage of the total number of Hapaxes in each Epistle, the results are as follows: Romans 25.2%, Galatians 34.4%, Colossians 24.2%, 1 Thessalonians 30%, 2 Thessalonians 50% and Philemon 60%."

What a very interesting statistic!

Let me unpack it.

Suppose we had two letters from Churchill, containing words he uses nowhere else.

One contains, for example, the words 'furniture' 'television' and 'radio'

The other contains 'space shuttle' and 'ripping yarns'.

If we express the number of the unique words in the first letter, as a percentage of words very commonly used today, we get 100%.


If we express the number of the unique words in the second letter, as a percentage of words very commonly used today, we get 50%.

Clearly, the second letter is not a forgery!

I think Guthrie is just making up statistics which prove nothing, but sound impressive.

Vorkosigan

I saw these on XTALK, and was quite impressed with their tone, language and organization. Were they originally a class assignment? Or are you thinking of reworking this for a journal submission?

It might be helpful to start off this review of your posts by noting that the vast majority of scholars believe that the Pastorals are second century forgeries in Paul's name. Only a minority of scholars believes that these epistles were written by Paul, and almost all of them are conservative Christians.

The first, and most important reason the Pastorals are considered forgeries is language and style. As Ehrman notes in his Introduction to the New Testament. They contain "an inordinate number of non-Pauline words, most of which do occur in later Christian writings." Apart from personal names, there are 848 different words in the 3 letters, 306 occur nowhere else in the Pauline corpus, including the Duetero-Paulines. More than a third of the vocabulary is non-Pauline. Of these, two-thirds are used by second-century Christian authors.

Moreover, this vocabulary is used differently in the Pastorals. For example, "Faith" in the authentic letters means trusting acceptance of Jesus for salvation, in Titus it refers to a body of teachings for the Christian religion.

After discussion of the Hapax issue, Nomad writes:

The problem, however, is that it cannot be shown that any of these words were unknown in the 1st Century, or even the early 1st Century (Guthrie, pg. 228 ).

This is not a strong argument. In fact it confesses that there are no examples from the 1st century. To destroy this argument, positive evidence, in the form of Christians writings with these hapaxes from the first century, is necessary. Since all known examples, regardless of sparseness, are from Christian writings of the 2nd century, it follows that the Pastorals are also second century.

Further, the arguments are not merely "negative." Some scholars have argued on stylistic grounds that the author of Luke-Acts also wrote the Pastorals, as Nomad noted. In other words, there exists a positive alternative author. This is subject to the objections that Nomad outlines above.

The second major reason is Church organization. The clerical structure in the Pastorals is far removed from Paul, and is clearly on a line with what would happen later in the century, with the invention of "apostolic succession" for bishops (appointed by the apostles, who then appointed other bishops, and so on down to today). In Titus "Paul" instructs on the appointments of priests, deacons and bishops, things that did not exist in the Church the authentic Paul knew. Further, Paul is concerned with the imminent End, while the Pastorals are concerned with the social organization of Christianity in the world. Leaders in the pastorals are married rather than single and celibate. Timothy is a third generation Christian, by Eunice and Lois (interestingly, the forger does not regard it as impossible that there be 3 generations of Christians already by Paul's time), trained in "scripture from childhood." In all, the author portrays a proto-orthodox Christianity struggling with mundane matters like organization, challenges from heretics, the rising position of women in the Church, and similar.

There is also some scant evidence in the Pastorals of the development of a canon, for example, in the famous verse 2 Tim 3:16, a movement which was afoot in the second century, but not in Paul's time. For example, in 1 Tim 5:18 a saying of Jesus' is juxtaposed with one from the Torah, clearly indicating the author thought of them both as Scripture in some dim way. Of course, the authentic Paul does not appear to know any sayings of Jesus, nor was there anything like a canon in Paul's time.

Of special interest to a feminist male like myself is the view of women in the Pastorals. Paul's authentic letters show that women had positions of trust and authority in the early Church as ministers, prophets and apostles. In the Pastorals, women are admonished to shutup and do the barefoot-pregnant-in-the-kitchen thing. True, in 1 Cor 14 Paul gives his famous advice to women, but in Chapter 11 he indicates that women are allowed to speak in Church. So how could Paul allow it, then disallow it three chapters later? Because the ideology of 1 Cor 14:34-5 and 1 Tim 2:11-15 are similar, and 1 Cor 14:34-35 appears to have seams on either side, many scholars view it as a later interpolation of a scribe bent on enforcing the future Church's view of women.

Nomad argues:

Why, for example, in 2 Timothy 4:13 does Paul ask Timothy to bring him the cloak he left with Carpus in Troas?....Arguments that this was inserted to make the letter "seem" more authentic are simply incredible

In the correspondence between Paul and Seneca, well-known to be a third or fourth century forgery, "Paul" provides us this personal detail: I received your letter yesterday with delight, and should have been able to answer it at once, had I had by me the youth I meant to send to you. 3 Corinthians, another late forgery, adds a whole letter from Corinth to Paul that lists names for versimilitude:Stephanus and the presbyters who are with him, Daphnus, Eubulus, Theophilus and Xenon,, as well as two dastards who pervert the teachings of Jesus.

Obviously ancient forgers are were no less inventive than modern forgers and were well able to devise ways to make their documents authentic.

Too often apologists' arguments, like this one, rely on an implicit assumption that the ancients were a lot of dumb cusses. It's high time that arguments of that nature were dispensed with. The reality is that ancients lived in low-trust societies where people routinely cheated each other, and they were at least as clever as modern Westerners at creating, detecting and avoiding cheats.

Michael

Nomad

Hello Steven

A hapax can be either a word, or a phrase that serves the same purpose as a single word (i.e. space shuttle).

I am not ignoring anything Steven. By definition a hapax is a word that exists independent of its context. If we find such words, and they can only be found in 2nd Century documents, then obviously that would make the Pastorals 2nd Century as well.

On the other hand, if you have a phrase or word within a context that you believe demonstrates a 2nd Century origin, then please share it with me.

Thanks for your response.

Nomad

Nomad

I think you need to flesh out this argument a bit more Michael, as I do not see what you mean by the above statement. I think the expression you are referring to is like that found in Titus 1:13, 2:2 UGIANINWSIN EN TH PISTEI (sound in [the] faith), and the expression UGIANINWSIN (sound) is very common in all of the Pastorals (twice in 1 Timothy and twice in 2 Timothy, and four times in Titus, though only in Titus is it connected to the word PISTEI [faith]. More commonly it is connected to the word DIDASKALIA [doctrine] as in UGIANINWSIN DIDASKALIA).

The reason that this cannot point to a 2nd Century dating, however, is that these words are found in other 1st Century documents. Specifically the word DIDASKALIA is found in Matthew 15:9, Mark 7:7, and other Paulines (Romans 12:7, 15:4, Ephesians 4:14, Colossians 2:22).

PISTEI (faith) is used to signify a group of doctrines (or the church) in Acts 6:7b "and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith (PISTEI)." We find similar usage in Acts 13:8b "seeking to turn away the proconsul from the faith." See also Acts 14:22 (continue in the faith). In fact, it is this common usage by both Luke (in Acts) and the Pastorals that leads some to suggest that Luke served either as the author of the Pastorals, or as Paul's amanuensis in these letters.

UGIANINWSIN is found in Luke (3x) as well as once in 3 John, albeit in a different context (meaning health, or wholeness). Once again this suggests that Luke could have served as the author of the Pastorals. What it does not do is require a 2nd Century dating of those letters.

This is simply not true. See my discussion above on the words UGIANINWSIN, PISTEI and DIDASKALIA as examples of where these words are found in other 1st Century Christian writings. The point remains that in every case, the words chosen by Harrison (and those that depend on his work) were known in the 1st Century, even when they are not found in Paul, or the rest of the NT. In the latter case, the hapaxes can be found in the LXX.

In my third essay/post on this topic I will evaluate the possibility that an amanuensis (like Luke), or a pseudepigrapher wrote the Pastorals. For now my focus has been on why they should not be dated to the 2nd Century, as is commonly believed.

Here you failed to address any of my counter arguments. You cannot simply ignore points already made, and re-assert old ones that have been refuted.

I am unsure if you are forwarding your own arguments, or quoting them from someone else. In either case, though, the argument strains credulity, as one must read very deeply into the texts in order to arrive at the conclusions you have offered. Consider each verse below:

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

The "scripture" being referenced here is the LXX, already in existence long before Paul as born, and accepted as Scripture. There is no indication here, or in surrounding passages that the author is even aware of other written texts (like the Gospels) that claim similar status as Scripture with the LXX. As it is a common feature in the Paulines' to see Paul quoting liberally from the LXX, such an idea as stated above would hardly be considered to be foriegn to him.

1 Timothy 5:18 for the scripture says, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain," and, "The laborer deserves his wages."

Here Michael claimed that a saying of Jesus was being "juxtaposed" with the Torah, yet no where does the author of 1 Timothy tell us that Jesus said this. Instead, he is simply quoting from the Torah itself (Deuteronomy 25:4).

Here your source is merely reading 1 Timothy anachronistically, assuming that because Jesus is claimed to have said "a worker deserves his wages" (Luke 10:7), then surely the author of 1 Timothy has this "saying of Jesus" in mind as well. Considering the differing context of the saying in Luke, and that of 1 Timothy (after all, in Luke Jesus never connects his thought to Deuteronomy 25), it seems more probable that both are using a figure of speech (though it might be argued that Luke is the one using the figure of speech in both cases).

One final point, but if you want to talk about what Paul knew (or did not know) of the sayings of Jesus, let's save that for another day. For now I will simply say that your assertions are not arguments.

Actually, this is also not true. No female apostles or ministers are mentioned in any Pauline Epistle (or anywhere else in the NT for that matter). Some are listed as prophets and deaconesses, but this is found also in the OT, so should not surprise us.

Since this is nothing more than propagandizing, it is not worth rebutting. Please try not to let yourself get carried away Michael.

If we actually read 1 Corinthians 11, we see only that woman can pray and prophecy (verse 5), not that she is allowed to speak in the church. A better indication of Paul's thoughts on women speaking in the church is found in chapter 14:

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

Back to the old saw of "later interpolations." This is the catch all method by which may sceptical scholars try to prove their thesis by rejecting problematic texts with little more than a wave of the hand.

A simpler approach is to read what Paul writes, then try to understand it in its full context. In chapter 11 Paul says nothing about women speaking in the church, and in chapter 14 he forbids it. All textual evidence points to this being in the original letter, so trying to make an argument from possible "later interpolations" is nothing more than special pleading.

This is another example of fallacious reasoning. Just because late forgeries copied from material found in earlier genuine texts does not mean that all authors did this. Very simply, the later documents were written after the Pauline Corpus (including the Pastorals) had been widely accepted as authoritative Scripture, and therefore would have been worthy of copying by later writers. In the case of the Pastorals, there is not enough indication that the author was even aware of the contents of earlier Pauline texts to "copy" from them so exactly. In fact, it is the differences between the Paulines' and the Pastorals that is most commonly pointed to as the reason for doubting their authenticity.

One might as well argue that Philemon is pseudonymous because in it Paul asks Philemon to "prepare a guest room" for him in case he should be able to visit. One cannot have it both ways, however.

I snipped the rest of your propaganda Michael. I do appreciate your feedback, but ask that you keep it within reason. I know that you think the ancients were nothing but a bunch of cheating yokals easily duped, but that is hardly going to advance discussion about ancient texts. Quite frankly, I would hope that such prejudiced comments on your part would be beneath you by now.

Nomad

Toto

Hi Nomad - these essays appear to be the same as the ones you posted on Cross Talk.

Part I and Part II

They don't seem to have aroused much interest there, other than one perfunctory objection. It is not clear why you have chosen this topic. The standard scholarly view, which Mike summarized (I believe) based on Bart Ehrman's The New Testament : A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, is compatible with Christian belief for anyone but a fundamentalist, and you claim not to be a fundamentalist.

It appeared for a while that you were moderating your manner, but you seem to have slipped back into the old Nomad. Mike argued that the word "faith" was used with a slightly different meaning in the genuine letters than the pastorals, and your responded with examples of word usage, avoiding the point.

It is not clear what your point is on 1 Timothy 5:18. The writer claims to be quoting scripture, not repeating a figure of speech - and what other scripture contains "The laborer deserves his wages?"

I may come back later with more on Paul and women, but I don't see how you can call what Mike said "propaganda." And please tell me how a woman could pray and prophesy while keeping silent and learning only from her husband in the privacy of her home. I think you are straining to harmonize two completely contradictory thoughts. But apologists are used to that.

Vorkosigan

I don't have much to say. The strength of NT studies is text-critical methods, not historical methodologies, and the conclusion that the Pastorals are later forgeries is one well-supported, and agreed-upon by a broad spectrum of scholars.

[b]NOMAD: Why, for example, in 2 Timothy 4:13 does Paul ask Timothy to bring him the cloak he left with Carpus in Troas?....Arguments that this was inserted to make the letter "seem" more authentic are simply incredible.

TURTONM: In the correspondence between Paul and Seneca, well-known to be a third or fourth century forgery, "Paul" provides us this personal detail: I received your letter yesterday with delight, and should have been able to answer it at once, had I had by me the youth I meant to send to you. 3 Corinthians, another late forgery, adds a whole letter from Corinth to Paul that lists names for versimilitude:Stephanus and the presbyters who are with him, Daphnus, Eubulus, Theophilus and Xenon,, as well as two dastards who pervert the teachings of Jesus.

NOMAD: This is another example of fallacious reasoning. Just because late forgeries copied from material found in earlier genuine texts does not mean that all authors did this. Very simply, the later documents were written after the Pauline Corpus

This is a classic example of the boat sailing without Nomad. Nomad's original point is that it is incredible that anyone would add a detail for verisimulitude, but as I demonstrated from the examples above, it is common in forged documents to do just that. My point is not that later forgeries copied earlier materials -- never commented on that -- it is that they invented details to make it seem more real, precisely what Nomad says is incredible. The author of the Pastorals, whoever he or she was, simply did what thousands of forgers have done throughout history, and added a cute detail, about a cloak in this case.

Michael