Did Paul write the Pastoral Epistles?

[Lunar]

An issue which was brought up in a course on the New Testament which I took recently.Many biblical scholars have called into question whether it was actually Paul of Tarsus who wrote the Pastoral Epistles (1/2 Timothy, Titus). It is certainly not out of the question that they could have been forged in his name, as there is a long tradition of pseudepigraphic Christian writings which never made it into the biblical canon. 2 Thessalonians 2:2 alludes to a forged letter, and one early Christian writer confessed to forging 3 Corinthians. Why would we suspect the Pastoral Epistles, however, which were accepted into the biblical canon, as being forged?At the very least, it does seem as though 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus are all written by the same author, even if that author is not Paul himself. The style of writing and the issues which he addresses are all very similar - but they are not similar to the style Paul would have used in his other letters. Let's take a moment to examine the vocabulary. There are 848 different words found in the Pastorals. Of these, 306 occur nowhere else in the Pauline letters. Over one-third of the vocabulary in the Pastoral Epistles is not Pauline. This alone may strike us as circumstantial evidence, but consider it in tandem with this: Of these 306 non-Pauline words, over two-thirds of these words are used by Christian authors of the second century. Paul of Tarsus was dead by the mid first-century.An argument from vocabulary alone can't be conclusive (though, given the magnitude of it, it does look very convincing). But the subject material of the Pastoral Epistles is worthy of note as well. In the epistles, most notably 1 Timothy, Paul appears at points to be arguing against proponents of Christian Gnosticism. He denounces false teachers who "forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods" (4:3), and he concludes the letter with a demand to "avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge" (6:20). For those who aren't familiar with Christian Gnosticism, the Greek word for knowledge is gnosis, and Gnostic theology is largely centered around divine knowledge that was not available to most people. Gnostics were also extremely ascetic, refraining entirely from marital and sexual relations and conforming to strict dietary rules. It seems very likely, then, that Paul was criticizing the practices of Gnostic Christians.But here's the catch - the first Christian Gnostics that we know by name lived in the early to mid second century. Paul would have likely had no association with or knowledge of these people, because he lived in the mid first century. And this is not the only way in which the letters are anachronistic. Paul's theological approach very much resembles second-century proto-orthodox Christian circles. Paul appears to be appealing to a fixed standard and attacking Gnostic (and other) views as heretical, but Christianity during Paul's lifetime was an extremely diverse movement, and at that point an orthodox form of authority had not yet been established. It's curious, then, that the Pastoral epistles would make them a central focus. The example of particular religious offices should be examined - the author of the Pastoral Epistles mentions qualifications for bishops (the Greek word is episkopos, literally meaning "overseer"), who had rule over a board of presbyters and deacons, and whose official duty was to root out heretical teaching. This clerical structure simply didn't exist while Paul was alive. Mentions of bishops are primarily observed in writings of proto-orthodox Christians in the second century.All of this seems to reflect vocabulary and concerns that are more in touch with what was happening in early second century Christian communities than the issues with which Paul of Tarsus was fixated on. In Paul's original undisputed letters he appeared to think that the apocalypse was imminent, and as such was intent on doing away with a lot of social conventions such as marriage (see 1 Corinthians 7:1). When it became clear by the second century that the apocalypse was not imminent, Christian writers needed to change their tact, and we see this reflected in the Pastoral Epistles - rather than argue that marriage was undesirable, the author of the Pastoral Epistles simultaneously states that subordination in marriage is central to a woman's salvation, and does away with the gender-egalitarian rhetoric that we see in epistles like Corinthians (1 Timothy 2:11-15).It is my opinion, therefore, that the two epistles to Timothy, and the epistle to Titus, were not written by Paul of Tarsus. They reflect social concerns that could not have been present during Paul's lifetime, they contain vocabulary that is more consistent with second-century authors, and they are inconsistent with the original views expressed by Paul in undisputed epistles such as Corinthians. It seems more likely that an unknown author in the Pauline tradition wrote in Paul's name to invoke his authority and address issues of church and social structure that became more relevant in the second century as people realized that the apocalypse wasn't going to come as soon as they had thought.

 

[Tyrel]

er...I replied to this.... Where is my post? I smell something fishy here.

 

[Cloakk]

This is interesting.