In a previous thread (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=157&start=30) Peter Kirby wrote,
This seems a very sensible place to start, with the internal evidence. As I think external evidence is near useless, the only exception would be if we had the Marcionite versions of the letters.Peter Kirby wrote: To me, the first question is whether the epistles are "authentic," whether they are the correspondence addressing real situations written occasionally to real recipients. If they are, then "Paul," meaning the writer of such actual letters, existed. We don't need to establish any level of similarity between the writer and some "flesh and blood figure" because the writer of these letters to churches, if they are indeed genuine in their epistolary form, is immediately understood as "Paul," and people who can pick up a writing instrument to send a letter tend to have some flesh and some blood.
If they are not authentic or genuine, or cannot be established to be, and if they are only attributed to a person named Paul but are not actually being written in the heat of the situations implied and not actually written to the churches described, then the second question becomes whether Paul existed at all, given that the letters attributed to a Paul are pseudepigraphical.
Peter Kirby does try to present arguments against Detering (http://peterkirby.com/dialogue-concerni ... stems.html). I am not sure how persuasive 1 Peter and James can be in dating the Pauline letters. I think they are not dated independently of them, but just dated in relation to them. 1 Clement and the letters of Ignatius I accept can’t be used as evidence. Papias is problematic as well. I found one quote in Papias – “it is said by the apostle, ‘For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’” (in section V of http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/papias.html). This agrees with 1 Cor. 15:25-26, but Papias does not state it was said or written by Paul. Also it is possible that Papias is quoting from the Marcionite Aposolikon or the proto-Catholic version of 1 Corinthians and so it doesn’t help with dating.
The only argument that appeals to me is concerning 1 Thess. 4:13-18. Would someone attribute to Paul that Paul believed that the end of time would happen in the lifetime of some of those alive when Paul is meant to be writing if the author knew that it didn’t happen? However this assumes that the author of the letter believes Paul to be writing before 70 CE. There is evidence that by the second century it was believed that Peter and Paul were alive at the same time. Therefore if the style of this section is the same as other sections can we use that style comparison as evidence that both were written by the person we are calling Paul?
I couldn’t find any good critiques, only
(http://www.tektonics.org/af/detering01.php by I think James P Holding as it seems identical to https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7Jr ... ul&f=false I think he might be an apologist) plus Richard Carrier http://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/7643 which was discussed along with Detering’s response in this thread (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2439&hilit=detering).
Does anyone know if a liberal Pauline scholar has written a rebuttal?
When we discuss gospel verses we don’t assume that they go back to Jesus, but consider if a case can be made for them to go back to Jesus, to the gospel author, or early Christian teachings / communities. When discussing verses in Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians and Philemon we don’t assume we have to make a case that these are the words of Paul, we just assume they are. Should the assumption be changed? Should we accept that within these letters their might be the words of Paul, but we have to make a case for why we think a particular section is from Paul, rather than only making a case for why we think a section was not written by Paul? Is it possible to make such a case for more than 1 Thess. 4:13-18?